Wraparound

By Andrea Moore

Hassan Nahhas is an aspiring physicist in college, very popular, but uptight and has little luck with women. When he discovers Ruth Bardot in his biology class, things get shaken up. There is some secret she is hiding which keeps them from becoming involved. From her influence, and with his older brother's urging, he starts to loosen up a little. He struggles to win her over and may get lost in a purely intellectual lifestyle if he does not succeed. An idea occurs to him, seemingly out of the blue. A wild theory, maybe a downright crazy theory, of how the world functions may be his only saving grace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrea Moore
• Release date: May 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476394169

Book preview

Wraparound

By Amanda Mathai

Copyright 2012 Amanda Mathai

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This book is a work of fiction. Incidents, names, characters, and places are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously. Resemblances to actual locales or events or persons living or dead is coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

About_Amanda_Mathai

Chapter_1

Chapter_2

Chapter_3

Chapter_4

Chapter_5

Chapter_6

Chapter_7

Chapter_8

Chapter_9

Epilogue

About Amanda Mathai

Amanda Mathai lives in Raleigh, North Carolina in the summer and is a current mass communications major at UNC-A. This is her first published novel. If you would like to connect with her, email her at [e-mail].

Chapter One

Ruth's house was a triangle. It was a chip of triangular stone against a washed out afternoon spring sky. When Hassan saw it for the first time, amazement and admiration were understatements to describe his opinions of it. He was coming here only to sort out a certain problem, not to admire facades, or anything else for that matter. He couldn't help himself though. He followed the swaying beige skirt ahead of him, but out of character, he was more interested in the terra cotta tiles on the steps they ascended. A set of two steps...then a small stretch of flatness lined with pots of yellow pansies...then a set of three steps...flatness, pots...three steps...flatness, one pot...five steps...

Oh, Ruth said. Hassan had accidentally run into the back of her. When she had felt the contact she had swirled around and faced him.

Sorry. Mindlessly walking.

Mm-hm.

But it wasn't mindless. His mind was working overtime, even more than it usually did. He was busy with his observations of the house and property. They had entered a hallway outside, and there were metal stairs ahead of them, modishly connected to a support on only one side, like a diagonal comb. There was a door to their right, which Ruth was headed to.

Where do the stairs lead? he asked.

The ones here lead upstairs, but you can access the upstairs from the inside as well.

He sniffed. I smell chlorine.

There's a pool, she replied simply.

Looking now, he could see two white chairs beyond the stairs, and a wooden arch leading into the large backyard in the countryside. The house itself was fairly small, but the property was vast. Hassan found himself gravitating to the backyard. The pool was there, a lightly rippling square body of water, cut into the orangey tile. The yard beyond it was fantastic. There were all different kinds of trees, but they were elegantly sparsely positioned. There were ragged boulders artistically lining the concrete steps down the sloping yard. There was a rock wall holding back the earth so that it wouldn't slide back down into the hill. Another wall was the border to a pond.

Hassan! Ruth called. What are you doing? She had been too focused on unlocking the door in the hallway to notice right away that Hassan was wandering.

Was your father a landscaper as well as an architect?

Of course not. We hired a service. Madden landscaping. Come on inside now and we'll discuss what needs to be discussed.

The inside of the house was not disappointing. There was a long narrow hallway that appeared to reach all the way to the opposite end of the house. Rooms branched off to the left and right. Some of them were just gated off from the hall, the wall only covering sides of some rooms. A magnificent staircase loosely curled up to the second floor, but the second floor consisted of only a triangular ring around the top of the house, the middle being open to display panes of glass with wooden frames on the ceiling. Most of the walls were white. One or two were painted pale gray.

I have to go to the bathroom, Hassan said.

Ruth looked at him skeptically. Second door on your right.

On his way, Hassan passed a collage on the wall about ten feet tall and wide. It was made up of expanded photographs of houses, exotic houses. He guessed that they were Ruth's father's projects. Her father was dead now, so there would be no more additions to this wall. He stepped closer to one picture, a white building that curved back into a circular shape, with a circular pool only a few yards in front of a room that looked like a hybrid of a living room and a porch. Ruth cleared her throat and Hassan moved on. When he was done with his business, he looked back at Ruth, who was blinking emphatically.

I like the bathroom. It's attractive because I can see three angles of my face at once.

Be serious Hassan. That's why we're here, in case you forgot. To talk about something serious.

Right. Sorry.

We're going to the office my father designed for me.

Cool, cool... He followed her. They passed a kitchen, and he resisted comment. At first glance, it appeared to be made up of bronze spirals. Then he realized that it was just the short gate encircling it, and that the designs weren't really spirals; they were just curly.

Ruth's office turned out to be a little square room, with a bookcase that stood in the middle in the shape of a rectangular prism. If you were to roll the chair in a circle, along the desk that lined all of the walls, you could reach any book you wanted. Hassan wouldn't have wanted to look at any of these books. These office ones were all about sewing patterns, ideas for Ruth's modest online business. Of course, she never directly copied any pattern, he knew. She borrowed pieces of them, combined them with others, and invented things of her own into her version of a perfect clothing item. That was how she had explained it to him a couple weeks back. She probably had the belief that everything you did and wore should be an accurate representation of the person you were. Hassan disagreed. He thought that clothes were just something you had to wear so that people weren't too preoccupied with sex or to shield you from the weather. Ruth also probably hated the way Hassan dressed.

I'll get another chair, Ruth said. You have this one.

Hassan was done marveling at the house now. He watched the shine on Ruth's mobile dark hair as she walked away. She returned shortly with a chair and sat down in front of him, legs crossed primly. Hassan wondered what it was with women, that they always sat in such ways so that you could only see the innocent line of the thigh or a small shift in fabric that was almost revealing. He supposed they knew exactly what they were doing most of the time.

