by S. K. Ali
And I remembered my plans for today.
Today was about avoiding Dad, who, at dinner last night, had already shown signs that this year’s anniversary of Mom’s passing was going to be the same, as hard as usual.
He’d chewed his food for so long while eating that I passed him the salad unasked to break his reverie, to get him to swallow. He nodded and set the bowl beside his plate.
Then he kept his eyes lowered, strictly on his food.
He’d also let Hanna get away with screen time at dinner, which is usually a huge no for him. The entire meal, she laughed her way through episodes of some YouTube show, earphones on, her iPad propped up against the two cans of tomato sauce she’d boldly brought to the table from the cupboard.
It was quiet, like Dad wasn’t there, and yet like he was, because I didn’t dare talk to Hanna, either, in case she said something about Mom.
I let him have it, his withdrawal from us. Besides, I was busy making plans.
First order of the day was to avoid Dad, like I’ve said. Second was to hide myself away in the nanny’s room, aka my workshop downstairs.
The only time the room had been used before was when Mom’s personal support worker had lived with us during the last few months of Mom’s life.
Then it had lain unused until three years ago when, in an attempt to get rid of stuff, I’d packed up and given away the furniture inside, leaving it bare and ready for a new start.
Soon after, when I began journaling marvels, I started a project in the room.
It became my making-stuff space.
Today I wanted to pick up on it again, maybe finally finish the installation I’d begun.
Hanna’s wanting to see the house in the jar that Mom had made had given me an idea: Maybe I could bring together the bits I’d been working on over the years.
I also don’t know how much time I have before I can’t do things like this anymore.
I’ve had a faint headache since I woke up this morning, and whenever I’ve had any type of physical symptom since my diagnosis, I start thinking of what lies ahead.
I want to make sure I use my hands, finish making things, before the numbness that I know waits for me begins.
The third order of the day was currently staring at me on my phone.
Unread message: @ZayA_01.
Avoid Zayneb.
Avoid a fourth impression.
• • •
In the workshop there were cobwebs here and there on the piles of lumber pieces and boxes with paint cans and toolboxes.
Interestingly, the bits of wood for the cosmos installation I’d prepped were pretty clean. And, interestingly again, the pieces had been rearranged from largest to smallest.
Hanna.
I got to work, pulling the extra materials and tools out of the room, into the hallway, clearing it completely again. I wanted the room itself to be part of the project.
I imagined walking into it, like walking into a snow globe, and being immersed in the installation. Becoming a part of it.
The jar had given me this idea. When I’d wanted to go back home to Ottawa so badly, Mom had brought a little of Ottawa to me.
Imagine if I transformed this room into the place where someone would want to escape to?
• • •
As I painted the ceiling cobalt blue, standing on a ladder, the phone in my pocket vibrated with another message.
Zayneb?
I couldn’t look at it. Her message. Her messages.
There was something about her that drew me in so quickly and intensely.
A few things, really.
For example, her bravery at the saluki shelter yesterday.
I can’t believe that I hadn’t figured out she was scared of dogs. Hanna told me she’d thought so when we were returning from Ariel’s pen. “I saw her face when Ariel was running around. She was standing back there shaking. I think she’s just doing this for us. Visiting the shelter with us.”
And sure enough, when we got out into the foyer, I noticed the change in Zayneb. She was a completely different person from the one who’d been in the room with Ariel. She was relaxed, smiling.
She’d swallowed her fear to accompany us. Whoa.
And then, on the ride back to drop her off after the shelter, I got that tingling sensation I’d been getting on and off since September. Up my arms and legs, like tiny shocks were running through, the tingling that had forced me go to the doctor in early November. Paresthesia.
I’d concentrated on looking out the window, on giving no sign to Dad that something was happening inside me.
The feeling left me before we neared Ms. Raymond’s building. Zayneb’s drop-off.
Then I got to thinking: Was there any use? Of just hanging around with her? When it wouldn’t come to anything?
I couldn’t even say a word to her when she got out of the car.
I was trying hard not to so obviously shake off the sensations that had just invaded my body minutes before.
She’d stood there for a bit, then looked up at me and waited a few seconds before saying salaam.
And I’d thought, No.
It isn’t the time to begin something with someone so interesting.
Someone so cute who I am completely attracted to.
Her eyes when she speaks excitedly are captivating, hard to tear away from. And the way she keeps rearranging her lips when she’s listening. Like she wants to open them to speak but is still making up her mind on what she wants to say.
I could look at her all day.
Add to this how frank and open and sure she is, and there, just like that, she had a hold on me.
That’s exactly why I need to avoid her. I was getting drawn so fast and so hard that I was forgetting the things I had going on, the things I had to deal with.
I’d just stood there yesterday, grim, muttering a salaam. Steeling myself within, closing the door.
Bye, this girl I met on a plane who showed up at my house, who showed up in my heart.
There’s nothing ahead for us and nothing comes out of wishing it weren’t so.
I’m pragmatic that way, have always been so, through everything. Including Mom’s passing.
