I’m on the bus with Fizz, en route to the mosque open house. She’s telling me about Rambo’s addiction to Wonder Bread, a sure feline prediabetic indication, but I’m not listening. Being the handy friend she is, she twists herself to smack me with her laptop bag.
“Janna,” she says, holding tight to the strap overhead. “You’re not here. And you’re staring at that guy near the front.”
I’m not staring at the guy near the front, but I know why Fizz thinks so: He’s pretty good-looking; plus he falls into the admirable-forehead category. But I’m just having a zone-out moment, when there’s nothing going on inside but it feels good against the blur of noise on the outside. A comfy vacuum.
I mouth an apology to Fizz and watch her rooting in her bag as the bus pauses. There it is, beside the tissue package she takes out, the little green book with embossed-gold writing that she carries around with her, One Hundred and One Evils and Their Islamic Cures. I decide against discussing the newest development with Jeremy revealed by Tats last night. Fizz is prone to remedying me and would invariably seek the answer to my “problem.”
“So guess what? Your uncle asked Farooq if he would lead some of the Taraweeh prayers for Ramadan this year.” Fizz beams at me. “His parents are like, finally! Farooq finished memorizing the Qur’an two years ago, you know. We don’t get why your uncle took so long to ask him.”
Now I know why I’ve been subconsciously cocooning myself in that vacuum of numbness. The prospect of the monster being at the open house is high. This knowledge must have been simmering under the surface of my thoughts.
The bus lurches away from a stop. I still the camera around my neck and shrug at Fizz. “Ramadan is in two weeks.”
“Yeah, but it’s barely enough time to prepare. I’m so excited for him. He deserves this after all the hard work.”
I wish there were a way to still my heart. It feels like it’s not mine and wants out of my body. I seal it shut with another shrug.
I can’t tell her. I can’t tell Fizz because she’d never believe such an unholy thing.
? ? ?
We get off at the next stop and run across the multilane road to the mosque. There’s a large neon-on-black sign on the patch of grass by the road that says MOSQUE OPEN HOUSE: ALL ARE WELCOME!
The lawn is strewn with tables laden with wares because the open house is really one big superbazaar, a suburban souk, with haggling thrown in for authenticity. People are milling already, and I spot our regular non-Muslims, Cassie, Darren, and Julie, among them.
Fizz sets up her corner, selling scarf jewelry, and I snap some pictures of that. She made the decorated pins herself, melting and molding malleable plastic into interesting shapes, seated at a picnic table in her backyard a few weekends ago. I was there trying to convince her to go wildly corporate, while packaging the trinkets for her.
I look up after taking a picture of a basket of dangly American-flag scarf pins that Fizz thinks will sell like mad for the Fourth of July and see Julie seated at a henna booth across the aisle, with a big smile on her face. Time to take some strategic pictures.
I frame a shot of a woman in niqab, a face covering, decorating Julie’s freckled arm with intricate designs of henna. I check the picture on the LCD display. Sausun is behind the niqabi woman, frowning into my camera. She ruined a perfect shot. I didn’t even realize she was at the booth.
I fit the viewfinder to my eye again. She begins a scowl again.
I go over.
“My uncle, Shaykh Jamal, you know, the imam of the mosque here, needs pictures for the website. That’s what I’m doing, Sausun. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure.” She teases a part of her scarf that’s hanging on her shoulders and lifts it across her face so only her eyes show. “There. Take the pic. I’m working toward this anyway. One day this will be me full-time so shoot away.”
“You’re really going to cover your face?”
“Niqabi all the way.”
I get another shot. A great one, actually: two women with their faces covered, one with chunky Doc Martens boots on, beside an unveiled woman with a huge smile on her face, glancing at her arm being decorated with henna. Sausun drops her face veil when I wave thanks.
“Assalamu alaikum, Janna!” I turn to see Amu walking toward me. This weekend his white beard is cropped close to his face, and he is wearing a linen safari suit. He does that: go from a luxurious, long Moses beard and authentic thowb-wearing-imam look to a gentrified-summer-tourist-imam look, depending on the occasion. He gets criticism from the congregation for both getups. The conservative portion thinks he’s being “liberal” if he wears non-Eastern clothes, and the liberal members of the mosque think he’s not being of the people if he wears Eastern clothes. What they don’t know is what I’ve noticed: When Amu wears Western clothes, he gives sermons on topics conservatives like to hear about, and when he wears Eastern clothes, his topics appeal to liberals. Like I said before, my uncle is very smart.
“Walaikum musalam, Amu.” I return his greeting of peace and give him a hug. He immediately turns to everyone around him and says, “This is my niece, you know! Janna, my sister’s daughter.”
He always does that to make sure he gets no flak for hugging me, a female. He told me once that being an imam meant a lifetime of getting scrutinized by Muslims for everything you do.
“Muhammad is over there helping out. He’s been here for hours.” Amu indicates the refreshment and snack area. There’s a huddle of college kids setting up. “He told me he’s moved back home.”
“Yes, he changed majors.”
“If he has to, I told him he can come live with me.” Amu gives me a brief look before returning to scanning the crowd again. That look tells me Mom has told him my stance on Muhammad moving in. Amu’s not impressed. “But I think he’d like to help your mom with things at home. That would be the best thing.”
I check my camera settings. “What kind of pictures do you want, Amu?”
“Happy pictures. People enjoying themselves.”
He waves Darren over. They walk across and pose for me in front of the clown jumping castle. With Darren’s hair gelled and spiked high, the picture screams mosque website welcome page.
As Amu strolls away with Darren, I back out to widen the frame and crash into someone.
“Whoa,” he says, grinning. “I wish I had a camera of my own, to get your expression.”
The monster actually grazes my arm as he says this.
I fumble around the henna table and make it three tables over to a clothes rack, with as much nonchalance as one can muster when one’s breathing is wheezy for no physical reason.