Love Me Do

It was an unfortunate circumstance.

Zaed was down on one knee holding up a sparkly ornament; a masterpiece of one thick gold band set with a large emerald flanked by two smaller diamonds. After staring at it for a few seconds, he finally looked up at me. His chiseled face was crumpled into a curious frown.

“Uhm...Zaed?” I stared back. “What are you doing?”

“Found it on the floor,” he said. “Is it yours?”

Phew!

Okay. So, he hadn’t suddenly lost his mind and decided to propose to me. I shook my head to answer his question.

“Maybe it’s Natty’s,” I tried to speak above the deafening party sounds. “And by the way –”

I was going to prompt him to stand up, but a loud scream ripped through my ears.

It was Natasha.

She was clutching her face with one hand and her heart with the other and staring at Zaed who was still kneeling on the floor with an expensive ring gleaming like the North Star between his two fingers.

Uh-Oh!

“Oh. My. God.” She gasped. “Zaed – yes. Yes! I ABSOLUTELY YES!”

It was amazing how smoothly her shriek pierced through deafening music and managed to get the attention of some twenty-five howling and dancing adults in the den. Everything came to a momentary halt. Then, they all rushed over, talking, shouting, and gesticulating all at once.

“Did she say yes?” someone asked.

“DID YOU NATTY?!” A girl standing just three inches away from me hollered.

“No! Wait!” Zaed seemed to have found his voice, not his legs so much. “I never asked her!”

“Well then go ahead, man! What’re you waiting for? BE A MAN!” A boy we barely knew but often saw at Amber’s parties, prompted.

“ASK HER! ASK HER! ASK HER!”

The crowd chanted and Zaed looked positively mortified. Too shocked to say anything. Natasha came to his rescue and slipped the beautiful ring on her perfectly manicured finger all by herself as if she owned the trinket. The crowd broke into a frenzy of claps and cheers.

“SHOW US THE RING!” The girls went wild flocking to Natasha while the guys helped Zaed to his feet and took turns in congratulating him by patting him on the back as if he’d just recovered from a coughing bout.

Once the crowd eased off into music and partying again, Zaed came to his senses. He took hold of Natasha’s arm and dragged her into a corner.

I, of course, inched closer so I could hear them. Excuse you for judging but I was personally involved in this comedy now. I had to know.

“Natasha, listen to me.” He didn’t even use the fond Natty as he usually did. He was notorious for never resorting to endearments except for when he addressed the girls he lusted after. “I didn’t propose.”

“What?” She asked absently, still admiring the ring that graced her long fingers.

“I didn’t propose,” he repeated forcefully. “This isn’t my ring.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I found it.”

“Found it?” she smiled coyly. “As in you found it in a jewelry store?”

“No!” He was quick to check his raised voice and drew in a sharp breath. “I mean I found it on the floor. Someone must’ve dropped it. It’s not mine.”

Natasha eyed him quizzically. Her perfectly outlined lips slightly parted as she surveyed his face. Then, she tossed her abundant chestnut layers behind one slender shoulder and smiled. Her slim frame, wrapped in dark jeans and a glittery top, rested easily on black three-inch heels.

“Okay,” she finally said. “So you’re saying you found it on the floor and you were just kneeling in that certain way, holding the ring up delicately in that certain way, tugging at my elbow to get my attention in such noise – just so you could not propose to me?”

Yeah, even I wouldn’t believe Zaed now. And I knew he was telling the truth.

“Yes,” he said meekly, trying his best to avoid her eyes.

Suddenly, her smile vanished and a stern, cold glaze hardened her doe-like black eyes.

“It’s about Amber, isn’t it?” She hissed, her light skin turning pink. “I know you were dating her. You’re worried about her!”

“Amber?” He frowned. “No. This isn’t about her. This is about –”

“Omigosh! This ring was for Amber. You thought I was Amber!”

“No, I didn’t think you were Amber. She’s wearing a totally different outfit.”

“You noticed her outfit?”

“Yes. No! That’s not the point –”

“Here! Take your ring! Give it to Amber!” She tore the ring off her finger and dumped it in his palm. “In fact, I’ll go call her so you can tell her the good news in person!”

She was about to dart off when both Zaed and I leaped to grab her.

“Whoa! No, don’t do it!” he was begging. “I don’t want to marry Amber. I never want to marry Amber. This is a mistake. This all is a huge mistake! You don’t understand!” He was rambling now and in need of someone to cut him off.

I obliged.

“Zaed, shut up,” I said, giving Natasha my shoulder to cry on, literally. “You can’t cry like this here,” I whispered in her ear. “Everyone will get suspicious.”

She instantly detached from my embrace. “But Zaed said –”

“Forget what I said!” Zaed gave the air in front of him a quick wipe with his palms. “Just forget I ever said anything. You’re beautiful. This ring is beautiful.” He slipped it delicately back on her finger. “Just stop crying. Please. Please!”

She looked at him, then at the ring on her finger, and then back at him.

“What about Amber?” she asked innocently.

“No Amber.” He smiled. “There’s no Amber.”

Natasha bit her lip and cast her eyes down, looking at the ring again. When she looked up next, tiny tears shimmered on her mascaraed lashes but there was no denying the shadow of a smile that lurked around the corners of her lips creeping all the way up to her eyes.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I need to fix my face. I can feel the puffiness from all those tears.”

“Yes.” He nodded emphatically. “You go fix that face.”

“It’s that bad?” She ran a nervous hand over it, looking like she was on the brink of another downpour.

“Of course not,” I chimed in before Zaed could mess it up further. “Just a little mascara run out of line around the edges.”

