Bestest. Ramadan. Ever.

by Medeia Sharif

“No,” I say, frowning when I should be smiling. He asks me out and it feels like nothing. I worried about being boyfriendless for the longest time, but now I’m afraid of having no best friend. It’s a scary prospect. Sure I have other friends, but not a best friend.

  “So what are you saying? That we can’t go out?”

  “Peter, don’t you get it? I hurt my bestest friend in the world.”

  His face scrunches up. That beautiful tanned skin of his forms ridges that I’ve never seen before. Not only did I hurt Lisa, but now I’m hurting him. I must be cursed if I can make people feel this much pain. “Almira, I’ll wait for you to come around, and I hope you do,” he says. “Lisa will be fine, and we’ll be fine too.”

  I want to throw myself into his arms and take back my words, but I don’t want to touch him or look at him in front of Lisa. I want to show Lisa that I’m not into him, which is a lie.

  She sits behind me like stone, her eyes unblinking as she looks at Mr. Gregory. It seems deliberate, as if she knows I’m watching her and she wants me to know that she isn’t interested in my attention, and this might mean she still cares about me. If she didn’t care, then her body language would be more natural. It’s the same when I’m angry at my parents: I slam my bedroom door and keep my ear to the door to hear what they’re saying about me. I do that because I care, because I want them to reach out to me to say that they understand my position on something. When I don’t care, I’ll do normal things like read a book or play around on the computer. Lisa obviously still thinks about me. Maybe her anger is a sign that she’s in deep thought about our friendship. It’s better than if she were to feel nothing at all. I have to turn her anger into forgiveness, but I need a strategy.

  I caress Peter’s sketchpad while Mr. Gregory lectures us on cloning. Peter no longer hides the sketchpad from me, now that the secret is out about him liking me. When Peter goes to the bathroom, I look through the pad. There are unicorns, boats, lions, and other figures, either roughly sketched or completely finished. My eyes keep returning to the sketch he did of me. After my third viewing of it, I make myself flip through the pad until I’m almost at the end of it. My eyes widen when I see a sketch that I really like. I tear it out gently and put it in a folder. The pad has over fifty sketches and I don’t think Peter will notice that one is missing.

  Mom makes salmon tonight and it keeps getting stuck on my braces. It’s gross, so I don’t finish my meal. I go to the bathroom and brush the fish out of my mouth. Then I floss, which is not easy to do with braces. I have to push the floss underneath the wire. At least only my bottom teeth have braces. I’m grateful for this one thing when everything else is going so horribly.

  Peter texts me to ask me about my plans for tonight. Busy w/fam, I text back. He still believes that Lisa will get over what I did and that I should simply accept losing a best friend, but this isn’t possible. I have to persuade Lisa to forgive me.

  I’m creating an e-card to apologize to her. If I have to pass her notes in class, email her, send e-cards, and talk to her through my other friends, I will. I’m willing to do these things everyday, several times a day, if it means getting her back. I make a PowerPoint of dancing pink flowers on a black background. The background music is Akon’s “Sorry, Blame It On Me.”

  It makes me teary-eyed to listen to the lyrics over and over again as I check for spelling mistakes. I hope that Lisa will take the time to read my e-card. I’ve spent an hour making it and I mean everything on it. I feel bad and horrible and want her back as my bestest friend ever. I click send, praying that the card will do its magic.

  It’s a little past eight when I hear something crash outside. I wonder if it’s a raccoon, so I part the curtains in the living room. There are no wild animals, but I do see a large car in our driveway. Our trash can has been knocked down and a black garbage bag laden with trash is jutting out of it. It can only be one person, but nobody invited Grandpa. Why is he here? I certainly don’t want to see him after all the terrible things he said the last time he visited. I think about what’s worse: Lisa being angry with me or Grandpa criticizing me and Mom. What happened with Peter was accidental and I had no intention to hurt Lisa (even though I was dying for Peter to notice me). Grandpa, on the other hand, meant every word he said. He really thinks Mom is infidel-like and raised me to be like that, too.

  “Mom, Dad,” I say.

  “What, Almira?” Dad drawls, his face hidden behind a newspaper.

