Ayesha At Last

by Uzma Jalaluddin

  “Didn’t your dear cousin tell you? Apparently they met while planning a conference at the mosque together.”

  “That’s my conference!” Hafsa said. “She was covering for me, but I’m the real event planner!”

  “I never meant to cause trouble,” Farzana said sweetly. “I know how close the two of you are, and I’m sure Ayesha didn’t purposely go behind your back and betray you. I only want what’s best for my son.”

  On the other end of the line, Hafsa spluttered, and Farzana went in for the kill. “May I give you some advice? You must always guard against jealous family members who want what you have. If I were you, I would pretend to know nothing. Make your own plans behind the scenes, just as your cousin has done. I know my son better than anyone else, and I think he would be far happier with you than with someone as outspoken and opinionated as Ayesha.”

  Hafsa was silent, no doubt considering Farzana’s words.

  The older woman smiled thinly. These vain, silly girls. When Khalid had mentioned that “Hafsa” was a school teacher whose father had died years before, she had immediately realized that her innocent son was being duped. The real Hafsa might be rich and flighty, but she would be easier to control than Ayesha, an aging rishta-reject with strong opinions.

  As for Khalid—he was a good boy, and he would do as he was told.

  Chapter Twenty

  Salams, Ayesha. This is Masood. Save this number, it’s my personal contact. I’m available any time, day or night. I look forward to getting to know you better.

  Ayesha looked at her phone and sighed. It was lunchtime and she was sitting by herself in the staff room, a little-used corner of the school. She put her phone down and looked at the stale bagel she had packed that morning. In her rush to be on time for school, she hadn’t even prepared it with cream cheese or peanut butter. She pushed the cold, empty bagel away and contemplated her meal options. She could make a takeout run, but there weren’t any halal restaurants nearby, and the thought of greasy cafeteria food made her stomach turn. Her phone pinged again with another message from Masood:

  I have met many young women, but I enjoyed meeting you the most. There’s something special about you, Ayesha. I hope you felt our connection too.

  She didn’t need this right now.

  Despite her resolution to move past Khalid, Ayesha couldn’t stop thinking about their confrontation last night, couldn’t stop replaying the words she had thrown at him: You’re a coward, a puppet, I don’t care about you at all. He had looked so resigned, as if her words were a confirmation of his own thoughts and not just her anger talking.

  Ayesha wasn’t sure what she felt for Khalid, but it was definitely not indifference.

  She felt just as trapped by tradition and expectations as he did. It would be so easy to dismiss him, with his skullcap and long beard—to put him inside a box labelled “fundy” and ignore the things that didn’t fit that role, like his kindness, his strength, his character or the way he managed to look sexy in a white robe.

  Ayesha flushed and took a long sip from her water bottle. Her phone pinged—Masood, again.

  I’m confident that my unique life coaching services will enable you to find your Best Self. When are you free for an initial consult? I’m teaching a preschool mixed martial arts class on Thursday, but otherwise I’m free.

  Ayesha smiled and quickly texted him back:

  I thought you wanted to talk to me, not take me on as a client.

  He responded after a moment:

  I’m sorry if I led you on. The truth is, I’m just not that into you. I hope we can be friends?

  Ayesha laughed softly. Leave it to Masood to put things in perspective. Heartache and hastily uttered words were nothing in the face of farce. I choose to live in a comedy.

  Only the very best of friends, she typed. She took a tiny bite of her bagel.

  CLARA called after school with an impromptu dinner invitation, and Ayesha accepted immediately. It would be good to see her friend and talk about something other than the mosque, Hafsa and Khalid.

  “Bring some non-alcoholic wine, the most expensive you can find,” Clara said.

  At home, Ayesha threw on one of Idris’s old hoodies and fished the cleanest-looking pair of yoga pants out of the pile in her closet. She had been too busy lately to do laundry. She wrapped a favourite black cotton hijab, the one she wore for quick errands, around her head and kissed Nani goodbye.

  “Where are you going?” her grandmother asked. “Why are you wearing that?”

