Bestest. Ramadan. Ever.

by Medeia Sharif

  “It sure beats the Twinkies you’re addicted to,” I say. I look at the cake in my hand. I stab it with a fork and eat it. The end of Ramadan is this week and I know it’ll feel great to eat all day again. No more obsessing about food. No more obsessing about whether or not I’m boyfriendless. No more wondering if Lisa will be mad at me for loving Peter when she’s gotten over it. Lisa dances with Gabriel. She drapes her body over his as she dances. Yes, she definitely doesn’t want Peter anymore. What a relief.

  I dance with Peter. We make sure to be nowhere near Maria, who’s bumping and grinding against a boy she just met, her arms and legs everywhere. She accidentally hit me in the eye earlier, and I’ll probably wake up with a bruise on my upper cheek. People will ask me where I got the black eye from and I’ll say, “You know that Maria.”

  “Maria’s pretty wild,” Peter says.

  “I’ve known her forever,” I say. “She’s always been like that.”

  “She’s feisty.”

  “That’s one word for her.”

  “Do your parents like me?” he asks.

  “So far, but they don’t know you’re my boyfriend,” I say in his ear.

  “Will you ever tell them?”

  “I don’t think so. I feel really bad about keeping this from them, but I think I have to. They have girls my age stoned in their country for having a boyfriend.”

  “Wow!”

  “I know! Like, they really throw stones at them and kill them.”

  “Okay, then don’t tell them, because I don’t want you to get stoned,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say. Yeah, who wants to get stoned? Not me. I don’t think it’s in my parents to hurt me, but Grandpa might have a totally different reaction, a really bad one. He definitely can never ever know that I have a secret boyfriend. I’ll sneak out with Peter whenever I can, while I show my parents a goody-two-shoes façade that will be impenetrable. I can keep this secret. I don’t want to be barraged with shame because of something that’s totally against my upbringing.

  We stop dancing and Peter leads me over to the table that holds all of my presents. “Can I give this to you?” he asks, handing me a wrapped present.

  He doesn’t need to ask. I love presents. I open the small box and inside is a slender ring that has a ruby-centered flower. It’s loose on my ring finger. Yay, even my fingers are skinnier. It fits perfectly on my index finger instead. Then he hands me another box. I open it, tearing into the ribbon and tape, and it’s a Ferrero Rocher gift box. It’s like he’s given me a box of gold coins. The foil wrapping glistens under the strobe lights.

  “It’s nighttime, so don’t get mad at me,” Peter says.

  “I love it,” I say. Now that we know how much we like each other, he can give me chocolate out in the open.

  I vow not to eat all of the chocolates in one sitting. After fasting for a month, my appetite isn’t what it used to be and I have a greater appreciation of food. I realize that food is more about tasting good than eating large amounts until my stomach feels like bursting. Dad, who’s always been trim, eats desserts very slowly, never taking seconds. He says that it’s the taste that counts, so he doesn’t have to eat a lot. He’s right.

  I tear one of the chocolates open and nibble on it, tasting how delicious it is. My favorite part is the middle, where the nuts are. It’s like yum, yum, then yummy. When I get home, I know that Mom will ask me who gave me which presents, and I can’t tell her that the chocolates are from a boy I really like. She was kind enough to accept my desktop and screensavers, but this isn’t something she’s going to be okay with. It’s one thing to slobber over men on my computer screen, but to have a real-life boy to hug and kiss is totally different. And Dad had been mean about erasing Robert Pattinson from my computer. If he knew about Peter, he’d try to erase him from my life just as easily. Instead of clickety click, it would be you’re grounded, you can’t look at boys, you can’t touch boys, you can’t do anything.

  Grandpa is turning me into a nervous wreck the night before my driving test. He comes over for dinner and keeps grilling me. He rubs his white beard with one hand and drums against the dining table with the other as he lectures me on driving basics.

  “Don’t coast through stop signs,” he says. “Make a full stop.”

  “I know that, Grandpa,” I say.

