He reaches out, grabbing my hand again. I close my eyes for a second, reveling in the feeling of his skin on mine.
“Sorry. You’re not my therapist,” I mumble, ducking my head.
“Don’t be. Thanks for telling me.”
I feel safe with Wells.
That’s a new one.
A flood of gratitude overwhelms me. He sees my tears welling up and averts his eyes, which gives me a chance to wipe them away.
We both pretend it didn’t happen.
The first bell rings, and we start gathering our stuff.
In the hallway, Wells clears his throat. “So. Now I know. And the other Muslim kids know. Who else?”
I shake my head. “Nobody. I got into a fight with Emilia and Mikey recently. They were going off about Muslims.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? It’s not your fault.”
“Mikey and I have history. But sometimes, I wish he’d just … go away.”
I nod.
“I’m surprised Emilia pushed back, though,” he says. “That’s gotta be frustrating. Especially since she’s all ‘woke.’”
“That’s the thing. You’d be surprised who says the stuff that sticks. It’s not always the bigots. Sometimes it’s the good guys.”
“Why now?” he says. “What changed?”
“I’m sick of feeling like I’m rejecting my family. That’s what it’s about, right? Finding yourself. Learning. All that nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” he says, and smiles.
“Besides,” I say, feeling emboldened, “somebody’s got to combat your dad.”
Cue awkward silence.
Crap.
“I’m just kidding,” I say quickly.
Wells flushes, looking guilty. “No, you’re not. And you’re right.”
Bigotry has been gold for Jack Henderson’s ratings, with half of the audience hate-watching him and the other half eagerly turning the dial to hear him preach their gospel. I Googled him last night and watched a video of him on TV passionately extolling the forgotten virtues of white America and arguing in favor of a complete Muslim ban.
That was a fun five minutes.
“What would your dad say?” I ask.
“About you?”
“Yeah.”
Wells looks queasy, as if he’s been stuck on a small boat for too long. “In public, he’d be nice. In private, he’d lose his mind.”
“Ouch.”
“I don’t care what my dad thinks.”
I’m not sure if I believe him.
We kiss each other goodbye in the hallway by my locker. I enter my combination, swing open my locker door, and stare at my face in the tiny mirror I’ve put up. In the reflection, I see Wells’s back as he walks away.
Please, please, please let him be for real, I say to myself.
I’m surrounded by well-meaning people who don’t want to hurt me with their ignorance—but still do.
I couldn’t take it if Wells was just another one of them.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
With a little help from my friends in study group and Professor Google, I’ve been tiptoeing further into the religious waters these past couple weeks.
I still haven’t said anything to Dad. Scratch that—I’m actively hiding it from him.
Part of me wonders if he suspects something. I feel like I have a giant blinking neon sign over my head saying I’M KEEPING THINGS FROM YOU.
But he hasn’t said anything to me, and, in fact, is acting normal. I don’t think he suspects a thing.
I get my chance to talk to Dad the next weekend when he suggests we go for one of our drives.
Driving around and gawking at big houses followed by lunch—that’s kind of our thing, no matter the city.
We know all the good spots. In Texas, it’s Meadowood Road in Dallas, and Armstrong Parkway in Highland Park. In Miami, near where Grandmother lives, it’s Indian Creek, hands down. (Although, good luck getting in.) And in Atlanta, there’s nowhere better for mansion-lusting than Tuxedo Park and the winding stretch of West Paces Ferry Road in Buckhead.
The mansions there put even Wells’s house to shame.
Dad changes stations on the satellite radio, looking for the Beatles channel. We both sing along as he pulls onto GA-400, zooming toward Buckhead. He’s adorably off-key.
He turns onto West Paces Ferry. There’s a Sotheby’s real-estate sign in one of the front yards, in front of wrought-iron gates. “Check that one out—your kind of place,” Dad says. “Place your Zillow bets?”
“Fifteen million,” I guess.
“I’d say thirteen,” he says. “The hedges need work. Not enough privacy.”
He doesn’t say anything else as we drive farther down the road, winding around a bend. I realize he’s waiting for me to look up the price, so I do.
“Twenty-two,” I say.
“Oh!” he groans. “Nowhere close.”
We continue this familiar game for a while. Despite my anxiety, I manage to lose myself in the pleasures of house-gawking. But eventually, I get bored and I have to fake it so I don’t hurt Dad’s feelings.
“You sure you’re okay, pumpkin?” he asks, looking at me sidelong. We’re at a light, about to turn onto Peachtree Road for lunch at Phipps Plaza—our usual postgawk destination.
I put on a bright smile. “I’m great, Dad. Everything’s perfect.”
Once we’re inside Phipps Plaza, we head to our regular lunch spot: The Tavern.
These just-the-two-of-us trips have been rarer since we moved to Atlanta. Neither he nor Mom have said it, but I can tell Dad’s much more stressed here, even though it’s a better job, better pay, and more prestige.
Now that I’m seeing everything through a new lens, I realize it’s never occurred to me to ask if his colleagues know he’s Muslim.
So I do.
“Weird question,” I say, as our burgers come. “Do the other professors know you’re Muslim?”
