New town. New school. New look. New life.
“You okay, Alia?” Aunt Bila glances in the rearview mirror as she exits onto Jupiter Road. “You’re quiet, ya rouhi.” Mom puts her hand on mine. She’s been quiet during the ride, too.
“I’m fine, Amto!” I stuff my voice with cheer. “Excited to get to your house and see everybody!” Aunt Bila doesn’t know what happened. And ultimately, it was nothing. Less than nothing.
Just like all the other times.
CHAPTER TWO
On New Year’s Eve, Aunt Bila’s large ranch-style house in Richardson is family HQ, as always. Strains of Nancy Ajram music and laughter fill the rooms, packed with a raft of extended family still jet-lagged from Saudi, Jordan, London, and New Jersey, here in Dallas to celebrate New Year’s Eve together. Everybody is a cousin, or a friend of a cousin, or the cousin of a friend—and they all go back decades, most to the old days in Jordan.
In the living room, my head ping-pongs back and forth as I work to decipher the Arabic conversation between my favorite cousin Houri, her older sister Fairouza, and three elderly Jordanian women who are related to me. (I think. Like, 75 percent sure.) Events like these are equal parts exhilarating and exhausting—I love seeing my billions of cousins, but it’s overwhelming going from our quiet, boring routine of spaghetti, Scrabble, and Netflix to Aunt Bila’s lively universe, where everything is sparkly purple, the Arabic music is blasting at volume nine thousand, and I’m constantly playing a game of Telephone to understand my own family members.
Houri catches my confused look. She gets it, as usual. “Speak English so Allie can understand.”
One of the women asks a question in Arabic and Houri shakes her head no, responding, “Laa.”
“You are a member of the family?” one of the women asks me kindly in heavily accented English.
I nod. “I’m Mo’s daughter—um, Muhammad’s daughter. Alia. Allie.”
Her eyebrows zoom toward the ceiling. “You’re Muhammad’s daughter? Why don’t you speak Arabic?”
I look into the next room, where my dad is sitting in the formal living room drinking a cup of tea, surrounded by my uncles, his younger brothers. Uncle Sammy cracks a joke and everybody laughs, looking at Dad. He stiffens, smiling politely. Ever since my grandfather Jido died, my dad might technically be head of the family, but there’s always something invisible, indefinable setting him apart.
I know a little something about that. Every family reunion, we take a group photo of all the cousins. It’s a sea of dark brunettes, chattering and laughing in English and Arabic—and then me, on the fringes. One of these things is not like the others.
“He never taught me,” I say quietly.
The woman makes a disapproving noise—whether for him or for me, I’m not sure. “But you pray, right?”
Houri stands up before I can disappoint further, pulling on my elbow. “C’mon. Let’s get some tea.” She drags me away from the living room and down the hallway. I feel the women’s curious eyes on my back. “I don’t really want tea,” she says in a low voice. “But I can’t with the judgment. Besides, I don’t pray, either.”
“Hi,” I say, adopting a jokey tone to hide confusing pangs of emptiness. “Welcome to my world.”
The thing is, I’m not religious—I barely know what being religious means. Growing up in America, I probably know more about Jesus than the Prophet Muhammad (peace onto him … peace be upon him?). I know you’re supposed to say something after his name out of respect, I just don’t know what.
And after so many moves, so much change, so little stability, it’s started to feel like something’s … missing.
“Remember when I took those cheesy Arabic lessons? That book was the worst.”
Houri’s got two laughs: the polite one and the belly one. She busts out the belly one. “Right! Seriously, who still teaches Modern Standard Arabic? It’s like Shakespearean English. Besides, your accent was all wrong.”
“Points for trying, though, right?” I ask hopefully.
“Sure. But who cares?” Houri waves a hand dismissively. “Your dad’s right—you don’t need Arabic. You’re fine.”
Easy for Houri to say: Like all thirty-seven of my first cousins, she grew up speaking it fluently, zipping between English and Arabic with zero effort.
At least I know a little: You can’t grow up in a family like mine without soaking up something through osmosis.