I guess you could call it my survival mechanism.
The dull ache spreading behind my forehead reminds me I need some of that pragmatism to transfer to dealing with my illness, too.
• • •
After spurts of the phone buzzing on and off, things completely stopped, and it became silent while I painted the entire ceiling blue and the walls a white base.
Then the door opened.
Connor stood there. “The cleaning lady let me in. Where were you, bro?”
I put the paint roller in its tray and wiped my hands on the old T-shirt I had on. “That was you messaging?”
“Incessantly.” He looked around at the room. “What’s this? Guest bedroom?”
“No.” I kept my answer simple. None of the other guys understood that I liked to make stuff. They got it when I showed them something cool I’d made, but this sort of stuff? That was actually art? They wouldn’t be on board. Except maybe Tsetso, who did digital drawings.
“We’re meeting for lunch, then catching a movie. At Villaggio, like old times.”
“Gotta finish in here.”
“Come on, Adam.” He carefully tested the door trim for wet paint before leaning on it. “You gotta come out with us. Tsetso’s leaving on Friday, and he’s got a bunch of family stuff, so today’s it for him.”
“I’ll go over to his place tomorrow or something.” I moved the roller in the paint tray, avoiding his eyes.
“Okay, I’m staying here then to help you so you can come too. I’ll just tell the other guys we’ll meet up later.” He crossed his arms.
I looked at him. Connor is the kind of guy you can’t stand, because of his know-it-all, wisecracking ways, but then you just put up hanging around with—because, behind the bravado, he has a strange, deep well
of concern for others. That he is okay openly expressing.
“Are you doing this because of today?” I asked. “Because of my mom?”
“Yup. You’re not going to be here on your own.”
“What if I need to be on my own?”
“Then be on your own tonight.” He cracked a smile. “When your dad and Hanna get home.”
I looked at the ceiling. I’d been imagining setting the strips and dots of wood on it, gluing for the most part, drilling for the heavier bits, and now my plans were shot. There was no way I’d let Connor in on this kind of work. He had no sense of finesse and would ask a million questions, mostly having to do with why I was doing this.
There was no why. Other than wanting to see what I’d sketched in my Marvels and Oddities journal come to life.
And wanting to keep my mind focused on things that didn’t bring me stress.
“So, what can I do to help? Walls need another coat of paint?” He was unmoving, arms still crossed in the doorway, jaws set.
Stubbornly caring while being obtuse was his shtick.
“Let’s go.” I wiped the speck of paint on the back of my right wrist on my shorts.
I wasn’t going to change my clothes. I was just going to get this done and over with.
Connor smiled and punched a victory fist before bounding up the stairs.
ODDITY: THE FRIENDS YOU’RE DEALT
This may be an awful thing to say, but none of the guys I hung around with in Doha before university were friends I’d choose on my own. We were kind of thrown together, and it’s the law of third-culture kids, kids going to school in a country other than the one they called home, that you friend-up fast, with whatever people you’re dealt. Otherwise you get overtaken by the isolation that comes from navigating a new place that you know will be temporary.
Living with your parents while they work abroad is sort of like a long vacation you’re sentenced to, with the promise you’ll be coming home again one day. It’s not truly home, and yet you’re expected to make it comfy.
Most of the other kids at DIS were children of oil industry executives from England, the US, or Australia, or professors at the many offshoot American-college campuses in Doha.
Most of them took their sentencing in Doha as a way to have tons of fun—well the tons that were available in Qatar.
Which meant each week we watched the same, limited-fare choice of movies at the theaters, sometimes over and over again. Ate at the same best burger places. Went dune buggy riding when a parent offered to take us. And hung out at the same people’s houses, usually the hugest houses in our circle of friends.
For some reason, the circle I ended up with consisted of people who were loud, easily excited about movies and music, and into nothing I was into.
But they were also squeaky-clean. Meaning I didn’t have to compromise anything with them—like my being a practicing Muslim. They were okay not boozing and, other than a couple who smoked once in a while, were not into drugs, either.
They were the clean crew at DIS. But that was the only way we were similar.
They say friends are the family you choose.
And yeah, I guess that’s sort of true, if family is made up of people you put up with because they care about you and you them.
• • •
“Remember we thought Madison and Jacob wouldn’t last?” Connor drove fast, navigating a roundabout while weaving to get to the exit lane as quickly as he could. He was roommates with Madison at UC Berkeley, having been best friends with her throughout DIS. “They did.”
“That’s cool.”
“College on two different continents. And they did it. Well, Madison did it. She was the one skyping Jacob every single night.” We were approaching the mall. “Did you meet anyone?”
“Nope.”
“I sure did. Someone older.” He laughed, turning the steering wheel fast to make the left turn into the parking lot. “Nancy. She’s a TA. Was my TA for my intro to international economics course. And totally hot. Totally older, like four years. I turned nineteen in January, so we’re legit.”
I nodded, picturing Connor with an older woman, even ten years older. It was an easy thing to imagine.