He frowns. “What prompted that?”
“Just curious.”
A scowl takes up residence on his face. “My colleagues and I don’t talk about those sort of things.”
“But, I mean, Abraham. They must suspect.”
“If anything, Abraham makes people think we’re Jewish,” he says.
Mind. Blown.
“Is that why you changed the name when you moved to America?” I ask. “Because you were trying to distance yourself from seeming Muslim?”
“What’s bringing up all these questions, Allie?”
I sense we’re skirting the edge of danger.
I let it go, moving on to more acceptable topics as we tackle our burgers: the school musical, my World History grades, a highly sanitized retelling of my first date with Wells.
What I really want to ask is something I can barely bring myself to articulate:
Why are you self-loathing?
But I can’t. It would crush him.
And I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt him.
What’s funny is, even though Dad is an outsider now, in Jordan he was the ultimate insider.
I’ve heard the stories so many times, not just from Dad but from Aunt Bila—about how they grew up with drivers and staff in walled compounds, bodyguards accompanying the kids to school because Jido was so high up in the government. How my aunt was best friends with the current king of Jordan’s sister when they were kids—back when they were forgotten heirs of a displaced wife. Even now, one of my distant cousins is married to another sister of the king, a daughter of the beloved previous king.
That’s Jordan: everybody’s a cousin of a cousin.
I wonder how that affects you. Being part of the inner circle, keys to the kingdom in hand. You give up your comfortable life, moving to America to pursue the next phase of the dream you’ve been promised.
And suddenly, you’re nobody.
Your new country doesn’t care that you went to a prestigious military college, that you graduated
from an Ivy League university, that the king of Jordan was the guest of honor at your parents’ wedding, that your grandfather received the pope on his first official visit to the Holy Land, that you’re a good conversationalist, a kind and funny person, fluent in five languages, a wine connoisseur, a Beach Boys fan, a complicated human.
All they see is your face.
All they hear is an accent.
The home that was advertised has locked its doors—shut for reasons too painful to believe.
So you burn down your past, desperate to be accepted.
Which leaves me sifting through the ashes.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I’ve started smuggling my Qur’an out of the house for study group, living in fear of being caught by Dad. Other kids hide drugs and alcohol from their parents; I hide a translation of the miraculous word of God.
After a study session at Fatima’s house the following week, Dua invites me back to her place to hang out. I text Mom from the back seat of Dua’s mother’s car, updating her.
At Dua’s, I spot an open notebook on her bed. “What are you drawing?”
She picks up the notebook and hands it to me. “Feel free.”
It’s a rough sketch of an elderly man sitting at a table, with a cane resting by his knee. The pencil strokes are bold and assured. “This is incredible!” I say.
“Thanks.”
I flip through the book, looking at Dua’s sketches: Each one is better than the last.
“You’re beyond talented,” I say. “These are great.”
“I know,” she says, grinning. “Thank you. I’m proud of them.”
“Have you sold any?” I ask.
“A few. Etsy, ArtFire, the usual. I made decent money, too. I don’t have time to focus on it, though.”
“Because of school?”
“Yeah. I’m in five honors classes.”
“Five? Yikes, I thought four was pushing it.”
“World History, Mandarin, English, Visual Arts Two, and Algebra Two,” she says, ticking them off on her fingers. “Plus AP Chem. You?”
“World History, English, French, and Algebra Two. Then regular ol’ chemistry, and AP Comp Sci.”
“Whoa, comp sci. My dad would be impressed.”
“They’re not impressed with your five honors classes? With AP Chemistry? With Mandarin? Let a girl live.”
She laughs. “If I came home with a C, believe me, they’d notice.”
“My parents don’t even bother checking to make sure I’ve done my homework,” I say. “They have it easy with me.”
“You know parents. They take the good ones for granted.”
We both laugh.
After snacks and small talk with her mom downstairs, we go back to her bedroom, where the conversation turns to today’s meeting. The group focuses on a different topic each week; today’s discussion was on the importance of zakat, or charity. It’s the third pillar of Islam, with every Muslim of a certain age and means required to give 2.5 percent of their income yearly to the poor and those in need. I love the idea behind it: not only to remind you to be free of greed and selfishness, but also to emphasize that everything comes from God and we’re merely trustees.
“Do you volunteer?” Dua asks.
“Sort of. I found a senior center in Johns Creek after we moved here and was going a couple times a month. But my homework spiraled out of control before finals, and I haven’t been since the holidays. Both of my parents’ families are really into charity work, so I grew up with it as something you just automatically did.”
“Same. But I get it—it’s impossible finding the time.”
“Where do you volunteer?”
“This domestic violence shelter,” she says. “I go once a week, help support the counselors, provide a little cheer.”
“Sounds intense.”
“These women think they’re doing their religious duty by staying in bad relationships. It’s beyond. I have to keep quoting the Qur’an to prove that their men are being selfish and completely un-Islamic by treating them like garbage.”
“It’s an Islamic shelter?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Here? In Providence?”
“No, downtown, near that mosque on Fourteenth Street.”
