by S. K. Ali
I’m not done. No way.
I chase him with my abaya held up high over my jeaned legs with both my hands, the black cloth bunched around my hips. I don’t know how far the mic can go with capturing sound, but I hope it gets most of my ranting.
“You’re a disease! A cancer! Herpes! An oozing slime fest! HOW DARE YOU ACT ALL HOLY? YOU DON’T KNOW HOLY! HOLY IS RESPECTING GIRLS! I AM NOT UGH! NOT WORTHLESS! I’M A GIRL! A GIRL!”
He’s at an intersection with a red light. Part of me wishes he’d get hit by a car, but another part doesn’t want to see him coddled by paramedics.
I pause in my yelling. What if he stops and turns? What if he takes me on instead of running?
Then, I decide, I’ll take him on too.
I shake off all the feeling of ickiness he creates in me, every bit, and it rolls off like it’s oily gunk. And then I stop. A few feet away from him, as his right foot is stepping off the curb and his head is looking both ways to make a run for it, I stop because it’s gone.
The disgust I feel at me is gone. The gunk of self-blame dissolves to leave just me standing there.
Only when he gets across the street does he turn to look back.
And he sees me. Me, Janna Yusuf, because I lift up my face covering.
He runs.
• • •
Sausun comes out and joins me on the sidewalk. We watch his retreating back. He’s slowed his running to a getaway gait.
It’s almost pitiful.
“I feel amazing,” I say.
“There’s no way I can upload that,” she says.
“Are you telling me it was a fail?”
“A spectacular fail.”
“But I faced him, Sausun. I’m not scared of him anymore.” I tighten the grip on the abaya still gathered around my hips and look at her. “I can’t believe it. I’m not scared.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t get anything that I can use to build a story. There’s no evidence.”
Ugh. I hate that word.
But there’s something happening inside me. It’s like what Sausun described in the basement of Dad’s house, this feeling of wanting to grind the monster into the ground. Is this what strength’s like?
“It feels good right now,” I say. “It feels like if I see him again, I’m strong enough to death-stare him.”
“That’s great, but where does that leave us? Or take us?” She turns to me. “He’s still a predator. You blew up on him, but he’s going to find the next girl, or maybe there are already other girls—did you ever think that? Without a record of something, we can’t put a stop to him.”
I look away from her. He’s gone now. I can’t see him, literally or figuratively. I want to enjoy this moment, exult in it, but then there’s Sausun.
“Can’t you just let me be strong?” I drop the abaya and it falls around my feet in folds. I’m tired of her. Everything’s bigger in her mind. It’s not just about the now but about her sister, about other girls. “I haven’t felt like this in a long time. Maybe I’ve never felt this strong ever, and now you’re telling me it’s not enough.”
“I’m telling you to wield that strength. Sure, enjoy it, but don’t let it wear off without using it.” She walks back to the bookstore doors.
She’s such a disappointment.
Because it’s like she’s always disappointed in me.
MISFITS AND SAINTS
Mom’s earrings go with the shirt I’ve chosen for the party. But, to make them stand out, I’d have to switch up my scarf style.
I try draping it the way Sarah demonstrated on the date night I chaperoned: one end of the scarf wrapped around my neck and the other hitched up near my ears to reveal an earring.
Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but it doesn’t look the way it did at the restaurant. Both ends of the scarf stick out at odd angles, like hair that won’t settle down. Bad-hair day is nothing compared to bad-hijab day.
I take the earrings off. They’re beautiful: a filigreed pattern, like those Persian designs on mosques, supporting sapphire stones. I wonder where Dad bought them.
Maybe Dad wouldn’t like it that Mom gave them to me.
The earrings are BD. When they loved each other.
Does Mom miss that? I mean, having someone love her like that?
I wrap my scarf the regular way and return the earrings to Mom’s jewelry box. She has a shirt that matches them too.
• • •
Tats goes ahead of me, pushing the front door, already ajar, open with her hip. There are about ten people in the living room on our left, and she turns to them and waves. One of the guys starts laughing. “Wrong party,” he says, pointing at me.
I fight the urge to leave and instead follow Tats to the kitchen at the end of the massive foyer. “One More Night” is pumping into the hall from a room on the right.
A huge island stands in the center of the kitchen, stocked with food and drinks. Simone is leaning on the counter watching an improbably tall guy pouring himself a drink. The bottle he’s holding has fancy writing on it. Alcohol?
“Hey,” Tats says, grinning at Simone. “How’s it going?”
“Okay.” Simone nods at me. “Janna, you’re here. A drink?”
“I’ll have a Coke. The regular kind,” I add quickly as Tall Guy smiles.
“With some rum?” Tall Guy opens a Coke.
“I don’t drink,” I say, reaching for the can before he pours it.
“But I do,” Tats says. “Make mine good.”
Tall Guy laughs. Simone moves away with her drink, and I go to the window, drawn by the lights outside.
I can make out Lauren through the part in the drapes. She’s sitting back on a lawn chair beside a really good-looking guy who’s on the edge of a swinging seat. He’s talking to her, but she’s not turned to him. It looks like she’s watching the people in the pool.
