by Emma Easter
The young woman told him to hold on for a second and then looked down at the computer in front of her. Her fingers clicked away on the keyboard while she gazed at the screen. After a few minutes, she looked up at him and said, “A Zainah Keita checked in last night, but she checked out this morning. I’m afraid she isn’t here anymore.”
He shook his head in astonishment and turned to look at Trisha who was beside him. “Where on Earth could she have gone?” He turned to the receptionist again and asked if she had any idea where Zainah had gone.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” The young woman said.
“This cannot be happening!” Faizan raked his fingers through his hair, completely frustrated. As he walked out of the bed and breakfast with Trisha, he said, “Lord, where on Earth is my Zainah?” He called her phone again, but still it didn’t ring.
Trisha put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Faizan. We will find her somehow. At least we know she is safe.”
He shut his eyes and then opened them again, feeling weary with worry. “I blame myself,” he said. “If only I had reassured her even more when she was worried at your wedding that Lauren and I had a thing.”
Trisha said, “Stop being so hard on yourself. It was all a mistake.” They got into his car again and sat there for a full minute. He turned to Trisha once more and said, “Now, what are we going to do? I am out of options.”
Trisha didn’t say anything and they both sat in the car in silence. After a few more minutes, Trisha finally said, “We should go to the airport and see if she’s there.”
“The airport? I don’t think she has the money she needs for a trip out of the country.”
“Can you think of anything else to do?” Trisha asked.
He thinned his lips and then nodded. “Okay. We will go and look for her at the airport.”
“I’ll call Audrey and Sienna and find out if either of them knows where she is,” Trisha said. “Maybe she called them yesterday and told them where she was going.”
“Keep calling Zainah as well,” Faizan said. He began to drive to the airport while Trisha called Audrey. She spoke on the phone for a few minutes and then ended the call. Turning to him, she said, “Audrey doesn’t know where she is. Let me call Sienna.”
She did, but Sienna also didn’t know where Zainah had gone.
“When we get to the airport, where exactly are we going to start looking for her?” he asked. “I guess we’ll just look around and ask the airport security. I just hope we find her there because I don’t know where else to look if we don’t.”
Inside, Trisha went to one end of the airport terminal while Faizan went to search for Zainah on the other. He searched everywhere, looking for any woman with Zainah’s tall, thin figure and stunning dark complexion, but he only found one person, and it was clearly not her. He asked the airport security if they had seen any woman who looked like her. He described Zainah in detail, but none of them had seen anyone like that.
He combed his fingers through his hair, worry coursing through him. When he saw Trisha coming toward him with a frown on her face, his heart sank.
“I didn’t see her,” Trisha said. “I’m sorry, Faizan, but I think she has already left Rosefield.”
She might be heading out of the country if she has gotten to Boise, he thought in dismay. Once again, he felt like crying out in anger. He took a deep breath and held himself together. As he walked out of the airport with Trisha, he said, “We will have to go to the police station and file a missing persons report.”
“But she isn’t really missing, Faizan. She checked herself out of the bed and breakfast today,” Trisha said. “Since she’s an adult, I doubt the police would do anything about it, at least for now.”
“I wish Audrey were here,” he said. “She might open an unofficial case.”
Trisha sighed loudly. “You know she’s safe, Faizan. The only thing I can think of is that she is planning to leave America.”
He put his hand on his head. “I have to go to the airport in Boise and see if I can catch her before she leaves the country. If she leaves America thinking I cheated on her, that will be the end of it, Trish. I might never see her again.”
Trisha didn’t say anything.
They got into his car, and he took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel. He had to go home and get his passport and then fly to Boise. He would call Jake if he found out in Boise that she had already left the country and beg his handler to let him fly out, just this once, so he could go and find her in the women’s camp. It was very unlikely that Jake would agree to let him do that, but he had to try. He couldn’t let Zainah leave thinking he had cheated on her.
He drove to Trisha’s, dropped her off, and promised to call her if he found Zainah. And then he headed for Audrey’s to get his international passport, determined that he would find the woman he loved, no matter what it took.
*****
Zainah stood in front of Audrey’s front door and rang the doorbell. She waited for a few minutes, but when no one answered the door, she rang the bell again. She sighed deeply as she waited. When she was at the bed and breakfast yesterday, she had woken up in the middle of the night with tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t do this,” she had whispered as she sat up on the bed. “There has to be some kind of explanation for why Faizan and Lauren were holding hands in the old people’s home. And why Carrie’s grandmother said they were a couple.
But what kind of explanation could there possibly be? She didn’t know for sure then, and she still didn’t know now, but she felt that Faizan would never cheat on her. He loved her too much.
She had put away her childish decision to leave the United States and go back to the women’s camp and decided that when she woke up in the morning, she would go back to Trisha’s and wait for Faizan to come and pick her up as he had told her he would the day before. She would talk to him about it and listen to whatever explanation he gave her. Because without a doubt, there was an explanation for all of the confusion, for everything that Carrie’s grandmother had told her.