She wiped her underlash quickly and checked for evidence on her fingertips. There was none but I knew my cousin. Without further delay, she walked past us over to the other side of the mammoth party room. As soon as she was out of sight and earshot, Zaed let out an audible sigh and tried to bury his face in my hair.

“Get away!” I pushed him, smoothing down the static in my tresses. Aside from the itchy dryness, this was the other reason I hated winters in Karachi.

“What am I going to do?” he wailed. “Sophia! You’re the only friend I’ve got in this sad, sad place. Tell me what to do.”

“You mean in addition to what you’ve already done? Seriously, there’s room for more?”

He stared at me, totally not impressed. “Don’t make fun of me, Sophia. You know it’s not my fault.”

“Okay.” I looked at him kindly. “Let’s just go home and sort this thing out, okay?”

“I don’t think it’ll go very well at home either.” He sighed again. “Sarim will kill me. He’ll hang me for corrupting his child. He’ll totally go Karo-Kari on my ass, I just know it!”

“Oh come on.” I suppressed a smile. “You’re his favorite wife’s cousin’s daughter’s only son. You’re practically family.”

“Aunt Mona is his only wife.”

“All the more reason for him to like you, then.”

“I still don’t understand where that ring came from,” he said thoughtfully. “Who would lose such a pricey piece and not miss it? And she flashed it at like more than half the room – every girl -- and nobody claimed it.” He paused for a bit. “And why in hell would she be absolutely so sure I was proposing?”

“Well, I guess we all know the answer to that one.” I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been flirting with her ceaselessly ever since you got here.”

“No, I’ve been dating Amber all that time. Very single-mindedly, too.”

“No, you just met Amber a week ago at that Selina girl’s place who, by the way, you dumped for Amber after only three days of courtship,” I reminded him. “And before Selina, it was –”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” He frowned. “I’m a predator forever stalking single women.”

I couldn’t agree more and would’ve been happy to delight him further with my knowledge of his love life had my thoughts not traveled back to the ring.

“Maybe the ring is Amber’s.”

“I’ve never seen it on her finger.”

“Oh? You keep stock of every piece of jewelry that she owns?”

He rolled his eyes. “I mean, of course, it could be hers but it’s too expensive for a casual ring. It could only be an engagement ring. Besides, if it was hers wouldn’t she have raised hell by now?”

Point.

“Maybe it’s Mikael’s?”

“Why would Mikael carry around an engagement ring?” I made a funny face. The mere idea was just bizarre considering our brooding knight.

“He’s always seemed to me as a kiss-but-don’t-tell type.” Zaed shrugged. “Where is he anyway?”

“He was here just now, wasn’t he?” I was trying to remember the last time I’d seen the sanest member of our group. “He was standing next to me right before you showed me the ring and –”

Gasp!

“It is his ring!” Zaed almost sang out. “It has to be. He was standing here –” he pointed to the exact spot where we both had last seen Mikael, right between Natasha and me – “and must’ve dropped it. I found it. Showed it to you and all that fuss. He must’ve slipped out before all the commotion.”

“That means he must be carrying it to propose to somebody.” Who? “I didn’t know Mikael was even seeing anyone. He would’ve told us. Right?”

“Dunno.” Zaed flicked out his cell and started punching numbers. I knew he was dialing Mikael even before he barked Hello and then made a face to indicate his call had been picked up by the answering service. “He’s not in.”

“Sheesh! He sneaked out in the middle of the party to meet whoever he was supposed to give the ring to and without the ring –” I gulped. “I think he must be having a very bad night.”

“I’m going over to his place and find out what happened. If he knows anything about the ring, he can tell Natasha it’s not mine,” Zaed said urgently patting his shirt down. “Keys? Okay. I need my jacket. Where’s my jacket?”

“Amber took it when we came in.” I scanned the sprawling den before us and blinked as Amber morphed out of the psychedelic shadows. I was about to query her regarding Mikael’s whereabouts and that of Zaed’s jacket too when her deathly shade of pale killed my words.

Unfortunately, Zaed wasn’t as observant.

“Hey, Amby Bambi!” He smiled his dimpled smile. “Say, have you seen –”

Her right palm made swift contact with his left cheek. “You pig!” She spat. Then, quickly turning on her heels, just as she had materialized out of darkness, she melted into it.

“Ouch,” I whispered as Zaed blinked. “How close were you two?”

“We weren’t.”

“She was your girlfriend.”

“Two dates!” He held out his fingers for me to count. “And one kiss. That’s it!”

“I’d love to believe you but that slap hinted at more than kissing, my friend.”

“Oh please, I’m still a good boy by that count.” He looked bored. “Now be a good girl and take your cousin home. I’ll go check on Mikael. I think that Rania girl will be nice enough to drop you guys home.”

“Is she next in line on your list of potential babes? May I remind you, you got engaged like five seconds ago.”

He ignored my comment. “And do get my jacket from Amber, please? It’s my favorite. And tell her, a couple of dinner dates never meant I’d actually marry her. It amounts to nothing even by Pakistani dating standards. That much I know.”

“I’ll get your jacket.” I frowned. “The rest you can tell her yourself. I wouldn’t be too surprised if she accuses you of telling her just how she was the girl for you. Probably proposed to her, too, over hot fudge ice cream scoops.”

He smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “You are the girl for me, Sophia. You’re amazing.”

“See! That’s what I’m talking about.” I scrunched my eyes. “You’d flirt with a wall if you had to.”

“Bye! See you in a bit.” He chuckled and headed into the foyer and out of the house, his tall six-foot-something frame disappearing into the dark December night.

I stood idly for a few seconds before finding my way back into the partying crowd to locate my very euphoric and wrongfully engaged cousin.