Dua’s phone rings: At first, I think it’s somebody calling her, but then I realize it’s melodious Arabic singing—the type of music I’ve heard in Dallas or New Jersey with my family.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Come on, really?” she says, laughing. “It’s an app that tells you when to pray. It also tells you which direction the Qibla is in and gives daily supplications.” She holds up the phone, flashing the screen in my direction, but the only thing I see is Arabic writing. “It’s time for Asr.”
“You’re going to pray now?”
“Yeah, it only takes five minutes. I could make it up later, but I’ve been trying to do it right. You keep delaying and putting other things first, and then where do you end up, you know?”
“In the fiery bowels of hell,” I say, and Dua laughs.
“Do you want to pray with me?” she says.
“I mean … uh, is that okay?”
“Of course.”
Together, we go to the adjoining bathroom and make wudu in the two sinks, purifying ourselves before prayer.
I haven’t made wudu since I was a kid, when my teta taught me how to pray. I didn’t even do it for Jido’s funeral. So I follow Dua’s lead, watching her and imitating her movements: rinsing each hand and arm multiple times, washing my face and behind my ears, taking a sip of water and gargling with it before spitting it out, and awkwardly washing my feet in the sink, trying to keep from splashing water on the counter, down my pant leg, and on the floor.
Back in her bedroom, Dua finds a prayer dress in a drawer and hands it to me.
“Ready?” she asks.
I look at myself in the mirror, wearing a long white abaya, which hides every part of my body except my face and hands. Even my feet are hidden.
“I feel weird,” I say.
“Not weird. Beautiful. Humble.”
“Humbly, I feel weird.” I follow her back into the bedroom.
Dua lays out the prayer rugs and stands in front of one, raising her hands to her ears.
“Allahu akbar.”
She crosses her arms, folding her hands together over her heart, gazing with humility at the floor. It’s powerful hearing her say those familiar words. Something stirs inside me.
“Subhanaka allahumma wa bi hamdika wa tabara kasmuka wa ta’ala jadduka wa la ilaha ghairuka.”
She cycles through the motions of prostration and standing, slowly, softly reciting rhythmic Arabic phrases. I try to repeat the words, but it’s difficult to follow, because I don’t understand Arabic.
Still, I find comfort in the rhythm of it, the repetition, the ceremony. It’s meditative and feels yogic. She’s right: It is beautiful.
We fold up the prayer mats and take off our abayas. I place mine neatly on Dua’s bed.
“Nice!” she says.
“That was humiliating,” I moan. “I need to memorize the prayers.”
“It’s easier once you do.”
“How long did it take you?”
Her eyes narrow as she tries to remember. “I was pretty young. Seven or eight?”
“I’m screwed.”
“Ha! Look, it’s not only about memorizing them. You’ve gotta feel them. Plenty of people recite the words, but what good is a prayer if it’s meaningless to you?”
“Better than not praying at all.”
“Yeah, but plenty of Muslims rush through the motions without thinking.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. You should at least get what you’re saying. Plus, it’s more likely they’ll be accepted.” She grins. “So Allah tells me.”
“I wish I spoke Arabic,” I say.
“Do you know any?”
“Shwaya shwaya.” A little. “I understand more than I spe
ak. But I can barely communicate with my teta.”
“Does she speak English?”
“As much English as I speak Arabic. Although she’s fluent in Circassian, too.”
“Did your dad teach you?”
“Circassian?” I snort. “My dad wouldn’t even teach me Arabic. I begged him when I was a kid. My mom wanted to learn, too.”
She frowns. “Bizarre.”
I backtrack, feeling disloyal to my father. “I mean, I get it. He moved to the States, he went to an American university, he married an American girl. He’s obsessed with American traditions and American customs. He always says when he was growing up in Jordan, he saw America as this beautiful place where everybody was equal and nobody was better than anybody else, and if people worked hard, anything was possible. That’s how he raised me.”
“Still true,” Dua says. “Work hard, good things will happen. Dreams can come true. Mostly.”
If Dua believes it, I don’t want to be a downer. “It’s a nice thought,” I say diplomatically. “What about you? What are your dreams?”
“Go to Georgia Tech, become a doctor, marry a nice Muslim boy and move out of the house, pop out a soccer team,” she says, and laughs.
“Not your parents’ dreams! Yours.”
“Ya’ani they’re not the same thing? My parents would be shocked.” She glances over at her desk, and I follow her line of sight. There’s a brochure for online art classes.
I pick it up, thumbing through the offerings.
“Yours is way better. Would your parents be cool if you pursued art instead?”
“Nope. Zero chance. Not going to be living some after-school special where I teach Mom and Dad a poignant lesson about following your dreams. My parents are … how do I say this?” She purses her lips. “Intense.”
“What parents aren’t?”
“Yeah, but mine are ridiculous. They logged into the student portal two hundred times last semester to check my grades. The vice principal had to call them in for a meeting. As if they’re not embarrassing enough.”
“Whoa,” I say. “That is intense.”
“They’re such a walking cliché,” she says, shaking her head and switching to a high-pitched voice. “Oh, the immigrant parents who are all up their daughter’s backside to make sure she gets into a good university.”
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