Unfortunately, because she did not sleep for most of the night, she had woken up later than she wanted to. She had checked out of the bed and breakfast as early as she could and then decided to go straight to Audrey’s rather than Trisha’s to talk to Faizan. When she arrived at Audrey’s, she found no one was home. Faizan’s car was not in the driveway. She thought then that he had already left for Trisha’s to pick her up and headed there. At Trisha’s, she also found no one was home. After changing into a fresh outfit, she took another taxi back to Audrey’s, sure that he would be there now, but he still wasn’t. She was sure that they had missed each other again.
She sat down on the doorstep and decided to wait for him, her mind racing as she waited. If only I had not been so quick to believe the worst about Faizan, she thought to herself. I should have just gone to talk to him yesterday.
Minutes went by, and she began to wonder where he had gone. And then her heart leapt as she saw his car heading toward the house. She stood as the car stopped right in front of her. She smiled uncertainly as he got out of the car.
He ran to her, his eyes full of worry, fear, and relief. And there was something else in them. Was that guilt? She pressed her lips together as she looked at him. What did he have to feel guilty about?
He held out his hands and she quickly went to him and fell into his arms. He held her tightly and rubbed her back. “Where have you been, Zainah?” he asked in a haunted voice. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He kissed her hair, and then held her away from him.
She looked down, feeling guilty. She was the cause of the worry in his eyes, the tremor in his voice that told her he’d been terribly scared because of her. “I am so sorry, Faizan.” She looked up at him. “Carrie’s grandmother told me something that made me question our relationship. But I was wrong.”
“I know what happened,” he said, gently caressing her cheek. “You thought I was
cheating on you with Lauren.”
She looked down again. “I should have trusted you. I went to Hattie’s Bed & Breakfast and then I couldn’t sleep. I knew in my heart there was no way you would cheat on me. So I came back here to find you, but I didn’t see you.”
“Trisha and I have been searching everywhere for you. We went to Carrie’s house first and then to the airport. I was about to go to Boise now and see if I could catch you at the airport before you flew out of the country. My plan was to call Jake if you had and tell him that I had to fly out to North Africa to see if you were at the women’s camp.” He took hold of her shoulders and searched her eyes. “Zainah, let me explain what happened.”
Even though she had craved an explanation since this morning, she suddenly found she didn’t really need one now. She knew deep down in her heart that no matter what she’d heard, she could trust him. She shook her head. “There’s no need to. I already know that you wouldn’t cheat on me. I was just insecure.”
“I blame myself for your insecurity,” Faizan said. “I should have told you that Lauren and I went to The Fruitful Vines together after our welfare meeting. We visited Carrie’s grandmother months ago and she made me promise to come back with Lauren. At that time, she kept insisting that we were a couple even though I told her we weren’t. When Lauren and I went to visit her two days ago, she kept calling us a lovely couple and then joined our hands together. I removed mine and told her firmly that Lauren and I were not a couple and that I was in love with someone else. I even told her I was about to marry the girl I loved. I thought she got it then, but apparently she didn’t.”
Zainah smiled sadly.
Faizan continued. “Not telling you that Lauren and I had gone to the old people’s home together was a mistake.” He ran his hands down her arms and took her hands. “I have to tell you something, Zainah. I don’t want to hide anything from you anymore.” He threaded their fingers together and said, “Lauren still likes me. She told me so. But I have never given her any reason to. Are you angry with me?”
Zainah chuckled and said to him, “Why would I be angry with you? Just like I told you when I first came to Rosefield, I understand that you are an attractive man. Women will want you and I have to live with that if I’m going to be with you.” She laughed. “I’m ok with that, I guess. I mean, it’s not a bad thing for my man to be desirable to other women. I trust you fully, Faizan. I trust you with all my heart. I’m sorry for my childish behavior. It will never happen again.”
He folded her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. “I’m just glad you’re here with me. I was so scared when I couldn’t find you.”
They stood hugging in front of the house for long while and then Faizan took her hand and pulled her into the house. They both sat on the loveseat and soon began kissing. She pressed her body closer and closer to his, and then knew she needed to pull back immediately.
But she didn’t.
Thankfully, he pulled away from her, stood up, and looked down at her with a rueful smile on his face. “Three days more, Zainah. In three days, we can kiss as long as we want and do whatever we want without feeling guilty. For now, though, I think we’ve had enough kisses.”
She smiled ruefully and took a deep breath to still her racing heart.
He held out his hand to her and she took it. “Let’s go to the park or to a restaurant. Or maybe to the movies or something. We shouldn’t stay here alone.”
She smiled as he pulled her up from the sofa. “You’re right.”
As they drove away from the house in his car, she kept counting the days in her heart. Today was a Wednesday, tomorrow, Thursday… There were only three days left until their wedding, but it felt so far away, like there were still three more weeks before she could finally marry Faizan. She turned to look longingly at him as he drove, and then she gave a long, wistful sigh. In three days’ time, she would finally be married to him. And then he would be fully hers, and she his.
