by Sheba Karim
“And then I got pregnant and gave birth to a two-headed baby?” I replied.
“A hot two-headed baby,” Umar said.
“That’s, like, tabloid cover worthy—it’d give you even more notoriety than a billboard,” Ghaz commented.
I shook my head. “Why do we spend half our time having inane conversations?”
“You know, I was thinking,” Ghaz said, “meeting your dad can’t be that much worse than meeting your uncle. I mean, your uncle was a pretty bitter, angry man. He was the good boy, but his momma never gave a damn.”
“He was the good boy,” Umar sang, mimicking a country song, “but his momma never gave a damn.”
Umar had such a lovely voice they’d first asked him to deliver the call to prayer at his masjid when he was six. His earnest, melodic rendering moved his mother to tears, and prompted his proud father to buy him a new bicycle, which he never used because even back then he was a lazy mofo.
“Okay, Barry Manilow,” Ghaz said to Umar. “So we’ve established that Mars’s journey on this road trip is the search for her father. What about you?”
“What do you mean, what about me?”
“Think of every road trip book you’ve read, or movie you’ve seen. All the main characters have some sort of personal journey—discover something about themselves, or undergo some reckoning, experience some life-changing event.”
“Seriously?” Umar protested. “Isn’t going to places I’ve never been enough? Being on a road trip for the first time? And, hello, what about Tabitha?”
“Okay, you get some points for Tabitha.”
“Yeah, like a hundred million points! What about you?” he said. “What’s the purpose of your journey?”
“My journey is about having some fun and unwinding after my parents stuck me in my room.”
Stuck was one word for it. Ghaz’s ability to minimize what had to have been traumatic experiences was both impressive and unsettling. Her purpose may have been running from her parents, but it took more than physical distance to help you heal. Not to mention the fact that this was a round-trip journey. I promised myself I’d try to get her to talk about her feelings, after we met my father, when I could breathe freely again, without the choke hold of anticipation around my neck.
“That sounds like a cop-out,” Umar told her.
“Hey, this road trip is happening because of me. I’m the catalyst for change. Now stop trying to change the subject.”
I thought of one of my T-shirts. Be the change you want to see. I usually wore it to protests. I’d only gone to two all spring, though. After I dissed Doug, I withdrew into a lonely cesspool of shame and guilt and sorrow at how badly I’d behaved.
God. What if when I met my father it really was like looking into a mirror? What if I was incapable of being true?
No. I wasn’t a terrible person. In fact, prior to Doug, honesty and loyalty were two traits I prided myself on. I had to make sure Doug was an anomaly. I never wanted to hurt anyone like that again.
She was the good girl, but her father never gave a damn.
I tuned back into the front-seat conversation.
“You can’t be scared of being gay,” Ghaz was saying.
“I’m not scared,” Umar insisted.
“Then how come you’ve never kissed a guy? Every time we go to a makeup counter and some guy starts flirting with you, you blush and run away.”
“Uh, what do you want me to do? Unzip his pants while he finds the right foundation for my skin tone?”
“I saw how you were dancing,” Ghaz said. “Admit it. Admit that when you were dancing like that you fully embraced yourself as a sexual being.”
“Come on,” I interjected. “Every time he jerks off to his cub-bear porn he feels like a sexual being.”
“You know what I mean,” Ghaz said. “He knows what I mean. Don’t you?”
“I felt a lot of things last night,” he replied, “and most of them were over by morning.”
“But you’re not the same,” she said. “That experience changed you, didn’t it? Don’t you want to kiss someone?”
“One day, yes. On this road trip, no.”
“It’s okay, Ghaz, we can give him another pot brownie and take him to a gay club,” I teased.
I was kidding, but Ghaz clapped her hands yes, and Umar looked at her askance.
“No more drugs,” he said.
“You don’t need drugs,” she assured him. She poked his waist and he let out a little squeal. “All the brownie and Tabitha Generous did was bring out something that was already inside you. A beautiful, proud, sensuous gay man.”
