Tahira in Bloom Read online

  “Cousin Angela quit and joined that cult in Alberta, didn’t she?” Matteo asked. Gia and Matteo had about twelve more cousins together.

  Gia didn’t answer. Her eyes were twinkling. “You said your aunt had more than one job vacancy?”

  “Yeah, apparently. Goes to show that no one wants to work there.”

  “Maybe I should apply . . . how big is that pool house?” Gia asked, a devilish grin on her face.

  Holy crap. That was an interesting idea. Not something I’d considered, but . . . maybe living in that nothing town would be tolerable if I had my best friend with me? “But what about Old Navy?” I asked.

  She smiled wide. “You think I actually want to be at Old Navy? C’mon, this could be fun! Meet some country boys, take some pictures. A summer away from our parents.”

  Matteo wrapped his arms around my waist. “Country boys?”

  I shook my head. “None for me, thank you very much.” I kissed his cheek. “I prefer city boys.”

  He shook his head. “You both can’t leave Toronto all summer, though.”

  I didn’t like the idea of leaving my first serious boyfriend. He’d graduated high school (he was a year older than me) and had just started the full-time job at H&M. We couldn’t see each other much because he lived on literally the other side of Toronto—Etobicoke to my Scarborough—and neither of us had a car. But we were both supposed to be working downtown this summer—his job wasn’t far from Nilusha Bhatt’s design studio. That stupid French bird took that from me, too.

  Gia laughed, patting his arm. “It’s cool. We’ll come home to see you weekends.”

  “It’s retail, G,” I said. “I’m assuming I’ll be working weekends.”

  Matteo’s gaze locked onto mine. “We had things we were going to do this summer. A photo shoot at Brick Works, Toronto Islands, and . . . other stuff, too. Isn’t there a way you can stay?”

  His lips were smiling, but those dark eyes told another story. I knew exactly what kind of stuff he wanted to get up to, and yeah, I didn’t like missing out on that, either.

  But I wasn’t worried about losing Matteo, no matter where I worked this summer. All I had to see was that look in his eyes, and I knew he wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was I. We were solid.

  “I can’t think of another way. I need the experience.” I tightened my arms around him.

  Gia clasped her hands together, pleading. “So, will you ask if I can come, too?”

  I sighed. Maybe, having Gia with me in our own “apartment,” the summer would be tolerable. Heck, it could be fun. “I’m not guaranteeing anything, but drop me your résumé, G. I’ll call my aunt tonight.”

  Gia clapped and hopped up and down. “Yay, Tahira! We’re going to have so much fun! Should I get, like, farm clothes or something?” She tilted her head. “Would I look cute in a cowboy hat?”

  I wanted to laugh, but I could see the look in Matteo’s eyes. He was upset about this. I leaned into him. “The summer will go fast,” I promised, “and I’ll come back whenever I can.” I tilted up to kiss him. I loved Matteo’s soft lips. The way he let out a tiny gasp every time I made the first move. I loved that he always tasted faintly like Hi-Chews, the chewy Japanese candy that only I knew he was mildly addicted to.

  “Get a room,” Gia groaned, but she was laughing. She was pretty proud that she was responsible for our epic happiness.

  I giggled, resting my face in Matteo’s neck. Soaking in the sun and letting the deep comfort of being wrapped around him envelop me.

  “Just for eight weeks,” I said. “I’m going to miss you.”

  He leaned close. “I’ll miss you more,” he murmured, and he kissed me above my ear.

  “Mmm,” was all I could say.

  2

  THAT’S NO SOIL

  Are you still pouting, Tahira?” Mom asked as she lifted one of my bags into the trunk of her SUV. It was the last Sunday in June, five days after my photo shoot downtown, and Mom was getting ready to drive me to Bakewell, Ontario, for the summer. Sharmin Aunty was thrilled I was coming, and after a quick phone interview, she’d agreed to hire Gia, too. Gia’s dad would drive her up tomorrow, since she had some cousin’s baby’s baptism today.

  “I’m not pouting, Mom.” Really, I wasn’t. I didn’t pout. I didn’t do duck face. I wasn’t that kind of influencer. “I’m in mourning.”

