Saints and Misfits

by S. K. Ali

  A stash of candy is spread around me on the bed. Auntie Fatima was right: Goodies rock, especially because the winning team got to divvy up and take the leftovers home.

  I’m eating a happy-face lollipop and admiring the turquoise-framed door on Jeremy’s split-level bungalow when my new cell phone rings, jolting me with its novelty. It’s my first cell phone call. Ever.

  Tats. How in the world did she get this number?

  I ignore it at first but then begin to wonder what she has to tell me that’s so important on a Saturday night.

  My threshold is five minutes, I tell myself. I’ll let her talk for five minutes.

  “Yes?” I ask. “How’d you get my number?”

  “Your brother texted it to me this morning,” Tats says. “Are you sitting down?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “So guess who I’m sitting across from? At Wishbone’s?” she asks.

  “Yes?” I ask, zooming in and out on the number 132 on Jeremy’s door. There’s a red Volvo in the driveway.

  “Matt. He’s with his mom and dad. And I’m with my mom and dad. He nodded. At me!” Tats says. “I took a bathroom break cause I just had to tell you. Can you believe it?”

  “Yes,” I say. How can she handle being in love with two guys at one time?

  “Okay, I have to go back out there because, really weird, when I got up, I noticed his mom smiling at my mom. What if they start talking?” she says. “All right, I’m on my way back. Oh my God!”

  “Yes?” I ask, mildly interested.

  “They are talking. They’re looking at the menu together. I’m going to die,” Tats says. “Actually, I’m just going to calm myself down. I’ll call you back. Are you up late?”

  “Yes,” I say, marveling at my ability to rely solely on this most simple word for our whole conversation.

  I zoom out and switch to map view. From our condo, Jeremy’s house is about five minutes away: walk down one straight, main road, turn left and then right, onto a quiet, leafy street. Across from this big, natural green-zone space with a lake. I wonder if he goes there often.

  “Okay, if I can, I’ll call you tonight. If I can. And, Janna, before I go, are you still mad at me? For talking to Jeremy?” she asks.

  “Yes!” I say. Finally, a yes I really mean. “What do you mean, talking to Jeremy? About what?”

  “Janna, I couldn’t help it. Jeremy knows all about it.”

  “About?”

  “You. He’s highly aware of you now.”

  My mind freezes. “WHAT?”

  “I’ll have to fill you in,” she says. “And it’s not bad, Janna. It’s actually really good—you’re going to see. Oh God, Mom’s waving me over. Bye!”

  I close Google Earth. Now that he knows about me, it feels like I’m cyber-stalking.

  MISFITS

  Tats called three times on the home line, while you were sleeping,” Mom says when I enter the kitchen. Her freshly colored hair is tied up in a ponytail, and she’s scrubbing the cupboard doors. “She said your cell phone is off.”

  She pauses, sponge mid-swipe. “I left the earrings on the dresser for you. Did you see them?”

  I nod. “You sure you don’t want them?”

  “No, they’re not me.” She resumes cleaning.

  I call Tats back while assembling my weekend breakfast: chopped bananas, peanut butter, yogurt, and granola. One of the variations of Dad’s power breakfasts. Fuel your ambition with assertive foods was his message some time last month. It came with three recipes.

  Muhammad is on his laptop, in the dining room, scrolling through job postings.

  I stir my ambitious glop, standing and watching over his shoulder. Dog walker?

  I call Tats again at her home number this time. It rings and rings.

  Braille translator? Perfume sniffer?

  “Muhammad?” I ask.

  “Yeah?” he says, pausing on the posting for carbon manager to read the specs.

  “Where are the philosophy jobs?” I ask. “Isn’t that what you’re studying?”

  He turns to me and grins. “There is no job called philosopher, dear sis.”

  “As if I didn’t know that,” I say, redialing Tats’s cell. I tilt my head to secure the phone between my ear and shoulder, and taste a big spoonful. I put too much peanut butter in, and my teeth find it difficult to wade through and locate the banana chunks.

  “I’m just taking something for a year,” he says. “How does furniture tester sound? For La-Z-Boy?”

