“Earrings.” I hold them up for Auntie Maysa. “Pretty, right?”
“Oh yes. And Husna, you’re wearing those. Especially tonight.” Auntie Maysa puts the glass down on the counter and marches over. She takes the earrings from me and stills Mom’s head to slip them back into her ears. “When are you going to realize that looking good isn’t wrong now that you’re divorced? Life doesn’t end. It can start again. Especially tonight.”
Auntie Maysa winks at me.
? ? ?
On the drive over to the mosque, Muhammad brings up Jeremy’s forehead again.
“It has to be one of the Arab or Bosnian guys,” he says. “Or Turkish. Turkish guys can have some foreheads.”
I stay quiet, and dignified, like the North during the Civil War, and concentrate on the way the windshield wiper keeps missing this one part of the bird scat that Muhammad commissions it to take out. He sprays more and more cleaner and switches the wiper speed higher and higher, but the scat stays on. I totally admire its fortitude.
“Hameed!” he shouts. “I just know it’s Hameed. Right?
My lips are sealed. Bird scat. Bird scat. Bird scat.
“What’s the big deal? You know all about Sarah,” he says. “You even got me interested in her.”
“What?” I ask. “I got you interested in her?”
Forget bird scat, I had other scat to look into. The bull kind.
“Yeah,” he says. “You kept talking about all the things she was doing at the mosque. And then I’d see her there, doing exactly what you said she was doing. With this big smile on her face the whole time. Nice, I sez to myself.”
“Yeah, right,” I say. “I kept complaining about all the things she was doing. Like this Fun-Fun-Fun Islamic Quiz Game thing.”
“At least she’s doing something,” he says. “What’re you doing?”
Bird scat. Bird scat. Bird scat.
“Oh yeah, I forgot—you’re busy taking pics of guys’ foreheads,” he says, smiling.
I grit my teeth. I will resist.
? ? ?
As I pass the prayer hall, far behind Muhammad, who bounds ahead to join Saint Sarah, I see the visiting youth groups inside, in two huddles, prepping. Our group is downstairs in the cafeteria, where the game will take place.
Even though Fizz and her sisters are up at the front (upon orders of their mom), I stay at the back of the cafeteria, far from the makeshift stage, where team-member-selection deliberations are going on. Fewer chances of being called on as a contestant for the game.
I’m sitting on my own, scrolling through my new phone, adding numbers, when someone moves into my peripheral vision.
Farooq. Monster.
He’s decided to hang out at the back too. I lower my phone. I feel it in my body, a seizing happening inside. I need to be aware.
I need to actively ignore him.
I deploy my intrigued-at-the-spot-behind-the-emcee’s-head trick, but it’s to no avail. He sits directly across the aisle, on the guys’ side. This is one time I’m happy we have gender-separated seating at the mosque, but it still doesn’t stop the feeling of ickiness that spreads over me when he’s so close. He keeps up a steady flow of sidelong glances.
I’m trying hard to pretend he isn’t here, but he’s pretending I’m the only one here.
I get up and move to the first row, where there are a lot of empty seats. I’m taking long breaths in and out to calm myself when I notice Saint Sarah up on the stage, giving me a huge smile. And then I realize the emcee is repeating my name. Saint Sarah has picked me for her team.
Because of the monster, because I had to stand up to move, her gaze pounced on me.
I lumber up there, my legs feeling jointless, hatred for Farooq nearly crippling me with inertia.
When I get onstage, I notice the PICK ME FOR A CONTESTANT! signs on the backs of each of the front-row chairs. I have to fake a smile now, because what kind of loser would I be if I didn’t mean to get chosen?
The team: my brother, Saint Sarah, Aliya, me, Sausun, and—get this—the Shazam! dude from the community center. From the shoulder bumps Muhammad is giving him, it’s evident they know each other. I never noticed him before here at Amu’s mosque.
We convene in the kitchen to talk “strategy” for the remaining ten minutes before we face the two teams from the other mosques. Saint Sarah takes over immediately, assessing the team, pondering our combined brain capabilities, assigning responsibilities—in general, doing what she does best: bossing around the rest of us.
I stay quiet even though I want to ask if there is a possibility of unjoining the team. And then I see him, peeking through the crack in the slightly open door.
It’s him again. I know because I see his white thowb, a traditional long robe. He always wears it at Muslim events. Like he’s some holy person.
He isn’t moving, but standing at an angle where I can see him. His modus operandi at public events. He wants to break me.
Everyone else is talking, animated, excited, hopeful that this year, our first year, we’ll win miraculously and then head to the regional Islamic Quiz Bowl competition, even though the other two teams are more experienced. Even Sausun has relaxed her ever-present frown.
“And what about you, Janna?” asks Saint Sarah. “Are you fine with seerah, or do you have another category in mind?”
Perverted, stalking guys, I think. I shrug.
“These are the topics: Qur’an, seerah, prayers, laws, worship, and general,” says Saint Sarah. “We’ve divided most of them already but can reshuffle if you want.”
I shrug again. He hasn’t moved.
“She’s really good with seerah,” Muhammad contributes. “Remember I told you she’s writing her own version at home, a graphic novel?”
He beams at me, like I’d say, Aw shucks, bro. What a piece of sweet you are.
“That was when I was like nine years old,” I say.
Sausun snickers.
“But you’re not finished. It’s a work in progress,” Muhammad says, not letting go. “Don’t lie, Janna. I saw it on your desk even today.”
He smiles at Saint Sarah as if he’s expecting her to say, Aw shucks, beau. What a piece of heaven you are.
She clears her throat, clutches her clipboard, and says, “Actually, Nuah is interested in seerah too if you don’t want it, Janna.”
Shazam! waves his hands like he’s conducting a plane landing in front of him. So that’s his name, Nuah, the Arabic version of Noah.
“No, no,” he says. “She can have the topic. If she wants it, that is.”
He looks at me, one eyebrow raised into a medium-size forehead. He’s still wearing a necklace of beads, but the pendant’s out of his shirt now. It’s a long wooden piece with a cluster of threads dangling from the end. He’s wearing a tasbih, a necklace of prayer beads.
“It’s a good topic; we need someone who’s into it,” Nuah says, smiling. “And I wanted the laws category too and, hey, guess what? It’s still available. What do you say—you do seerah and I do laws?”
I nod, to shut down the focus on me. Aliya smiles and holds up a stiff thumb.