  I’d once seen an interview with a fashion editor on YouTube lamenting that interns were so whiny these days that she dreaded spending her summers with students. There was no chance that editor would ever hire me anyway—from looking at her miserable interns, it was clear I had way too much melanin for her tastes. But still. I’d trained myself off pouting that day.

  Mom made a disparaging sound. “You should be grateful for this opportunity with Sharmin. She didn’t have to hire you. Or your friend.”

  Honestly, I was grateful. But this speech was dangerously close to one of those “Children are starving, and you’re upset about losing an internship?” lectures. I’d heard it several times already, and I did my part to help the world’s disenfranchised kids, anyway. I sewed most of my own clothes and avoided fast fashion like the plague.

  “Tahira! Hey, Tahira!” a voice behind me called out.

  I turned to see our neighbor Kayla rushing toward me, her brown ponytail bobbing behind her. She had a large black book in her hand. “Are you leaving today? I finished that sketch!”

  Kayla was thirteen. I used to babysit her years ago and had babysat her brother once recently. He was a nightmare, though—I’d been avoiding Kayla’s mother so she wouldn’t ask me again. A few months ago, I’d helped Kayla with her application portfolio for the specialty art high school that I went to, and she still liked to show me her art.

  Smiling, I opened her sketchbook. Kayla wasn’t into fashion illustration, so it wasn’t the same kind of stuff I did, but she was good. She did a lot of fan art of this character with silver eyes from a book series she liked in charcoal or acrylic paint and was already improving so much. I always made a point to give her tips and compliment her work, since her parents didn’t care about her art at all. All they cared about lately was that she took care of her brother.

  “This is amazing,” I said. “The shading on the hair is so good!”

  Kayla beamed. “Do you think so?”

  “Totally. Are you going to add any colors?”

  Kayla frowned. “Mom said I have to share my pencil crayons with Evan. He lost half of them. And he chewed one up. Or the dog did.”

  I cringed. I’d bought her those expensive art pencils for her birthday. They were way too good for a four-year-old.

  “Tahira,” Mom called out, “we need to get on the road.”

  I gave the sketchbook back to Kayla and rummaged in my backpack to get something. “Here.” I handed her a tin of Prismacolor pencils. “Hide these from Evan. I want to see the sketch when it’s done—text me a picture.”

  “Are you sure?” Kayla said, looking at the tin of pencils wide eyed.

  “Of course.” I could always order more. “Just keep them safe from your brother, okay?”

  She nodded happily as she waved goodbye and headed back to her house, two doors away.

  All my stuff was finally in the car a few minutes later, and Mom was pulling out of the driveway, when my sister, Samaya, came running out to wave goodbye. I waved back as we drove away.

  “Did your sister tell you that she got that counselor-in-training position at that math camp at the University of Toronto?” Mom said. “The same one your cousin Abid went to. She just got the email last night.”

  I smiled. “Yay! I haven’t seen her today.” I knew how much Samaya wanted that role, but I had been out with Matteo last night, and she’d been in her room all morning. I made a mental note to call her when I got to Bakewell.

  The drive was long and mostly uneventful. I pulled out my iPad Pro and Apple Pencil and sketched a new sweatshirt design to pass the time.

  “I
don’t know how you draw in the car,” Mom said. “I would get carsick.”

  I shrugged. I played around with adding puffy sleeves to the sweatshirt silhouette, but I wasn’t convinced it was working as well as it did in my head.

  “Sharmin said she got new sheets for your beds yesterday,” Mom said. “She really wants to make sure you girls are comfortable. Show her your gratitude when you get there.”

  “Of course, Mom, I know.”

  “It’s very generous of her not to charge you rent for the granny flat. You and Gia will be able to keep all your wages from the boutique. You’ll both have lots of savings for college after this summer.”

