“Nishat.” I give her a smile of my own, but it probably doesn’t look very friendly.

“Come on in.” She opens the door wider and allows the two of us to step inside.

“Happy birthday!” Priti says brightly once Chyna has closed the door behind her. She thrusts a pretty floral bag at Chyna and throws her arms around her neck. It’s an awkward, uncomfortable hug; even before Chyna and Priti disentangle from each other I wonder what exactly Priti was thinking.

Chyna smiles. “Thanks. I think Ali is around here somewhere. The kitchen, maybe.”

“Great, I’m going to go … find her.” Priti gives me a look, her eyebrows raised asking if I’m joining her as she turns around. I’m about to follow but Chyna says, “nice sweater,” and I stop.

I look down at my plain black sweater and smile.

“Thanks.” I’m not sure if she’s being serious or mocking.

“I saw your new Instagram account. About your henna business?”

I sigh.

“You’re not going to do better than us, you know. Flávia is the best artist in our entire school. You really think you can beat her? You don’t even take art as a subject anymore.”

I dropped the subject after First Year, opting for Home Economics and Business instead. Art, at least the form of it we learned in school, was definitely not my forte. But henna isn’t a form of art we learned in school. It’s something I’ve been brought up with, and I’m not about to back down just because Chyna thinks she and Flávia have some form of claim over it.

“We’ll see,” I say with the politest smile I can muster.

Chyna smiles back before sauntering off toward one of the rooms with music blasting from it, leaving me alone in the empty hallway. I take a deep breath and lean back against the off-white wall.

Chyna’s house is not like I imagined it. It’s sparse and clean and empty, or at least this part of it is. It barely looks lived in. It’s so vastly different from our house, which is brimming with things: knick-knacks and photos, old toys that Priti and I used to play with years ago but are too sentimental to throw out, and the things we always pick up when we go to Bangladesh—a silver rickshaw, a wooden baby taxi, stitched dolls of brides and grooms, a dhol, a latim. So many things sprawling and spreading everywhere.

I take another deep breath and walk toward the door Priti disappeared through. The brightly lit kitchen is already filled with people chatting and eating and drinking. A few of them look up as I enter. I recognize most of them from school, but not all of them. They don’t seem bothered by the presence of someone new. Priti and Ali are in the corner, their heads bowed together.