She looks at me with stony eyes heavily made up with spidery mascara. She crosses her arms defensively, warding me off. I stick my hands in my pockets and my pants start to slide off my hips, even though I’m wearing a belt.
“You’ve gotten really skinny,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Well, I have to go to the restroom.”
“Wait. I want to tell you that I don’t want Peter and you can have him.”
Her eyes soften with tears. “But he doesn’t want me, does he?” she whispers, her tears about to fall.
“He says he wants me, but I don’t care,” I say. “I want us to be friends.”
“No, no, no!” she says, shaking her head and crying.
I find tissue in my bookbag and hand it to her. She pats her eyes, careful not to remove her makeup, but her mascara is already coming off with the tissue. “You’re ruining my makeup,” she says.
“But look!” I say. I take the stolen sketch out of my bookbag and wave it into her face.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“Peter sketched you.”
Lisa stares at the picture, becoming transfixed on the image of loveliness. Peter gave her passionate eyes, gorgeous hair, and lush lips. He’s an awesome artist. “See, he really likes you,” I say, trying to make myself believe in my own words.
She grabs the picture. “Peter did this?” she asks.
“Yes. Don’t you see that he really likes you?”
“Where did you get this?”
“Straight from his sketchpad.”
“What a beautiful picture!”
“I know!”
“This means nothing!” Lisa screeches.
“Of course it means something,” I say. “He wouldn’t do this for no reason.”
“He draws many people. He drew Shakira. He drew Michael from math class. Does that mean he’s in love with him? And he even drew Ms. Odige, and what boy in his right mind would fall in love with a teacher? This means nothing.”
“Of course it does,” I say, trying to convince her, trying to convince myself.
“No, it doesn’t,” she says.
“Lisa, Peter isn’t as important to me as you are, and he will not come between us.”
“No, that’s not fair to you,” Lisa says, hiccupping. “I know how badly you want a boyfriend. At least I’ve had a boyfriend before, when I dated Mannie last spring. You deserve to have Peter, you really do.”
“But every time you look at the two of us, you might get sad or angry,” I say.
“Almira, I know what I’m saying,” she insists, tears streaming from her eyes. “You two belong together. You look cute together. And, Almira, think about your family. They don’t want you to have a boyfriend or to date. Chances are slim that you’ll have a boyfriend, even if you keep him a secret from them. This is your chance. You deserve that chance. You found what you wanted and I can’t take that away from you.”
I’m shocked by her words. She’s giving him up so that I can be happy. This reminds me of the story about King Solomon. Two women claim that a baby is theirs and he says that he’ll split the child in half with his sword. The real mother says no, please don’t harm the child, the other woman can have him. That woman is the real mother, because she doesn’t want any harm to come to the child, whereas the false mother can’t care less if the child is cut up or not. There are differences between that story and mine. There is no baby, sword, or king, but I had been willing to relinquish Peter for our friendship. Lisa then realized that I’m Peter’s true love, and I can have him. She no longer minds. We don’t have to cut Peter in half.
Besides the biblical tie-in, Lisa seems to understand my plight. She’s right. With the way I keep things from my parents, Peter might be my one and only boyfriend, my one and only chance to have a high school love interest. I like him and he likes me back. We’ve briefly talked about my parents and Grandpa, and Peter seems to understand my situation. He’s handsome, smart, artistic, and sensitive. We’re perfect together.
Lisa hugs me. “I had to make up with you,” she says into my hair. “I’m planning your sixteenth birthday party. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“Well, it’s no longer a surprise,” I say.
“I guess it isn’t, now that I opened my big mouth,” she says, laughing.
We go to class arm in arm. Lisa puts her sketch away. She says that she’ll frame it later, because it’s the nicest representation of her there is. I write in my journal about how wonderful it is to have a best friend again:
My best friend was mad at me for a while. I did something that she didn’t like. It was an accident and I hurt her without meaning to. But now we’re ok again. She’s back to being my bestest friend. So many things have happened this month. I lost a lot of weight. I fasted. I finished learning how to drive. I have braces, which suck, but my teeth will look great in a year. I’ll be turning sixteen soon. The boy I like likes me back. This period of time is the highlight of my life, I’m sure of it. This has been the bestest month and the bestest Ramadan ever.
Ms. Odige reads a poem to us; then she grades our journals while we answer questions from the textbook. She writes her comments at the bottom. Bestest is not a word. Use “best” to indicate something that is ultimate.
I shake my head in disagreement when I read this. She doesn’t get it. There’s what you think is the best, but then you find something that supersedes your preconception of that, and that’s what makes something the bestest. My bestest friend. The bestest time of my life. The bestest Ramadan ever. The bestest boyfriend, if Peter and I ever go out together on a real date. Sometimes adults don’t get it, but that’s okay. I’m sure Ms. Odige was my age at one time and referred to things as being the bestest, before she went to college and had the English police drill grammar rules into her head.
Lisa passes notes to me whenever we can’t talk in class. Just like old times. In middle school we folded our letters into triangles, but now we’re older and fold them in simple rectangles and squares.