  “Always watch out for speed limit signs.”

  “I know.”

  Grandpa rubs his beard some more and my head spins with anxiety. I had to cancel a date with Peter because Grandpa wants to go over the driving booklet with me again. He flips through the pages, quizzing me and showing me pictures of right and wrong things to do. The book is full of large X’s over things to avoid. Grandpa shows me an illustration of a car making a sharp sideways turn to skip over several lanes. The picture has a large red X over it. “Don’t do that,” he says.

  “I know, Grandpa,” I say. Do you know I have a secret boyfriend that I can’t tell you about and you’re keeping me away from him tonight because you want to make me a nervous wreck who’ll probably fail the driving test because you keep going over the same things over and over again as if I’m some dummy who can’t do anything right, and that includes disobeying you because I have a secret boyfriend?

  I could be sipping on a strawberry smoothie, holding Peter’s hand as we walk through the mall, but I’m sitting here being interrogated by Grandpa. He once mentioned to me that his father was some top official in Syria. They probably had torture chambers there where they pulled out people’s fingernails and burned them with cigarettes. Grandpa might not torture me physically, but he’s really good at hitting people’s emotions. At least he’s trying to improve ever since he apologized to Mom. He seems less pestering, which isn’t saying much because he’s had an overbearing personality ever since I can remember.

  I’m relieved when the sun goes down and Mom serves dinner. Grandpa is busy gnawing chicken off the bone and I pick at my food. I wonder what Peter is doing at this moment since we can’t go to the mall as we planned. He’s probably eating dinner with his family, and they don’t have to fast all day like we do, and he probably tells his mom about me since it’s no big deal if he dates. I look over at Grandpa chewing his food. I look at his hands, which have stringy blue veins and faint liver spots. I wonder if he’d pick up a stone with one of his hands and throw it at me. Or maybe he’d slap me immediately, because my secret is so shameful. Would he really do that to his own granddaughter because he feels I deserve some sort of punishment for having a boyfriend? I’m sitting underneath an air conditioning vent and I shiver, not just from the cold but from these violent and guilty thoughts.

  • • •

  The next day, Mom picks me up from school and takes me to the DMV. I already took the written test and the drug and alcohol course for my learner’s permit, so now I just need the driving test. Even though I felt uneasy last night and all day during school, I’m not nervous as I park, back up, stop at red lights, and turn corners. Taking the test makes my adrenaline run high, and I even ignore the BO of the tester—Mom’s car stank as soon as he got in. There’s an air freshener on the sun visor and, when he isn’t looking, I tap on it to spray the car with a vanilla scent.

  So despite Grandpa’s anxiety-inducing quiz and the tester’s strong odor, I pass and I’m an official driver, an official sixteen-year-old, an official girlfriend. Everything is official now. I wait in line to get my picture taken. Then, when I put my license in my wallet, I feel like such an adult. I keep taking it out, even though the picture is sort of dorky. My eyes are opened wide and I look too deer-caught-in-headlights. It says Safe Driver on the bottom of my license. I show Mom and she tells me that her license says the same thing. Whatever, so she doesn’t know that this is a big deal for me. She’s being her cool self as she drives us home, her shoulders shimmying to Van Halen’s “Jump.”

>   I’m jumpy as I listen to the song. Things seem so final now that I’ve survived an adventurous month, yet things are also just beginning. I’ll drive more than ever before, whereas I used to drive only for practice. Lisa’s relationship with me doesn’t feel continuous after our spat; it’s like there was a break and now we’re starting all over again, the same way one rewinds a clock. And Peter and I are still so new, even though I feel like I’ve known him longer than I really have.

  Eid, the end of Ramadan, is coming up this week. I’m planning on taking the day off of school for the holiday. Shakira wants us to go to South Beach, which is a hop, skip, and jump away from Coral Gables. Sure, we’ll both wake up with our respective families to pray and eat breakfast, but the rest of Eid is about rejoicing the purification we experienced during our fast. Not only does my body feel right, but my spirit does, too. I feel light and happy. For our South Beach excursion I plan on wearing a cute pink dress, with a pink bathing suit underneath if the water is calm enough to swim in. This will be a Miami Eid for me, after all.

