Laila’s eyes threaten to pop out of their sockets as I enter the living room. Samara, her mother, smothers me in an embrace. As usual, her golden hair smells like apricots. Now taller than she is, I nuzzle into the soft waves and let her hold me. I’ve known Samara my entire life. Before I found out she too was a Jinn, there were times when I wanted her to be my mother. That I still do on occasion is a source of continuous guilt.
“My little Azra,” Samara says, releasing me. “You are breathtaking. Not that you weren’t always gorgeous. But now … let’s just say you might break your mom’s record for most invites to prom.” She calls out to my mother. “What do you think, Kalyssa? Will you be upset if your daughter outshines you?”
“Lalla Sam, stop it.” I sink into the couch. “There’s no danger of that.”
My mother joins us in the living room, a tray with bowls of hummus, roasted eggplant, and pita bread following her.
My newly inspired resolve to give this a chance receives its first positive reinforcement when my mother, upon seeing me in the purple tunic, smiles warmly.
Laila still hasn’t said a word. I feel her eyes on me and turn to her. “What?” I instantly regret the harshness of my tone.
Weakest. Resolve. Ever.
That we aren’t the best friends our mothers want us to be is entirely my fault. Still, we’ve grown up together, and she’s the closest I’ll ever come to having a sibling. When we were little, I liked having Laila around. Especially after Jenny was gone, being with Laila made me feel like I wasn’t alone.
“It’s just…” Laila starts. “This is what I’m going to look like?”
But ever since we started needing bras and deodorant, I’ve been alone again. Because Laila can’t wait to be a genie.
“Awesome.” She runs her fingers through her already long hair. “Only a few more weeks to go.”
Seeing what magic managed to do to me, I’m not sure I want to stand next to Laila, with her blond curls and pale blue eyes, after she turns sixteen, especially if Samara’s voluptuous figure is any indication of what’s to come. As Samara bends over the coffee table to dip a slice of warm pita into the hummus, I get an eyeful of Laila’s future.
I used to think the Afrit were huge fans of that silly old TV show and decided humans deserved their genies sexed up: lipstick-wearing, midriff-baring, cleavage-daring.
But the attractiveness of our species is simply genetic. We are all descended from Lalla Mimouna and Sidi Mimoun, the first Jinn power couple. Legend has it that Jinn were once spirit creatures, made of smokeless fire. These spirits inhabited a plane between the air and the earth and embodied the purest elements of the natural world. In return for corporeal form, the spirits agreed to use the magical powers nature bestowed on them to serve humans for the “greater good.”
Guess “pure” translated into “hot” when those spirits got legs. Then again, Jinn are particularly clever. It wouldn’t surprise me if the bargain with nature included an eye-candy clause and we Jinn actually are the most shallow of species.
Samara wipes a glop of hummus off her heaving bosom, which causes Laila to turn to me. “Did you need a bigger bra?”
Everyone’s eyes fall on my chest, which I am too easily able to cover with my arms.
“I sure hope I do.” Laila pulls out the collar of her cotton short-sleeved sweater and studies her breasts.
Samara’s deep, sexy laugh precedes her reply. “Oh, you will. Runs in our line. Always has.”
Laila pats her boobs and beams.
Though our birthdays are less than two months apart, Laila has always seemed younger. Her being short—and anything under five feet four inches is short for a Jinn—doesn’t help that. That’ll likely change when she gets her bangle. But she’s also seemed younger because she’s so eager. She’s been excited for her sixteenth birthday as far back as I can remember.
One December, when we were ten, we were celebrating Christmas. We celebrate all the religious holidays on a rotating basis. Some years it’s Christmas, some years it’s Hanukah, some years it’s Kwanzaa, some years it’s Las Posadas (my favorite because it involves whacking pi?atas), and so on. But that year, it was Christmas’s turn. Our moms were huddled together in front of the fire having one of their marathon talks, and Laila and I were rearranging the decorations on the tree.
Laila tore off a piece of the silver tinsel and broke it in half. She tied one strand around my wrist and the other around her own. “There,” she said, “now you grant my wish, and I’ll grant yours.”
She wanted me to pretend first. Not because she wanted to make a wish so badly but because she wanted me to get the chance to grant one first. She was being her usual kind, generous self, letting me be the first to role-play as a genie. To Laila, being able to grant a wish was far more of a thrill than being able to make one.
Six years later, this fact still separates us. The only thing that’s changed is my need to pretend. Now I can actually grant wishes. Somehow, everything I’ve done today makes this prospect more, not less, frightening.
“Dinner should be ready by the time everyone else gets here,” my mother says.
Samara snorts. “Oh, Kalyssa, you and your tagines. Tell me, why tagines? Why are tagines the only dish you make the human way? The very, very slow way?”
My mother looks at me. “I just think it tastes better that way.”
Her concession to make my favorite meal without using Jinn magic is the closest my mother can come to granting what she knows has always been my wish.
Samara swishes the wrist of her gold-bangled hand. “Yes, because it makes you starving. Hunger makes everything taste better. If I had your talents, there’s nothing I wouldn’t conjure rather than cook.”
“Well,” Laila says, drawing out the word, “perhaps if you spent half as much time practicing conjuring food as you do purses, we’d end up with something edible.”
Samara flutters her thick eyelashes at her daughter. “I’ll let you perfect conjuring food, sweetheart. Until then, we’ll have to settle for raiding the kitchen for more snacks.”