“Yes. A beautiful, proud, sensuous, gay, Muslim man,” Umar said.
How would Umar’s dad react if he heard his son describe himself this way? Denial, fury, explosion. Napoleon on a moral rampage.
“Why not?” Ghaz demanded. “You are all of those things.”
“Anyway, it’s not the kissing I think about most,” he confessed quietly. “It’s being held.”
“Oh. Oh! Our sweet Umar darling,” Ghaz cried, enveloping him in such an enthusiastic embrace that he almost veered into the next lane.
Whoever Umar fell for one day had better be good to him, or he’d have Ghaz and me to contend with. For all our quibbles, we loved one another fiercely.
“I don’t want to have to label my journey,” Umar told Ghaz. “I want to enjoy the ride. Is that okay?”
“Fine,” she relented. “All I’m saying is that if you meet a cute guy, you should be open to the possibilities.”
“And what if the guy is Mars’s half brother?” he joked.
“Go right ahead,” I offered. “I have no issue with you sleeping with the father/uncle of my two-headed baby. Hell, you can even adopt my two-headed baby, as long as you teach it the work ethic.”
“Keep the change!’” Umar bellowed.
Nineteen
WE COULD TELL WE’D ENTERED the south by the guns and God billboards. Repent Before It Is Too Late. Believe in Jesus, He Believes in You. Guns Save Lives. None of us had been to the South, except Disney World, which didn’t count, and Ghaz’s family trip to Atlanta, which she claimed didn’t really count, either. We spent the night in a motel near Roanoke, Virginia, run by Patels. The sight of a paan-chewing, bespectacled desi uncle in the land of massive white crosses perched atop hills gave us comfort, even if he did look us at disapprovingly when we told him we would all share one room.
Ghaz and Umar passed out, and I Googled Hannah Rae Tipple. I came up with nothing, so I invented her. Her Pinterest page contained photos of knitted scarves and homemade jams and chintz curtains. She had auburn hair and large breasts and was an aspiring equestrian until she fell from her horse as a young girl, and now she had an Etsy store selling custom door wreaths. She was a fan of country music and had a separate closet for her cowboy boots.
Except how did someone like that end up with my father?
Maybe the boundless generosity of her love had rehabilitated him, though not enough to reach out to the two children he’d abandoned. There were thousands of Rahul Sharmas, so Googling him was useless, but there were very few Mariam Sharmas. If he Googled me, he could figure out I was a student at Swat. He’d see a photo of me from the local paper, smiling as I held up a garbage bag. Mariam Sharma, West Grove High Senior, Organizes Community Clean-Up Day. He’d know I was environmentally engaged, that I had inherited his face. Except maybe he’d never even Googled me. Maybe he’d exorcised me like my mother had him, and me turning up at his doorstep would make him angry.
“Mars?” Ghaz whispered, reaching for my arm in the dark. “You okay?”
“How did you know I was awake?”
“You think really loudly sometimes.”
I decided to pull a Ghaz. “It’s all cool, I promise. Go back to sleep.”
Twenty
“LITTLE OLD LADIES DRIVE faster than you,” Umar complained.
I gritted my teeth and said nothing. We’d already h
ad to turn back after a few miles because Umar had left his lota in the motel room, which meant I’d had to merge onto the highway twice already. Though attempting to pass tractor-trailers on the steep ascent of a two-lane highway was the stuff of my nightmares, I was glad to be driving; it allowed me to channel my anxiety toward something concrete and life-threatening and in the moment. Still, it was a relief when we entered Tennessee and the terrain leveled out some.
“Dude,” Umar said. “According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Tennessee is the most Islamophobic state in the country.”
“Awesome,” Ghaz replied. “Is it the most homophobic, too?”
“It’s not funny,” Umar said.
“To you, maybe.”
“I’m serious.”
“What do you think’s going to happen?” Ghaz asked. “Some guy’s going to come up to you and call you a terrorist fag? Relaxi, taxi, you’ll be fine.”
“Repent, before it is too late,” I said in an ominous voice.
“Kill ’em with kindness,” Ghaz continued.