  • • •

  I open my email in the morning. Sometimes that’s the first thing I do in the morning: walk to the computer like a zombie and compulsively check my email, as if someone could possibly send me an urgent email between eleven at night and five in the morning. But my friends use their computers in the morning just like I do. I receive emails dated at five, five thirty, six o’clock, right before people have to leave for school. It can be a how-are-you message or a request for last-minute homework assistance. Dad once told me that he couldn’t believe that kids these days email and text each other in the morning, as if we’re so important and busy. But I do consider myself important and busy.

  Twenty-three messages are in my inbox.

  hi, beautiful, congrats that you went through your first Ramadan

  you’re so strong to go through this cuz i couldn’t

  you overachiever! good for you

  My heart gushes with emotion and I become teary-eyed. I had no idea that so many people, both friends and relatives, were cheering me on and thought so highly of me. I’m so down half the time, always pushing myself for more—grades, being skinny, competing in various school contests—that I don’t realize all the good qualities I possess. I go on Facebook and update my status: i did it guys, fasted for Ramadan. doing a happy dance! Within minutes five people like my status. My phone’s beeping with various text messages. Because I’m not in school today, my friends are texting from their bookbags, in their laps away from the eyes of teachers, and in bathrooms. The text messages echo the emails. And my friends miss me since I’m not with them in class. I drag myself away from the computer and my phone when I see that it’s close to nine o’clock. Shakira is coming and I finish dressing to go out with her.

  She honks outside. She’s borrowing her Mom’s Hummer and I step inside. It’s like stepping up a ladder, the vehicle is so high. She’s wearing a see-through tunic and I can see a turquoise bikini underneath. I used to think that her school clothes maybe hid some imperfections like bulges and stretch marks, but she has a perfect body. I think I look okay in my pink dress. I pinch my waist. I still have a bit of flab, but I can’t complain. I look and feel good after fasting.

  Mom waves at me from the living room window and I wave back. Shakira starts driving, and she drives kind of scary. She just got her license, same as me, not too long ago. She brakes sharply and tailgates. I grab onto my seat belt to brace myself in case something happens. Once we’re on the highway, away from traffic lights, the drive isn’t as terrifying. We drive over the causeway to Miami Beach feeling so awesome. We’re taking the day off, and our parents even called our school to excuse our absences.

  Shakira parks and the car shakes when she hits the curb. “Sorry,” she says.

  My legs wobble as I get out of the Hummer. I survived Ramadan and I survived Shakira’s driving. She parks a few blocks from the beach. We have a scenic view of art deco buildings and hotels as we walk toward the sand. Shirtless men stop and whistle. Shakira smiles over her shoulder.

  “You have a lot of admirers,” I say.

  “You do, too,” she says, pinching my arm. And it’s true. Some college-age guys are eyeing me, which makes me nervous. I’ve only recently gotten into boys, Peter being the first, so I don’t know a lot about them. I smile and look away, since I’m taken.

  We walk further along until we see sand spilling over concrete, then there’s a wooden fence, and then we see the water. I’m breathless with this view of crashing waves. I even notice the awe in Shakira’s face as she appreciates the ocean. We walk to the water and lay out some towels a few yards from where the waves crash. She takes off her tunic and I slip off my dress. It’s winter, but warm. A breeze lifts our hair. We take turns rubbing sunblock on each other’s backs and then rest on our sides to face each other.

  “Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you grew up in the Middle East?” I ask. “Sometimes I think about what would have happened if my mom’s and dad’s parents never came here. They all came for the same reason, for the freedom, for the opportunities, because of different wars or threats of war going on. Can you really picture it if they never came here? We’d be living over there. We would have no boyfriends. We couldn’t wear our short skirts. The town gossips and family friends would bully us into obeying them.”

