Does My Head Look Big in This?

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

  “Wise parents. So Simone and Eileen are going?”

  “Yep.”

  I told them on the bus and by the time we got halfway home they were already discussing what they were going to wear.

  “And how will you get there? I think we should drop you off.”

  Panic floods through me. “Simone’s mum offered.” She hasn’t but I’ll make a quick call as soon as my mum leaves the room. “She’s going out that night so she doesn’t mind. It’s on her way. And she said she’ll drop us off home too. So you don’t have to bother or worry about anything.”

  “We want you home by ten thirty. No later.”

  “What about eleven?”

  “No.”

  “Oh come on, Mum! Ten thirty is embarrassing! I’ll look like a geek! Please! It’s hard enough as it is. . .” I bat my eyelashes at her and she rolls her eyes.

  “OK.”

  “Eleven thirty would be more appropriate for Simone’s mum though. I don’t want to wreck her night.”

  “If there’s any possibility of her night being wrecked, we’re more than happy to get in the car and pick you up. Eleven or you will not hear the end of it, Amal. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Waterford.”

  Simone and I meet up for a walk after school.

  “So your mum’s OK being taxi driver?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure! No big deal.”

  While we’re walking Simone asks me to promise that I won’t go aggro on her.

  “About what?”

  “Just promise first.”

  “I hate those tests. I use them on my parents for God’s sake.” She gives me a desperate, pleading look and I promise.

  “OK,” she says nervously. “I’ve . . . I’ve started . . . look, I’ve tried every diet, OK? And nothing works. My appetite is just too big for carrots and celery. Even if I go all moderate, like a sandwich for lunch, I still crave something sweet or I just don’t feel full up. So I’ve . . . started smoking.”

  “What?”

  “Apparently it’s a good appetite suppressant. How do you think Tia keeps her figure? I overheard her telling Claire and Rita that she doesn’t eat much, just smokes because it stops her cravings.”

  “Yeah but my cousin Samantha smokes and pigs out all the time! She has Macas at least once a day.”

  “Is she skinny?”

  “Er . . . yeah.”

  She sighs. “See? It’s not fair! That sucks. I’m so sick of seeing everyone in their tight jeans and little tops pigging out on chocolate when I’m eating an apple. Nothing works. I don’t give a shit what happens to me. I just want to hate food, so every time I feel like eating I’m going to smoke. I don’t give a damn any more.”

  “You’re serious about this?”

  “I’ve made up my mind.” Her eyes are narrowed tightly and she looks at me with full conviction. “I know it causes cancer and stinks and stuff, but that’s all too hypothetical for me. My weight isn’t. And it’s all calculated, OK? Part of a plan. One year of smoking to get the weight off, and then I’ll quit. It can’t honestly affect me for one year!”

  “You’ll get hooked.”

  “No I won’t. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re crazy. It’s addictive. It says so on the packet! It’s like getting into a car with a big warning sign on the windscreen, ‘If you drive this car you will eventually die’. You wouldn’t even contemplate touching the car. So why would you get into smoking? Does that sound sane to you?”

  Simone looks at me and shrugs. “Amal, give it up. I know what you’re saying makes sense but I’m not interested.” She takes a lighter and packet of cigarettes out of her bum bag and lights a cigarette.

  “It stinks!”

  She exhales her cigarette smoke and sighs melo­dramatically. “No, Amal,” she says, “being fat is what stinks.”

  28

  I want to shave his eyebrows off and superglue pink feathers in their place. Tia’s here. Since when is she part of his circle of friends? She’s standing by the pool, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in another, throwing back her hair and laughing with a cute guy she’s talking to.

  Simone, Eileen and I walk through the crowd. There are lots of other people we don’t recognize hanging around, huddled together, dancing, laughing, gossiping and drinking. Everybody’s divided up into their status groups. The cool group, the good-looking group, the confident group, the shy group, the sober group, the tipsy group, the spectators, the participators. The school hierarchy is comfortably setting itself up and the three of us are feeling nervous.

  “Why is everybody staring?” Eileen asks us.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Simone and I say in unison. We all stare at each other in surprise and then burst out laughing.

  “We are ultra stress heads!” I say.

  We walk over to the side of the crowd and Simone lights a cigarette, anxiously looking around as she inhales.

  “I can’t believe you, Simone!” Eileen exclaims. “You look like a try-hard. Do you actually enjoy it?”

  “Hell no! I hate the bloody things. I stink and I’m still learning how to inhale the stuff.”

  “So why are you doing it then?”

  “Can we please not open up that discussion again? Hey, Amal, there’s Adam. He’s seen us. He’s slowly walking through the crowd. He’s approaching—”

  “Simone, I don’t need a news report. I can see. Don’t make it obvious.” My skin starts to feel all goosepimply. Lucky I’m wearing long sleeves or it’d be a dead giveaway. “He looks so good. He shouldn’t be allowed to wear a black skivvy. Doesn’t he have the most amazing muscles?”

  “Doesn’t he have a brother?” Eileen asks and we chuckle.