  “It’s Grandpa.”

  Dad drops the newspaper he’s reading and Mom stops doing crunches. She gets off of the floor and peers through the window. “Almira, go to your room,” Mom says.

  “Why?”

  “Just go.”

  I frown. Why can’t I watch them argue? Sure, last time was nasty, but I heard everything from my bedroom anyway.

  Actually, I can’t hear them. I hear low, solemn voices. I put my ear to the door and only hear, “Wuh, wuh, wuh, wuh.” Then I put a glass on the door, a trick I once saw in a movie, and I still can’t hear anything. Why so quiet, I wonder. People either get really loud or speak in low tones when they’re serious.

  The anticipation is killing me. I wonder if everything’s okay. After a half hour, I walk out wanting to know what’s going on. Dad is back to reading his newspaper and Mom continues to do crunches, her purple leotard and shorts bright against the beige carpet. I go through the kitchen to get to the dining room. Grandpa is sitting at the table eating salmon and salad. I sit down next to him and eat a few slices of cucumber.

  “Everything is okay between me and your parents,” Grandpa says.

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Yes. They are younger and different than me, and that is the way it is.”

  I guess that’s his way of saying he apologizes or he’s okay with us.

  “They live among infidels, but they are not infidels,” Grandpa says.

  “Infidels aren’t that bad, Grandpa,” I say. “All my friends are infidels.”

  He makes clucking sounds with his tongue. “Not all of them are bad, but they are still infidels. You know where they’re going.”

  “Um, okay. So, are you saying that infidels are all going to hell?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Oh.” They’re all going to go into the fire, according to him. I think about Lisa. Even though she’s mad at me and isn’t talking to me at the moment, I hope that she’ll go to heaven with me. And of course I want Peter in heaven, because I assume that we’ll be together forever. Then there are my many other infidel friends who don’t deserve to get stuck in hell; they should end up with me. I really do think that I’m going to heaven. I don’t do anything really bad. It’s night, I’m tired, and I’m still confused about Grandpa coming here after his falling-out with Mom. These thoughts are too heavy for me, so I stop thinking about heaven and hell.

  “I need my family with me,” Grandpa says.

  “I’m glad you’re here tonight, Grandpa,” I say.

  He pats my hand and says, “I am happy to be here, and no matter how you dress and act like an American, Almira, you are a good Muslim. You’re fasting and you show patience and dedication for doing that.”

  “Thanks, Grandpa. Are you going to finish teaching me how to drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” At least some people are getting along, and have good standing between them.

  “And we are all going to the mosque together this week.”

  “Great.” It’s been years since I’ve been to a mosque, while Grandpa goes at least once a week. I’ve forgotten the prayers, but if I hear them, then they’ll come back to me. I never learned Arabic, but when I was a kid I memorized the prayers, even though I speak them in a heavy, American accent. Being that it’s Ramadan and I’m fasting for the first time, it makes sense to visit a mosque.

  “
I have a present for you,” he says.

  I lean forward and watch his hand disappear inside his pocket. I expect to see a pair of diamond earrings, a gold pendant, or a ruby ring. Some people want to see large boxes, but I know that the best things come in small packages. Grandpa fishes through the pocket of his high-waisted plaid pants and closes his hand around the object.

  “You’ll like this,” he says.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He puts the object on the table. It’s a small pot. I pick it up and read the label. Lip-gloss. Clear. Moisturizing. It’s colorless lip-gloss to replace my MAC lipstick! At least Grandpa is trying to appease me and clear lip-gloss won’t make me look a prostitute. “Thanks, Grandpa,” I say. I turn the plastic pot around in my hands. At least it’s an expensive brand and not the cheap garbage from the dollar store (Grandpa loves dollar stores). I open it and smell it: strawberry, hmmmmm. I thank him and give him a hug before he leaves.

  It’s unusual for Grandpa to be at our house so late since he hates to drive at night. I fix our garbage can and watch him drive off. I call him ten minutes later and he made it back safely. He’s my driving instructor, but I worry more about his driving than about mine.