Inshallah is probably the most important word. It means “God willing,” and you’ll hear it constantly. You say it before something happens, or if you want something to happen—like, “Inshallah, Allie will get into a good university.”
Hamdulilah means “thanks to God.” It’s one of those anytime phrases: partially sincere but also filler. You say it after something happens, if you’re grateful for something happening, or if you don’t know what else to say. My family swallows the word—it sounds like ham-du-lah—and I always wonder: Is that a Circassian thing? A Jordanian thing? A people-from-Amman thing? Or is it just my family being lazy?
The mystery persists.
There’s mashallah, which I guess means “God willed it,” but is really like a talisman against the evil eye. It’s an absolute must when complimenting somebody, unless you are a horrible person who wishes to curse their family. If you’re saying how beautiful a baby or bride is, you’d better be mashallah-ing all over the place.
Wallahi means “I swear to God.” Used a lot.
And then there’s the word you’ll hear every eight seconds in a house with kids: yalla, which means “hurry up,” not to be confused with ya Allah, meaning “oh God.” Like, “Ya Allah, my son is dating an actress!”
Dad has always promised to teach me more. Mom wants to learn, too. We’ve tried over the years, listening to phone conversations and asking what this or that means.
The lessons never materialized. I took things into my own hands the summer before seventh grade, buying books and downloading lessons and practicing on my cousins. But my accent sounded Egyptian, they would say, giggling, instead of Jordanian like theirs.
Within a few weeks, I’d stopped trying.
If I’m being honest with myself? My dad probably never wanted to teach me Arabic. He married the most American woman in all of America. (Okay, they’re soul mates, too, but details: She’s a tall blond psychologist who was class president of a private high school in Key Biscayne and grew up taking ski vacations in Gstaad, Switzerland, for God’s sake.) He never calls me Alia, only Allie. He’s never taken me to a mosque—the few times I’ve been were with my teta when I was little, her patiently washing my feet and slowly enunciating the prayers. He goes by Professor Abraham or (haram!) Mo, rather than Muhammad, and we don’t have a Qur’an in the house.
Aunt Bila’s house is covered in beautiful, elaborately calligraphed Islamic texts; Rashid’s even talked Houri into putting a few up.
Ours has none. No reminders of Dad’s heritage. No reminders of his religion.
For somebody who’s devoted his life to history, he seems pretty eager to forget his own.
We find an empty sitting room and collapse on a purple overstuffed couch underneath a gold mirrored decoration of the Ka’baa in Mecca, pulling a blanket over the two of us like we’ve done since we were kids. Aunt Bila’s lived in this house for decades and we didn’t leave Dallas until I was nine, so gossip sessions with Houri on this couch have been a rare constant in my life.
In the center of the fireplace, an extravagant, gold-framed photo of my beloved grandfather Jido in military uniform sits in the place of honor, surrounded by oversized candles. The walls are covered in sumptuous, brightly colored orange, purple, and gold tapestries that I’m pretty sure Aunt Bila picked up in Amman for a shocking amount of money, with shiny purple curtains threaded with gold draped over the windows. Mirrors cover every inch of available surface. It’s a bit over the top—okay, it looks like the sitting room of a narcissistic genie—but I love it.
�
��We haven’t had a moment alone, just us. I’ve missed you, Aloosh,” she says, pulling out an ancient nickname.
“Aloosh. Wow. I haven’t heard that one in a trillion years.” My phone buzzes and I pull it out of my pocket, hoping it might be Wells.
Nope.
“How’s mom life?”
“The best. The worst. Incredible. Exhausting.”
“Where’s Lulu?”
“Rashid’s on it. Baba thinks splitting baby duty is weird. He barely lifted a finger until I was in middle school.”
I love Houri and Rashid’s equal partnership. Just like my own parents.
My phone buzzes again.
“Got someplace you’d rather be? Am I boring you?”
“Sorry.” I laugh. “It’s just Snapchat.” I swipe through my phone, turning it to show her a photo of Emilia and Sarah blowing noisemakers. “All my ‘friends’ are at this party.”
“Why the tone?”
“What tone?”
“You said ‘friends’ in air quotes.”
