The home-decoration store is divided into long aisles of candles and lamps and kitchen utensils. Souad pushes a cart through them, dropping in towels, a teapot, several pans. For pancakes, she thinks. Zain loves them with cinnamon and bananas.
The dress is tight against her hips as she walks, and she tugs at it. Budur was right. The other women, followed by maids pushing shopping carts, all wear bright, revealing clothes. Souad watches as one woman waves at another, and they rush to each other, kiss each cheek loudly.
“Bonjour,” they cry. One woman wears lipstick so red it glows.
When Souad used to think of Beirut, in the months before their move, she envisioned a version of Jordan. The same quiet, languid lifestyle, tea in the garden, long calls for prayer.
Instead, the women here are fiery, wear themselves like banners. They are bolder than women in Paris, even the older ones dressing in neon colors and tight skirts. It is startling, after so long in America, where she often wore the cigarette jeans and workman shirts that Elie found sexy, everything in black.
She touches the sumptuous fabrics of a curtain display, plucking items off the shelves as she walks. Throw pillows, a juicer, picture frames. It is the third time, she realizes, that she’s buying furniture for a house, the third time she’s piecing together scattered, unnecessary objects, trying to build a life around them.
In Boston, she’d kept the walls a dull white, thinking it would be soothing, infuse some calm in her marriage. She hates white now. It became oppressive, like living in perpetual mist. White couches, white carpets, white plates.
Now she wants color. Colors so vivid she can taste them. She wants dishes the color of watermelon; glass tumblers that catch light and splash blue, green; yellow on the walls while they eat. She is starved for iridescence.
Clean slate, she told herself as the plane landed in Beirut. Her life in Boston already feels so distant, a smudge barely visible on the horizon, as do all the people who populated it—her mailman and neighbors, the redheaded cashier at the local grocery store, the women she went to happy hours with. All the little things that made a life, spent. It reminds her of Kuwait. It has felt like a pitch-black hallway, these past few months, this unknown she has pitched herself into; it’s as if she is feeling along with her feet and her fingers, knowing nothing beyond the little that she touches here and there.
After an hour, she pushes her shopping cart back to the play area. Manar is seated on one of the beanbags with a shopping basket at her feet. She has her earbuds in, and her lips move along with a song. Linah and Zain jump up from their toys.
“I won the tournament,” Linah says.
“She cheated,” Zain says. Souad touches Zain’s sweaty forehead.
“To the register, habibi. Manar?” Her daughter reluctantly pulls an earbud out. “You ready?”
“Manar’s getting frogs!” Zain cries out. A small smirk appears on Manar’s face and she brings the basket over.
“And rainbows!” Linah says.
The shopping cart is a multicolored fuck-you. Curtains covered with giant, kitschy rainbows, a sparkly unicorn decal for a small child. A ceramic frog, blue tongue extended.
“Manar—” She catches Manar’s triumphant eye. It’s the age, she reminds herself. “So this is how you want to decorate your room? Frogs and unicorns and rainbows?”
“Yup.” The word clips from Manar’s mouth. “I think rainbows are terrific.”
“Terrific,” Linah echoes.
“Great.” Souad forces a smile. “Great. That’s it, then. Let’s go.”
The cashier is an indifferent woman with long, French-manicured nails. While she waits for an item to scan, she taps a nail on the punch pad. Souad watches the colorful tumblers, the silky curtains and picture frames skim by on the conveyor belt.
“And the basket?” The woman gestures to Manar.
Manar catches Souad’s eye. “Manar,” Souad sighs. “You sure you want this stuff?”
Manar nods bravely, but Souad catches the hesitation.
“Well, okay. You made some fine choices; that unicorn will go beautifully with the blue walls.” They continue to eye each other. It is clear Manar had expected a fight. Not today, Souad thinks.
“Madame?”
“Manar, this nice lady is waiting.”
Manar’s eyes dart between the basket and the conveyor belt. “Maybe—maybe I don’t need the curtains,” she says reluctantly. Souad tries to keep her face neutral but can’t help grinning. There is a beat of silence, and the two of them erupt into loud laughter.
“Madame?” The cashier taps a nail impatiently.
Linah and Zain begin to bounce around, excited by the laughter.
“The unicorn’s wearing a bow tie!”
“I want one too!”
“Green . . . plastic . . . lamp?” Souad gasps, rummaging through the basket.
Manar giggles. “It goes with the frog.” Souad pulls out the ceramic frog, its massive red eyes bulging.
“It looks homicidal.” They collapse with laughter, Manar holding on to her mother’s arm for balance.
“Madame, there are people waiting—”
“We’ll come back later,” Souad says, wiping her eyes. “Just the things you’ve bagged for now. Sorry.”
The cashier rolls her eyes. She takes the basket from Manar and places it on the floor behind her.
“I want the frog!” Linah calls out.
Zain agrees. “Get the frog!”
“We’ll take the frog,” Souad tells the cashier.
In the car, the atmosphere is light, playful. Manar keeps her earbuds in her lap while Souad flips through the radio.
“I saw this white-and-black comforter. I was thinking I could get that,” Manar says as they drive. “Like that hotel we stayed at in Manhattan. Baba said it was modernist.”
The mention of Elie is like a tiny lash, but Souad keeps her voice steady. “That sounds beautiful. We can get a black bed frame, some sheer curtains.”
“And a rug,” Manar adds. Souad fights the impulse to kiss her daughter.
“Like a Prayer” comes on the radio and Souad puts the volume up, starts to sing. When she glances sidelong at Manar, she sees her lips are moving as well. In the back seat, Linah and Zain are dancing, bobbing their heads. Souad rolls the windows down; the warm, humid air rustles around them.
“When you call my name,” Souad yells, and the children erupt in laughter, even Manar. And her heart, her heart, rising with the sound. These are her loves. The hope returns. That treacherous hope, which rises and falls, she can taste it on her lips like salt. She will fix it. She will fix it all.
Once they’re back home, the living room is a mess within an hour, bags and bubble wrap strewn everywhere, Zain and Linah making capes of the packaging paper and running in and out of the rooms.