I think Gabriel likes me and he asked me out today, she writes during math class.
He’s cute, I write back.
He has the longest lashes I ever saw on a boy.
And he wouldn’t stop staring at you yesterday.
I know!
She’s moving on. From the time she caught Peter kissing me to the time we made up, she’s been checking out other guys. I’m relieved. I no longer feel like a backstabbing piece of garbage that’s lower than snail slime. I even tell Peter that Lisa’s forgiven me, and a large I-told-you-so grin breaks across his face. He was far more confident in our relationship than I was, but only because I had more to lose with Lisa in the picture.
Peter hugs me before science class, and Lisa doesn’t wince or turn away. She’s handling things with the utmost maturity. I don’t know if I’d be as graceful if I was in her shoes. I hope I would be. I’m turning sixteen and leaving childhood behind to become more of an adult, which means being able to turn the other cheek, move on, act less childish, and think more optimistically. Lisa is onto her next conquest with Gabriel, and I’m looking at having a real boyfriend in my life.
I’m having trouble with my homework, Lisa writes to me toward the end of class.
Why are you doing it now? I write back.
Gabriel wants to meet me at his friend’s house for a barbecue tonight, she scribbles.
What’s the problem?
What does Shakespearean mean?
What do you think?!
What?
You’re kidding.
No, I’m not!
I sigh and write down the answer.
Lisa is chatting and giggling with other boys, finding a new person to love, a new interest to mollify—that’s Ms. Odige�
��s word of the day—her boy craziness. She has a glow about her that had gone away when she was mad at me. Her glow is back. It’s more than just the bronzer and iridescent blush she wears. She’s happy being my friend again and dating Gabriel. So I’m free to be with Peter.
Peter and Lisa sat next to each other in science the other day and there was no awkwardness. They talk like they used to talk before, but now Lisa doesn’t have that sparkle in her eye when she gazes at him. That’s a relief to me. Once you completely realize that you can’t have something, you stop wanting it, I suppose. Of course I still want Robert Pattinson, even though he’s always linked with Kristen Stewart, but that’s more of a fantasy than anything. Yet maybe if I turn eighteen and he’s in the Gables to shoot a movie, we’ll bump into each other, he’ll ask me out for coffee, and one thing will lead into another … in my dreams.
On Saturday, Peter, Maria, and Lisa come over to my house. I ask my parents if it’s okay to see a movie with some friends. I want to slowly warm them up to the idea that I’m seeing a boy, and a group date seems less threatening than seeing Peter alone. Mom and Dad don’t act strange at all when they see Peter. That’s cool. Grandpa isn’t here, so I don’t have to deal with him yet over the Peter issue. I see him drive by in the opposite direction of Maria’s car, and I turn my head away so that he won’t see me. I left the house just when he was about to visit. That’s a close call, but I feel terrible that I still have to be afraid of him. The fear of the old country, the ancient ways, and his stodginess stays in my head.
During the movie, which is a lame romantic comedy that none of us are enjoying, Peter holds my hand. When Lisa and Maria go to the restroom, we kiss. Ah, to have a boyfriend to kiss anytime I want.
Peter comes back to my house, and this time it’s just the two of us. I explain that Lisa and Maria went home already since they live farther up the block than Peter and me. Mom and Dad don’t act stiff at all. When Peter leaves, Dad turns to me and says, “He has a good set of teeth.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” I say. If there’s one thing Dad loves, it’s definitely teeth. “Is Grandpa around?”
“No, he came here right after you left and only stayed for a bit.”
Good. My double life is going fine. Actually no, it isn’t. First off, I feel guilty. There’s a trail of acid running down the middle of my chest. My mind is abuzz with thoughts that I’m doing something bad. How can I keep this from my parents? This is a major thing. I look over at Mom, who’s doing crunches in a corner. I used to think that I could tell her everything: I came to her when I needed a training bra, then for a real bra, and then for pads when I got my first period. I can’t share this with her, because of her culture, their culture. Having Peter in my life is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, and I can only reveal this joy to my friends. My parents—not to mention Grandpa—would flip out and not understand. But Dad seems to be okay with how I hung out with Peter tonight. I think this too soon, because his face becomes stern and he starts to act weird.
“Where does Peter live?” he asks.
“Nearby,” I say.
“He was with you girls when you watched the movie?”
“Yes.”
“Is he going out with one of your friends?”
“No.” Should I have said yes, since maybe that’s what he wants to hear?
“He didn’t try to put his arms around you?”
“No,” I lie. And we did much more than that.
“Good, because I don’t want any boy getting fresh with my little girl.”
But I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m a big girl and a young woman. Someday Dad will have to face the fact that I have womanly wants and desires, but this moment isn’t the right time to tell him these things. He obviously isn’t ready for me to reveal the truth, nor am I ready to tell it. That will be for another day. I picture that day: I’ll probably feel scared and hesitant, and his reaction will be explosive. I can’t imagine that the truth will come out anytime soon.
I want to test my dad some more. He met Peter, but what if there had been more?
