In between classes, Maria tries to trip Shakira in the hallway. She does it in a subtle way, casually jutting her feet out, pretending that she’s stretching, but I see it. Shakira stops in her tracks immediately so that a girl behind her crashes into her. “Watch where you’re going, new girl!”
Shakira shakes her head and people laugh at her. Wow, that’s pretty mean of Maria. Her suspension ended last week and she needs to get over it already. I’m softening toward Shakira, and I think it’s best if she leaves people alone and people leave her alone. Hands off. Truce. But ill feelings linger. My classmates will always see Shakira as the person who got Maria suspended, and Mom will always see Grandpa as the rude old man who spat out harsh words about her clothes and her only child.
• • •
At lunch I sit by myself in the gazebo. About a dozen other kids are also seated here, eating bag lunches or food from the vending machines, but the gazebo is large enough that we’re all spread apart from each other. I’m still in a funk about what happened with Grandpa and want to be alone.
I take out my sketchpad, which is absolutely useless since I suck at drawing. I only bought it to imitate Peter, to be closer to understanding who he is, to become an artist like he is. I think about artists and what they’re like. Maybe they have dark thoughts, or ideas that are so abstract that they can only be pictured, not put into words. The other day, Peter told me that the cells he saw under the microscope reminded him of a field of poppies in an impressionist painting. Another time he told me that he drew things from his dreams (I don’t even remember most of my dreams). I have no idea what he means most of the time when he talks about anything related to art, but obviously he sees things differently than I do. I see things for what they are. A microscope slide is a microscope slide. A dog is a dog. The sky is the sky. Peter probably looks at the sky and searches for the meaning of life in it.
My pencil glides over the paper. I draw eyes that are different sizes. I draw a nose that looks like an eggplant. The smiling lips are banana shaped. The ears are round like the knobs of a radio. Trying to draw Peter, I draw a fugly man from an alien planet. The picture doesn’t do him any justice. In fact, it insults him. He looks like a Greek god, and I’m turning him into some untouchable nerd. In fact, this looks like a sub-nerd, someone who is off the charts as far as high school social castes go. I erase the features and redraw them, but I only make everything worse.
At least I can write, though. Underneath the drawing I write Peter in big, bubbly letters. I draw hearts around his name. What a beautiful, simple name. Peter. It’s pronounceable, two syllables rolling off the tongue. Peter and Almira. Five syllables in total, which is still simple. Peter and Almira are going out. Did you hear about Peter and Almira? You know that they’re an item, don’t you? I imagine what people say about us if we’re a couple. There will be admiration mostly, maybe jealousy. But then I think about how Lisa would react and my heart sinks. I can’t hurt her. She would be mad at me forever. A lump forms in my throat as I picture losing Lisa, but then my eyes water with joy when I imagine hooking up with Peter.
“What’s that?” someone says behind me.
I snap my head around and hold the sketchpad to my chest. It’s Shakira. She has a smirk on her face, which makes her pouty, pink-glossed lips look unattractive—okay, not really. It’s my imagination trying to induce me into thinking she’s ugly, because nothing about her is grotesque. Her farts probably smell like roses.
“It’s nothing,” I sharply say.
She tilts her head back and laughs. “You were drawing Peter,” she says.
“I was not!”
“Then why did you write his name at the bottom of the paper?”
She has me there. She’s my rival, always hanging all over Peter, and now she sees me drawing him. I wonder what she’ll do with this information.
As if she’s reading my mind, she says, “Your secret is safe with me.”
“What secret?”
“That you like him.”
“I don’t like him!” I say.
“Then why are you drawing him?” she asks.
“Um, because, um, I’m bored.”
“I also draw boys I like when I’m bored.”
“Well, I don’t. I draw anyone when I’m bored.”
“Didn’t know you were an artist,” Shakira teases.
“There are many things you don’t know about me,” I say.
“But I learned something today.”
