Kasim parks along a sidewalk that’s lined with tall and wide buildings. When he turns off the engine, I start to open my door. But he stops me and says, “Wait, I got you.”
He runs all the way to the other side of the car to open the door for me. The sign on the building in front of us reads BUCHAREST GRILL. I’ve been to a restaurant only once back in Haiti, and that was after my First Holy Communion. If my mother didn’t cook, we’d go to a neighbor’s house to get a plate of food in exchange for good neighborhood gossip. Already today, I will have gone to two restaurants. It is another reminder that my life here in Detroit could not be more different from home.
Kasim reaches for me as I step out of the car. His hand in mine is warm, and for a moment, I feel brand-new, as if like my cousin Primadonna, I am beginning to live up to this new name—Fabulous.
TEN
I DON’T LIKE the pita bread, and the bean dip is too cold. Hummus, they call it. Kasim devours a chicken breast topped with cabbage and pickles and other things I can’t identify. Even in this Middle Eastern restaurant, I try to find some seed of home in every dish. There isn’t enough spicy sauce on my sausage. The breads, salads, and pastas are all too dry. I only finish a small plate of curly French fries.
“What’s up?” Kasim asks, chewing with his mouth open. “Food ain’t fancy enough for you? Sorry ain’t no baklavas that your serious friends back in Haiti make.”
I giggle and a piece of food shoots out of my mouth and lands on the table. “Serious? You mean Syrian? From Syria.” I laugh.
He keeps chewing and looking at me. Then he asks, “Do people move back to Haiti when they’re old? Like retire with a house on the beach and shit?” He’s serious now.
I nod. Then I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe some people. But I don’t have the right family name with a big business to inherit. My mother wanted to retire here.”
“Retire here? In Detroit?”
“Uh-huh.” I take a sip of my soda, but even that’s not the same. Coca-Cola or Pepsi is only refreshing at the end of a long hot day. It makes no sense here with all this cold.
“That’s crazy. People go to Florida or Georgia to finish out their last days. My pops, he’s not old or anything, but he went back to Memphis. That’s in Tennessee. You ever heard of Memphis? I was supposed to go back and live with him there, but . . . Detroit is home. Know what I mean?”
I nod. I don’t really hear his words. His lips are nice and oily from his food and he licks them often. He has good table manners. He uses a knife and fork the way my teachers taught us at school. His fingernails are short and clean, and in between his fingers are not cracked and ashy. I’ve learned to notice these things about boys in Haiti. It tells me whether or not they live a hard life—if they use their hands to clean car windows for pocket change on the streets or to turn the pages of books in expensive schools. But here, I can’t tell. He says he works at a café. He doesn’t have the hands of someone who serves coffee all day. So I ask, “Do you read books?”
He laughs. “You’re asking me if I’m literate? Didn’t you just see me read the shit off the menu? You did hear me pronounce fucking chicken shawarma correctly, right?”
I sit back and wipe the smile off my face.
He just stares.
I stare back.
He laughs again. “I’m sorry, Fab. I just don’t like when girls do that. Either they think I’m swimming in cash money, or they think I’m dumb as fuck. First you think I’m broke and then you’re asking me if I can read?”
I open my mouth to say something, but my mind has not formed the words yet.
When the waitress passes, Kasim asks for the check. He’s a little bit different now. I’ve offended him. I smile on the inside because I want to hold on to this bit of discomfort between us for a while. This is how I will get to know him, get to know what makes him angry or sad.
He quickly takes the check and pays for everything with cash. He doesn’t look at me even as we leave the restaurant and get into the car. Before he starts it, I put my hand on his hand.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not what I meant,” I say. “I mean, do you like to read? Do you like school? Do you like studying?” I don’t look at him, but I can tell from the corner of my eye that he doesn’t like my question, or he doesn’t know how to answer. He twists his mouth every which way to try to come up with an explanation for questions that only require a yes or a no.
Finally, he says, “I ain’t never had a girl ask me that before. I mean, that’s not some shit you ask a nigga from around here.”
I wait for him to explain further. Then I ask, “Why not?”
“You think when Donna met Dray she asked him if he likes studying?”
“Dray did not take me out to dinner. You did. And I am not Donna.”
“You don’t get it. You’re just too different. You’re not from here.”