Not the Girls You're Looking For

by Aminah Mae Safi

  “Get a near-perfect score on that composition,” he said.

  “Jealous?” Lulu smirked.

  Dane smirked back. They stood there for a long moment, neither one conceding to the other. Eventually Dane shrugged, turning and walking away. As she watched him walk down the hall, Lulu wasn’t sure if she was grateful or disappointed. She did know this, though: she was going to have to pay for her pride.

  * * *

  The first three days of Ramadan, she knew, were the worst. And yet, sitting at the cafeteria table and watching Audrey bite into pepperoni pizza, dripping meat grease onto her plate, was nearly more than Lulu could bear. Lulu thought about licking the orange-coated crust crumbs that had fallen onto Audrey’s tray. Lulu didn’t like pepperoni, didn’t even eat it. She also wasn’t sure how clean that tray was. It didn’t matter. The crumbs still tempted. She licked her lips.

  “What’s everyone going as for Halloween?” Lo sat between Audrey and Emma at their usual table.

  “Early much, Lo?” Lulu leaned against the table. Every year the senior girls would throw a Halloween party, effectively highlighting the fall social calendar in a way that weekly football games could not. Not sanctioned by the school, the tickets were sold exclusively by the seniors to Sealy Hall students. The venues themselves were only available with the promise of parent chaperones. The event had proved, year after year, a guaranteed recipe for both delight and disaster.

  Lo stared at Lulu. “Halloween is this weekend. And y’all all owe me for the tickets.”

  Lulu’s elbow slid down with her expression. She didn’t have a costume in mind and, worse, she’d have to get through the night without a friendly drop of alcohol. Not eating lunch was one thing. But with this, her friends would all be cavorting around like idiots and she’d be forced to remember every detail of it. Guilt chased on the heels of such a thought, but that didn’t stop Lulu from wishing she lived in an alternate universe, one where Ramadan had started a week later in the Gregorian calendar.

  “Anyway. I’m going as a ladybug. Isn’t that cute? I found a tutu and everything,” said Lo.

  Of all the ways Lo would be likely to dress for Halloween, cute would hardly be the word to describe her costume. But the entire table—Lulu included—agreed that a ladybug was an absolutely adorable idea.

  “I’m going as Dorothy,” said Emma, with unusually declarative force. “I found a pair of sparkly red shoes, and I have to wear them. They’re insane. What about you, Lulu?”

  Lulu was too distracted by the conglomerated smells of the cafeteria—Frito pie and pizza intermingling with the scent of instant soup and the remnants of spicy fries. She’d give the tip of her right thumb for a bite of Frito pie. She heard a whimper and looked around the table before she realized it had come from herself. She shrugged. “Something slutty.”

  The table laughed at that.

  Audrey’s face betrayed her worry. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, first day’s always the worst,” said Lulu.

  “I know. I mean, I don’t know, but I’m sorry.” Audrey paused, frowning. “I wish I could give you a bite.”

  “Unfortunately, that would be the opposite of helpful.”

  “I hate seeing you like this,” said Audrey.

  “I know. I’ll be better in a couple days. Promise.” Lulu’s pasted-on smile faltered as she remembered she still had a dare of a date to go on.

  6

  You Can’t Just Ask People Why They’re White

  Lulu peered over the railing of the coffee shop. Below on the ground floor, tables of teen boys sucking on their vape pens were interspersed among those filled by older, literati-inspired men sporting fedoras. The wood—of the railing, the bar, the tables—was warm, and the fragrance of the café-cum-bar had a decidedly masculine flavor. She’d been here once before, with her friends. They had not lingered.

  This time, she was on an accidental date and it was already a disaster. Nobody else seemed to care about the strange, suffocating quality of the air. Lulu coughed lightly. She scooted forward in her too-large chair, which wobbled unsteadily toward the balcony edge. She gripped her mug a little bit tighter.

  Across from her sat James, his limbs trying to find any sort of normal position at the tiny table. He cleared his throat. “How are things?”

  Lulu flipped her sandal up against her heel, making a faint clicking noise. “Good. You?”