  He’s beside us in a moment and we all have a bit of a laugh and small talk. Things always start off a little awkward outside of school gates.

  “So are you having fun?”

  “We just got here,” Simone says.

  “But the atmosphere’s pretty cool,” Eileen says.

  “How about you, Amal?”

  “Great skivvy.”

  “You like?” he says, cocking his head to the side and looking at me with a cheeky expression.

  “I meant the fabric.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “Oh, well, you’re entitled to one compliment on your birthday, I guess.”

  Somebody calls out to him and he looks disappointed. “I’ll come by soon. Don’t go anywhere!”

  “Yep.”

  “Subtle,” Eileen says, grinning at me when he has walked away.

  I groan and she slings her arm around my shoulder. “Hon, I believe somebody well and truly has a crush on you.”

  “Nah!”

  “Most definitely,” Simone says. “The way he looks at you.”

  “I feel hot. I need a Coke.”

  We head off to grab drinks and mingle with some people from school. For the next hour we end up sitting on the edge of the pergola studying the crowd and wondering why we bothered to come. Simone is on her fifth cigarette and is telling me how difficult it is to suck her stomach in as she inhales and Eileen’s gone to the bathroom to fix her hair.

  I’m watching everybody, fascinated by the effect of alcohol on people. The self-conscious or haughty or dignified air they have when they first arrive seems to just burp out of their bodies. There’s a girl who, when she arrived, had been looking at the floor as she walked, tugging her top down and avoiding eye contact. She’s on a chair now doing a cheerleader routine. A guy who walked in with a scowl on his face is now clowning around in an attempted solo Zorba dance.

  “Adam’s looking for you,” Eileen tells me when she returns.

  “Me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’
s been walking around asking people where you are. You’re kind of hidden here, don’t you think?”

  I grin at her. “That’s the idea.”

  “A bit uncomfortable?”

  “Uncomfortable?” Simone chuckles. “This whole night is like a permanent atomic wedgie.”

  Eileen and I laugh, nodding our heads in agreement. Simone suddenly motions at us to look towards the pool area. “Check it out!” She points to a circle of people cheering on Tia, as she stands on a table and slips her top off, throwing it into the crowd. She only has her bra on and is laughing and trying to keep her balance as she dances, winking at people in the crowd and blowing them kisses.

  We look at each other wide-eyed, and then collapse into hysterical giggles. Adam appears before us. We smile sheepishly at him and I try to regain my composure, smoothing out my clothes and hijab.

  “Hi!” I say, smiling at him.

  “Having fun?” he asks.

  “Sure,” the three of us reply at the same time.

  “Can I speak to you alone?” he asks me and I stare back at him in surprise.

  “Yeah, OK.” I jump off the edge and walk with him through the crowd and inside, where the music is pumping loudly and people are dancing in a frenzy. For a moment I lose my pace with Adam as I squeeze through the crowd. He’s already ahead of me, at the French doors at the end of the room. I squash myself through a couple when a guy comes up to me and puts his arms around my shoulders, and I nearly choke on his breath.

  “Scarf girl!” he shouts happily. “Helloooo scarf girlll! Tell me, do you have hair? Take off your scarf and belly dance for us!” He laughs in my face and I want to gag, wondering why they don’t make it compulsory to serve cool mints with alcohol. “Hey,” he whispers in my ear, “the story goes that Adam’s planning on getting you in the sack! Woo hoo! Who said you Middle Eastern girls don’t have fun?”

  My face crumbles into shock and I quickly walk away. I feel numb and dizzy. Then I reach Adam and he grabs my hand, leading me away from the crowd and through the house. He takes me out through a side door, to another courtyard, only this one is quiet and empty of people.

  I feel almost panicky, wondering whether I’ve just heard a drunken joke or if it’s true. I sit on a chair, not knowing if I should stay or go. Adam sits on a table, smiling at me.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yep. So? Are you having fun?”

  “Me? Yeah, yeah . . . sure I am. Cool party.”

  “You’re such a bad liar. You couldn’t spin if your life depended on it.”

  I crack my knuckles nervously.

  “So. . .” My head is going to burst through my scarf and explode into a shattered pulp on the floor. He doesn’t say anything, just dangles his legs and stares at me with an intensity that makes me feel giddy. I look away, down at my hands, up again at his face, and then down again. I don’t want things to change. I want things to stay as perfect as they are between us. I want to forget about what that guy just told me and for Adam to stop leaning towards me.

  His face is inches from mine and as he moves in to kiss me I jolt back.

  “I . . . I. . .”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m so sorry, Adam. . . I didn’t. . . I mean, I never thought to lead you on. . .”

  “What’s wrong? I thought you liked me – I thought—”

  “Adam, I . . . I don’t do that stuff. . .”

  “What stuff?”

  “Kissing – I mean dating – I mean, you know, physical—”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. . .” I can feel my face blushing, “well, sex before marriage is uh-uh.”

  “You can’t have sex before you get hitched?”

  “Yeah.”

  He coughs. “Who said we were going to have sex, anyway?”

  My face is now unbelievably cooked with embarrassment and I fidget uncomfortably in my seat. “I didn’t mean it that way. . . Oh my God this is so embarrassing.”

