“I think I recognize her,” I whisper to Priti as low as I can. “The tall girl with the curly—don’t look so obviously!” I have to cut myself off because Priti has abandoned any notion of subtlety and is staring directly at the group of girls. It’s a good thing they’re too deeply involved in their conversation to pay attention to us.

“She’s pretty,” Priti says. “I don’t think I’ve seen her before though.”

I’m trying to place her. From school? No, she looks far older than me. She must be at least the same age as Sunny Apu. Maybe I saw her at a Desi party? But she’s not Desi, or at least she doesn’t look it.

“I know I’ve seen her somewhere,” I whisper to Priti, trying to stare at the girl as subtly as possible to find something that will give away how I recognize her. “But I can’t remember where.”

We have no more time to mull it over because a moment later, the door to the room is flung open again and the woman in black and white is giving us instructions about how to properly enter the wedding hall.

“Is that all we do as bridesmaids?” Priti whispers to me as she’s handed a small bunch of red and white flowers. “Walk?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

Weddings in Bangladesh didn’t have any of this bridesmaids business—not that we would have been a part of it if they did, considering how young we were and how we barely knew the people getting married.

I link my hand through Priti’s.

She makes a face and says, “Did you put on deodorant before leaving the house?”

I hit her over the head with my bouquet, secretly hoping one of the thorns from the red roses gives her a little prick. Alas, no luck, because she ducks and giggles. The woman in black and white gives us a scathing look from the front of the line and I wonder if you can be thrown out of a wedding when you’re a bridesmaid.

Better not risk it, I think to myself, and I elbow Priti to behave.

“I’m not having bridesmaids at my wedding,” Priti says, once the wedding procession is over and we’ve done our bit as good bridesmaids and … well, walked into the wedding hall with our arms linked together. It was a bit of a letdown, though I suppose Priti and I shouldn’t have expected anything else.

“Nobody could even see the henna on our hands,” Priti says. “Because of these annoying flowers.”

“Shh. You’re going to get us into trouble again,” I whisper.