  “That’s so weird,” Shakira says. “Sometimes I wonder what I’d be like if I grew up there. I would have a different personality, different goals, different everything. It’s strange how the environment shapes you. I email my cousins over there all the time, and they really think and act differently than I do. I try to imagine that I would be the same as I am now, but the truth is I would be different.”

  “But I’m glad that they came here. I like the way I live, even though my family can be strict.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “And look at us, half naked on Eid.”

  Shakira giggles at the thought, especially since she’s wearing considerably less fabric than I am. Her bikini is two triangles and a strip of cloth.

  “Do you ever talk about Luis with your mom?” I ask.

  “No,” Shakira says. Her face is calm, but I can’t read her eyes since she’s wearing bug-eyed sunglasses. “I feel guilty and sometimes I want to say something, but I know she won’t understand.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  Shakira turns her head upwards to face the sky. “We have secret lives that we have to deal with. We’ll be trailblazers. Our children won’t have to live through all this secrecy, or sneakcracy.”

  “I like the sound of that,” I say. I envision my future kids—I already picked out the names Sebastian, Wolfgang, and Ophelia—and how I’ll never make them feel ashamed or embarrassed about having normal teenage urges.

  A group of guys walk by and wink at us. I hear some innuendo and flirtatious remarks that hang in the wind. Shakira snaps the shoulder strap of my suit. “Look how sexy you are now,” she says. “Look at us, on the beach, cutting class, having hot guys check us out. And we did it. I didn’t cheat at all when I fasted.”

  “Me neither. I didn’t think I could go through this Ramadan.”

  A year ago, when Grandpa caught me with chocolate wafer crumbs all over my lips, I felt something in me wither … maybe dignity. How could I have told my family I was going to fast, and then cheat? I had been so psyched on fasting, researching Ramadan online and listening to my parents talk about the new moon signaling the start of the holiday, and then it was a huge letdown that I couldn’t last a few hours without food. They probably thought I was going to carry on a charade, lying to them about fasting, if Grandpa hadn’t caught me red-handed. I let everyone down. But now, with the end of this current Ramadan, having successfully fasted every day, I can clearly see that I’m patient, dedicated, and persevering.


  Shakira and I flip over so that our backs will get tanned. I don’t want to get tan lines, so I pull my straps down, something the former Almira would never do. I want to keep my new tight little body. Looking down at my bathing suit, I can’t believe how narrow my hips look. I vow that I’ll start exercising with Mom, which will be hard since muscles that I’ve never used before will ache, but I imagine that we’ll bond doing yoga and aerobics together. I’m no longer resentful of Mom’s body now that I realize that we have the same body structure. I was never big-boned, but I used to be a big eater, munching on chips and tacos all day long. I also know that the next time Ramadan rolls around, I can fast much easier now that I’ve gotten used to it.

  So now I have the body I want, and I’m girlfriend and best-friend material. I have what it takes to navigate dangerous Miami streets. My braces will come off in eleven months. Life doesn’t seem as complicated as it once did—now that I see that good things, whether they come by hard or easy, can come my way.

  I still wish I could share my romantic relationship with Mom as easily as I tell her I love a nail-polish color or that we should go get some Frappuccinos together. The blue-green water hits the sand while my mind wanders. I picture Mom and me in a coffee place, chatting easily. Our lattes sit in front of us. Her pretty face and flowing conversation fill me with warmth. I open my mouth to blurt my secret, but nothing comes out. I’m speechless during this mother-daughter coffee moment.

  I guiltily close up when I imagine different scenarios of how to reveal this big secret to my parents. I don’t know how to break it to them … but I hope that someday, I can tell them everything and they will understand.

  About the Author

  Medeia Sharif is a Kurdish-American author who was born in New York City, and she presently calls beautiful Miami Beach her home. She received her master’s degree in Psychology from Florida Atlantic University. Not only does she write, but she’s a high school English teacher. Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. is her first novel. Visit her online at http://www.sharifwrites.com.