“Explain to them that we believe in Jesus, too,” I said. “Or be like Sanjeev Uncle and tell them, don’t worry, I have the work ethic!”
“Sing some Hank Williams Jr.,” Ghaz suggested.
Umar groaned. “You guys are really helpful, thanks.”
“Hank Williams Jr.?” I repeated.
“Umar loves him.”
“What?”
“I don’t love him, but yeah, I dig some of his tunes. I used to carpool to elementary school with our neighbor, and the dad played a lot of Hank Williams Jr.,” Umar explained.
“Is he good?” I asked.
“If you like country.”
“We’re only kidding, you know,” Ghaz said, reaching forward to muss his hair. “No one’s gonna mess with you. And if they do, Mars and I are your superhero defenders.”
Umar checked his hair in his vanity mirror, re-tousling it to his liking. “Meaning you’ll disarm them with flirting and then Mars will tell them bad jokes and talk about the earth’s impending environmental destruction until they get depressed and run away?”
I frowned. “First off, some of my jokes are pretty good—even you two connoisseurs of humor sometimes say so. Second, I bet Islamophobic homophobes don’t believe in climate change.”
“Okay, fine,” he conceded. “Mars’s superpower can be ghosting.”
“Burn!” Ghaz exclaimed.
“Was that too much?” he asked me.
“Maybe,” I said, “and anyway, if I ghost, how will that help you?”
“Enough, children,” Ghaz said. “I’ve been meaning to make an announcement.”
I held my breath and knew Umar was doing the same; with Ghaz an announcement could have approximately 0 to 50,456 consequences.
“I’ve figured out what I want to do with my life,” she continued.
“We know—be a psychologist,” Umar said. “Or is it now anthropologist?”
“Neither. I’ve realized I want to be an actor. I’m going to apply to transfer to Tisch,” she said.
“That’s interesting,” I said, then wished I could take it back. Interesting was what people said when they didn’t want to say what they really felt, which was, Isn’t it ridiculously hard to actually make it as an actor?
Umar was less circumspect. “What’s your backup plan?” he asked.
“What do you mean, backup plan?” she replied.
“You know there aren’t many roles for desis out there, except maybe a doctor extra on a hospital show,” I pointed out.
“Times, they are a’changing. What about Mindy Kaling? Aziz Ansari? Hasan Minhaj?” Ghaz shot back.
“They’re comedians,” Umar said. “I mean, you can be funny but you’re not a comedian.”
“Wow. Thanks for your support.” Ghaz slumped against the seat, pouty-lipped, chin to chest, folding her arms over her knees.
I immediately felt repentant. If I told Ghaz I wanted to be a turtle farmer, she’d buy me a book on turtles. She would never piss on anyone’s dreams.
“You might have to do some side jobs for a while to help pay the rent until you make it big,” I said. “But I think you’ll be an awesome actor.”
“You’re only saying that because you feel bad.”
“No, I’m saying it because I mean it. Right, Umar?”
“I think so, too,” Umar said. “I swear. I said backup plan because you know, it’s practical to have one, even though you won’t need to use it. Because, remember, your dreams must be connected to reality, like your head must stay attached to your neck.”
“Chill, my naysaying friends,” Ghaz said. “I actually do have a backup plan.”
“What?” we asked.
“Astronaut.”
As Umar and I shared a moment of confused silence, Ghaz broke into laughter. “Who’s a comedian now, witches?”
Twenty-One
SOMEWHERE ON I-40 BETWEEN Knoxville and Nashville, Umar announced that he was starving.
I was still driving; I had insisted on it, even though my butt cheeks were going numb. Behind the wheel, I remained too focused on not killing us all to think about much else.
“Shouldn’t we wait?” I said. “I think we’re less than an hour from Nashville.”
“I might eat my face before then,” he said.
“Oh, not your beautiful face!” Ghaz piped up.
“We’re, like, in the middle of nowhere,” I protested. “And we just passed a rest stop.”
“Look,” Umar said, pointing at a roadside sign. “Lots of options at the next exit.”