I lean closer and draw away the curtain. Marjorie is sitting at the edge of the pool, laughing as someone tries to pull her in. There are a few people who’ve already been dunked, sitting or lying on the grass, drying. I look back at Lauren, who’s getting up even though the guy beside her is still talking. She glances up at the house, her gaze lingering on the door, out of which more people are spilling into the yard. Then she’s looking at the kitchen window and catches my eyes. I drop the curtain, certain my intense staring drew her gaze, in a psychic kind of way.
Tats is sipping a drink, making a face. She hands it back, and Tall Guy adds something to it. She tries another tiny sip, hands it back again. He adds two splashes from two different bottles. She makes a gagging sound. “You stink. Just give me a cooler.”
He laughs and calls her a wimp.
Tats comes over to join me on the window seat just as Marjorie shows up at the kitchen door.
“Hi, guys!” She is wearing a blue strapless top and denim shorts. “Come out! There are people waiting for you!” She widens her eyes at me.
“Really? Like who?” Tats sounds genuinely curious. “Like Jeremy?”
“Who else?” Marjorie says.
“But I thought he was over Janna,” Tats says. “Didn’t you guys know?”
Marjorie appears unsure and then looks at the window. “Lauren also wants to introduce you to people, okay?”
I knew it. It’s a setup. I look at Tats, who’s parting the curtains. Do I have to keep a promise if it’s stupid?
I stand up. I have to leave. Tats pulls me back down.
Marjorie waits. Tats gets up and starts going, but Marjorie’s standing there, looking at me.
“Janna’s going to stay behind for now, but I’m coming,” Tats says, pulling on Marjorie’s arm. “I’m here to party, not drink pop in the kitchen.”
I watch them leave. There’s a group of people waiting for drinks beside Tall Guy, and he’s making comments on everyone’s choices. I hope no one looks my way. I can’t fake friendly to a bunch of people whom I know only from their Facebook pictures beside their comments about me. Mr. Sizli
n Brown Stuff is having a beer with something in it that’ll make his brain fart, according to Tall Guy. Ms. Hawt Turd is getting a Shirley Temple Black.
I turn to the window and, without moving the curtain, watch through the sliver of a gap.
Tats is right in front of Lauren. She’s moving her hands and laughing, pointing at the pool, then at the people on the grass. I can tell she’s being loud, as two guys sit up from their prone positions to watch her. A huddle of girls giggle to one another, looking her up and down, as if she’s not dressed exactly the same as them. Lauren is staring at her with a don’t-touch-me expression on her face.
God, I wish Tats would learn to tell social cues already! She’s making a needless fool of herself.
Marjorie positions herself behind Tats, copying her movements in mime form, exaggerating their crass factor. That’s it, I’m going out there to get Tats and drag her home. I owe her that at least.
But then Lauren is leaning in and listening. Tats points at the window, and I move, a fraction too late, as I catch Lauren’s gaze again before shielding myself behind the drapes. What in the world is Tats saying? My best friend over there wants to come out, but she’s scared to be out here after you guys ran a Facebook campaign against her? Could you guys pretty please promise not to hurt her feelings so she can come out and enjoy your party? Pretty please with a cherry wine cooler on top?
I can imagine her like that.
It’s only Tall Guy and me now in the room. I sip my Coke slowly, watching him pour himself another drink.
“Never tasted anything before?” He’s looking down as if talking to his plastic cup. “Even a sip from your parents?”
“My parents don’t drink,” I say. “Well, my mom doesn’t.”
“You’re missing out.” He looks at me before taking a gulp.
“Or. I’m. Not,” I say. I turn back to the window to stop him from talking. Even through the chink, I can tell Lauren is not out there anymore, and neither is Tats nor Marjorie. The drying people are spread out, though it looks like a couple ended up in the pool again. I open the drapes the whole way and peer to see out to the edges, near the fence. No one there.
Tats ditched me.
I start to panic and look around the kitchen. There’s a door behind Tall Guy, near the counter. It’s a side door. I can make a run for it and then text Tats from across the street to see what’s going on. I wouldn’t leave her. I’d wait, just away from this place.
While I’m thinking this, a group of guys come into the kitchen. Jeremy’s one of them.
I try to turn back to the window, but he’s seen me already.
“Hi,” he says, from near the counter.
I wave back.
He turns around and that’s it.
I feel strange: relieved in two ways. That he dropped everything and that he’s here, in the room. I feel safer.
“Jeremy,” I say, the first time I’ve said his name.
He looks at me, then comes over, holding a Coke too. I move over on the window seat until there’s a wide space for him to choose a spot from. He chooses wisely, with a nice distance between us.
“I need to leave the party, but I can’t, not without Tats. But I don’t want to look for her around the house.” I turn the tab of my pop can. “I don’t really know anyone here.”
“You want me to help you look?” he asks. I nod.
We get up and move out of the kitchen. There are more people in the foyer now, but Tats is not there, so we pass through to the den and connected dining room. The music is loud here, but I shout over it because I remember something. “Where would Matt be?”
“He’s in the living room. She wouldn’t be there; no one’s there except his friends.”
Matt was one of the guys Tats waved at when we came in? Did she even realize she’d passed her whole reason for coming here?