Lunch is coming to a close and I gather my things to leave. Shakira is watching me as I get up, and I feel clumsy and awkward. I even trip when I walk down the steps of the gazebo, but I right myself before I can fall. Not turning around to look at her, I walk evenly and steadily toward an entrance. Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her. Don’t look. On my way to the bathroom, I tear out the crummy portrait I made of Peter and crumple it into a ball. I throw it toward a garbage can and miss. A group of popular girls walks by, talking loudly and giggling, and they block my way. I don’t bother to pick up the paper and throw it out properly. Dealing with Shakira, I’ve had my fill of snotty, pretty girls for the day.
Lisa grabs my arm on the way to biology. “Like my new tattoo?” she asks. She sticks out her arm and I see PH in neat cursive on the inside of her wrist. Peter Hurley.
“Peter Hurley. Lisa Gomez Hurley. Mrs. Lisa Hurley … ”
I roll my eyes as she fantasizes about her future name with the man of her dreams, who also happens to be the man of my dreams. “Okay, Lisa, I get it,” I say.
“Do you think it’s meant to be?” she asks, hysteria in her voice. Her grip on my arm tightens and her fingernails are digging into me.
“Don’t get psychotic on me, Lisa,” I say, pulling my arm away from her.
“Almira, tell me what you really think.” She’s now pleading, deranged with love.
“Fine! I see you two together, for life.”
She lets go of my arm, satisfied with my response. She wants her best friend to mirror her feelings, and I do. Superficially, that is. My hidden thoughts are all about securing Peter for myself.
Lisa and I come to class early. We sit on our stools and watch everyone else pour in. Shakira and Peter stand a few inches from the door, their heads together, in their private world with their secret jokes. Peter laughs and Shakira smiles. She swings her hair toward her shoulder and looks up at him with adoration. They’re a good-looking couple, but I should be the one standing by his side.
“What is that heifer doing with my man?” Lisa says between gritted teeth.
Shakira twists her body around, shrugging her bookbag off her shoulder. She unzips it and brings out a crumpled ball of paper.
“Oh my God,” I say.
“I know!” Lisa brays. “She’s, like, flirting with him.”
Shakira unfolds the piece of paper and hands it to Peter. His eyes widen and then slowly find mine. Our eyes lock. Shakira talks into his ear, her hair covering Peter’s face. I want to see more of his surprised expression.
He’s seen the fugly face with his name right under it.
I can’t breathe. I want to escape. I feel so embarrassed. More students walk in and block my view of Peter.
“If I could just get a few minutes alone with her in a cage and wrestle her down,” Lisa says. “No rules. Just fists.”
Lisa is babbling stupid stuff, proclaiming her love for Peter, and I’m not paying any attention to her. All I care about are Peter’s thoughts on my drawing. I hope he isn’t taking my portrait of him seriously. I immediately think about what lies I should say if he asks me about it. Shakira doesn’t know what she’s talking about. That paper isn’t mine. I drew it as a joke. No, I’m not in love with him, but doodling out of boredom. I’m making a portrait montage of all my classmates.
I remember how long
ago, in first grade, I had a stomachache in the morning. I begged and pleaded with Mom to stay home, but she didn’t believe I was sick. I went to school and vomited in the cafeteria. There was a pool of orange vomit (from Mom’s squash soup the night before) on the cafeteria table, so I was trying to put my arms on either side of it to shield it from my classmates. I was embarrassed and had every right to be. We were in the middle of lunch and my classmates were staring right at me. A pretty blond girl named Deb, who sat in the farthest corner away from me, exclaimed, “Almira is gross.” A little brown-haired boy who sat a few seats away from me vomited from seeing my vomit. The principal pulled me out, patted me on the back, and called my house to have Mom pick me up. Those feelings come back to me now: being looked at, being judged as gross, and having people sympathize over me (poor girl will never have a boyfriend, and Peter doesn’t want her).
