“Of course there’s okra. Probably covered in oil.” She raises a perfectly sculpted thick eyebrow. Her eyes are hazel, and when paired with those eyebrows, they make a look-at-me combination. But she wears long gowns with Doc Martens boots and severe black scarves on her head, so she’s not exactly a glamour queen. Kind of the opposite actually. “Okra is not edible in my book. Like something forgotten that’s been foraged and forced on us. Like eggplant and mushrooms.”
“Wow, you’re really antivegetable for a vegetarian.” I open the fridge. “There are potato samosas in here I think. I can reheat them if you want.”
“No. I come prepared.” She bends down and rifles through a laptop bag on the ground. “My own food. For such predicaments.”
She holds up a bag of marshmallows with HALAL written on it in red writing. “Halal” means “permitted” in Arabic. Regular marshmallows may have gelatin from pork sources.
But all marshmallows need some type of gelatin. I make my way to Sausun.
“Want some?” she asks, dangling the bag. She rips it open.
“No, I just want to read the ingredients.”
“It’s halal.”
“I know, but is it halal from beef gelatin? Or”—I scan the list—“fish gelatin. So that makes you a pescatarian. Because you eat fish, too.”
“Thanks. For ruining my marshmallows.” She continues shoving them into her mouth while watching me take out the samosas. Auntie Fatima returns from the living room, holding three bouquets of flowers.
“Oh, thank you, Janna. I’ll heat those.” She trades the samosa plate in my hands for the bouquets.
I hope she doesn’t tell me to leave the kitchen. To go and enjoy myself.
Stop and smell the flowers, isn’t that what they tell you to do in stressful situations? Closing my eyes, I bury my face in the blooms and inhale.
A snort of laughter from the corner of the kitchen greets my attempt at de-stressing. I open my eyes to Sausun’s smirk.
What a . . . pescatarian.
Saint Sarah drifts in and kisses Auntie Fatima three times, saying salaam. There’s a silk purple peony pinned at the side of her head, holding up her mauve scarf. It turns to me before she does.
“Janna! So good to see you.” She comes over for a hug, but I hold up the mess of flowers in front of my face, with a smile, to indicate my unfortunate busyness.
She grabs them, bends to take a bottle of water from the case under the kitchen table, and strides to the dining room. She’s back before I can leave. A vase full of flowers decorates the center of the oak table behind her.
“I wanted to talk to you.” Saint Sarah picks up both my hands and lifts them as if I’m a puppy she is examining. “Will you join our team for the quiz competition? We desperately need your brains.”
“I have exams,” I say. “Sorry.”
“I heard you’re working on a graphic novel of the Prophet’s life,” she continues, ignoring me. “So I thought you would be perfect for the seerah questions. There’s a whole category of them.”
Muhammad is already telling her intimate details about my life? Great.
I drop my hands. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got three important exams.”
“Think about it,” Saint Sarah says, smiling.
“Yeah, think about it,” Sausun calls as I leave. She’s eating samosas, an empty bag of marshmallows stuck under her arm.
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I make the mistake of escaping into the family room. The monster is there on his own, fitting wires into the sound system. His back is to the door, so he doesn’t see me. I find Aliya in the hall, arranging guest shoes in neat rows, and ask her to tell Fizz that I’m sorry, but I had to leave because of not feeling well. I actually am sick to my stomach. Aliya goes to get me a plate of food, but I’m already opening the door.
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On the bus, I lean my head against the glass window. The scene outside turns from suburbs to city. The scene inside me is one I don’t want to replay, but the remote control is not in my hand. Seeing him at Fizz’s again is like involuntarily pressing play on a personal nightmare.
MISFITS
Saturday morning is prime exam-prep time, so I’m in bed studying when Muhammad knocks. He enters looking like a wombat. Not a cute one—one of those perpetually worried ones.
I don’t know what happened with Saint Sarah’s parents on Wednesday, but I do know that when I went to get a glass of water last night, he was up at three a.m., that special time of night Allah says if anyone has a really urgent prayer they need answered, ask it then. Well, Muhammad was up asking it, praying with this look I’ve never seen on his face. I think he’d call it sincerity, but I’d call it desperation. Uncharacteristically I did feel sorry for him and found myself saying ameen out loud after a particularly long prayer he muttered. He stood, yanked up his prayer rug, and took it into the dining room.
I mean, I realize Saint Sarah’s parents are tough to crack. Imagine a Muslim version of the American Gothic couple, with a beard on the husband and a black hijab on the wife. I don’t know how they begat Saint Sarah and her bubbliciousness. It doesn’t make sense. Like in my family, our respective resemblance to each parent is obvious. I’m like Dad in a lot of ways. He dresses in black too, knows how to stay on course, never surrender, remain calm, and carry on. Like me.
Muhammad and Mom are easily lured, misled, and taken for a ride.
My brother holds out the same plastic-bag offering from his car yesterday and places it on the bed.
“Your phone.” He takes a seat at the desk, his frame casting a moving shadow over its laminate surface as he swivels the chair to face me. “It’s yours. And not a trade for the room. I bought it, but Mom’s paying the monthly plan. It’s too much of a hassle to return it now.”
I look at the bag but resist the urge to check it out.
“So what happened with your visit to Sai—Sarah’s parents? Why the middle-of-the-night prayers?” I ask.
“Her parents are not too happy that I switched majors. They heard from their friends I was going to study law. That’s what they wanted.”
“What are you going to study now?”
“You mean what have I been doing for the past year? Philosophy. I want to do my doctorate. Which is why Dad pulled the college funds.”
“What?”
Muhammad’s face is tight, like he doesn’t want to get into it.
“He only agreed to pay if I did something that would benefit LID, Inc., somehow. Philosophy, no matter how I stretch it, doesn’t fit the bill.” He laughs. “Nor pay the bills, according to Sarah’s parents.”
He gets up and turns the chair back in position to face the desk. His eyes fall on the graphic novel, and he picks it up to flick through.
A smile flits his face. “My favorite scene.”
He holds up a picture of kids sitting in trees, singing to welcome the Prophet to Medina.
I remember yesterday. “Why’d you tell Sarah about my book?”
“They needed somebody good at seerah for the quiz team.” He walks to the door.
The slump of his shoulders stops me from yelling at him.
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Mom is out for a hair and facial appointment, so I’m able to check out her room. There are three folded screens leaning against the wall, really pretty ones. Muhammad bursts in as I’m fingering the wood veneer on them, his phone in the air. “They’re okay with it! Her parents are okay with me and Sarah continuing!”
“Yay.” That’s all I can muster. I let him have a high five.
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