For the last two years, Laila had received the awal numra certificate, given yearly to the top ranked student in each grade.
She said nothing of these things to Hasina, though, whose own father was an ill-tempered taxi driver
who in two or three years would almost certainly give her away.
Hasina had told Laila, in one of her infrequent serious moments, that it had already been decided
that she would marry a first cousin who was twenty years older than her and owned an auto shop in Lahore.
“I've seen him twice,” Hasina had said. “Both times he ate with his mouth open.”
“Beans, girls,” Hasina said. “You remember that. Unless, of course—”
here she flashed an impish grin and nudged Laila with an elbow—
“it's your young, handsome, one-legged prince who comes knocking. Then...” Laila slapped the elbow away.
She would have taken offense if anyone else had said that about Tariq.
But she knew that Hasina wasn't malicious. She mocked—it was what she did—and her mocking spared no one, least of all herself.
“You shouldn't talk that way about people!” Giti said. “What people is that?”
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