Why does Shakira have to stoop so low? She picks up my garbage and uses it to humiliate me. Does she hate me that much? And what is the hatred all about?
The bell rings and Mr. Gregory positions himself in front of the class. Peter normally sits next to me, but Shakira holds his hand and leads him to a stool next to hers. I steal some glances back to where they are. It’s a lecture day, not a lab day, and Peter studiously takes down notes with an emotionless face while Shakira smirks at me. The notes I take look like a jumbled mess. I’ll borrow Lisa’s notes later, because my mind isn’t on biology at all. I’m so fixated on the drawing that when my mind finally strays from worries over that, I start to think about Grandpa and his nasty words. There are so many mean people in this world: Shakira, Grandpa, and Kristen Stewart, because Robert Pattinson seems infatuated with her, thus ruining my chance with him.
• • •
I do my homework, and after that I spend a good hour on the computer. I hear sizzling from the kitchen as Mom fries something up for dinner. I smell chicken, peppers, and garlic. My stomach pulsates in and out, in and out, feed me, feed me.
At least I know Grandpa isn’t going to come for dinner. I think about the many times he came, invited and uninvited. My memories are bittersweet. Usually I didn’t mind his presence and thought he was funny and educational. And then there were those other times when he was cruel and narrow-minded. On the news months ago there was a clip of a gay pride parade and he turned toward me and said, “Only in this country.” Then I told him about how Lisa was dating a boy named Mannie, and Grandpa said he couldn’t believe I was friends with someone whose parents allowed for that to happen. Sure, teenagers should never be interested in the opposite sex. I wonder how Dad survived his own teenage years under that man.
The front door slams shut due to a heavy breeze. I hear Dad’s voice as he says something to Mom in the kitchen. Then his footsteps get louder, which is odd. The master bedroom, which is in a separate hallway from mine, has its own bathroom and Dad always goes there first to wash his hands. But he’s headed toward me. He knocks on my door and I tell him to come in.
“Almira,” he says, a frown on his face.
I wonder what trouble I’ve caused, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything wrong recently. “Yes?” I say.
“I was thinking about something that my dad said,” he mutters under his breath.
He walks over to my computer and moves the mouse. This computer is locked by AlmiraRules, the gray message box in the center announces. Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE.
“Almira, unlock your computer,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Just do it.”
“But there’s nothing but homework stuff on it.”
“Almira, unlock your computer!”
He rarely yells at me, so I jump up. I go over to my computer, sit down, and type in my password. My body trembles and the moment feels drawn out, as if I’m walking through a time warp. I dread the outcome, but I press return after typing in my password.
I hear the squeak of my door hinges as Mom peeks inside my room. She gasps when she sees my Robert Pattinson desktop.
“What is this garbage doing in your computer?” Dad asks. He shakes his head in disappointment, as if I’m an utter, unabashed failure at life. Dad is computer literate and he quickly goes into my files and deletes all my hotties. He’s even faster than me, because it takes me a while to find things on my computer. Standing hunched over my computer, his fingers are fast as they click, click, click. Pattinson, Bale, Bana, Gyllenhaal, Welling, Pitt, Dempsey, Phillipe, Lautner, all three Jonases, and other guys I’ve fallen in love with on the small and big screen disappear.
I feel distraught and empty. They’re gone. They digitally die, floating in some vast graveyard in my computer’s hard drive. Dad even goes into the recycle bin and empties it so that I can’t restore these men to life. It’s too cruel. Tears well up and I sniffle. It’s just as bad as reading about their physical deaths in the news. Actor dies in hotel fire. Movie star accidentally drowns in stunt scene. Leading men pass away inside of Almira Abdul’s Dell computer.
Dad seems to soften up when he sees how upset I am. “Asma, will you talk to her?” he says to Mom.
“Yes,” she says.
I can feel my eyes begin to roll, but I stop myself. My parents hate it when I roll my eyes. To them it’s just as bad as a verbal insult. I don’t know if girls in the Middle East roll their eyes, but American girls do it plenty and my parents don’t like it one bit.