“She knows I want to go into politics, and she’s helping me figure it out.”
“Cool.”
“Hey, by the way, your friend is going to hang with us,” he said, glancing at me as he waited for someone to back out of a parking spot.
“Friend?”
“At your house, your dad’s party. Zee something. The girl with your little sister, with the head scarf?”
“Zayneb?”
“Yeah, Zayneb. Forgot her name. She’s with the girls, and Emma Phillips—who, by the way, hasn’t given up on you, according to Emma Zhang—said they’d catch the movie with us after shopping.”
I nodded again, groaning inside, willing myself to not flip the sun visor mirror down and check my hair in it, check if I had paint flecks on my face.
So much for my plans for today.
So much for avoiding a fourth impression.
ZAYNEB
TUESDAY, MARCH 12
ODDITY: FAILS
EXHIBIT A: ME IN MY first yoga class.
My resolution to become calmer didn’t make it through even one yoga class.
Yoga was a lot of breathing carefully—“down to your toes,” according to the instructor—while doing things my body had never done before, so I left to find more pleasurable things to do. Like go to the bathroom. (Before I escaped, Auntie Nandy gave me a look of triumph as she rocked on her butt with her legs almost wound around her head, in sync with the other women near her. At that moment, I’d been lying spread-eagle and defeated on the mat, so I acknowledged her prowess by whispering, “I hail your yoga mastery, Auntie Nandy, but this disco queen is going to the bathroom.”)
As I turned the corner of the gym complex, the pool greeted me through a long, windowed wall, with its cheerful kidney shape and reflected-blue water. There was one middle-aged man bobbing up and down, facing a curved corner in the shallow end, as well as a woman doing laps in a black swimsuit and white cap.
I watched her for a bit and nodded. This was more like it. This was real exercise.
I went back to the changing room near the entrance of the fitness center and fixed my hijab, already wrapped turban style for yoga, so that it sat even tighter on my head. I was wearing leggings and a big long-sleeve tee that went almost to my knees, so it would do for swimming. Though I might have to tie a knot in my shirt once I got in the pool to keep it from riding up.
I got this.
I was going to be so zen floating in the water. Maybe even do some breathing to my toes.
Yes. The bobbing guy wasn’t in the pool anymore, so it would be just me and the lap-swimming woman. Somehow the situation felt immensely more relaxing.
I wouldn’t be fighting with my shirt the entire time.
If only the windowed wall weren’t there, making it possible for guys to walk by and glance in, it would be utterly perfect.
I nodded at the woman in the pool as she took a rest to adjust her goggles, and she smiled and nodded back at me. Then she went back to her laps.
I put a toe in. The water temperature was perfect, so I dropped my entire self in and flipped onto my back.
Ah. Immediately my shoulders relaxed and my arms went limp as I stared at the diffused lights on the ceiling.
This, I thought, as I breathed down to my floating toes, I could do each and every day.
Every single day.
It was literally like worries were melting, disappearing into the water through those body pores of mine immersed in the pool. Before high school, I used to swim every weekday, and then it became only on vacations. And each vacation I’d make a resolution to bring the daily pool back into my life—until reality hit again via school and extracurricular life.
This was perfect.
I floated around and around, my eyes closed, wa
ter muffling my ears, feeling my way to zen, when someone nudged me. I opened my eyes to the white-capped woman by my side saying something.
After righting myself to tread water—where was I in the pool now, anyway?—I pulled on each of my ears to clear them and then turned to face her.
“Someone wants to talk to you!” she said loudly, indicating the windowed wall behind me.
Oh. It must be Auntie Nandy.
I looked, ready to smile and wave, but was greeted with a weird frozen tableau on the other side of the window. With a towel around his torso, the bobbing middle-aged man was staring at me, standing with his legs apart beside the fitness center attendant, the one who’d signed Auntie Nandy and me into the facility, who now had his arms crossed, a frown on his face.
He pointed at me and then tucked his index finger in so he was holding a thumb up, which he then pulled back in a swift motion.
“He’s telling you to get out of the pool?” The woman beside me looked as perplexed as I felt. “It seems like he’s saying You. Out. Now.”
I pointed at myself and tilted my head at the two men. Me?
Both the attendant and the bobbing man nodded, their frowns deepening.
“I thought it was strange when he just got out of the hot tub and marched out of here,” the woman said, so low that it seemed to be almost to herself.
“Who?” I swam to the edge, worry prickling my previously relaxed limbs.
“Him. He’d been in the pool with me before you came and then moved on to the hot tub.” She swam alongside me and watched as I hoisted myself up, being careful to secure my turban. “Then, when you arrived, he waited a bit and then stalked off. I wonder what that’s about.”
I stood up, dripping, wringing all the water I could from my shirt. “You mean he was in here the whole time?”
I thought he’d left!
I glanced around and noticed the hot tub tucked in a corner, kind of hidden by a row of short palm trees. Right.
I waved at the helpful woman and went to see what was up.
• • •
It was all about me not wearing the proper swim attire.