  After I go to bed, Mom sneaks into my room. Even though I’m a teenager, she still visits me in the middle of the night to see that I’m properly tucked in, that my lights are turned off, and that I don’t have a temperature burning my forehead. It makes me feel special, but at the same time I don’t want her there. I’m not a child, and sometimes she wakes me up by checking on me. Her lips brush against my cheek.

  “Mom, what happened with Grandpa?” I say, my voice slurred with grogginess.

  “He apologized to me,” she replies.

  “No way.”

  “He did.” Mom stands above me wearing a lacy camisole, upstaging me in my bunny-patterned pink pajamas.

  “So he knows he was wrong?”

  “The way he sounded, he seems to accept us. He probably thinks we’re still wrong, but doesn’t want to say it.”

  “Some people can’t change instantly, or ever,” I say.

  “He’s still the same man, trust me, but I think he’ll bite his tongue before he says something rude to us ever again.”

  “That’s something.”

  Mom turns her head to look at something. I crook my head forward to see what she’s staring at. Uh-oh. I forgot to turn my computer off and a Robert Pattinson slide show is playing on my computer. Robert in a tux, slender, buff, topless, smiling, brooding. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

  Mom whistles, which surprises me. Okay, it shocks me that she’s a parent admiring the same guy I’m in love with. Yet it’s reasonable since what woman doesn’t want Robert Pattinson? Only a woman with absolutely no taste and ice water in her veins.

  “I see your files are back,” she says.

  “Don’t tell Dad,” I beg.

  “I won’t, but you don’t do a good job of hiding things.”

  “I’ll remember to log off every night.”

  “What if your dad sees this? You better turn it off.”

  “I will, I will.”

  “Am I driving you and Lisa to school tomorrow?” Mom asks.

  “Lisa’s not talking to me.”

  “Why?”

  I think about how I should answer her. I press my lips together, feeling my new lip-gloss on my lips. “She thinks I stole something of hers.”

  “Did you?”

  “Technically, no.”

  “Then let her see that. What does she think you took?”

  “Something, someone, valuable,” I mumble, drifting off to sleep.

  Grandpa arrives to take us to the mosque. He told Dad we should do something as a family for the holiday, more than eating dinner together. I can’t remember too much about mosques from when I was little, but now it’s many years later and I’ll be able to remember things and carry the memories with me. I want it to be a positive event. Since it was Grandpa’s idea, and also it’s his mosque, I’m sure he’ll act domineering during this excursion. Now that he and Mom are okay again, I hope he won’t say or do anything else that will piss us off.

  We’re going to go in Grandpa’s car. Yikes. There are three seats in the back of his car, which means we can all fit in. He knocks down a garbage can and I pick it up as if I’m his personal gofer (I’m the one who usually cleans up his parking messes). Mom has a duffel bag with our praying gear of mats and clothes, which she puts in the trunk. We’re all dressed conservatively, with our arms and legs covered. The women all wear scarves. I tug and pull at mine since I’m not used to having my hair covered. We have to enter a mosque in modesty.

  The three of us crowd into the back of Grandpa’s car. Mom, Dad, and I shuffle around, elbows in ribs, until we’re all comfortable and are able to buckle our seat belts. Grandma turns around and gives us a crooked smile. She has on a navy scarf, which looks black inside the car, and dark sunglasses. I’m spooked by the way she looks, as if she’s ushering us into a terrible time. It’s just the lack of light when we drive past trees, because she looks like her usual self in the sunlight.

  “Almira, you look so pretty today,” Grandma says in her heavily accented English. “When we find you a husband?”

  Awkward silence follows. My mouth drops open.

  Mom grunts out an artificial laugh and says, “That’s light years away, really. We have so much time to discuss that.”

  “Almira is getting to that age,” Grandma presses on.

  “We can all think about that after she finishes medical school,” Dad says.

  I don’t want to become a doctor, but okay. That means Dad thinks I should be in my mid-twenties when I get married. That gives me plenty of time to break it to them gently that I like boys, think about them all day, and some of them even kiss me without my parents’ permission, away from their presence. It’s no longer the days of yore, when Muslim girls had to be chaperoned all day. And we aren’t in their home countries where that can happen. I’m living free in America. And with the exception of my friends rooting for me, I’m pretty much alone in the pursuit of a relationship.