I brace myself for one of her lectures. I sit up in bed and fold myself into a ball, my knees to my chin and my arms wrapped around my legs. Give it to me, I think.
• • •
Mom sits on the swivel chair next to my Robert Pattinson-less computer. Her hands are perched on both knees. I get déjà vu, because this is the same pose she had a year ago, when I failed during last Ramadan. She sat in my room and told me that even though I’d cheated the first day by eating behind their backs, I should try again, that I could perhaps fast an extra day. But then Grandpa stormed into my room to tell her it wasn’t allowed—I would need to fast a whole extra month. I’d had no reason to cheat, since I wasn’t ill or pregnant. Grandpa makes everything worse, while Mom tries to add reason and comfort to the household.
“Almira, you know that you shouldn’t have those pictures on your computer, the computer your dad bought for your last birthday,” she says.
“But it’s my computer,” I say, a tear sliding down my cheek. “Isn’t it mine to do what I want with?”
“Yes and no. Sometimes someone gives you something and the person doesn’t wish for you to abuse it.”
“But they’re not porno pictures.”
“I know,” Mom says.
“Did you collect pictures of boys when you were my age?” I ask.
“I would hide them, throw them out, stare at them, and give them away. It’s not something I wanted my parents to know about.”
So Mom had a similar experience to mine, which explains why she’s being so nice to me, much nicer than Dad was.
“Mom, I like it that you’re not strict like your parents are or the way Grandpa is,” I say.
“I know what it’s like to grow up here with foreign parents,” she says. “You want to dress and act like those around you, but you don’t want to forget your religion. Almira, I know it’s odd that you can’t do every single thing that your friends do, but we’re Muslim. Your skirts are shorter than mine were when I was your age, but you’re still modest. We let you have the friends you want, but that’s because you have decent ones anyway and we trust you. When I was your age I snuck around in mini-skirts and makeup, which my parents really hated. They wouldn’t let me go on field trips because they didn’t trust strangers, especially American ones. I couldn’t be outside after dark. School was a huge struggle for me because of my parents, but I still grew up well-adjusted and normal. Since my parents weren’t born here like I was, you can ima
gine what it was like. They weren’t as strict as your grandfather, but they were up there with their many rules. I felt frustrated most of the time, but I knew their boundaries and never hung out with the wrong people. Compared to my parents, your dad and I are very cool with the things you want, even though we don’t permit everything.”
“And you’re totally not like Grandpa,” I say.
“Of course, every generation is going to be more lenient than the previous. Your grandfather is extreme, but he isn’t as bad as some other older men I’ve met.”
“You mean he could be worse?”
“Yes.”
I picture men who don’t allow their girls to see the light of day, who force burqas and arranged marriages on them. How things change over time! Maybe when I have children, a decade or so from now, they’ll be totally and completely American, having more freedoms than I had. And then my grandchildren will be no different than the Billys and Michelles that they’ll go to school with. But in the present I live in this in-between world of being foreign and American, and wanting to do some things that my parents won’t allow. Mom and Dad still have too many restrictions on me, like I can’t have a boyfriend or a Mohawk (I asked for that haircut years ago when I was in my rocker phase). But I have to admit that my parents are okay. Dad’s a yuppie dentist who likes fast cars and European getaways. And the kids at school are always telling me how cool Mom is (because she’s hot). I look at her, sitting in my chair. She has on her tank top and shorts, light makeup, and small feet that have a fresh pedicure of burgundy nail polish. She’s awesome in her own way, even though she doesn’t let me do whatever I want.
“Mom, I’m glad you and Dad don’t badger me about every single thing I do,” I say, meaning it. “My curfew is really fair. But you still don’t let me do some things I want, like having pictures of Robert Pattinson.”
“Just don’t do it again,” she says.
Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Page 14