“In here!”
Moments later, Aneesa is standing before me toting a paper shopping bag with twine handles, and before I can stammer out some kind of lame excuse, she grins and says, “Hey, what’s up?”
“Not much. I, uh—”
“Give me a sec. I have to take this upstairs.” She hoists the bag, then darts out of the room.
Mr. Fahim nods at me. “Ariadne.”
“Joe.”
He seems pleased that I remember this time. “Or are you going to be Theseus now?”
“Still think Ariadne doesn’t get enough credit in the minotaur-slaying record books.”
He chuckles and kisses his wife on the cheek. “Please tell me you didn’t plan dinner. I want to try the Chinese place Ariadne here recommended.”
“That’s fine.”
As they chat in the easy, laconic tones of a long relationship, I try to relax my face as my mind races to come up with an excuse for my visit before Aneesa returns. But by the time she’s back in the kitchen, I have nothing except suggesting that I wanted to help unpack the remaining boxes, which is probably just the sort of lame move one might expect from a guy who wipes out on his bike twice in front of the same girl. Which, I realize, makes this plan one that is just crazy enough to work.
“What are we doing?” Aneesa asks, clearly excited.
Unpacking your kitchen would just as clearly be the wrong answer. “I thought I’d show you SAMMPark,” I blurt out, without even thinking it through. It’s a miracle the words come out in the right order. “It’s the only park in town worth even mentioning. Actually, it might be the only park in town. I’m not even sure.”
“Cool! Let me get my bike.”
“Dinner in an hour,” Mrs. Fahim says. “Sebastian is welcome to stay.”
I’m welcome.
Welcome.
Who ever would have thought?
Dinner is take-out from Hong Palace, of course. I’ve had the sesame chicken and fried rice a thousand times, but usually on my own or with Mom, occasionally with Evan. Now I’m with an entire family, and the sensation isn’t exactly like on TV shows, but it’s close. We’re almost a commercial for Hong Palace—all we need is a cameraman tracking around the table, occasionally zooming in for a close-up of a set of chopsticks plucking food from a plate. And a voice-over: “Hong Palace. For you. For your family. For the guy who might someday be your daughter’s boyfriend, if he can ever work up the courage to bring it up.”
When Mom and I eat, there’s little conversation. Mealtime is a fueling stop, a necessity. The Fahims joke and laugh and ask one another for the most mundane details of their days in a way that makes it seem as though the dull moments are actually shining beacons, only covered in a thin layer of diffidence.
Mrs. Fahim grills us about our time at SAMMPark. I explain to her the story of how SAMMPark came to be, the tragedy of Susan Ann Marchetti and the man who killed her. Which isn’t my best move because it sort of bums everyone out.
Mrs. Fahim breaks the awkward silence: “So, something beautiful came out of something tragic, then.” It’s a really nice way of looking at it, but there’s nothing else to say.
Mr. Fahim clears his throat and reaches for the container of steamed rice. “You know, I was six when my parents moved us here from Turkey. And they were talking up America, of course, because I was six and afraid of moving. So they told me all these amazing things about America. But they never mentioned this.” He gestures with his chopsticks to the spread before us on the table.
I feel as though I’m supposed to ask a question here, to want to know more about Turkey, about Mr. Fahim’s past, but I’m at a loss. Instead, I ask Mrs. Fahim, “Where are you from?”
She grins. “Kansas.”
Duh. I feel like an idiot. My mouth won’t work. I can’t speak.
Mr. Fahim rescues me. “How about you? Where are your people from originally, Ariadne?”
“Boring white places, pretty much.” Completely unbidden, another Dad memory surfaces: I ask him where our family originally came from and he jerks his head to indicate outside, saying, Over the holler a piece.
“He’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma, covered in soy sauce,” Aneesa snarks, and I finally relax.
Later, we’ve all decamped to the living room, where stacks of DVDs and books remain unshelved and the walls are still bare, but the TV is hooked up and working. Partway through a reality show about home improvement—which I watch quietly and dead bored, being as polite as possible—a crawl makes us flip over to a news channel.
And suddenly we’re watching a news helicopter–streamed spectacle from the town of West Janson, Iowa, where—according to the crawl and a breathless announcer—police are on the hunt for a shooter who attacked a backyard barbecue, killing at least three and wounding over a dozen others.
Mrs. Fahim whispers something to herself. Mr. Fahim stares intently at the TV, leaning forward on the sofa, elbows on knees. And Aneesa is worrying her bottom lip, which I can’t stop staring at.
“Again, at this time,” the announcer goes on, “police have no indication who this is or why the shooting took place. A hunting rifle was found at the scene and is believed to be one of the weapons used. Witnesses saw a figure run toward the woods nearby, and that’s where police are concentrating their search. As you can see—”
“I just hope it’s a white guy,” Aneesa blurts out.
Her parents say nothing, but there’s a tension in the room. Or maybe it’s just me, the white guy.
I make excuses and leave, but Aneesa follows me out onto the porch.
“I didn’t mean that personally or anything,” she says.
“I know.”
“It’s just that, if this is a Muslim, it means… it means we have to be scared again.”
Aneesa stares up to the sky, arms crossed over herself as though cold, even though the night is warm. A tear glimmers in one eye, threatening to fall. There’s something in this moment that makes me bolder. Not bold enough to take her hand—I don’t know if I’ll ever be brave enough for that—but bold enough to think that maybe I can do something I never do: impose.
“Are you okay? Do you need… anything?” Lame. A chance to empathize, and I blow it.
“It would be nice if people stopped hating me,” she says wistfully.
I’ve foolishly stepped into a field of land mines, any one of which could blow at the slightest bit of pressure. And my sense of direction is off, so I don’t know how to back out.
Which means, I suppose, that my only option is to move ahead and hope.
“Is it hard? I mean, I know this guy—Kevin—who like suddenly became Mr. Catholic and that seems kind of difficult, but it seems like being a Muslim is a whole different kind of difficult because of, well, because of some people. And the way people feel about those people.” I’m dancing around the word terrorists like it’s the most devastating of the land mines in the field.