by Lara Hunter
Through Emily’s teenage years, she and her mother had had what one could politely refer to as a tumultuous relationship. She’d thought her mother was too carefree; too caught up with her freedom from marriage and too wrapped up in relationships to be a good mother.
Her parents’ divorce hadn’t helped Emily’s belief in fairy tales; when she was eleven years old, she distinctly remembered her father leaving for work one morning. Once his car disappeared down the road, her mother packed her up in the back of a two-door sedan without a word and drove from Colorado to Arizona to live with Emily’s aunt. And that was it.
“I love you, see you tonight” turned into “see you never,” and that phrase had haunted Emily forever. She could literally feel herself sabotaging her romantic relationships once they became serious in fear that they would turn into a carbon copy of her parents’ marriage.
And why wouldn’t they? She was turning into her mother, after all.
She made an inner vow not to do the same to Tariq if things got serious. She stared back down at the cellphone in her hands and erased her message, throwing the phone onto the bed. Fumbling back to the kitchen where she had been cooking, she stirred the soup that sat in a saucepan and pondered the last few days: the unmistakable feeling of missing someone, her work, and her strange and suddenly accommodating boss. Everything seemed to be going well, and that scared her more than anything.
Just then, Emily’s phone went off. She raced to her bed and took the device into her hands. It was a text message from Tariq.
Mysterious and romantic as ever, all the note said was: Meet me at the airport.
Emily raced for her passport, grabbed her luggage and phone, and with one last glance around her apartment she was off to the airport.
***
Things seemed to be moving so quickly with Tariq—quicker than they had with anyone before. While the idea of going away with a man she’d only ever met a handful of times sounded fast, Emily couldn’t help but be flattered and intrigued at the prospect of getting away. Ironically enough, for a girl who worked at one of the biggest travel companies in Arizona, she hadn’t taken a holiday in years.
The airport was packed as ever and Emily wasn’t exactly sure of where she was supposed to meet Tariq, but luckily he spotted her at the entrance. She ran up and gave him a warm hug which he returned with a kiss on the lips.
“Well hello,” he said, leaning in for another kiss.
“Hi back,” she replied sweetly. “So where are we headed, mystery man?”
“Not inside the airport,” he said plainly and walked up to a private car that was waiting by the curb. “Come with me.”
They hopped in and drove only a few minutes past the terminal building before they pulled up on a runway and stopped in front of a large gray jet.
Of course, Emily thought, the man has a private helicopter, so why not a private jet?
Tariq stepped out of the car and opened the door for Emily to get out. Grabbing their luggage, the Sheikh began walking toward the plane.
“Private jet?” she said, purposely looking unimpressed.
“You guessed it,” he tapped his nose. “Am I impressing you yet? I’m really trying to pull out all the stops here.”
“Eh,” she joked with a shrug. “I’ve seen better.”
In truth, Emily had never seen a private jet up close before, let alone been inside one.
As it turned out, the plane was absolutely beautiful. She assumed that, for Tariq, walking onto his own jet fell under the ‘old hat’ category these days, but for her, it was like stepping into Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage. She looked around in awe at the opulence of it—how high-class she felt, how worthy. The cabin had black damask carpeting and beige lounge chairs throughout; there was also a dining table, tufted couch, minibar, flat-screen television, and a separate room in the back with a beautiful queen-sized bed in it.
Emily couldn’t believe how much space the seemingly small jet could accommodate. She gushed over their fantastic transportation so much she started to worry Tariq would find her annoying. Instead, he watched her with humbled fascination, smiling when she smiled and laughing when she laughed.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, sitting down in the softest airplane chair she’d ever felt. “I’ve just never experienced this sort of thing before. Up until this moment, my idea of luxury was getting the emergency exit seat in coach.”
“You’re a classy girl.”
“Stop it,” she giggled. “So, now that we’re on the big fancy jet, can you tell me where we’re going?”
“Well, I was hoping to make it a surprise, but I think the distance of our destination might have you too curious to wait.”
“Something tells me this is not a Stateside venture?” she quipped.
Tariq shook his head, grinning. “No, but I hope to make it an adventure you will never forget; we’ll be spending the weekend visiting my home country, Al Dirhan.”
Emily gasped; they were headed for the Middle East!
SEVEN
As the plane began its descent the following morning, Emily realized that the Sheikh was right; Al Dirhan was more breathtaking than she could have imagined. The sky was bluer than anywhere she'd ever seen and there was a beautiful city skyline dotted with intricate shapes. The gleaming city was surrounded by water, with docks easily visible from the plane window.
