“Both,” Dad says. “Get both.”
We spend a couple of hours exploring the Khan and buying more decorations for the apartment, as well as some gifts for people back home, and I haggle successfully for a coral-colored scarf with metallic gold flowers embroidered along the edge. Perfect for Adam’s mom. I pay attention as my mother talks about how her assistant has increased the number of male patients at the clinic and as Dad talks about how his boat spent a week of their hitch at the dock, waiting out a hurricane. I tell them both what I learned about the City of the Dead.
“I’d like to see that,” Dad says.
“Some of my patients live there,” Mom says. “Many of them need so much more than I can provide. I’ve been treating bug bites, respiratory infections, and minor illnesses. None of them seem to care that my specialty is ophthalmology.”
Adam meets us at the Khan at the appointed time and helps carry rugs, tapestries, and trinkets to the car. He stops at a bakery so Mom can buy a chocolate layer cake for Manar and, as he pulls up in front of our building, reminds us that he’ll return at 8 p.m. to pick us up for dinner. Even though I know it’s his job to drive us around, Adam is my friend now—more than a friend—and it’s uncomfortable treating him like an employee. As I slide across the backseat toward the door, our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and he scrunches up his nose, making me laugh.
? ? ?
My parents are still in the bathroom—Dad finishing his shower, Mom blow-drying her hair—when the doorbell rings. I close my bedroom door so they won’t be able to see the mountain of clothes I built while trying to find the perfect outfit for dinner with Adam’s family. Even though I’ve already met them, I still want to make a good impression.
“I’ve got it,” I call out as I open the front door.
Adam is dressed in a pair of navy chinos and a white button-up shirt with the cuffs rolled. Freshly shaved, curls damp, and smelling like soap. The sight of him stops me in my tracks. His gaze slides from my bun to my sandals—in exactly the same way as some of the other Egyptian guys I’ve encountered—but there’s nothing annoying about Adam’s attention. It makes me glad I went with my favorite white maxi dress with light-and-dark-blue-watercolor stripes and a navy cardigan. We kind of match, which sends a little thrill through me.
“Wow. Hi.” I glance toward the bathroom, where Mom’s blow-dryer is roaring, then tilt my face up to steal a kiss. Risky but so worth it. “You look exceptionally handsome right now.”
He touches my chin, kisses my forehead, and says, “You look exceptional always.”
The blow-dryer switches off and I step back, inviting him all the way into the apartment. Adam sits on the couch while I choose the chair, so when Mom emerges from the bathroom a moment later, heels clicking on the hardwood, we’re the picture of propriety.
“Casey’s just about ready,” she says as she goes into the kitchen for the cake.
Since bright colors, dress clothes, and my dad don’t really mix, he comes into the living room wearing a dark gray button-up shirt and black jeans. His Doc Marten shoes are buffed to a shine. With his sleeves rolled down and buttoned at the wrist, the only tattoo that really shows is the one around his ring finger. As a newly married deckhand, he nearly lost that finger when his wedding band got caught on the boat engine, so he traded it for permanent ink.
“You clean up pretty nice,” I say.
Mom hands him the cake and gives him a lingering kiss. “Very sexy.”
I grimace at the parental PDA, making Adam laugh.
“How terrible it must be to have parents who love each other.” Dad ushers us out the front door.
I grin at him. “It’s the worst.”
“Listen, kid, if you find someone you love half as much as I love your mom, you should consider yourself lucky.”
What I feel for Adam Elhadad can’t be love—that would be crazy—but when I glance at him from the corner of my eye and he smiles at me, the butterflies in my stomach go wild. And I consider myself pretty lucky.
CHAPTER 22
The Elhadads’ apartment is on a residential street lined with apartment towers. The streets are narrow with no houses or trees. And while the buildings aren’t crumbling like the apartments in Manshiyat Nasr, they’re also not upscale like our place in Manial. Adam leads us to a brick building where the bowab is a skinny, bearded man who sits on a kitchen chair beside the door. At his elbow is a tiny table with a glass of tea and a cigarette burning in an ashtray. When he speaks to Adam, there are holes in his mouth where some of his teeth should be. Adam gestures toward us as he replies. The man says something else as he opens the door for us, but Adam shakes his head in refusal.
“In most things, Gaber is a help,” Adam says as we climb the first flight of steps. “But he demands fifty piastres from each person to operate the lift. Since my family lives on the second floor, we take the stairs. Alhamdulillah we don’t live on the eighth floor.”
At the top of the second flight we enter the hall and follow Adam to the first door on the left. He knocks, identifies himself, and—after waiting a beat or two—enters. Mr. Elhadad is first to greet us, and he looks more robust than the last time we saw him. The color has returned to his face and his eyes are bright again.
He welcomes us to his home. Cheek kisses are exchanged. Gifts are offered and thanks given. Shoes are left at the door. Adam excuses himself back into the hall. And then we are swept into a small, formal living room packed with furniture. Old-fashioned gold-and-crystal chandeliers dangle from the ceilings, casting a warm glow over the room.
“Your home is lovely,” Mom says as Mrs. Elhadad brings in a tray of tea for the adults. Aya follows behind with Pepsi for herself, Adam, and me. She greets everyone in the room, then sits beside me on the couch. She’s wearing a pair of loose-fitting khakis with a wide brown belt, a long-sleeved green-and-white striped top, and a green hijab with tiny black polka dots. I touch her sleeve. “Is your wardrobe ever not on point?”
Our families make small talk over a plate of feteer filled with cheese and figs, and a feta cheese dip made with cucumbers and fava beans. Mr. Elhadad tells us he is ready to drive again and I wonder if Adam is as disappointed as I am. What will he do now?