  “It sounds awesome if it means you’ll stop hogging the whole table with your stuff,” I say, plunking my bowl down in the one tiny space free of paper.

  I dial Tats’s home number again. In case I missed her being in the bathroom or something.

  Come on, Tats, I think. Pick up and give me the goods. Last night I went over some scenarios and got almost giddy—a strange sort of giddy that was speckled with big drops of fear. But the feeling of possibility is intoxicating. Jeremy and Janna even sounds good together.

  This could be the start of something exciting, scary, cozy, delicious—if I ever get through to Tats.

  I call Tats’s cell phone one last time, in case maybe she was in the bathroom or something, right at that precise time when I called earlier thinking she had been in the bathroom or something before that point in time. The power breakfast is getting soggy, but I can handle it, when possibilities exist.

  Absolutely no answer—but still, doesn’t rule anything out.

  I put the phone down and realize, by the intense way Muhammad is scrutinizing me, that I have the remains of a dreamy smile on my face.

  “Yes? May I help you?” I say, my mouth newly unstuck from peanut butter cement. “Don’t you have a livelihood to pursue or something?”

  “By the way, your friend Tatyana called a minute before you got up,” Muhammad finally lets me know. “I told her you were sleeping, and she said not to call her back because she was going to her grandparent’s cottage. She’ll be back late tonight. Won’t see you until Monday at school, she said.”

  “Thanks for telling me. Now,” I say. “Thanks, Muhammad.”

  “No problem,” he says, missing my sarcasm as usual or ignoring it in that philosophical way of his. “It’s the least I can do when you’re doing so much for me tonight!”

  He smiles at me—that smile again, a mixture of gratitude and hope and desperation.

  “Sheep shearer, that’s your next job,” I say. “You can become a sheep shearer.”

  MONSTER

  I’m on the bus with Fizz, en route to the mosque open house. She’s telling me about Rambo’s addiction to Wonder Bread, a sure feline prediabetic indication, but I’m not listening. Being the handy friend she is, she twists herself to smack me with her laptop bag.

  “Janna,” she says, holding tight to the strap overhead. “You’re not here. And you’re staring at that guy near the front.”

  I’m not staring at the guy near the front, but I know why Fizz thinks so: He’s pretty good-looking; plus he falls into the admirable-forehead category. But I’m just having a zone-out moment, when there’s nothing going on inside but it feels good against the blur of noise on the outside. A comfy vacuum.

  I mouth an apology to Fizz and watch her rooting in her bag as the bus pauses. There it is, beside the tissue package she takes out, the little green book with embossed-gold writing that she carries around with her, One Hundred and One Evils and Their Islamic Cures. I decide against discussing the newest development with Jeremy revealed by Tats last night. Fizz is prone to remedying me and would invariably seek the answer to my “problem.”

  “So guess what? Your uncle asked Farooq if he would lead some of the Taraweeh prayers for Ramadan this year.” Fizz beams at me. “His parents are like, finally! Farooq finished memorizing the Qur’an two years ago, you know. We don’t get why your uncle took so long to ask him.”

  Now I know why I’ve been subconsciously cocooning myself in that vacuum of numbn
ess. The prospect of the monster being at the open house is high. This knowledge must have been simmering under the surface of my thoughts.

  The bus lurches away from a stop. I still the camera around my neck and shrug at Fizz. “Ramadan is in two weeks.”

  “Yeah, but it’s barely enough time to prepare. I’m so excited for him. He deserves this after all the hard work.”

  I wish there were a way to still my heart. It feels like it’s not mine and wants out of my body. I seal it shut with another shrug.

  I can’t tell her. I can’t tell Fizz because she’d never believe such an unholy thing.

  • • •

  We get off at the next stop and run across the multilane road to the mosque. There’s a large neon-on-black sign on the patch of grass by the road that says MOSQUE OPEN HOUSE: ALL ARE WELCOME!

  The lawn is strewn with tables laden with wares because the open house is really one big superbazaar, a suburban souk, with haggling thrown in for authenticity. People are milling already, and I spot our regular non-Muslims, Cassie, Darren, and Julie, among them.

