? ? ?
The elevator doors open, and we go out the lobby doors in adorable silence, Tats squeezing my arm so that only I can feel her joy for me, Jeremy strolling slightly ahead, hands in his pockets and shoulders thrown back, relaxed. I wave good-bye to them as I get into Muhammad’s car. He’s texting something while snorting in laughter, but I have no interest in knowing his business. “Hurry, everyone’s there already. Sarah said to come right in—door’s unlocked.”
It feels beyond a crush now. Jeremy understood me without me saying anything weird like I’m a Muslim girl, and I’m scared to meet with you. He was okay without me explaining myself. Whoa, this is stirring something up in me, breezy and swift. I feel unanchored and it feels good.
That huge red balloon that’s my heart? It’s floating somewhere in the sky—no parachute needed. Unleashed.
? ? ?
Walking into Saint Sarah’s house is like walking into a tomb. There’s this hush that comes over Muhammad and me as we step lightly through the white hallway toward the door at the end that leads to the basement. Pristine white tiles, glowy white walls, with no pictures or decorations to mar the sobriety.
“This is so interesting,” I whisper. “I feel like we’re visiting the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or something.”
I sense a slight flicker of something from my fuzzy peripheral vision. Saint Sarah’s parents are sitting in the dining room off the hallway. There are coffee mugs and an Arabic newspaper open on the table in front of them. Her father holds up a corner of the paper, and, from the way he peers at me, I can tell he heard my comment.
“Assalamu alaikum warahmathullahi wabarakathu,” Muhammad says, moving his bulky body into a please-the-in-laws-to-be pose, very similar to how a praying mantis may appear approaching the most sacred of altars.
“Walaikum musalam,” Saint Sarah’s dad says, keeping the greeting of peace short and only sorta sweet.
He looks back at me while lifting his coffee cup to his lips, gaze stern.
“This is my sister, Janna,” Muhammad says, bowing lower. “She is in tenth grade.”
“Hm,” Saint Sarah’s mom says. “I know you from the mosque. You always pray in the back, you and your friends. Am I right?”
OMG, was she thinking of the times Fizz and I used to whisper to each other in prayer when our foreheads were on the ground and we thought no one was watching us? We used to get into so much trouble when the older women caught us.
Muhammad turns to me, raising his eyebrows taut in an effort to prod me to answer without thumping me on my back, as he would have done at home.
Wait. She couldn’t have been thinking of me and Fizz whispering. Saint Sarah’s family moved here two years ago, when Fizz and I had learned to actually pray during prayers.
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “I’m usually in the back of the prayer hall.”
“Hm,” she says.
“What is this that Sarah is saying, that your father has invited the quiz team to stay with him in Chicago?” her dad asks, semiglaring at Muhammad. “Why is this? Why this new thing? What is it about?”
“Oh, yes. My father thought that since the Quiz Bowl may be late in finishing, it would be nice to have a place to stay instead of returning so late on Saturday,” Muhammad says. “The girls would be downstairs and the guys would be upstairs, so it would be quite proper.”
“Hm,” her mom says.
“We have family in Chicago,” her dad says. “We used to live there, you know. So Sarah will be staying with her cousin.”
“Oh,” Muhammad says, his praying mantis position collapsing slightly. “Thank you for allowing her to stay in Chicago. She’ll get the rest she needs before driving back.”
“Of course we would think of that. We are her parents,” her mom says. “Hm.”
“And you, this sister,” her dad says, looking at me over his coffee rim while snapping the newspaper. “You are also in this quiz game?”
Is it my insecure imagination or does Saint Sarah’s mom have a look of disbelief on her face?
“Yes, she is! She is awesome, Mom and Dad!” Saint Sarah says, materializing suddenly (and stealthily, I might add) to wrap an arm around my stiff shoulders. “This girl knows so much about our beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him!”
She’s wearing something frothy, with pink and yellow bouquets painted over it. Her hijab has a large rosy silk peony pinned to the side of it.
This is what Muhammad gets treated to every time he visits? This vision of the feminine mystique?
Saint Sarah’s dad nods and resumes reading his newspaper. Her mom keeps staring at me though, like she knows about me and Jeremy in the elevator, so I quickly join Muhammad and Saint Sarah as they head down the basement steps. We follow Saint Sarah’s gauzy dress trailing down the carpeted (white) stairs.
? ? ?
The whole team is downstairs. Sausun is curled up on the only single chair, so I end up sitting between Saint Sarah and Aliya on the sofa. Muhammad and Nuah hang out on the floor, relaxed. From the way he and my college brother are high-fiving and carrying on every time they’re in sync with something—shouting out answers, cracking jokes, or providing commentary—it’s like Muhammad’s found his long lost twin brother.
As for us girls, we have nothing in common.
Sausun: tall, thin, languid, bored, yet easily irritated, especially by pleasantness of any kind; has immensely set-apart, huge, dark-lined hazel eyes, like a manga character; memorized the whole Qur’an in Arabic at a young age; born to a loaded Saudi father and a beautiful South African–Indian mother; speaks Arabic and Urdu in addition to English.
If she did end up covering her face, it would be like saying to the world You cretins and peasants are only permitted to see my eyes. Which, lo and behold, wouldn’t you know it, happen to be my most striking feature.
Aliya: a jolly, wholesome, triangular-scarf-wearing, kind soul; with standard-issue big glasses that have survived all the phases possible for their existence, from the only choice in eyewear to a staple of geekdom to the latest cool accessory; possessing a motherly yet giggly nature, sometimes laughing at the wrong times while saying the wrong things to the wrong people (i.e., she and Sausun did not hit it off); born a big sister, always hustling ahead to smooth the way for others; complete lack of evil tendencies or stealth behavior sometimes makes her boring (but dependable in the times when your own depravity has caught up with you).