Dad has a newspaper in his lap and the TV is on mute. I sit down across from him on a chair. “Dad, Peter’s a really nice boy,” I say. “What if he had put his arms around me? What would you do?”
He frowns, wrinkling the newspaper between both hands. “If he stuck around longer, then I would let him know what I think of that,” he says through clenched teeth. “And as for you, you could forget about going out with friends for a very long time.”
I gasp. Mom stops doing crunches and sits up to put in her two cents. “You’re too young to date,” she says. “Maybe when you’re in college it’ll be okay to date, as long as it never gets too far.”
Dad turns on her with fury. My spine is as straight as an ironing board and I jump in my seat when he raises his voice. “Almira cannot date, period,” he says. “That is what Americans like to do, going from one person to another. We can find a few nice boys for her to choose from.”
“Gee, how nice,” Mom says. “Why don’t we just let your father in on the action and he can pick someone out for her.”
“It won’t be like that for Almira. She can have choices, but it has to be with our blessing.”
I roll my eyes. I don’t want to pick from my father’s choices, but from my own. And I certainly don’t want to do it Grandpa’s way: he always mentions the old country, the matchmakers, the meddling parents and grandparents. I keep my secret like a small rock inside the core of me, covering it up with layers of muscle and skin. I can feel the hard lump of it, which is my burden to carry, and it’ll stay buried.
“If Almira wants to act like her friends, she’ll be punished,” Dad tells Mom. “Don’t you want this family to look good? Remember how Mina’s daughter got mixed up with that American boy, and everyone found out. It was a scandal.” Mina is a family friend and her college-age daughter dated and married someone from her university. I remember how Grandpa clucked over that scandal for days until it simmered down. The same would happen to me if I’m found out: people will talk about me and the whole family will feel ashamed. Shame is like a family virus—if you do something wrong, all your relatives become infected.
Dad turns to me and narrows his eyes. “Forget about the TV, computer, going out with friends, all that would be gone,” he threatens. I’m disappointed. I know my parents are pretty lenient; they let me go out at night as long as I’m not alone, and they don’t care that I go to the mall or stay over at friends’ houses. But they’re only somewhere in the middle—they’re more modern than Grandpa, but I’m all the way out there on the other end of the spectrum. I want to live in the current decade, in the free world.
Dad speaks some more about how he’ll limit my movements if I were to ever date a boy. If they find out about Peter, then all my freedoms will be taken away. They’ll make assumptions that I’m dirty—a prostitute—and that I lost my virginity. I’m doing the right thing by hiding this from them.
The phone rings. It’s past ten o’clock and late for people to call, but I go ahead and pick it up. “Habibti,” the raspy voice says.
“Grandpa?” I say.
“Yes.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“No. Can’t I check up on my granddaughter?”
“Uh, I suppose.”
“We’re going out to drive early tomorrow, so be ready by seven.”
“Okay,” I say.
“And, one more thing,” he says. “What was it? I am becoming forgetful.”
“I’ll drive on our way there since I need as much practice as possible.”
“No, there’s something else. Oh, yes. Who was that boy I saw you driving with tonight?”
I emit a long sigh and feed him the same lies I told my parents.
The next day, Grandpa gives me my la
st driving lesson. He’s cranky and bossy as usual. I sneeze at one point and feel the tires veer toward a curb, but I straighten the car out immediately. Grandpa looks really mad, yet he lets it slide. He yells at a woman who cuts me off—prostitute!—and I grip the steering wheel tightly, willing myself not to crash. The rest of the lesson goes smoothly. I’m going to take the driving test after my sixteenth birthday. I’m fully ready to celebrate my sixteenth birthday, which is at Lisa’s place on Monday.
Lisa makes sure that the timing is right and that the invitations have the start time right before sunset, so that I won’t starve at my own party. I break fast by blowing out the candles on top of a large, square chocolate cake that I eat a slice of immediately. Dozens of my friends are there, there’s a DJ, and I dance with Peter. It’s the bestest party that’s ever been thrown in my honor.
Lisa’s house is festooned with flowers and party banners. Maria approaches me with a slice of cake in her hand. Her harsh red lips, wavy black hair, and sharply drawn eyebrows contradict the warm smile she gives me. “Here’s some more cake,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Your dress is pretty. You look good, baby girl.”
“Thanks.”
“Look at Lisa being a hot mama over there with Gabriel.”
“Tell me about it. She looks like she’s having the most fun.”
“And Shakira makes such a cute couple with Luis,” she says.
“And I saw you hugging her the other day,” I say. “I didn’t know you could be such a softie.”
“I’m not a softie,” Maria says. She lightly punches me in the arm, and my tricep tingles with pain. “I’m sorry for tempting you when you were fasting, but I thought you couldn’t do it. I wanted to see if you were for real or not.”
“I’m for real, and I did it!” I say.
“You’re pretty strong,” Maria says with a smile. “I wouldn’t last ten minutes without eating. Go ahead and eat that cake, and it’s better than anything that comes in a plastic wrapper.”
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Page 20