  Fizz sets up her corner, selling scarf jewelry, and I snap some pictures of that. She made the decorated pins herself, melting and molding malleable plastic into interesting shapes, seated at a picnic table in her backyard a few weekends ago. I was there trying to convince her to go wildly corporate, while packaging the trinkets for her.

  I look up after taking a picture of a basket of dangly American-flag scarf pins that Fizz thinks will sell like mad for the Fourth of July and see Julie seated at a henna booth across the aisle, with a big smile on her face. Time to take some strategic pictures.

  I frame a shot of a woman in niqab, a face covering, decorating Julie’s freckled arm with intricate designs of henna. I check the picture on the LCD display. Sausun is behind the niqabi woman, frowning into my camera. She ruined a perfect shot. I didn’t even realize she was at the booth.

  I fit the viewfinder to my eye again. She begins a scowl again.

  I go over.

  “My uncle, Shaykh Jamal, you know, the imam of the mosque here, needs pictures for the website. That’s what I’m doing, Sausun. Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure.” She teases a part of her scarf that’s hanging on her shoulders and lifts it across her face so only her eyes show. “There. Take the pic. I’m working toward this anyway. One day this will be me full-time so shoot away.”

  “You’re really going to cover your face?”

  “Niqabi all the way.”

  I get another shot. A great one, actually: two women with their faces covered, one with chunky Doc Martens boots on, beside an unveiled woman with a huge smile on her face, glancing at her arm being decorated with henna. Sausun drops her face veil when I wave thanks.

  “Assalamu alaikum, Janna!” I turn to see Amu walking toward me. This weekend his white beard is cropped close to his face, and he is wearing a linen safari suit. He does that: go from a luxurious, long Moses beard and authentic thowb-wearing-imam look to a gentrified-summer-tourist-imam look, depending on the occasion. He gets criticism from the congregation for both getups. The conservative portion thinks he’s being “liberal” if he wears non-Eastern clothes, and the liberal members of the mosque think he’s not being of the people if he wears Eastern clothes. What they don’t know is what I’ve noticed: When Amu wears Western clothes, he gives sermons on topics conservatives like to hear about, and when he wears Eastern clothes, his topics appeal to liberals. Like I said before, my uncle is very smart.

  “Walaikum musalam, Amu.” I return his greeting of peace and give him a hug. He immediately turns to everyone around him and says, “This is my niece, you know! Janna, my sister’s daughter.”

  He always does that to make sure he gets no flak for hugging me, a female. He told me once that being an imam meant a lifetime of getting scrutinized by Muslims for everything you do.

  “Muhammad is over there helping out. He’s been here for hours.” Amu indicates the refreshment and snack area. There’s a huddle of college kids setting up. “He told me he’s moved back home.”

  “Yes, he changed majors.”

  “If he has to, I told him he can come live with me.” Amu gives me a brief look before returning to scanning the crowd again. That look tells me Mom has told him my stance on Muhammad moving in. Amu’s not impressed. “But I think he’d like to help your mom with things at home. That would be the best thing.”

  I check my camera settings. “What kind of pictures do you want, Amu?”

  “Happy pictures. People enjoying themselves.”

  He waves Darren over. They walk across and pose for me in front of the clown jumping castle. With Darren’s hair gelled and spiked high, the picture screams mosque website welcome page.

  As Amu strolls away with Darren, I back out to widen the frame and crash into someone.

  “Whoa,” he says, grinning. “I wish I had a camera of my own, to get your expression.”

  The monster actually grazes my arm as he says this.

  I fumble around the henna table and make it three tables over to a clothes rack, with as much nonchalance as one can muster when one’s breathing is wheezy for no physical reason.

  “Hallo! You look like a size four,” a big man wearing forehead jewelry says, peering around the rack. “I have pink. You like pink?”

  He holds up a sheer skirt with gold coins hanging off the waist, with even spaces between them. He gives it a shake and the coins jingle. Then he gives it additional shakes, at rhythmic intervals, and begins an Arabic song, swaying his hips.

  I’m being serenaded by a belly-dance-clothing salesman.