Though Tariq had informed her that his country was 13 hours ahead of Arizona time, thanks to a sleeping pill and a luxury bed on the jet, she barely felt jetlagged at all. She and Tariq had spent the majority of the ride sitting on the couch together watching movies, exchanging thoughts on their favorite books and music, and revealing their most embarrassing stories.
As they descended from the jet, Tariq insisted that the best way to take in all that Al Dirhan had to offer in just one day was to do a whistle-stop tour of the country’s most unmissable cultural and historic sights. Emily gladly agreed and eagerly joined Tariq in the queue for the bus.
“I’m surprised we aren’t being carried around by your own personal litter,” she joked.
“My litter?” He looked around curiously, suddenly looking embarrassed. “You’re going to have to explain that to me, otherwise I am going to have a very strange depiction in my head involving tiny kittens with my face on them.”
“Gotta love that imagination,” she said with a wink. “You know, a litter! One of those vehicles where the four men carry a chair or sofa around on a set of poles while a pretty princess sits atop it?”
“Ah,” he nodded. “If you like, I can arrange one, otherwise you’ll have to stick with a trolley tour instead.”
“You sure are working hard to impress me, Sheikh.”
“You are someone worth impressing,” he explained with no change in his tone. He looked her up and down before brushing her cheek with his finger. “Don’t you think?”
She scoffed. “Hardly, but I’m flattered you think so.”
“Am I doing a bad job?”
She leaned into him on the bench where they were waiting and made sure he could feel her breath on him. “You’re doing a fantastic job,” she whispered.
Tariq seemed to perk up as she did this; it was the first look of surprise on his face since she’d met him. For a shy girl, Emily found herself loving the feeling of catching him off-guard.
“That being said,” she began; her tone snapping back to playful faked indifference, “I’m still waiting to get to know the real Tariq.”
“I didn’t realize I was being mannequin Tariq.”
She waved him off. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t!” he protested, a sly smirk growing at the corner of his lips. “I showed you the songs on my iPod; my guilty pleasures. Trust me, you don’t want it to get any more real than that.”
She burst into laughter, recalling some of the 80s hits he had admitted to boogying down to. The eruption caused other patrons of the upcoming tour to stare at her with annoyance.
&
nbsp; Emily covered her mouth in mild embarrassment and leaned back in to Tariq. “Yes, you did. And I will be scarred for life because of it. But, I want to know the real Tariq. The one who isn’t showing off his millions of dollars.”
“Billions, actually.”
“Ha. Ha,” she said dryly. He blinked pointedly at her and she let out a small gasp. “Wait, seriously?”
“Surprise.” Tariq shrugged. “Not exactly something you should tell someone you’ve just started dating, but I figured the jet may have tipped you off.”
Emily didn’t react to this. She wasn’t exactly sure what to say. She’d never been in the presence of a billionaire before and was shocked at how normal he seemed. He didn’t seem to be tainted by money, didn’t seem greedy or arrogant. In fact, the only thing he seemed to be was utterly interested in every word she was saying.
Before long, the trolley showed up. The first stop on the tour was the Wasim House, a palace made out of the finest riches. Emily marveled at the architecture of the building even before they had left the bus. Tariq couldn't help but laugh at her oohing and ahhing and insisted there was much more to the building than its appearance.
“You want to know something about the real me?” the Sheikh asked quietly, looking at the building through the bus window. The glass was stained with fingerprints from patrons gone by, but Tariq looked right through them to the sight before them. Emily nodded and noted a shift in his mood as he said, “Consider this tour a tour of my life.”
Emily looked out the window once more before grabbing her bag and standing from her seat; getting in line as other patrons began getting off the bus. “Please don't tell me that's your house.”
“No! I'll explain when we get inside.”
***
The pair walked off the bus and away from the rest of the tour to inspect the palace more closely. While the entire palace was open to the public, Emily wanted to get the best view from outside first.
The palace had architecture like nothing she'd ever seen before. Tariq explained how the man who commissioned it four centuries earlier had an architect brought in from Egypt to design the world’s most unique palace. The man wanted to inspire the people of Al Dirhan, and his exotic and pristinely built palace would be just the thing to do it.
Instead of peaks for the roof, the palace featured gold, domed towers. There was a vast, open porch and hundreds of windows, all with intricately detailed glass casings. Balconies were concealed throughout the massive structure—hidden lookouts, Tariq said, for its owner to scout for his enemies. What made the house truly spectacular was that it was made entirely out of red sandstone, save for the gold used in the towers.
Walking into the palace made Emily feel small, overwhelmed in the best way possible by how grand the structure was and how much detail was put into every inch of it. The walls were smooth and red, with giant pillars throughout the house, as if put there to add emphasis to how majestic it was.