  “Clara invited me over for a girls’ night. I’ve been wearing teacher clothes all week and I want to be comfortable.”

  Ayesha arrived at the condo at seven thirty, and she already felt lighter. This was just what she needed—a night talking with her best friend. Rob was cooking in the kitchen with The Hurtin’ Albertans turned way up while Clara tidied.

  “Why are you dusting?” Ayesha asked, suddenly suspicious. “You never dust.”

  “My allergies are acting up,” Clara said. She hugged Ayesha and they took a seat on the couch. Ayesha noticed the coffee table had been cleared of the usual magazines, plates and mugs.

  Clara was still dressed in her work clothes, black skirt and white blouse. She hadn’t taken off her makeup either.

  “I think I’m underdressed,” Ayesha said.

  “No, you’re fine!” Clara said in a high-pitched voice. “You look really, really . . . great. But you know, if you wanted to put on some makeup, just for fun, I bought a new lip gloss.”

  “You’re acting weird.”

  “No, I’m not. Do you have a more colourful hijab you can throw on, maybe in the car?”

  Ayesha gave her a strange look.

  Clara stood up. “Let’s open up that faux-wine you brought. Does it need to breathe?” She winked at Ayesha and ran to the kitchen to grab wine glasses.

  “So, what’s new?” Ayesha called out. “Your boss still a psycho?”

  “You know, the usual. Nothing to report. Tell me about this conference you’re helping organize.”

  Ayesha made a face. “I don’t want to think about the mosque or my family tonight.”

  “Sure,” Clara said, returning to the room, her eyes roaming around. “What’s Hafsa up to?”

  “Who cares? You keep telling me to focus on myself. My principal sort of offered me a permanent job in September.”

  “That’s great,” Clara said absently. “So, have you seen Khalid anywhere, like maybe at the mosque?”

  “Clara, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing!” Clara said, her voice rising. “I just like to be kept in the loop. What’s up with Hafsa?”

  Ayesha sighed. Clara was distracted and spacey, like that time she’d smoked pot during frosh week. “I didn’t want to bring this up because I know what you’re going to say, but I saw Hafsa at the mall with this punk, Haris. I’m pretty sure he’s her boyfriend. She’s been hanging out with him while she sends me to conference planning meetings at the mosque in her place.”

  Clara started to laugh. “Your cousin wants to get married this summer and she has a boyfriend on the side? Maybe she’s on to something. You should get a boy toy too.”

  Ayesha scowled. “My life is complicated enough. I told Hafsa she was being childish, and we got into a fight. She told me she wants to be married and rich, not poor and alone like me.”

  Clara sat down beside Ayesha. “Why do you put up with her?”

  Ayesha shook her head. She couldn’t explain it. The loyalty she felt for Hafsa was instinctive and unflinching and didn’t make a lot of sense. It went back to her first few months in Canada, when Hafsa and her family had been her lifeboat in a new country.

  Hafsa had been only three years old when Ayesha’s family immigrated from India. During that time, playing with her baby cousin was the only ray of sunshine in her life. Even now, whenever she looked at her cousin, she saw the preschooler who had never left her alone, who had climbed into her lap and wiped away the t
ears Ayesha cried for her father and everything else she had left behind.

  Clara wouldn’t understand any of that, and so she changed the subject. “It gets worse. Everyone on the committee thinks I AM Hafsa!”

  The doorbell rang, and Clara and Ayesha looked at each other.

  “Did you invite someone else?” Ayesha asked, eyes narrowed.

  Clara jumped up. “Don’t-be-mad-I-invited-Khalid,” she said in a rush.

  “What?!” Ayesha said. She grabbed her bag. “I’m leaving.”

  Khalid, dressed in a neatly ironed white robe with jeans underneath, stood with a bouquet of tulips in his hands. His eyes widened at the sight of Ayesha.

  “Hafsa?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Leaving.” Ayesha brushed past him, catching the scent of soap and aftershave.

  Clara ran after her, barefoot.