  I look around and see Muhammad in front of the refreshments table. Someone is tapping him on the shoulder and pointing at me. A couple of guys beside him are laughing.

  He strides over to stand on the other side of the clothing rack, hidden from the big vendor.

  “What are you doing?” he says.

  “I’m on assignment, for Amu,” I say.

  “He told you to come over to this dude’s table?” he says, leaning in to whisper. “The guy is not even Muslim.”

  “So?” I say. “I’m taking pictures of the open house. When we open the doors to the community? Ever heard of the concept?”

  “The guy pretends to be Muslim,” Muhammad says. “He comes here every year to sell us stereotypical stuff. Notice the camel bridles?”

  I glance at the end of the booth and see hookah sets, golden swords, and blown-up black-and-white harem pictures from some previous era propped against, yes, camel bridles. The salesman leans in to see who I’m talking to, getting so close he bumps into my camera.

  “Ah, this is your husband?” he asks, looking at my brother.

  Muhammad grabs my arm like some backward, uncouth man and tugs me.

  “I’m a photographer,” I say. “This is my brother.”

  “Come on, we need help with refreshments,” Muhammad says, indicating the yellow sign across from us that says DRINKS!

  There’s a whole crowd of Muhammad’s friends hanging out there, guys with fledgling beards and girls with poufy hijabs, supposedly gender separated but, really, getting chatty with one another. The halal way.

  I make a face at Muhammad and see Farooq hovering across from us, pretending to look at Islamic books.

  A burly man wearing jingles on his forehead is a welcome sight at such times.

  “I’m going to take some close-ups of this guy’s table,” I whisper to Muhammad.

  He looks back at the refreshment stand. Saint Sarah has arrived to bless the place it seems, from the way she’s waving her clipboard around.

  “It’s for this thing I’m doing for my photography portfolio,” I say. “This series called Real Fake. Stuff that is crazy ironic.”

  Either Muhammad is easily swayed by art mumbo jumbo or he wants to get back to schmoozing, because he begins backing up.

  “Wait,” I say. “Can you tell Fizz’s cousin over there that she needs he
lp at her table? Thanks.”

  He nods and whispers, “Be on guard,” before turning away.

  I accept the pink skirt from the belly-dance guy and hold it up. Through it, I see Muhammad sending Farooq on his way to Fizz’s jewelry stand. The monster looks over once more before he turns down the aisle, but I shield myself with the gauzy fabric.

  “No, that is not for your face,” the belly-dance vendor says. “You wear this on your face.”

  He hands me a mock veil. I jingle it and he laughs. I vow to stay at the real fake booth and help out. You know, to educate the man on real Islam, while protecting myself from a scary Muslim dude roaming these parts.

  It’s a good thing that only I know about Farooq, because that only leaves one person, me, to ponder the irony of the situation.

  • • •

  The belly-dance vendor, Mr. Khoury, is a Christian from the Middle East. “Okay, yes, I’m not Muslim. But I like this open house. And you like the stuff I sell?”

  I nod and click pictures of his table. The truth is people do stop to buy his wares. Embroidered fabric wall hangings mostly. They’re actually nice—dark colors entwined in geometric patterns.

  Those and the battery-powered plastic swords. Little kids are going crazy for them.

  “Do you have any kufis, sir?”

  I look up at the familiar voice. It’s Nuah, formerly the Shazam! dude, holding books and wearing a T-shirt that says HI, MY NAME IS RANDOMLY SELECTED under an airport symbol.

  “Kufis? I don’t know—do I?” says Mr. Khoury, spreading his arms open over his tables. “I’ve got lots of things, so maybe I’ll have kufis, too?”

  “Kufis, caps for your head?” Nuah circles his curly hair with one hand and, with the other, waves at me in acknowledgment. “The traditional kind?”

  “Now that’s funny.” The vendor puts his hands on his hips. “How do we get a cap on that hair? It will be like squeezing small socks on a bear.”

  He pantomimes the action with both hands, grunting to animate it further. Muhammad glances from across the aisle, where he’s handing out lemonades to three girls wearing identical outfits. He queries me with a series of head tilts. Everything okay? he mouths. The girls turn to look at me.