  Mom pleads with Grandpa to turn on the radio, and he finally does. James Brown’s “Living in America” comes on, which echoes my thoughts. Mom begins to sing in her off-key, cats-drowning-in-a-pool voice.

  We arrive at a miniature mosque. Actually, the building isn’t small but regular-sized, and shaped like a mosque from the Middle East. It has a dome and a minaret, but they fit the scope of the building. The mosque pictures I’ve seen look majestic, but the size of this mosque is just right for Coral Gables. There’s swirly Arabic writing on the front door. Below the writing is the English translation: Coral Gables Islamic Center. It’s all very modern, and very Miami.

  The door has squares of glass, and behind them I see a few dozen people milling around. We go inside to join them. There are women in headscarves, teenagers with earphones dangling from their heads, and a mix of clean-shaven and heavily bearded men. Someone is ushering all of us further into the mosque. Men are moving to the right and women are going to the left. I’m moving with the wave, unsure of what I’m doing. It’s like the first day of school, not knowing where all the room numbers are but following the people who share my schedule.

  The women all go to a massive locker room/restroom. There are many stalls, sinks, and benches—anything a woman needs to wash up and change clothes for praying. We take turns. There’s a mixture of perfume and soap scents swirling around me, the same way different languages blend together. I hear Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, as well as languages that I can’t identify. Skin colors run from milky white to coffee colored. Women who’ve just arrived come in to catch up with those of us who are done. Several people stop to kiss Mom and Grandma’s cheeks, as well as mine.

  Mom and Gra
ndma lead me to the praying center. I’m wearing a white headscarf and a beige dress. My ankles and wrists are covered. For some reason, those bony knobs are not allowed to be seen during prayer; that’s what Mom told me. Mom brought mats that look Egyptian and ancient with their geometric patterns. I have my praying mat under my arm, as well as my socks which I’ll put on once the mat is out. I’ll be completely covered, except for my hands and face. Thank God the building is heavily air conditioned.

  Loud chanting blasts through speakers that I can’t locate. It’s the call to prayer. It sounds like a lot of wailing, but Mom says it’s in Arabic. I shiver. It sounds beautiful, the same way an opera song is incomprehensible but mesmerizing. It’s time to gather.

  When we get to the back of the mosque, we see the entrance of a massive room that has curved walls rather than the flatness and angles of a normal room. Everyone has left their shoes in the lobby, so we’re all barefoot. Grandma explains to me that men pray in the front and women in the back. There are several rows of men unrolling their praying mats, and then us females. The men wear loose, flowing pajama-looking clothes. Some have their heads bare and others have light-colored caps called kufis. I’m too close to a woman in front of me, and I back away as she unrolls her mat. I unroll my mat in the same direction as everyone else’s, since we all have to face Mecca when we pray. Now we’re ready.

  An imam in the front is going to lead the prayer. I feel nervous because I haven’t prayed in ages. Fasting is hard as it is, and to add praying on top of that seems like another difficulty. I look at the dozens of people around me who are ready. They seem purposeful … and calm. The whole atmosphere becomes very calm, as if no one has any worries, no harassing classmates, no shrill bosses, nothing on the outside that can interfere with the moment. Sunlight streams in from the large windows, warming us through the heavy air conditioning. My nerves settle down. I’ll get through this. Mom and Grandma are nearby to help me if I make any mistakes.

  The imam recites the prayers, and none of us utter a word. When praying by myself, I say the prayers out loud or in a whisper. But in a mosque, only one voice is needed at a mutual gathering. My anxiety leaves me, because all we have to do in group prayer is listen to the imam and make the proper movements. Whatever I had forgotten is remembered again. The first thing I remember is Allahu Akbar, God is Great. The imam emphatically says it when the prayer calls for the phrase. The movements also come back to me, even though I lag a second or two behind everyone else. Still, I get on my knees, place my forehead to the floor, stand up, place my hands across my stomach … everyone is moving the same way, from the short children to the tall adults.