Masoud gives me the stink eye as I come out of the elevator the next day and I am glad he doesn’t know enough English to tell me exactly what’s on his mind. I can probably guess, though. Especially when I see Adam leaning against the car, waiting for me. Everything about him takes my breath away. There’s nothing more I want to do right now than to kiss him, but the bowab’s glare is like a laser beam pointed at my back.
“Sabah al-khair,” I say instead.
I must have practiced the words fifty times last night before I said them correctly. Mom shot into my room like a rocket when she overheard, excited by my effort to learn Arabic, and offered me her computer program.
Adam’s face lights up in a way that makes me want to learn every single word. “Good morning to you.”
“What are we doing today?”
“So I want to talk to you about this,” he says. “I have tried to keep the cost of our adventures low because you are always the one to pay, but today—”
“Nothing has to change, Adam. If I can afford it, let’s do it.”
“Today I would like to pay.”
“I really don’t mind.”
“I would like to pay.” His voice is softer the second time, but there is a firmness in it that wasn’t there before and I take the hint. Clearly this is something he feels strongly about.
“Okay.”
Adam smiles. “Shokran.”
He tells me as we drive that we are doing three things today, and our first stop is at a crowded riverfront café in Maadi where a Liverpool friendly match is showing on TV. Even more significant, though, is that while we are drinking karkadeh and watching the pregame commentary, Magdi and Hasnah show up. This time I am included in cheek kisses and Hasnah pulls her chair beside mine, as if we’ve known each other for more than a day.
“I’m not a huge football fan,” she confesses. “But it’s not much fun being the only girl in a gang of boys.”
I’m about to point out that Magdi and Adam are hardly a gang when a couple of guys arrive, wearing track pants and soccer shoes and looking a little damp with sweat. I recognize them as Omar and Bahar, and Adam confirms it when he introduces us.
“As-salāmu alaykum,” I say, hoping it’s okay to greet them both at the same time.
Omar’s reply is warm and hearty, but Bahar is more reserved, his voice low as he says, “Wa’alaykum.” And then his attention is gone (kind of like Adam’s on the first day we met) and I wonder if I should feel hurt by his response.
Adam’s friends all order hookah pipes and before long we have an apple-and cherry-scented cloud hovering above our heads. It doesn’t stink like cigarettes, but the fruity smoke is not really an appealing alternative.
“Want to try?” Hasnah offers me the hose to her pipe.
There doesn’t seem to be a huge difference between shisha and cigarettes—aside from fancy flavors and a more complicated delivery system—but I’ve never had much interest in smoking anything. “No, but thanks.”
She grins. “More for me.”
Beneath the table, I feel Adam’s pinkie finger hook around mine. I smile at him. “No smoking for you, either?”
“I do not enjoy it.”
Watching the soccer game doesn’t exactly lend itself to getting to know his friends, but it’s kind of nice to be part of a group. We high-five each other when Liverpool scores, and during the halftime break, Magdi tells me a story about how he and Adam used to steal mangoes from a street vendor in their neighborhood until Adam’s father caught them. “First he says he will chop off our hands as punishment.”
“Really?” I turn to Adam. “That doesn’t sound like your dad at all. He’s so nice.”
“He wanted only to frighten us.”
“We cry and drop to our knees, begging him to spare us,” Magdi adds.
“He paid the vendor for all the mangoes we had stolen but made us repay him,” Adam says. “On my next birthday, Teta gave me a small sum of money and my father took it as payment of the debt.”
There are tears in Magdi’s eyes as he laughs and Adam goes on, “He kept record of the payments in a book like we were businessmen instead of small boys, but that was the last time I ever stole anything.”
“What about Magdi?”
Adam’s friend winks at me as Hasnah rolls her eyes. “I may yet steal you away from him,” Magdi says.
Omar opens up during the second half of the game, asking—through Adam since Omar speaks very little English—about my home and how it compares to living in Egypt. I pass my phone around the table so Adam’s friends can see the pictures of Sandusky and Cedar Point. Adam explains that my town is small and that the population is only about twenty-five thousand people.
All of them laugh, as if the number is incomprehensible—probably because there are about twenty million people living in Cairo—and Adam translates for Omar, who says, “Twenty-five thousand is the population of our apartment building, and they all need to use the lift at the same time.”
Despite laughing at his brother’s joke, Bahar doesn’t warm up to me at all. He spends most of the game with his eyes glued to the television, engaging only to speak in Arabic to Omar or Magdi. Bahar ignores Hasnah and ignores me, and I hear the shortness in his responses whenever Adam tries to say something to him. I feel guilty for causing bad blood between friends, and this is one gap I don’t think I can bridge.
Disappointment radiates off Adam like heat, until the referee blows the final whistle on the game, ending both Adam’s and Liverpool’s misery. Bahar practically jumps out of his chair, as if he can’t wait to escape, and throws a good-bye over his shoulder as he bolts for the door. Omar offers an apologetic smile, then follows his brother out of the café. I catch a glimpse of sadness in Adam’s eyes as he watches them leave. He’s subdued when he asks me if I am hungry.
“I could eat.”
“Good. Because it is time for the next thing.”
“We’ll see you later,” Hasnah says, then covers her mouth with her hand as if she’s spoiled a secret. “Maybe. Maybe we’ll see you later.”
Leaving the others behind, Adam and I walk down the road to a small marina filled with feluccas—wooden sailboats with canvas-shaded decks and large, curved sails mounted on angled masts. Our captain is a dark-skinned man named Osama, who takes my hand to help me aboard the boat. Adam and I sprawl beside each other on soft, colorful cushions, and when the boat is away from the dock, he puts his arm around my shoulders and brushes his lips against my temple.
“What made you decide to introduce me to Omar and Bahar?” I ask.
“I thought perhaps if they knew you, they would understand why I want to be with you.”
“I don’t think it worked.”
“Omar likes you.”
“Bahar doesn’t.”
“No.” Adam sighs. “He says he expects this from Magdi but not from me.”
“Does this change anything? Between us, I mean.”