Woodbury, Minnesota
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. © 2011 by Medeia Sharif.
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Acknowledgments
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. wouldn’t have been published without the support of many people …
My agent Marlene Stringer took a chance on me. There aren’t enough words to thank her for what she’s done to launch my writing career.
I had the pleasure of working with acquisitions editor Brian Farrey and production editor Sandy Sullivan—their keen editorial eye not only made this book blossom, but I’ve grown as a writer under their care. Publicists Marissa Pederson and Steven Pomije also reached out to me, making this debut author feel at home. I’m fortunate to have the Flux team by my side.
The SCBWI Aventura Group has done wonders for my writing. They welcomed me with open arms and large doses of encouragement. Thank you Dr. Stacy B. Davids, Angela Padron, Ellen Slane, Jennifer Hill, Marjetta Geerling, Norma Davids, Pascale Mackey, Steven dos Santos, and Ty Shiver.
Mom has said that I could lose a few. I’ve never thought it was possible. My first diet was five years ago, when I was ten. I daintily ate crackers and cheese with a glass of juice for every meal, so proud of myself that I ate so little by the end of each day. Then it became too hard and I ate like a pig again. I tried to cut out carbs last year, but rice and bread were too yummy to give up. I don’t want to eat a burger without a sesame-seed bun. No way. And life without pizza. Is that even possible? Might as well ask me to cut off a limb.
I don’t like what I see in the mirror. My hair is frizzy from the Florida heat. My shirt is baggy to hide my potbelly, which grows after large meals. I was minding my own business at the mall one day, waiting in a long line to buy some jeans, and an older woman asked me if I was pregnant. Gasp. At fifteen? And do I really look that fat and bloated? On a bad day, on a high-carb day, maybe I do look like I’m carrying a bun or two in the oven. I’m not overweight, just at the high end of normal on the height/weight chart. Sometimes I console myself that it’s called big-boned, not fat.
I’m starving, but I can’t eat lunch since it’s the first day of Ramadan. Ramadan is the month God revealed the Koran to Muhammad, so we purify ourselves physically and spiritually by fasting. My family is halfway religious—we do most things, not everything, Islamic. Let’s just say holiness has tapered off through the generations. My grandparents follow Islam to the tee, my parents are pretty religious (they pray frequently, but not every day), and I’m sort of religious. I pray once in a while, and I’ve been to a mosque only twice in my life, but I still feel I should do this. I don’t want to be the only one in my family not fasting, which was the case in previous Ramadans.
I’m fifteen years old and I vow that this will be my first successful month of fasting. No cheating. No Oreo cookies eaten in my bedroom away from prying eyes. No sipping water from the water fountains at school. No snacks when my friends offer me any. I shalt not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. Day = no food. Night = all you can eat.
Last year I tried to fast, but it didn’t last. On the first day, I cheated. I remember that day; it was a Saturday and my grandparents were visiting. I went to my room, had a few chocolate wafers, and came back to the living room. Grandpa was watching Dr. 90210 with the rest of my family, and he looked up at me. “Almira, are those crumbs around your mouth?” he asked. The shame rained down hard on me. Grandpa shook his head and lectured me on the importance of religion.
My parents looked upset, but then they told me it was all right and I could try the next day, but I didn’t. It’s taken me a year to get the gumption to tackle Ramadan again. Can I last a whole month without eating during sunlight hours? That task is my own personal Mount Everest.
“Almira, come here this minute!” my mom yells from the living room.
I push my glasses up my nose and rush to my mom, who is less than genial when she is fasting. Fasting makes her kind of mean. My stomach growls with hunger, so I know why Mom is such a monster during Ramadan—hunger makes me nervous and testy as well. I frown and stomp toward her voice. I listen to her tell me how slovenly I am because I left my wet umbrella on top of a pair of suede shoes, her shoes to be exact. I look at the high-heeled pumps and see that they’re mottled and funky looking. Yup, I did a boo-boo. She looks so mad that I want to tell her to eat a cookie to calm down, because cookies have always soothed me. But there can be no cookie breaks on account of the fasting. Peanut butter cookies and macadamia nut cookies swim in my head as Mom lectures me on how suede and water don’t go together. Duh, I already know that. Now eat a cookie.
• • •
When I hear a crash outside, I know that my grandfather is here. He always hits something in or around our driveway when he comes to visit us. I’m waiting for the day when he’ll crash through the picture window of our living room, but so far he only targets garbage cans, mailboxes, and pillars.
I rush outside past my grandfather’s tanklike car. Old people are attracted to planet-sized cars because they seem so safe. Dad may get flattened in his sports car, but Grandpa will survive any driving mishap. Grandpa knocked down the garbage can, so I straighten it out. At least it’s empty since the sanitation truck had visited this morning.