  Ayesha jabbed the elevator button. “How could you invite him? What are you trying to do?”

  Clara wrung her hands. “I know I should have told you. Please don’t be angry. In my defence, I never said it was girls’ night.” Catching sight of Ayesha’s stony expression, she backtracked. “It was wrong to trick you.”

  “I don’t even like him. Why do you keep pushing us together?”

  Clara’s shoulders slumped, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “You’ve seemed so unhappy lately . . . I’ve been so unhappy lately.”

  Ayesha’s face softened, and she reached out to her friend.

  “Rob and I . . . It’s been so hard. Maybe I was looking for a distraction.”

  Ayesha gave her a disbelieving stare. “So you decided to set me up with the only Muslim guy you know?”

  “He’s not the only Muslim guy I know. There’s Amir, and let’s not forget the very sexy Mo from Bella’s.”

  Ayesha smiled, and when the elevator arrived, she didn’t step into it.

  “Khalid is a good guy, and there’s something about the two of you together that just feels right. Maybe you’ll wind up as friends.”

  Ayesha looked away from Clara’s earnest, open face. “I’m pretty sure he can’t stand the sight of me right now.”

  “Rob made pad Thai,” Clara said, wheedling. “He bought halal chicken. Khalid will probably leave before dessert, and then girls’ night can begin again. Please.”

  Ayesha remembered the hurt look on Khalid’s face the night before. Maybe there would be time between the faux-wine and pad Thai to apologize. She followed Clara back to the apartment.

  Rob and Khalid were sitting on the couch. “Babe, Khalid said sugar dates are a superfood. I’m gonna put them in your morning smoothie,” he said.

  Khalid looked solemnly at Ayesha. “Assalamu Alaikum,” he said. He held her gaze, looking a little shamefaced. She nodded at him.

  Clara set the table while Rob brought out the food. Ayesha took a seat across from Khalid, who offered her the noodles first, before serving himself.

  “You have a beautiful home,” Khalid said to Rob. “Did you move here directly after your wedding?”

  Clara started coughing.

  “We’re not married,” Rob said.

  Khalid looked confused. “Clara informed me you have been together since university.”

  Rob nodded. “There’s no need to make it official. It’s not like either one of us is religious or anything. It’s not a big deal. Right, babe?”

  Clara forked pad Thai into her mouth and didn’t say anything. Khalid’s eyes rested on her.

  “Marriage is not confined to a religious institution,” he said. “It is a socially accepted symbol of commitment.”

  Rob laughed. “Clara said you were intense. Listen, man, we don’t need it. Clara knows I’m in it for the long haul.”

  Ayesha took a bite of her noodles. “This is delicious, Rob,” she said.

  Khalid was not deterred. He speared a large piece of chicken and chewed thoughtfully. “Your presence in a relationship is not indicative of commitment but rather inertia. Standing before your friends and family and pledging your love and loyalty is an essential ingredient for a long-lasting union.”

  “Nah, man, we don’t need it. Besides, I hate weddings.”

  Clara dropped her fork. “You never told me you hate weddings.”

  Rob looked at her, surprised. “Sure, I did.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “Babe, I hate all that traditional stuff. Putting on a suit, buying shit from the registry. Everyone is so fake, and half the time the family is fighting like crazy and the couple are dead broke by the end of it. What’s the point?” Rob took a big swallow of cola.

  Clara jumped up, two red spots of colour on her cheeks. “You have never—ever!—said you hated marriage,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Whoa, babe. Settle down. I said I hate weddings. Not marriage.”

  “You need one before you can have the other!”

  “Well, I think they’re both pretty stupid,” Rob said. “You’re getting hysterical.”

  Clara looked as if she were about to explode. Khalid and Ayesha exchanged glances. “We should go,” Ayesha said.

  “Thank you for the meal. I have never eaten pad Thai with ketchup before,” Khalid said.

  Rob and Clara didn’t notice as they slipped quietly out the door and walked silently, side by side, to the parking lot.

