53: Their First Date

/”What is love ... baby don’t hurt me ... don’t hurt me ... no more...” /

The bassline thumped so loud the dorm floorboards seemed to join in.

“Z, turn it up!” Ayesha shouted over the pulsing Eurodance beat, though the grin splitting her face made it clear she didn’t actually want the volume higher - she wanted the whole world to hear it. Zara mouthed the words dramatically into her hairbrush, pretending it was a microphone, hips rolling in time. Her cropped sweater flashed a wide strip of skin and the little silver belly chain that she was sure would catch Bharath’s eye later today.

Ayesha laughed from her side of the mirror, though her eyeliner brush wobbled dangerously close to her lashes. “Stop making me laugh, Z! I’ll poke my eye out.”

On Zara’s bulky beige Dell tower, Winamp’s neon equalizer bars pulsed like a tiny rave - green to yellow to red with every kick drum. The cheap speakers on the floor buzzed against the linoleum as Haddaway pleaded for mercy. A mirrored compact lay open on the desk and caught the stutter of the LEDs, throwing disco flecks across posters of boy bands and Bollywood starlets taped to the walls of their shared dorm room.

Zara twirled in front of the mirror, skirt half-pinned where Ayesha had been fussing with the hem. She lifted her chin like she was auditioning for MTV Grind, one hand on her hip, the other fanning her hair as if a wind machine were somewhere under the lofted bed. “Tell me I don’t look like a goddess,” she demanded.

Ayesha laughed, salt and sparkle in it, her own reflection doubled in the glass as she flipped her hair dramatically, joining in to mouth the chorus into her plastic hairbrush. “We look like two goddesses fighting over one body,” she said. “Bharath won’t survive us tonight.”

“He better not.” Zara snatched the “mic” and belted, play-Euro accent and all: “Baby don’t hurt me - “ She broke off to giggle, then tried a pose with one knee knocked in, the way Christina did in magazine photos. The pins tugged at the hem and Ayesha reached down to fix them, fingers quick, the muscle memory of girlhood sleepovers - zip me, hold this, try that - surging up to meet the moment.

They collapsed onto the comforter, giggling, tights snagging on the weave, perfume hanging in the air in layers: vanilla, pear, a little musk that neither would admit came from a drugstore. Zara’s ankle bumped Ayesha’s and did not move.

Beneath the laughter, Ayesha felt it - that soda-fizz in her stomach. Tonight wasn’t just any Friday night. It felt like a premiere. Their first date with him. With him. The word soulmate felt both too big and too fragile and yet hope bloomed eternal.

There were shadows inside their giggles. Old versions of themselves - harsher silhouettes - flickered behind the mirror: the mean-girl queens with sharp tongues and sharper heels, orbited by sycophants like Leah and Ryan. They had ruled by cruelty and rumor. Now here they were: two divas blasting Eurodance, trying on lip glosses in a dorm room that smelled of body spray and fear.

“I still can’t believe we’re here,” Zara said suddenly. The light from the monitor skinned her face in pale aqua; the Winamp skin tonight was futuristic chrome with sci-fi fonts. She wouldn’t admit she’d spent twenty minutes choosing it. “That boy - “ Her voice caught. “Bharath - actually said he loves us. That we’re his soulmates. After ... everything.”

Ayesha reached over and clicked the little speaker icon. The room exhaled into silence - quiet, except for the radiator’s soft hiss and the dorm’s faraway plumbing sighs. She slid her hand into Zara’s. “I know,” she said. “I keep waiting to wake up. Like it’s some cosmic prank. How could someone like him pick us? After who we were?”

Zara’s grip tightened, rings cool on Ayesha’s fingers. “Don’t say were like we’re still there.” Her smile wobbled, brave and shaky. “I’m not that shallow little gold-digger mapping my escape by last names anymore. And look - he’s not even rich.” She snorted softly. “Have you seen his shoes? He rotates, like, three shirts. Not a brand in sight. And I’m - “ She swallowed. “I’m proud I love him anyway.”

“He makes me want to deserve him,” Ayesha whispered. “I hope that he feels the same when I tell him about my ... reputation.” The word tasted metallic. “Everyone thinks I’m a slut now.” She inhaled thinly.

“You were in a bad place Aish.” Zara’s reply came fast, protective. “We both were. We thought that was the game, and we played it like fools.”

“I nearly lost myself to the game.” Ayesha stared past their reflections at the corkboard: glossy passes to parties, a wrinkled club flyer, a Polaroid where her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I still feel ... dirty. Like I can’t get it off.”