Okay, Ruth said. Now we'll talk. This place is private enough for you, right? It's out in the country, no one but me lives here, and no one else is in here but us.

I suppose so; yes. He cleared his throat and began to explain what he had come here to tell her. Now, I know we barely know each other, but don't let that get in the way of what I'm telling you. In the biology department, there's knowledge about a crop growing on campus that doesn't belong there.

She narrowed her lips in an unflattering way. Are you trying to tell me that you made me take you all the way out here because you suspect that some kid is growing marijuana? She leaned forward a little, and Hassan could smell her flowery deodorant.

Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I recognize the leaves anywhere. I see it enough movies. And on T-shirts. And on necklaces.

Hassan, that's your name, isn't it?

Yes. You know that.

Her eyes widened for a moment, and he could see the flash of intelligence revealed in them. It was apparent that many different thoughts and judgments had raced through her mind.

Hassan, then. Aren't you aware that whoever has planted that is probably a very popular hero at our university? In case you aren't aware of the statistics, a very large number of college students smoke marijuana. As far as potheads are concerned, it's healthy for you. And it just might be. That little patch of something whose legality is still being fought for is just one of probably thousands of such personal crops. And I seriously doubt that something like that can exist for a very long time anyway without being discovered.

I'm going to win this argument! Hassan thought, having found a flaw in her reasoning.

Listen woman, he said. I have already discovered it. And there are probably many stubborn people like you who will prevent well-meaning people like me from trying to get rid of it, with something you apparently think is logic.

It's none of our business, and it isn't going to help us with anything. You can only try to inform people that it's hazardous to your health. We can't actually stop anyone from doing anything unless they really want to stop. Otherwise, there will be loopholes everywhere, and it's just too much trouble.

Hassan was surprised. He could see her point, but he couldn't have predicted that she was so cold-hearted and uncaring when he had begun flirting with her in his biology class at the beginning of the semester and had discovered her intelligence and wit. The thought briefly flitted across his mind that she was smarter than he was, and that her side of the argument was correct. Then he shoved that away and asserted his beliefs again (as well as, possibly, his manliness).

You're so selfish! How could you not care about helping the law?

If you look at it one way, I'm selfish. The other way, you're the selfish one. You aren't letting other people live their lives the way they want to. All we can do is our best to inform them.

He stood up in the characteristic rage that always threatened to rise within him, and cursed her in Arabic. She frowned at him a little, not understanding, but mostly she just looked unimpressed.

I'm sorry, he said. I just cussed at you in Arabic.

Why did you even tell me that? Just get out. We'll go on with our lives as if this never happened. I have some work to do. She picked up the chair behind her and rotated it 180 degrees before settling back down in it, and started importantly shuffling papers around. Having something useful to do was always the advantage the owner of the house had over his or her guest.

Why are you even in college if you already have such a great job?

Because I have other aspirations than being a seamstress. I was talking about homework anyway. Now please leave.

Hassan was furious, blushing, out of arguments and devoid of quips. He said something stupid then.

You know the great paradox of women? You're supposed to be sweet and maternal but the majority of you act like bitches.

Before she could yell at him or tell him again to get out, he left on his own. He left her office, strode angrily down the hallway, and exited Ruth's fantastic house. As he turned around to look at the shape of the building, he noticed kind of irreverently that the top part of the right triangle was made up of metal bars, and he guessed that was where the terrace was. As soon as his thoughts strayed from the argument, he began to regret his outburst. The whole way he had to drive home he was muttering over and over what a sexist moron he was.

--

Hassan was popular. This was an arrogant and immodest realization, but he would have to be stupid not to have acknowledged it, at least to himself. He and his roommate had stuck a translucent red plastic pocket to the outside of their door with whatever that sticky white stuff was so that they could receive notes or pictures from other people in their dorm. They both had laptops and cell phones, but it was funnier and sometimes easier for people to put things in their mail box.

When Hassan woke up the following day after he had revealed himself to be nothing but a little Mr. Goody-two-shoes to that sharply pretty girl Ruth, he groggily made his way towards his mail box. He picked up the assortment of things in it and looked through them in the hallway. At the top of the pile was a note from Alex inviting him to the mall to look at some new type of cell phone. Alex had written that a few other people were coming already. Of course they were. Groups prevented intimacy, but also awkwardness. The next thing was something for his roommate that he didn't read out of respect for his roommate's privacy. The next was a photograph of a naked girl's body with her head not shown, probably one of his slutty admirers, and probably taken by herself. For a moment he was shocked and embarrassingly aroused. Then, knowing the picture was intended for him (Anyone who knew his roommate knew why), he went back inside his room, picked up a black marker from his cup of writing utensils, and scribbled on a turtleneck. He took a blue marker and added some baggy pants. Then he replaced the photo in the mail box and looked at the last item in there. It was a note written on a white note card, with pretentiously neat handwriting.

Hassan-, it said. If you really were wondering, that's not a paradox at all. Women are soft but they have the toughest shells or their feelings will be crushed.

Tomorrow after biology show me where the stuff is.

Ruth hadn't given any explanations, and she hadn't signed her name, but it was more than obvious that it was her. Hassan pocketed the note, intrigued, and thought to himself that he really could have any single girl he wanted. But then again, she could have been interested in smoking the stuff, not spending time with him. When he had told her about his suspicions, she had immediately taken the other side. That could have been a sign of a logical person who wanted to see the truth win out, but it also could have been the obvious--that she really did agree with that side. He got ready for the day while his roommate was still in a light morning sleep, just starting to stir.

First thing to do was shave off that terrorist beard, he thought. He had been able to grow a full beard since he was about seventeen, and it grew fast and thick. He liked to make terrorist jokes about himself,