Page 3 of Writing Mr. Right

When I step in, kicking my heels off, I’m immediately hit with the heavenly scent of nasi lemak. Ooh—nasi lemak means Emily’s had another fight with her boyfriend and is in desperate need of hot comfort food. It’s also one of her best dishes, so she knows she’ll never be disappointed with the end result.The fresh smell of green pandan leaves fills the apartment, and I follow it to the kitchen.

I love our little apartment. We got it at an outrageously low price (our theory is someone was murdered here, but we had an imam come in and bless the place before we moved in, and aside from a few things going missing here and there, it’s fine). All the walls are white, with the exception of the two bedrooms: mine is baby pink, while Emily’s is soft green. Painting them was something Emily and I did when we moved in to liven the place up and make it feel like ours. The living room and the dining room occupy the same space. We have a small round brown table with four black chairs surrounding it if we have guests, but for the most part we eat our meals on the long gray couch pushed up against the wall. Across from the couch is a long black coffee table, and our TV hangs off the wall in front of the couch. Another brown table rests in front of the long window, with a few plants and photos on top of it.

In the middle of the kitchen, Emily puts the finishing touches on our dinner. She’s in a pair of sweatpants and a yellow T-shirt, which means she had time to come home and change out of her scrubs before she started cooking. We usually eat dinner at different times—my long hours and Emily’s NICU nurse schedule means sometimes we go days without seeing each other—but whenever we can share a meal, Emily is the one who cooks. Because I’m such a terrible cook, my dinners typically consist of takeout or stuff from the freezer, so I’m happy to let her make the food while I take care of the apartment in other ways—like cleaning the kitchen when she’s done and watering her plants, which she forgets to doallthe time.

She peers over her shoulder when she hears me walk in, and relief relaxes the scrunched lines around her hazel eyes. “Thank God you’re home,” she says. She blows a strand of her silky black hair out of her face. “I need to rant. Did you bring the goods?”

I hold up the bag with our treasure inside. “The perfect after-dinner K-drama binge snack.” I head over to the freezer and stick the ice cream in there but leave the rest of the groceries on the counter for easy access.

“Good, because after the day I’ve had, I need something sweet.” She scoops warm rice into two bowls, drizzles a brown sauce on it, then tops it off with a sprinkle of peanuts and fried anchovies. Finally, she places a hard-boiled egg into each bowl, and sets a few slices of fresh cucumber next to them. She grabs one bowl and places it in front of me along with a pair of chopsticks. “Here you go. Let’s move to the couch and take a bite before we unload the bullshit that happened to us today.”

I giggle but accept the bowl and head toward our well-worn couch. I don’t even bother changing first; I’m too emotionally spent from today. I do, however, take off my coffee-stained sweater. I’m wearing a tank top underneath, though, so I’m not totally bare. We both collapse on the couch at the same time. I use my chopsticks to pick up a chunk of rice and stuff it into my mouth, letting the mixture of flavors melt on my tongue. Emily is Malaysian, and one of her favorite things to do is share cuisine from her culture. It’s how we first became friends, actually.

We met in university when we roomed together at CUNY–Brooklyn. It was the first time I’d been away from home (even if I was only moving from Queens), and Emily’s kindness was the only reason I made it through first year. When she noticed I was having a hard time transitioning to dorm life, she started offering me some of her home-cooked food. She even got to a point where she cooked meals just for me that she knew I liked. She’s a very warm, open person, the kind of girl who’s friends with anyone she meets. At the end of our first year when we had to move out of student housing, I assumed I’d have to find a place on my own. When I mentioned to Emily that we’d be moving out soon, her response was, “Okay, where are we gonna live next?” and I knew then I’d have her for life.

We both take a minute to fill our stomachs with warm food.Emily is already halfway through her bowl before she speaks again. “Did you ask Colin about the law school thing?”

“I did,” I confirm, the fried anchovies suddenly turning extra salty in my mouth. “No dice. He dodged my questions about it.”

“Ugh, that sucks.” She pouts. “What did he say?”

“Nothing really. As soon as I mentioned the money, he shut down.” I stab my egg harder than necessary, then bite into it. “But I can’t afford it on my own.”

Emily expertly picks up a single roasted peanut with her chopsticks. “Think you could ask your parents for help?”

“No.” The answer is swift and sure. “My parents are happily enjoying the retired life and I am not going to burden them. If I want to advance my career, I have to do it on my own.” I push the half-eaten hard-boiled egg around my bowl. “And I got another rejection on my book today.”

This time, Emily snaps her head up. “What? No!” she protests, as ifshewere the one who got the rejection and not me. Emily reads everything I write, regardless of what stage it’s at in the writing process. Outlines, first drafts, final drafts—she’s always up for it. “I don’t get it. That draft was so good when I read it. Besides, Arsal owns an inn. How much hotter could a guy be?”

“I don’t know!” My shoulders slump. “Maybe I should give up. People clearly aren’t connecting to it, and it’s not as splashy as some other books out there.”

“Now, there will be no talk of that,” Emily says, accentuating each word by pointing her finger at me. “You have to let that stuff roll off your back. There’s an agent out there just waiting to snap you up. Maybe it’s even one who’s requested but hasn’t had the time to read yet. Besides, who says a book has to have a huge concept to be good?”

“I don’t know,” I start. I run a nail along one of the chopsticks. “Maybe the problem is not enough is happening in the book. A lot of rejections I’ve been getting from agents is they don’t think it’s a very…thrillingstory.”

“I don’t see the reason why a quiet story can’t do well—after all, I’ve read plenty of successful ones,” Emily says. “If the Hallmark crew can write the same formulaic stuff every year, so can you.”

That’s true. Emily and I are big into the festive movies they churn out, where the biggest thing at stake for the characters is not making it home in time for the holidays.

I want to replicate that magic. When I outlined this book about a young woman named Haniya who left her small town to attend a prestigious university against the wishes of her parents and her old boyfriend, only to return having failed to reach her dreams after several years away, I made it a point to write a sweet small-town romance. I wanted to show brown Muslim girls they can have that, too. I didn’t want a book full of showstopping events. Besides, for women like me, culture always adds a layer of complexity that increases the stakes for our characters. The genuine humanity in that is more important than any superficial drama.

I sink farther into the couch. It’s nice of Emily to help keep my spirits up, but at this point, I want to sulk in my sorrow for a little while longer. I change the subject. “Why’d you have a shit day?” I ask, even though I already have my suspicions.

Her excitement immediately mellows. “It’s about Daniel.” The confidence she had when she gave me my pep talk dies. “We’ve been together for two years. I turned thirty in July. I just casually brought up the idea of us getting married and he…”

“Freaked?” I finished, nibbling on a cucumber slice.

“Yeah,” she answers. “But not in a way where he was mad I brought it up. More like he got clammy and nervous and stammer-y. It doesn’t bode well.” She puts her empty bowl on the coffee table, then gets up and heads over to the fridge. “I don’t know. Do you think I’m wasting my time with him?”

“Daniel loves you, you know,” I remind her. “But maybe he doesn’t feel ready to make such a big commitment yet.”

“It’s been twoyears.” She grabs a water bottle and closes the door with a little more force than necessary. “He hasn’t made any indication that he wants to break up. How much longer does a guy need to make up his mind if he wants to marry a girl?”

“Unless he doesn’t want to get married.”

“But in our early days of dating, he said he always planned on getting married someday,” she points out, coming back over to sit on the couch.

“Maybe it’s because of your inability to keep any of your plants alive,” I tease.

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