“Then he’ll wash you clean,” Zara said simply. “He already has with me.” She squeezed Ayesha’s fingers. “That kiss - tell me it didn’t feel like it washed away anything else that you thought mattered before. It was like being reborn again.”

Ayesha barked a laugh and wiped carefully under her eyes to protect her eyeliner.

“Sacred is sacred,” Zara said, chin up, diva again. “He kissed me once and every fake thought I I ever had turned to glass.”

They sat like that for a moment, hands linked, the computer’s fan purring, the room’s smallness wrapping tight, almost safe. Ayesha remembered how, after the kiss, the campus noise had fallen away - footsteps, doors, laughter - like someone had turned a volume knob. For the first time in months, she felt like herself again.

She stood abruptly, needing motion. “Enough with the maudlin crap. We have a date to crush. We need to win our man’s heart tonight.”

Zara sniffled, nodded, and rose with her. Diva mode flooded back to fill the nervous spaces. Music too: Ayesha turned Winamp’s volume to a warm glow and queued another track - La Bouche’s Be My Lover bobbed in on a rubbery synth: “Be my lover ... wanna be my lover...” Zara made fishy faces, then they both cracked up. It was impossible to wallow over that beat.

They started the round-robin of girlhood rituals: lip gloss, hair spray, tug, smooth, check, re-check. Ayesha carefully lined Zara’s eyes, thumb braced on her cheekbone the way her cousin had taught her at a wedding last summer. Zara looped a delicate chain around Ayesha’s throat, fingers soft on nape hairs that always escaped her ponytail. They debated earrings - hoops or studs - and settled on small gold hoops for Ayesha, a single drop for Zara that caught the light like a secret.

Ayesha stepped back, head tilted. “Turn.” Zara turned, and the skirt shimmered obediently. “Again.” She turned again. Ayesha pinned, smoothed. “You’re perfect.”

“You’re lying you bitch.”

“Constantly,” Ayesha said cheerfully, “but not about this.”

They switched places with the solemnity of a torch ceremony. Zara misted Ayesha’s hair with a final veil of spray and teased the front a fraction, enough to nod at fashion without trying too hard. She tucked a strand behind Ayesha’s ear, then, impulsively, kissed her cheek.
“For luck,” Zara said.

Ayesha felt her cheeks heat. She returned the kiss. “For us.”

The computer burped into “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!” and they could not not dance. They did Vengaboys moves - ridiculous, hip pops, arms above heads, mock-sexy shoulders - and laughed so hard Ayesha worried she’d cry her mascara off again. They sang the one line they knew: “Boom, boom, boom, boom!” and Zara harmonized badly on “I want you in my room!” then choked laughing and fell onto the desk chair.

Breathless, they slumped side by side and let the playlist drift softer. Ayesha clicked over to a Hindi folder she kept labeled “dil stuff” and double-clicked a file she’d ripped from a CD at the Indian grocery store. Rahman’s strings swelled, and she whispered the words along with the singer, quiet enough that only Zara could hear. “Dil se re...” The room changed shape - the neon Winamp glow seemed warmer, the edges of everything rounding. The song always did that, like a hand smoothing hair.

Zara reached for Ayesha’s hand again, less nerves now, more promise. “If he doesn’t get Rahman, it’s a deal-breaker,” she teased, but her eyes were shiny.

“He’ll get it,” Ayesha said. It felt like a certainty. “I have a feeling.”

They circled each other in the mirror again, critics and stylists and friends. The room looked like the local Sephora had detonated in their dorm room - bobby pins like shrapnel, a ribbon curled into a question mark near the bed’s edge. They put on their jackets and promptly took them off because the collars squished their hair. They practiced smiles that were not too eager. Ayesha did a test line - “So, um, this is weird, but we kind of like you?” - and Zara threw a pillow at her. They rehearsed tiny conversation pivots in case everything stalled: favorite movies (hers: romcoms, his: probably sci-fi or something earnest, they guessed), favorite snacks, what music made them feel like summer. Ayesha’s answers came out like a playlist: Backstreet Boys, “As Long as You Love Me”; Rahman, “Humma Humma”; and for guilty pleasure, Aqua - “Barbie Girl” forever.

Beneath the fun, a thread of terror stitched them tight. Would he hold their hands in public the way he held Sarah’s and Marisol’s? Would he look at them with the same softness? Would they be always a step behind, girls who arrived late to a story that had already found its rhythm?

Ayesha clicked to Sixpence None the Richer as if to steady the scene. The acoustic guitar chimed, delicate, and she let the first words float like breath.
“Oh, kiss me...”