The first thing we saw after the exit was a McDonald’s.
“McDonald’s!” Umar exclaimed.
“Sick,” Ghaz complained.
“Come on!” he protested. “Those golden arches never looked so good.”
“We can eat McDonald’s anywhere. Let’s make a rule—on this road trip we eat local,” she proposed.
Umar groaned.
“I’m serious. Keep driving, Mars.”
Umar reluctantly relinquished his dreams of fries and a Big Mac and I kept driving, away from the gas stations and fast-food restaurants clustered around the exit and down a wide road that led past overgrown fields and abandoned buildings and a plethora of churches. Zion Baptist, Assembly of God, Missionary Church of God. I didn’t know the difference between any of them, except they all probably believed homosexuality was a sin, but then so did most of the people at Umar’s masjid.
We finally arrived at the town, a few ugly buildings grouped together on opposite sides of the road. I slowed down and we surveyed the scene. A gas station, a dollar store, a discount tobacco shop, a Chinese takeout called Great Wall of China.
“Chinese?” I said.
“There,” Ghaz said. “On the other side of Western Union. Ivy’s Family Restaurant.”
“Do you think they have fried chicken?” Umar said.
“If they do, I bet it’s better than Roy Rogers,” Ghaz replied.
“Let’s do it,” he said.
The front of Ivy’s Family Restaurant was a wall of mirrored windows, which allowed us to watch our dusty Prius pull into a parking spot between a white PT Cruiser and a freshly waxed, cherry-red pickup truck with wheels as high as my thighs. Ours was the smallest car in the parking lot. Outside, the humidity was so intense you could practically carve your initials into the air.
As she stepped out of the car, Ghaz said, “Well, fiddledeedee,” in a high-pitched, Southern accent, waving an imaginary fan. “It’s hot as balls in Tennessee.”
“What’s fiddledeedee?” I asked.
“You still haven’t seen Gone with the Wind?” Umar cried. “You’re hopeless, and Ghaz, you could get us shot, so be quiet.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “How about not offending the locals?”
Ghaz stuck her tongue out but shut up, and I led the way inside.
Ivy’s interior had no natural light, due to its mirrored windows. I
nstead, it was lit by unflattering long fluorescents, like in hospitals and cafeterias. A bell chimed when the door opened, prompting everyone inside to look up at us, Umar the fabulous with his stylishly draped scarf, Ghaz the long-legged beauty, and me, plain and prim. There were only a few customers: three pimply teenagers in bright blue sports jerseys emblazoned with a snarling tiger; a father, wide-faced, square-jawed, with a forward comb-over and a closely shaved beard in the shape of a narrow strip along his jawline, who was eating something smothered in gravy while his young, blond son had brought his own Big Mac meal. In the corner was a guy dressed in a camouflage hat and shorts. He had beady eyes, a shaved head, an intense tattoo on his upper arm of a dagger with a cross-shaped hilt. He had tucked his napkin into the neckline of his tank top, and his entire meal consisted of a large plate of fries smothered in ketchup, which he was stuffing into his mouth with his fork.
“Scary camouflage man sure likes his fries,” Umar whispered.
We were the only nonwhite people, and likely the only nonlocals, but their expressions seemed more curious than hostile. They didn’t look up at us for long, but still, we made sure to smile, in an attempt to seem both nonthreatening and completely at ease.
A woman came out of the kitchen wearing a neon pink T-shirt, white cotton shorts, and orthopedic shoes. Her name tag read Sylvia. “How y’all doin’?”
“We’re good, how about you?” Ghaz said.
“Oh, I’m good, sweetheart, thank you for asking.”
She was so warm and friendly I relaxed, chiding myself for being paranoid.
“Only the three of you today?” she said.
“We’re enough, believe me,” Umar joked, and Sylvia laughed.
“Right this way,” she said, grabbing three menus and leading us to a table that was thankfully on the farther side of the room from scary camouflage man. “Where y’all visiting from?”
“New Jersey,” I said. “Not too far from New York.”