Chapter Twelve
As Leila boarded the bus that would take her to Kazi and from there to Nira, her emotions churned with a confusing mix of excitement and fear. She had found a job as a dishwasher in a small restaurant near Fatima’s house. The advantage of the job was that it paid whenever she could come to work. When she couldn’t, someone else did the dishes and was paid for the job. She had worked for a full week and had earned enough money to go back to Nira and see Malik. Once she was back from Nira, she would continue to work so she could earn enough money to repay Fatima.
She had jumped at the chance to get the job, even if it was as a dishwasher, as she was desperate. After her first day at the job, she had smiled in self-mockery as she remembered how she had quarreled with Zainah when Zainah got a job as a maid. At that time, she had wondered how Zainah could work as a lowly maid and had told her it was beneath her. Now, she was the one working while Zainah was in America, probably living in a big house and about to marry the love of her life.
She now understood why Zainah had taken the job as a maid. Zainah had been desperate to find Faizan then, just as she was desperate to find Malik now. She would do anything, including scrubbing toilets if she had to, in order to be with Malik again.
The bus quickly filled with passengers, and half an hour later their driver drove out of the station. Leila bowed her head and silently prayed that this journey would not be full of problems, the way the last one, and even the one before that, had been. She prayed that they would not encounter robbers on the way this time and that Malik would be home. There was a niggling doubt at the back of her mind that Malik might still not be in Nira when she got there. Even though Khadija had assured her that he would be back in a week, Khadija had also told her that the number of days Malik stayed in Nira varied. Sometimes, he stayed for two days, other times for three. It was the one thing that Leila worried about the most. What if he stayed for only a day? What if, by the time she reached Nira, he was gone?
After she finished praying for the trip, she felt slightly better. By God’s grace, everything would go well.
But what if it doesn’t? a voice in her head said. It’s not like you are sure this is what God wants you to do. In fact, it’s almost certain that this is not His will for you.
She brushed away the anxious feeling the voice in her head had caused and focused on how she would feel when she saw Malik. She could just imagine his big brown eyes sparkling when he saw her. She was sure he would be ecstatic, and so would she.
As night approached, the serenity that had settled over her since after her prayer for the trip began to dissipate. Fear gripped her as she remembered the incident with the robbers. She remembered how she had been thrown to the ground and how her back and her legs had hurt for a long time after that. She couldn’t afford for that to happen on this trip. She couldn’t afford for anything to slow her down. If she didn’t get to Nira fast enough, she could end up discovering that Malik had left by the time she got there.
As the driver sped down the road where the robbery had happened, she began to pray earnestly. Even after they passed the spot where it had taken place, her fear did not cease. It was completely dark outside now. Who knew what lurked behind the huge trees that lined both sides of the road?
The women who sat on her left and right sides were asleep, and many of the other passengers in front of her were also sleeping. But she couldn’t sleep. She kept her eyes wide open, as though by doing that she could keep any danger lurking behind the trees or on the road away.
She continued to pray, asking for protection. She stayed awake until just before daybreak when she finally dozed off. She woke up about two hours later and pressed her lips tightly together when her stomach rumbled with hunger.
The aroma of grilled meat filled the air, and she noticed that many of the passengers were eating and drinking. No wonder she felt so hungry. The driver had probably stopped at a spot on the road where hawkers sold food to travelers so that passengers could buy food for themselves. Unfortunately, she
had been asleep and hadn’t gotten a chance to buy food for herself. She would have to endure the hunger until the driver stopped at another place where she could buy food. Who knew when that would be?
They drove by small towns and villages, some with inhabitants of no more than fifty people. Sometimes, there was traffic. Other times, they drove down winding roads and did not see any other cars for an hour or two. At one of the towns they went through, there was traffic. She bought a loaf of bread and two hardboiled eggs. She also bought two small bottles of water. She ate quickly and washed the food down with one of the bottles.
She slept better that night and woke up early in the morning. A few hours later, the driver drove into the bus station at Kazi. She came down from the bus and quickly got into a bus going to Nira.
It was only after she boarded the bus that she really began to worry about her journey to Nira and the dangers she might encounter once there. This time, just like the last, she was going to reach Nira in the daytime. The risk of being seen by someone from Malik’s father’s house was great.
Her stomach twisted and turned with fear as the driver sped toward Nira. She told herself to stop worrying, but she couldn’t. Her fears, after all, were justified.
They began to approach the Nira market and her heart began to drum. She would be clearly seen by everyone once she came down from this bus. She had not even made a plan for how she would get to Malik’s house without being seen by anyone connected with his father. Consumed by the thought of finally getting to see him again, she had not thought to make a plan.
The bus stopped directly opposite the market and she came down with the other passengers. For a short moment, she stood at the back of the bus, contemplating what to do. And then she made a quick decision to take the path Khadija had told her to take on the day she’d left Nira a week ago.