“Marhaba! ” Grandpa hollers.
“Hi,” I say. I don’t speak a word of Arabic, even though Grandpa tries to teach me simple phrases. I’m bad at foreign languages, but I speak un poco español.
“Azizi, let me look at you,” Grandpa says as he exits his car. He’s short and skinny with white hair and a white bushy beard. When I was little I used to call him “Santa,” but he told me to stop calling him that since Santa is an infidel. An infidel is someone who doesn’t believe in God, or anyone who’s not Muslim. Grandpa calls anyone he doesn’t like an infidel.
My grandmother emerges from the other side of the car wearing a huge dress that swallows her and a scarf wrapped around her head. She started wearing a scarf a year ago. According to her, she’s getting old, nearing death (she’s only fifty-nine), and aims to go to heaven. So basically she’s telling God, “Love me because I’m covering my head in one-hundred-degree weather.” Prior to her religious fervor, she looked like a typical Miami mama in makeup and high heels.
“I can’t believe you drive like that,” Grandma says.
“Then you drive, if you don’t like my driving!” Grandpa thunders.
“You know I can’t drive,” Grandma says.
“Feh!”
Older-generation Muslim women don’t seem to know how to drive, Grandma included. I’m so happy that Mom knows how to drive, as if it’s something, a badge of honor. Women in Saudi Arabia aren’t allowed to drive. That sucks. I’m glad that I don’t live there.
“I’m just saying watch where you’re going!” Grandma bellows as she walks toward our front door.
“Do I ever get into any accidents?” Grandpa says, facing her head-on as if he’s about to charge at her.
Mom winces whenever Grandpa yells, which is all the time. Mom and Grandpa have this uncomfortable in-lawship, with either silence or hints of an argument bubbling between them. I look at Mom and her shoulders are hunched over the stove. She shoots an askance look of annoyance toward us.
“Eh.” Grandma waves her hand in the air dismissively and then turns her attention to me. “Almira, you’ve lost weight.”
I give her an embarrassed smile as she rakes her eyes up and down my body. I hate being reminded that I’m hefty. I’ve fasted for four days straight and feel lighter. Indeed, I lost two pounds. It’s probably just water weight rather than fat, but it’s something.
Mom continues to cook. The smell of shish kebabs makes me salivate. I haven’t eaten in ten-and-a-half hours. That is, like, forever. The sun rose at about seven this morning. At least it’s November and the days are short.
On the news, a mug shot of some guy accused of money laundering flashes on the screen. “Infidel!” Grandpa screeches.
“Calm down!” Grandma tells him.
“Don’t tell me to calm down. This is a sick world and it breaks my heart.”
Grandpa’s a bit of a drama king. He winces, puts one hand on his chest, and flings an arm in the air as he watches television. Yes, okay, I get it; his heart bleeds for the sins of this world. With his accent—Asiatic, but less choppy than an Indian one—he is one eccentric grandpapa.
A sigh issues from Grandma’s lips and she adjusts her scarf. Mom raises an eyebrow and asks, “Will you be dining with us tomorrow, too?”
“No, Asma!” Grandpa says. “I have plans.”
“Great.”
“We’re going to go out with friends, but my son did say he wanted to break fast as a family.”
“Well, it’s hard to please everyone, but I’m sure your friends will appreciate your company,” Mom says. She talks in a stilted, non-Mom way when she’s around Grandpa. She also looks relieved that she won’t have to entertain the in-laws tomorrow. I sit with them, wriggling in an armchair, wondering when the tension in the air will dissipate.
Dad comes in. He’s a dentist with his own practice. He totally looks like a cosmetic dentist. He has jet-black hair that is moussed into inertia (it won’t budge) and teeth as white as chalk. All day long he bleaches teeth, slaps on veneers, and makes smiles look pretty. I refrain from smiling at him. I smiled this morning and he asked me if I’d flossed. It’s hard to live with someone who inspects my teeth on a daily basis.
All of us migrate to the dining table, which faces the golf course behind our house. Dad stares at the setting sun. I stare. Grandma and Grandpa glare at the sun. Die, sun. Die.
“You’ve lost weight,” Dad says.
I feel myself blushing.
“Keep it up,” Dad says, flashing me his million-dollar smile. Has anyone spent a million dollars on a smile? I’m sure some of his patients did. Dad has shown me some before-and-after pictures, and some of his patients had truly heinous teeth. Overbites the size of canyons. Chipped teeth that looked like old china cups. Teeth as yellow as butter, which makes me momentarily turn my stomach against butter, which would taste great on a baguette right now.
“You look great,” Grandma says.
I flare my nostrils in anger. You were a fat cow and now you’re less of a fat cow. That’s the way I interpret these compliments.