  “Good.”

  Lulu didn’t have anything else to add. She looked back over the balcony, nursing her chai latte and shielding her face with her mug all at once. At least it was after sundown. She took a fresh sip.

  “So. Quick question. Why’d you ask me out?” James had that keen, wide-eyed look of his. The one that irresistibly drew the truth out of Lulu. “Because I’ve been under the impression that you hate me.”

  “I mean. I do.” Lulu watched as he spewed latte back into his mug. “See. Dane Anderson. We have French together.” Lulu paused, deciding to take a different tack. “How do you know Dane?”

  “Grew up together, before I moved to Florida. Our sisters are still friends.” James shrugged. “Dane’s all right. He’s just an asshole.”

  Lulu barked a laugh. This kid didn’t know the half of it. “Dane gave me your number on a dare. So I asked you out mostly to prove I would.”

  “Wow. Awesome.” It was James’s turn to hide into his mug. “Remind me to thank him. Do you even want to be here?”

  Lulu took another sip. “You know. I think so.”

  “You think so?” James’s mouth flattened into a line. “I wait seventeen years for a girl to do the asking, and she only maybe thinks she wants to be here. That’s super.”

  “Haven’t you been asked out by a girl before?” Lulu ought to have stopped there but James’s sarcasm had bitten into her conscience. “I would think with your general smooth-talking, all the ladies would come-a-runnin’.”

  “You’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” asked James.

  “What can I say? You bring out my sunny side.” Lulu flourished her words with a horribly winning smile. “Why’d you pick this place anyway?”

  “Made me think of you,” James said, his voice quiet.

  “Of me?”

  James took another sip of his coffee. “Yeah, why not.”

  “What made you think of me?” This answer could change the entire evening. They were on the precipice of a great unknown. Lulu leaned in.

  James must have sensed it, too. He put down his mug and said, as though she were the only person left in the room, “Tonight they’ve got their weekly belly dancers. I haven’t seen them yet, but I’ve heard they’re really great. Like, best in the city.”

  “You brought me here. When I asked you out. To see belly dancers.” Lulu nodded as she spoke.

  James returned the nods, all friendly-like. Lulu stared at him, waiting to see if that was all he would do. Apparently it was.

  “And you don’t see how offensive that is.” She tried to take a deep breath. “Seriously?”

  “I mean.” He looked left and right, to see if perhaps the balcony or the narrow passageway might come to his aid. “I don’t think so, no.”

  Lulu used her calmest tone, but it was a thin layer of ice over a riotous sea. “You thought this was a date, so you took me to see a half-naked woman dancing around? From my ‘culture’? Because it reminded you of me?”

  “Turns out this isn’t really a date,” he shot back. “I still think you would enjoy it. Since, you know.” But his voice had trailed off.

  Lulu could have thrown the last of her hot drink into his lovely, pleading eyes. She was always captivated by the worst kinds of boys. “Since I know what exactly? Since I know I’m Arab? Or, since I know I get to stuff tips into the dancers’ waistbands?”

  That wasn’t what bothered Lulu. She loved watching belly dancers. She loved the rhythm of their bodies set to the music. As a little girl, she had thought the movements beautiful and free. But Lulu had gotten
older and learned that the sashes and bells on a dancer’s body were as much about drawing attention to flesh as to movement. A dancer’s own sense of pleasure was beside the purpose. That a woman had talent in dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils did not bother Lulu. It was what came after. The leering, lingering looks Lulu would receive. The hope that she, too, would dance for the pleasure of another. The sense that her body had become public. The knowledge that her body was suddenly not her own.

  “How d’you know that?” James interrupted Lulu’s thoughts.

  “Because, as you already have so wonderfully insinuated, I’ve seen belly dancers before.”

  “These could be classy belly dancers. Maybe they don’t take tips.” There was an evident defiance inside him that Lulu could at once despise and respect.

  “Fantastic. Classy ones.” Lulu wouldn’t let herself speak anymore, so unsure was she of what might come out of her mouth.