  Mom was still being super enthusiastic about this whole thing, maybe because she thought she had to sell it to me? It wasn’t necessary. I was still a little skeptical, mostly because I didn’t know what to expect from the store, but for the most part, I was okay with this whole summer-in-Bakewell plan. I could suck it up for two months. I’d get the fashion experience I needed for my application, and Gia and I could chill with no one but my coolest aunty to supervise. I could keep designing and sewing for my FIT portfolio in my free time, and we’d find a fabulous backdrop for photos in Bakewell for my Instagram. It would be fine.

  I narrowed my eyes at my sketch. The puffy sleeves definitely weren’t working, so I erased them. Maybe a Juliet sleeve instead?

  “Did you end up talking to Nilusha yesterday?” Mom asked after a while.

  I nodded. “Yeah. She feels really bad that she had to cancel my internship. She said she would still be my mentor if I wanted. She offered to FaceTime once a week.”

  Mom beamed. “Tahira! That’s amazing. See! I told you. It’s all about networking. Even if you won’t be working together, you’ve still made the connection. It’s just as good.”

  It didn’t seem just as good to me. Working with Nilusha would’ve been beyond a dream job. I was probably the only high schooler with the balls to apply, and the references, thanks to two summers working at that boutique on Yorkville Avenue downtown. It was dumb luck that she’d had an opening starting July first. Nilusha’s designs were getting serious buzz in the city, and everything about her was complete goals. She was exponentially cool, incredibly generous, and Indian, like me. It was great that she wanted to be my mentor, but I was still sad she wouldn’t be my boss.

  I frowned, shaking my head at my design. The Juliet sleeves were no good, either.

  “Did you see the new YouTube Marsha Logan posted?” Mom asked. “She had great tips on next-level networking and social media engagement.”

  Marsha Logan and Christopher Chan were some of the designers who routinely made videos on YouTube about breaking into the fashion industry. It was from watching those videos that Mom was helping me figure out exactly what I needed to do to reach my goal of admission into FIT and my own fashion brand. Mom calculated that, in addition to top internships and networking, I needed a follower count in the tens of thousands on at least one social media platform. We’d picked Instagram.

  I didn’t normally mind talking about my career Plan with Mom, but I wasn’t feeling it right now. I’d had such a great date with Matteo last night, and I was bummed I wouldn’t see him for a while. Apparently, there was no bus or train from Bakewell to Toronto—so either he’d have to borrow his brother’s car to see me or we’d have to make do with FaceTime. It sucked.

  I looked out the window. We’d been on the road for over an hour now, and I’d seen nothing but trees, cows, and crappy box restaurants for a while. This was practically the middle of nowhere.

  What had I gotten myself into?

  I slunk down in my seat. “I hope going here isn’t a mistake, Mom.”

  “Of course it’s not a mistake! I know you’re upset about losing your internship, but that doesn’t derail your Plan! Keep your spirits up, Tahira. Next summer you can get a job with another designer. What would your father say if he was here?”

  I exhaled. It would be nice if Mom would sometimes turn off the motivational speaker and just let me rant.

  If Dad were here, he would say learning to deal with whatever shit life threw in your path builds character or something, but he’d say it much more lawyer-y. I didn’t normally mind their cheesy pep talks much, mostly because in the grand scheme of things, I had so much more freedom than my other Indian friends. I was allowed to date who I wanted, wear what I wanted, and work all the way downtown. The only things my parents were tough about were schoolwork and our extracurriculars. Samaya had been literally grounded last month for playing online games three hours longer than she’d practiced advanced math functions.

  “You know how important your FIT application is,” Mom continued. “Your father was the only child in generations of his family to go to university, and he did it with a scholarship. How did he achieve that? Not giving up when roadblocks turned up. Remember—Janmohammads always succeed. You aren’t giving up, either. You’re not going to be working for Bakewell; you’re going to make Bakewell work for you.”

  I’d heard this speech so many times. Janmohammads always succeed. We’d have it embroidered on a plaque on a wall, but our name was too long and Mom got frustrated by the second m. Samaya did once create the family motto on a graphing calculator using advanced functions, but my parents couldn’t figure out how to frame it.

  I looked back down at my iPad, shaking my head at the design. Right now, I couldn’t see how ending up in Bakewell was succeeding.