  “For you or me?”

  “I did hear a rumour, though.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I heard . . . you know, that you wanted to. . .”

  “What? Do it with you? Shit, Amal, how bloody naïve are you?!” He runs his fingers through his hair and shakes his head. “If I was going to sleep with you, don’t you think you’d have something to say about it? If people are talking about it, what the hell has that got to do with you and me? Do you think I’m the type to go around and talk about you?”

  “I . . . somebody just told me they’d heard you were going to try to get me in the sack. Look, I know you wouldn’t have talked about me, OK? But do you know how cheap it made me feel to hear somebody say that about me?”

  “Look, Amal, just because I want to kiss you doesn’t mean I’m running an Durex account at the local chemist.”

  “I should hope not,” I say lightly, making an effort to smile at him. But he’s silent and stares awkwardly at me. After a few moments he speaks up.

  “So you don’t date then?”

  “Er . . . no.”

  “I don’t get it . . . that means you can never live for the moment. You’ll always be repressing yourself.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t see it like that.”

  “Oh come on. Your parents aren’t around to hear you. You can tell the truth.”

  “It is the truth. It’s got nothing to do with them. It’s what I believe in.”

  “So if you meet a guy and you like him and he likes you . . . what happens? You just ignore your feelings?”

  “No. But I’m not . . . look, I don’t believe in the ‘playing the field’ and ‘try before you buy’ philosophies, OK? I don’t want physical intimacy with a list of people in my life. I want it with one person. And I want to know it’s the same with him too. That’s my faith. It’s not about guys slutting around and virgin girls waiting patiently at home for a guy to come along. It’s . . . look, in my religion we both have to be . . . pure . . . untouched . . . you know? Agh! It’s so hard to explain. . . Oh hey! Jessica Simpson kept her virginity before she got married! There you go!”

  “Well you are repressing yourself.” I can tell he’s losing his temper and I suppose it’s because of the rejection and the confusion but the atmosphere is getting more intense and uncomfortable.

  “I’m not repressed. I don’t feel left out. I can still care and share with a guy without having to get physical with him.”

  “How will you know how to find this chick obsession with ‘the one’ when you’ve never even been with a guy? Never even kissed a guy?”

  “There’s no formula to love! If I got with ten guys, each time will be different and each time I’ll be thinking this is a risk. And when I finally meet someone I’m still going to be facing the biggest risk of my life but ten other experiences aren’t going to tell me if this guy is the right one. Each person is . . . too unique to be judged by ten others.”

  “That’s crap. You need experience. How will you know if he’s the right one if you don’t know who the wrong one is?”

  “So I have to fall to know how to walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t think so.”

  He hops off the table, pacing angrily up and down. “So what you’re saying then is that we’re all sluts and sleazes and you’re above that?”

  “What? No! I didn’t say that! Why would you think that? My own cousin has been with her guy for two years now. I love them to death, I’d never think badly about them. What do you think I am? Some bitch who walks around looking down at everybody just because I believe in something different?”

  He doesn’t say anything, only shrugs his shoulders and grunts.

  “Why is it that when I believe in something differe
nt, I’m the one apparently judging you? What about you judging me? Why is it so bloody offensive that there are people out there who don’t do the whole sex thing before they get married? Or who don’t do the whole physical thing? Who gives a shit? Isn’t it my business? Or is that just too weird to accept? I’m obviously a bitchy love-me-do because I’m different. Yeah, great logic there, Adam.”

  We look at each other and then the anger in his face suddenly drops away. And something worse replaces it. Aloofness.

  “Hey, whatever you believe in is up to you.” His tone is so dry it feels like he’s put it in one of those machines Mum uses to dry fruit. Like an apricot whose juices have been sucked out, leaving a shrivelled, dehydrated lump. “I thought we had something more than friendship. But I guess we are different. Too different.” He lets out a bitter laugh.

  “You don’t understand me after all,” I whisper.

  He looks at me with hollow eyes and casually shrugs his shoulders. “I think you’re right. You don’t understand me and I don’t understand you. We’re even.”

  I feel like I’m about to suffocate on the tension and I run out of the courtyard and through the house. Tia bumps into me on my way out and stands in front of me, bursting into laughter as she looks me up and down.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks, her voice an intoxicated mix of smugness and haughty amusement. “Isn’t this, like, sinful for you? Won’t you burn in hell? Rebelling tonight, are we? And all for Adam’s sake.”

  Rage hammers through my head and I am momentarily too overwhelmed with emotions to move or say anything. She takes a sip of her drink and leans towards me conspiratorially.

  “Piece of friendly advice: you should take that thing off before you do the dirty with him. It might get in his way.”

  I push her. She sprawls back on to the floor, her glass smashing next to her.

  “You bitch!” she cries. “You could have cut me. How dare you! Why don’t you just get out of our country and go back to some desert cave where you belong?”

  I stand over her, my heart drumming in my chest. “This is my country and if you ever forget it again I’m going to rip your head off!” I turn away and plough through the crowd to find Eileen and Simone.