“She’s not on the first floor. Maybe she’s outside,” Jeremy says when we’re back in the hallway.
“No, I looked there already.”
He’s already opening the French doors leading into the backyard. It’s strangely still, even though the yard is full of people.
It’s the June air, when you can hear every stir in hyper-audio. Maybe that’s why everyone around the pool is lying there listless.
“Is that why you didn’t want to come to my house that day?” Jeremy is looking at the pool. “Because Farooq was there and he’d see us?”
I can’t believe he believes we were together, the monster and me.
Wait, does he believe it?
“Jeremy, I wasn’t with him; I never was.” I take a step back and sit on one of the stone benches flanking the doors. He turns to me.
“But is that the reason you wouldn’t come in? You didn’t want him to know, right?”
“I didn’t want anyone to know, but yeah, I especially didn’t want him to know. But not because we were together.”
“So if there’s nothing between you two, he was just playing me? Why wouldn’t you have texted me or something then? To clear it up?”
“I guess I realized that it wasn’t going to work for us anyway.”
“Okay, so it made sense in your head, and that was enough for you?”
No, no, no. Why is he making this about us? There can be no us, doesn’t he see that? “I realized the way I felt wasn’t fair to you. Like I said, I didn’t want anyone to know about you. Not just Farooq. Because there are these things that are important to me, and I haven’t figured out how other people fit into them yet. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten into things. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. If that’s how it is.” It doesn’t sound okay, the way he says it. The way he says it opens a space in me, like a skipped heartbeat.
I’m sad.
When it was in my head, it was easier, this thing between us. It was almost better than the real thing because it was neat and could be opened and closed as much as I wanted it to be.
It didn’t involve another person’s heart. Or two worlds colliding. And Jeremy getting hurt in the collision. “I messed up, Jeremy.”
“Don’t worry about it now.” He shrugs and then goes still. “Shh, look. To your left. Slowly.”
I turn slightly. A bird is on the sill of the kitchen window, tilting its head as though listening to something. It’s small, and its claws remind me of the one that landed on my palm at the lake.
“Is it a chickadee?” I whisper.
“No, a white-throated sparrow.” He lets out a laugh and the bird flies.
“Why’d you laugh? It got scared.”
“Because not every bird is a chickadee.”
“I know that. Ostriches, chickens, eagles, the list goes on.”
“And penguins, right? Come on, let’s go find Tats.” He laughs again and moves to open the doors to the house.
“Maybe she’s down in the basement,” he says, heading to a door opposite the French doors we entered through. Music, different from the kind upstairs, blasts into the hall. “This is where Lauren and friends hang.”
I follow him down, a stab of worry making me flinch when I hear the door close behind me.
There’s no one in the rec room. I turn quickly on the stairs, aware that I’m in a basement with the door closed again, with a guy again, and music so loud.
I’m almost back at the top when I hear Tats. She is in the basement. I lean down and look through the banister railings. She’s coming out of a room off of the rec room. She sees me and smiles, totally ignoring Jeremy standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Ready to go, Janna?” She has the weirdest smile on her face.
“You guys want a ride?” Jeremy asks. “I need to pick up something.”
“We’re going home,” I say.
“It’s far from here, so don’t bother,” Tats says, not looking at Jeremy but talking to him.
“It’s not a problem,” Jeremy says.
Tats turns to him. “We don’t need a ride!”
“It’s
okay, a ride would get us there faster,” I say quickly, smiling at Jeremy. “Thanks.”
“Fine.” Tats goes by and we follow behind.
• • •
The ride is silent, with Tats and me in the back like we’re being chauffeured.
Finally, I whisper, “I don’t think he knew. Jeremy didn’t know. He’s clueless in this whole thing. He had nothing to do with it.”
“I don’t believe that,” Tats says out loud. “How could he not know his friend was a douche bag?”
I don’t say anything. Neither does Jeremy. He probably thinks we’re having a private conversation.
“Tats, why’d you go to the basement with them?”
“To make a deal.” She’s looking out of the window.
“What’re you talking about?”
“Janna.” She turns to me. “We can’t go to the roof anymore. Access denied.”
I think about that. “Did they tell on us? Lauren and them? How’d they know?”
“Now they know.” She pulls the España key chain out of her shorts. There’s no key dangling from it. “They’ve got the key. I gave it to them.”
“Tats,” I say, uncomprehending. “For what? Matt?”
She laughs and whispers, “Was he there? I didn’t even notice.”
“Tats?”
“For you, Janna. They’re going to leave you alone. They’re going to leave my friend alone.”
She turns to me, her eyes glistening. They make me lean over and give her a hug so I can hide my own eyes.
• • •
Jeremy stops the car at the entrance to our cluster of buildings, and we get out. Tats starts walking, but I move to the driver’s window and wait for Jeremy to roll it down. “Thanks again.”
He nods. “No problem. See you around then?”
“Sure, as long as you don’t scare away the birds.” I wave as the window rolls up, and he drives away, a smile on his face.
My phone pings. You never told me your brother’s a crybaby.
Lol, why?
He’s calling fouls every day. Basketball.