“I don’t know.” Emilia and Sarah. They’re as interchangeable as Madison, Hannah, and Ashley were in Wayne, or Chloe and Jess in El Segundo, or Rachel and Olivia in Evanston. “We don’t talk.”
“You use sign language? Morse code?”
“I mean we don’t talk talk. Not about stuff that matters.”
The upside of moving every couple years? I’m a chameleon and have learned from necessity how to slot into a new social scene easily. I joined the JV cheerleading squad at Providence this year: an easy-though-temporary path to an instant group. The downside? I’ve spent half my life being friendly with everybody, and friends with nobody. Worse: I can’t remember the last time I said what I truly think at school. And I haven’t had a real best friend since Sophia Weinstein in third and fourth grade, before Dad finished his PhD and we hopped on the academia hamster wheel.
But now Dad finally has a tenure-track job, so we’re in Providence to stay. We’re putting down roots, they say. We’ve bought our first house, so we can’t move.
We’ll see.
“Any guys?” Houri asks.
I pause. She picks up on it.
“There is a guy! Not surprised—you’re a hottie with that red hair. It’s better than the boring brown.”
“Gee, thanks.” Despite myself, I blush.
“This boy.” She rubs her hands together, grinning. “Tell me all the things.”
“Shh. They’ll hear you.”
She nods knowingly. “Sneaking around?”
“There’s nothing to tell. He’s just a friend.”
“Friends to lovers.”
I snort. “We don’t call it ‘lovers,’ Grandma.” Even though Houri is five years older and already a mom—I can’t—she’s the closest thing I have to a sister.
“Didn’t your parents always say you could date once you hit sixteen?” She tugs at her brown curls, pulling them into a loose bun on top of her head. Uncle Ramy, her dad, is Egyptian, so Houri looks more like that side of the family than the pale Circassian Ibrahimis.
“Supposedly,” I say, “but it’s not an issue—because I’m not dating.”
“Dads and dating. The worst combo ever.”
Houri had to sneak around with her early high school boyfriends. It wasn’t until she started dating Rashid that she decided to test the waters with her dad.
None of the cousins had ever had a Black boyfriend, and Uncle Ramy was clearly prejudiced despite all his protesting—but Rashid was Muslim, which was ultimately what mattered to my uncle. He was one of us. Unlike cousin Amal’s longtime boyfriend, Bret, who was captain of the golf team and talked a lot about wakeboarding on Lake Texoma.
Rashid magnanimously forgave my uncle, although I’m not sure he ever forgot. How could you?
“Is he hot?” Houri asks. “Tall, dark, and handsome?”
“He’s really tall, he has the cutest curly dark hair, and he’s beyond gorgeous,” I say, pulling up Wells’s photo on my phone. “See?”
She laughs. “You do have it bad.”
My phone pings.
Stop the presses: Wells has texted.
“Oh my God,” I say. “He texted.”
“What’s it say?”
“It says ‘Happy New Year!’”
She leans over, grabbing my phone. “What are you going to write?”
“Um … ‘Happy New Year’?”
She laughs. “No game at all.”
“Houri, stop. He’s just a friend.”
“So you said.”
I look down at my phone. “Should I add an emoji? I’m not sure if he’s an emoji guy. He might think it’s uncool.”
She leans back on the couch, putting an arm behind her head and smiling. “Why do you care? You know: if he’s just a friend.”
I blush. “Maybe one emoji,” I say, adding a party hat before pressing SEND.
Shakespeare’s got nothing on you, Allie.
“What are you doing in here, girls?” Aunt Bila asks, entering the room carrying a tray of sticky dessert covered in crushed pistachios. “Houriya, Alia, yalla. I made kanafeh. Ta’alou.”
“Coming, Amto,” I say, standing up and following her into the formal living room, where my parents have each ensconced themselves in one of the scores of chairs Aunt Bila has procured, my grandmother holding court in the center. Aunt Bila’s house has an open-door policy, and most of her six kids are always popping in to say hi, ask for advice, borrow things, eat dinner, or drop off their babies while they go to the store. Today is no exception, but instead of six guests, there are probably sixty.