Grandpa pinches my arm—cowlike, I’m being manhandled as if I’m livestock—and grunts in approval. “Did you have any snacks today?” he asks.
Why do some people have to remind others of their faults and weaknesses? It seems so overly critical. It’s a new Ramadan but Grandpa is trying to rehash the last … chocolate wafer crumbs stuck on my Bonne Bell lip balm. “No, I haven’t cheated,” I say in an even voice.
“All right, all right.”
Setting the awkwardness aside, I close my eyes and inhale the food. Mom sets a large tray of meat and vegetables in the middle of the table. The juice from the beef runs in rivulets around the cherry tomatoes. The red peppers are slightly black around the edges.
The sky is a rainbow of red, orange, and purple where the sun is a mere sliver on the horizon.
Next, Mom puts a plate of pita bread next to the shish kebabs. They’re imperfectly round, white, and tan. They sure look like they can soak up the broth running out of the beef.
The sun is no longer visible, but the pretty rainbow colors of refracting light are still there.
Mom fills our glasses with icy water. I haven’t had anything to drink since before sunrise.
Dad puckers his lips as if he’s kissing the air. Grandpa twitches his mouth like a squirrel eating an invisible nut.
I’m going to faint if I don’t get a bite of this delicious food soon.
The pretty colors are gone. The sun vanishes. The sky is dark. What happens next is not a sight I’m proud of.
We all simultaneously lunge for the food. My shish kebab stick gets stuck on top of Dad’s and we each yank hard to disengage them. We don’t speak to each other as we operate on pure animal instinct. The bread disappears quickly. I take a slice of bread and fill it with beef, peppers, and cherry tomatoes. I bite into the sandwich, barely chewing, transforming into an eating machine. I gulp the chunky meat as if I’m a wild animal chewing on raw deer in the Serengeti. We all belong on National Geographic.
I drink my water in one gulp and Grandpa reaches for the pitcher before I can. No one offers to refill my glass. We all work independently. This is how we break fast in the Abdul household. I burp loudly and don’t bother apologizing.
My mom is hot, which is hard because I’m not. I’m average, whereas my mom looks like some toned superbabe that men stare at with lust and women with jealousy. At home she always wears exercise clothes, like tank tops, shorts, and leotards. And when she goes out, she dresses to the nines, with strappy sandals and designer clothes. Too ridiculously hot. This situation reminds me of the music video for “Stacy’s Mom,” except my mom doesn’t dance on stripper poles, not as far as I know. And she can’t steal my boyfriend’s attention because I don’t have a boyfriend. And if I did have a boyfriend, I hope he wouldn’t lay eyes on her because then he might fall in love with her.
Before I leave for school, Mom is doing yoga from one of her many exercise DVDs. Her skin is golden, her black hair is in a p
onytail, and she wears a leotard. She doesn’t have any cellulite and her stomach is concave. How annoying. I pinch my belly and the fat rolls on my hips. I look like a hippo compared to her. For years Mom asked me to exercise with her, but I kept resisting and she stopped asking. Her hotness will not be passed on to the next generation.
I eat breakfast, leftovers from last night, as I look at the dark sky through the kitchen window. The same thought comes to my head every morning that I’m fasting: why am I fasting? I look at a tapestry on the wall that has Arabic calligraphy on it, probably something saying how Allah is great—Allahu Akbar—and other stuff like that. I start to think about my afterlife and if all the righteous stuff I do will get me into heaven. Grandpa always tells me that there’s an angel on my right shoulder writing down everything good I do and one on my left shoulder taking notes of all the bad things. Sometimes I feel that I’m doing bad things by writing love letters to Robert Pattinson (which I never send out) and daydreaming of having a boyfriend in the near future.
I chew absentmindedly as I think about all of this heavy metaphysical stuff. Mom is standing on her head, and she peers at me while I eat like a maniac. Perish the thought that I’m still chewing once the sun tickles the horizon.
“Don’t eat everything in the Tupperware,” she advises. “I want some, too. Show some consideration.”
I look at her upside-down face. Her thin legs are pointed toward the ceiling. I wonder how she does that, but she’s a limber skinny minnie. Whenever I stand on my head, my skull hurts and my legs wobble.
“Yes, Mother,” I say, putting the lid over the Tupperware, leaving some shish kebab for her.
“You look really good today.”
I smile. I don’t get many compliments from her. The fasting makes me feel leaner, and my size-eight jeans are loose on me. Yay for weight loss.
As I wait for Mom to get the car out of the garage to drive me to school, I see the dreadful sun rise. Now I can’t eat the Tootsie Rolls I keep in my bookbag for light snacking. Never before have I felt such animosity toward the sun, giver of heat, keeper of life. But I’m determined to fast and prove my religiosity.
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Page 1