Zara swayed in place as if they were already under lamplight, and for a heartbeat the scene came into focus - Ayesha could see them, the three of them, stitched shoulder to shoulder, his mouth a shy smile before he leaned in.

“Stop,” Zara said softly, smiling to hide the wobble. “You’re going to make me cry again.”

“Happy tears only,” Ayesha decreed. “Tonight we are divas. Vulnerable divas, but divas.”

They grabbed their jackets at last and, as a final superstition, each spritzed the other with the scent she’d chosen - a ritual to carry each other into the night. Zara’s was sweeter, like caramel; Ayesha’s was fresh, a little citrus cutting through the room’s warm fog.

The hallway outside was loud with doors, laughter, the squeak of a girl in platform sneakers. Someone down the hall was blasting “C’est La Vie” and arguing about outfits. They took the stairs, heels in hand, breaths puffing white in the cooler stairwell air, then heel-strapped again on the landing with a shared grimace and a laugh. A boy in a beanie held the door and looked them up and down with appreciation, then flinched at Zara’s dagger-eyeliner look that said don’t even. Ayesha bumped her shoulder. “Still got it,” she whispered.

Outside, the quad smelled of damp leaves and November chill. Lamp posts made puddles of gold on brick paths, long shadows weaving through. The oak near the path was a cathedral of black lace overhead. Zara’s hand was clammy in Ayesha’s as they waited. Frost glittered a little on the grass. Ayesha’s breath looked like thought bubbles in the light.

Her heart drummed faster than Eurodance beats. The soundtrack in her head refused to stay in one genre; it layered and remixed itself. There was always a song for every angle of her feelings, and tonight the playlist felt like a film score: Haddaway for bravado, Rahman for heart, Sixpence for hope, and beneath it all, that BSB promise she never admitted out loud. “As long as you love me...” Not out loud, but there.

They were early. They were never early. It felt like a good omen. Zara pressed her lips together and practiced a smile in the reflection of a dark window. “Do I look desperate?” she asked.

“You look devastating,” Ayesha said, and meant it.

“What about you? Not too sweet?”

“Exactly sweet enough,” Ayesha said and tugged their linked hands down, grounding herself in the warmth of Zara’s skin. A gust slipped under their jackets and made both of them step closer without thinking. Their cheeks hovered like the magnet trick they’d done in physics once - almost touching, not quite.

A flicker at the far end of the quad - shadows. Three of them, stitched together at the shoulders. They were laughing. Even at a distance, the sound carried: it had a together in it that made Ayesha’s chest ache, though not in a jealous way. More like the ache of hearing the key your voice wants to sing in.

It was Bharath in the middle - she knew his walk from across a campus now, liked the way his hands were always slightly occupied (loosely curled, jacket pockets, adjusting his watchband), like he wasn’t sure what to do with all his gentleness. Sarah hung on one arm, Marisol on the other, the three of them a moving chord. The lamplight caught on Sarah’s hair and turned it copper, on Marisol’s curls and turned them into a halo. Ayesha felt her throat tighten - not with envy; with longing for a rhythm she wanted to learn.

Zara’s grip tightened. “Showtime,” she whispered, but she didn’t move. She looked as if she were listening for an offstage cue.

Ayesha’s soundtrack leaned in with her - Sixpence again, but brighter now in her head, the part where the harmony lifts like a held breath. “Kiss me...” She wanted, absurdly, to step into a pool of lamplight and spin, the way actors did when the camera loved them.

Up close, the three looked exactly like they’d sounded - warm, still damp-haired as if they’d rushed, laughing in undertones that made Ayesha think of shared secrets. Bharath’s eyes found them first and widened with something like awe, and just like that, the simmering panic in Ayesha’s stomach shifted into a fizz that felt like music catching a downbeat.

“Hey,” he said, breath fogging. “You look - “ He smiled helplessly, shook his head. “You look like I should have brought flowers.”

Zara’s laugh came out a note too high, then landed right where it needed to. “We accept metaphors,” she said. “Flowers of words.”

Marisol gave an appreciative “mmm!” at that and Sarah rolled her eyes fondly. They traded small, safe warmths - the kind of greetings that belong to people who are building a language together: compliment, deflection, squeeze, grin.

The five of them moved like a little caravan under the November lamps, Sarah and Marisol tucked on either side of Bharath until the slope of the sidewalk brought them into twos and threes. Their chatter echoed in warm bursts, Marisol teasing Ravi’s complaints from earlier, Sarah mock-scolding Bharath for oversleeping.