Some of the women are dressed casually, like Houri’s oldest sister, Amal, who favors flouncy dresses, tank tops, and everything Who What Wear recommends. Others, like Houri’s other sister, Fairouza, are wearing silk or cotton headscarves. Aunt Bila and Uncle Ramy aren’t thrilled by Fairouza wearing a hijab, but they long ago learned to pick their battles. My family runs the gamut: religious, liberal, devout, devoid, and everything in between.
Aunt Bila places the kanafeh on the table, next to a stack of china plates. “Yalla, please. Sahtain,” she says to the family and friends spread out around the room. She serves a plate to my grandmother before leaving the room. Houri sits next to Rashid and pulls their toddler Lulu onto her lap, covering her sticky face with kisses. Lulu giggles before reaching out to play with her father’s long, meticulously groomed beard.
“Alia,” Teta says. “Ta’ali hone.” My grandmother puts down her dessert and pats her lap. I do what’s expected of me, walking across the room and sitting on her lap. She pulls me down to her chest, smothering me against her bosom as she dots my head with kisses. Kids run in and out of the room, screaming, while Aunt Bila deftly navigates around them with a tea tray, pouring steaming cups. In the adjacent den, several of my cousins pray together.
“Um, kefic?” I say, asking how she is.
“Mabsoota, ya omri, ya Alia. Wa enti?” I’m happy, my life, Alia. How are you?
“Mabsoota, ya Teta.” I’m happy, too, Grandma.
“I kiss you, my eye,” she says in her thick accent, pulling out a lost-in-translation phrase I’m 75 percent sure is an expression of deep love. Her English is about as good as my Arabic.
“Ya habibti, Teta.” You’re my beloved, Grandma.
We stare at each other awkwardly, our conversational limits reached. I pat her on the shoulder and lean down to give her a kiss on the head before scooting off her lap and grabbing a plate of kanafeh.
* * *
As the clock ticks down to midnight, my father commandeers the remote and switches it from an Arabic satellite music channel to a replay of the ball drop in Times Square, bringing to an abrupt stop Assala Nasri warbling “Ad El Horouf” to the haunting strains of oud and violin.
“We were listening!” my cousin Salma says, protesting more to her sisters dancing around her in a circle than to my dad. Although my dad is off in his own world, he’s still the eldest son and, si
nce Jido died, the de facto head of the family. The few times a year he’s back in Dallas, whatever he says goes.
Muna, Salma’s beautiful older sister, pulls up an Arabic playlist and blares it on her cell phone’s tinny speakers, and the girls relocate to the kitchen to resume their hypnotic forearm swaying and finger snapping.
Near midnight, Wells responds to my text.
Hang when you get back?
I stare at my phone.
What do I say?
Should I be noncommittal? Breezy? I could do sarcastic and poke fun at him.
Maybe sarcastic is a cop-out. Maybe it’s better to be earnest.
Oh God. What do I say?
You’re overthinking this, Allie.
After typing out and erasing several responses, I reply with one bulletproof word:
Cool
I stuff the phone back into my pocket, feeling like I have the world’s most wonderful secret as my gigantic family crowds into the living room to watch the ball drop, popping Martinelli’s sparkling cider and blowing on noisemakers.
He only said he wants to hang. That’s it. We’ve hung out before. Actually, we’ve been hanging out a lot recently.
It’s not a declaration of like. It’s not a declaration of anything other than Your company isn’t horrible, and I want more of it, please.
But as the clock strikes midnight, I can’t contain my jubilation, hugging my family members extra hard and giggling with my cousins as we launch into a rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.”
New year. New life.
CHAPTER THREE
Sunday. Back in Providence. Exhausted.
One of these nights, I’m going to sleep longer than five hours.
“Allie? Breakfast!” my mom calls.
I shower quickly, trying to wash my anxiety down the drain. I woke at three in the morning, yanking myself out of a nightmare. Faceless police officers were dragging Dad away in handcuffs, Mom and me running down the plane aisle screaming, failing to save him as strangers held us back.
“You’re one of us now. Isn’t that what you wanted?” a Southern voice was cooing in my ear as hands gripped my arms.
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