  Mom turned into the driveway of what appeared to be a huge garden center. I doubted we were in Bakewell yet, considering the only thing I could see was a whole lot of nothing. Fields. Trees. And this massive store.

  “I called ahead,” she said as she parked her car. “I want to bring Sharmin a big-ticket gift to thank her for rescuing you. She’s been eyeing a backyard fountain from this place. You sit—I’ll have them bring it out.”

  I shrugged. I kind of needed to stretch my legs, so I opened the door. “Where are we?”

  “Wynter’s Nurseries,” Mom said. “I told you this whole area is covered with greenhouses and flower farms, didn’t I? People drive up from the city all the time to see them.”

  I made a face. “You said farms. I don’t remember them being flower farms.”

  “I definitely said ‘flower.’”

  I stepped out to look around. The gravel parking lot seemed endless and was filled with standard garden-center stuff—random plants and tacky statues. The store itself was a big greenhouse. When we got to the doors, Mom stopped. “Did you take an allergy pill?”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  Mom shook her head. “Don’t come in. You don’t want your allergies acting up now.”

  She had a point. I was allergic to a lot of things—cats, most dogs, trees—but flowers were the worst. I could usually manage flowers outside as long as I didn’t stick my nose in them, but flowers indoors were a disaster on my eyes. I didn’t want to look like I had smoked something I shouldn’t have when I saw my aunt.

  I shrugged. “Okay. I’ll walk around. Text me when you’re done.”

  I wandered to the back of the store and was surprised at what I saw there. In the distance on the right was a massive stand-alone greenhouse. The store greenhouse was big . . . like tennis-court big. But this one was football-field big. In front of it was a really cool-looking barn thing. I’d always thought barns were red and had those round roofs, but this had a regular peaked roof, and instead of red, it was painted gray. Well, except for the lower half of the wall. It had a mural painted on it—an intricate geometric pattern made up of little triangles in shades of blue and purple, with a few bursts of green peppered in. The juxtaposition of the weathered gray walls and the vibrant mural was striking, and honestly, way too modern for out here in the country.

  I was wearing some of the newer pieces I’d made myself. A pair of fitted black shorts, a loose white silk T-shirt with an embossed black zigzag across it, and a long sheer black duster cardigan. Plus, my newest
purchase—red suede ankle boots. These were a killer find—I’d bought them at a vintage store in Kensington Market after we’d finished our shoot at Graffiti Alley last week.

  That seemed like a lifetime ago now. Out past the barn was nothing but fields, trees, and that enormous greenhouse in the distance.

  The barn was fabulous, though. And the light was perfect for photos—just a bit of cloud cover. I normally avoided selfies, but I needed this outfit against that wall on my page, and I didn’t want to trust the light would be this good if I came back with Gia later. Plus, how exactly would we come back anyway? Not like either of us drove. Or had a car.

  There was a bunch of crap on the ground in front of the best part of the mural—where the blues blended to deep purples. I looked at the junk—three plastic pots filled with random flowers and two large bags of soil.

  Not a problem. I could move them.

  I dragged the two larger pots away, careful not to get too close to the pollen-y looking flowers. The third pot was smaller, so I lifted it. Keeping my nose turned away from the offending flora, I walked it over to the other two. And that’s when I noticed that the stupid pot was dripping brown water on my boots. Ugh. My beautiful red vintage boots.

  I put the pot down. Both my feet had large spots on them. The boots were probably salvageable, but I’d need a soft brush and gentle soap to clean suede.

  This was all a terrible idea. I glanced back at the gorgeous mural, then at my amazing outfit. What would Mom and Dad say?

  I went back for the bags of soil. Those looked heavy. Dragging them across the gravel would tear the plastic. No problem—I’d carry them. I bent my knees, picked up one bag, and stood.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked a deep voice behind me. And I jumped, because I always jumped when startled. But unfortunately, this time jumping meant flinging the bag of soil out of my hands. It crashed to the ground, splitting down the middle and spilling dark dirt all over my wet suede boots. Inside and out.

  “Fuck!” I screamed.