“And this is you because…” Emily gave pause as she looked around at the sparsely decorated palace interior. “You are a giant show off?”
“Because I am hollow,” he said evenly. His tone belied the bright expression on his face as he walked around the palace, hands in his pockets.
“Come again?”
“Look here,” he said and led her into the center of the room, where an ornate sarcophagus lay. The tomb looked more like a small ark, rather than the bright yellow sarcophagi with mummies inside them that Emily had seen in movies. This one was different. The tomb was made of the same red sandstone as the rest of the building, with soldiers carved onto the coffin and the occasional gold inlay. The carvings depicted men with weapons, as though they were meant to guard the body inside.
“Sheikh Aashiq Karim Muhammad,” Tariq read on the plaque that stood in front of the tomb.
“Who's that?”
“He’s the one who commissioned this palace to be built.”
“Ah. So you’re like Sheikh Aashiq because you also commission…” Emily frowned. “No, wait, you lost me.”
“I know you can’t read our language, but look here,” he said, tracing his finger across the plaque and beginning to read aloud.
“As legend has it, Sheikh Aashiq was to be married to the Pharaoh’s daughter. She was said to be beautiful, intelligent, and madly in love with him. Once they were married, the Sheikh decided he wanted to build something his people could look up to, something to make the nation stand out. Soon, his desire to boost morale turned into an obsession and all of his money, resources, and time were spent on building the grand palace. He had three children, all of whom fell ill. Even after his wife sent word to him, he wouldn’t leave the palace construction site. All three of his children died, and two years later his wife would follow. Of course, the legend says she died from heartbreak,” he explained.
Tariq cocked his head to the side and stared at the sarcophagus with bitterness in his eyes—a scornful appeal that Emily couldn’t quite read. “Who knows what the truth is. At any rate, he had become so engrossed in his work that he didn’t have the time to mourn his family, to notice what he was missing. Rumblings said that he never loved his wife, and that his only intention was to marry her for the generous dowry he would get in exchange. The dowry was, of course, spent on this palace.”
Emily looked around the beautifully crafted building and couldn’t believe such a distinguished display of design and architecture was the result of something so hollow, selfish, and misguided.
“The Sheikh died before the palace was even completed. He put our nation into debt, made enemies with his wife’s monarch, and created this pink eyesore. After he died, his workers finished the job they had been paid for and placed his body in a tomb inside, saying he should rest inside the thing he loved the most.” Tariq quirked his brows quickly, as though contemplating something. “Sheikh Aashiq’s wife and children are buried thirty miles from here, for the record.”
Emily went to say something and then thought better of it. A moment passed before she finally opened her mouth to speak. “But wait,” she gave pause, tapping her lip methodically with her finger. “I thought this was called the Wasim House? Why would they name it that when the guy’s name was actually Aashiq?”
“That’s your take away from my story?” Tariq’s expression was incredulous.
She shrugged. “It’s just a thought.”
“It was a nickname.”
She gave a deep frown and stared at the Sheikh in disbelief before looking back at the plaque with the dead man’s name on it. “But…”
“I know,” he said casually.
“His name is—”
“I know, it makes no sense; but that’s the nature of nicknames, isn’t it?”
She thought on this. Maybe Tariq was right. Why do people call someone named Barbara ‘Bunny’ or Richard ‘Dick’? Still, she felt this was somewhat of a stretch, and that was putting it lightly.
Emily could hear the click of her heels tapping against the smooth floor beneath her and walked a few more paces before turning around to face her new crush. She wondered what about this story he could possibly see in himself, and she wanted to ask him but wasn’t sure if she would be prodding.
Surely he wasn’t the first person to classify themselves as hollow, yet it seemed like such a strange stretch to make, considering the man was a billionaire. Emily believed that money couldn’t buy happiness, but it sure could buy a lot of fun stuff to do. She loved to travel and was almost 100% certain that if she were able to travel the world at a moment’s notice, she wouldn’t have time to feel grim.
Finally, she shrugged at him and lowered her eyebrows inquisitively. “So why does that make you him?” She paused, and then corrected, “Why does that make you hollow?”
He stared for a moment and then a smirk crept upon his lips. “I’m about to go on a rant, so I insist you say something about yourself before I do.”
“Anything?”
He nodded, his brown eye
s darkening as he stared over at the sarcophagus. “Anything. What’s something I should know about Emily?”
She thought on this, walking around the empty room and shying away from the visitors that seemed to crowd into the room out of nowhere. She took her place next to Tariq and bit her lip, thinking about the question.
“I’ve got it,” she said suddenly, snapping her fingers together. “I get really obsessed with certain foods. Like, if I eat something and I like it, I’ll eat it every day until I can’t stand the taste of it anymore.”