  “That’s two days now I’ve met you somewhere and left before finishing dinner,” Khalid said. “Are you hungry?”

  Ayesha knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but she felt annoyed. Why couldn’t he just keep his opinions to himself and gossip about Rob and Clara afterwards, like a normal person? “You shouldn’t have brought up marriage,” she told him. Her stomach rumbled, betraying her.

  “There’s a convenience store across the lot. I’ll be right back.” He strode off before Ayesha could say anything else.

  She checked her phone. It was eight thirty, and the parking lot was deserted. She sat down on the curb by the condo entrance.

  When Khalid returned, he was holding two iced slushies and a box of Twinkies. “Blue watermelon or red raspberry?” he asked her.

  Ayesha reached for the raspberry slushie. “Clara and Rob have been together since freshman year,” she said. “They met at a kegger during frosh week. Believe me, they don’t need to get married. It’s permanent.”

  Khalid unwrapped a Twinkie and took a large bite, sprinkling his beard with golden-yellow crumbs that he brushed away absently. “If it is permanent, they should have married years ago,” he said.

  “That’s their business,” Ayesha said.

  “From the way Clara reacted, they are avoiding their business. The conversation is clearly overdue. This would never have happened if their parents were involved. Yet another example of the superiority of the arranged marriage process.”

  Ayesha rolled her eyes. “Not this again.”

  “They arranged the relationship themselves. There is no harm in letting their parents or their friends arrange the formality of a wedding.” Khalid finished the Twinkie and leaned back on his elbows, staring up at the dark sky.

  Ayesha looked at his face in profile. A few crumbs still clung to his beard, and she fought the urge to brush them away, again. Instead she mirrored his position, leaning back and turning her face up to the dark night. She closed her eyes, feeling surprisingly at ease. “Tell me about your father,” she said.

  Khalid was quiet at first, then he spoke, his voice soft. “He died suddenly last year, a heart attack. Afterwards, I dreamt about him every night for weeks. It was always the same dream. I was in the middle of a forest, somewhere in Algonquin Park. It was fall and the trees were red, yellow and orange, so bright they looked like they were on fire. He always appeared out of thin air and sat beside me for a few minutes, dressed in his white robe. He never said anything. The imam told me it was my father’s soul, visiting me in my sleep.”

  “I’ve never dreamt about my father,”
Ayesha said, wistful, her eyes open now. “He died so long ago, sometimes I can’t even remember his face.”

  Khalid looked at her, and their eyes met.

  “Why are you still single?” he asked. His question sounded like an accusation, and Ayesha looked away.

  “Probably because I don’t know how to cook,” she said lightly. “Why do you want an arranged marriage?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not sure I do anymore.”

  Ayesha smiled at him. “Got your eye on someone?”

  Khalid was silent, and she took a sip of her slushie. “Do you believe men and women can be friends?” she asked.

  “I do not think that men and women should be alone together or spend time with each other. That would be inappropriate.”

  “You’re sitting here with me.”

  Khalid thought about this. “I probably shouldn’t be.”

  “You can leave any time. Your car is right there.”

  “I wouldn’t want to leave you alone in the dark.”

  “I’m an independent woman.”

  Khalid was silent again. “I don’t want to leave,” he said.

  “You’re very honest.”

  “I have been told it’s one of my worst qualities.” His smile was brief; his teeth shone in the semi-darkness.

  “I don’t have anywhere I need to be right now either,” Ayesha said.

  They sipped their drinks and shared the box of Twinkies in silence. Sitting under the dim lamps, their bodies angled toward each other, they stared up at the stars together.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ayesha mentally listed Khalid’s pros and cons.

  Con: He was a self-confessed fundy with no fashion sense and a controlling mother, and something was definitely up with his absentee sister.

  Pro: He was an excellent cook, and when he wasn’t trying too hard, he could be funny. Sometimes even on purpose.

  Con: He wanted his mother to pick out his wife.

  Pro: He said he wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

  Con: His beard was probably itchy.

  Pro: His lips looked soft; she wondered what it would feel like to kiss him.