  “So, um, to be clear. Under what … circumstances … have you seen belly dancers? I mean, why have you seen them before?”

  “Because, I’m Arab.” Lulu arched her eyebrows. “Isn’t that the obvious answer?”

  James looked around himself, like he was planning his escape. “Is that a trick question?”

  “You’re unbelievable.” Lulu took a last, enormous swig of her drink. She stared him down, willing him to answer differently, hoping he could possibly have something to say for himself. But he couldn’t and he didn’t.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said.

  “How so?” His eyes brightened, possibly hopeful that she might be calming down.

  “I definitely don’t want to be here.” Lulu slammed her mug on the wood. At that moment, she’d rather take her frustration out on the table than on his face. Though, truly, his face made a tempting target. Several nearby tables turned and stared at them.

  “Do you always blow hot and cold?” He broadened his narrow frame at that. “I mean, I didn’t fly off the handle when I found out you asked me out on a dare.”

  Lulu thought she saw tiny spots clouding her vision. “I don’t blow anything.” Lulu got up. She stuffed a handful of cash on the table. And then she was gone.

  * * *

  “Ugh, I mean can you believe it?” Lulu, in a squealing tone, was recounting to Audrey exactly how not over the previous night’s events she was.

  “No, I can’t.” Though Audrey had agreed she couldn’t believe the story at least three times already.

  “Belly dancers!” Lulu said. “Belly dancers!” There were only ten minutes left in the lunch period, and Lulu meant to use all of them on the topic. Lulu slammed her locker with a force that rattled two doors down.

  Her locker neighbor, Atman Rai, looked up at her, entirely startled. She glared at him, which she knew he most certainly did not deserve. He scuttled away, and Lulu was left to lament that she had doled out her revenge on a boy who neither deserved it nor understood the source of her wrath. She groaned, rolling her back up against the lock.

  “Lulu.” Audrey leaned against Lulu’s locker, trying to keep their conversation between them two, despite the bustle of the hallway around them.

  Lulu heard the tentativeness in her friend’s voice. Her wildness quelled at that, anticipating some censure was around the corner. “Yes?”

  “I love you. You know I do.”

  If that wasn’t a preamble, Lulu didn’t know one when she heard it. “But?”

  Audrey took a deep inhale. “And I say this as someone with an obsessive crush.”

  “Seriously?” Lulu crossed her arms over her chest.

  Audrey responded with her calmest, steadiest tones. “Lulu. Let me finish.”

  “Fine.” Lulu uncrossed her arms.

  “Anyways—I say this as someone with an obsessive crush. And who takes a lot of things probably a little too seriously—you’re being kind of sensitive.”

  “I am not!” Lulu kicked the bottom locker that did not belong to her. It didn’t deserve her ire any more than her neighbor, Atman, but, luckily, she felt less guilty pelting inanimate objects with her temper.

  Audrey made a disbelieving face. “I mean. Come on. It’s only belly dancers, Lulu. You seem—really rattled by it? I mean, he’s just some guy. He must have a crush on you. Pulling pigtails, etc. You probably intimidate him, you know? You are kind of intimidating. He goofed.”

  Lulu suddenly felt small and wrong for kicking the locker, for slamming the door, her anger, all of it. She heard her own voice catch. “I hate him.”

  “I know, honey. I know.” Audrey offered a comforting pat.

  Lulu leaned back onto the locker, accidentally jamming the lock into her spine with the force of her action. She winced. “But?”

  “But, with you, hate and attraction go hand in hand.”

  Lulu opened her mouth and closed it. Audrey was wrong, and yet, Lulu couldn’t find the words for why. They were on the tip of her tongue, but never fully formed. All she had was the ability to tell this story over and over again, until maybe someone understood. Until that person could point out the piece that unlocked the anger and turned it into action. How could Lulu have known that Audrey wasn’t that person? Audrey was, after all, the smartest person Lulu trusted.

  “Lulu,” Audrey said. “Breathe, honey. You wouldn’t be so rage-y if it weren’t the truth.”

  That took the air out of Lulu’s anger almost immediately. She didn’t have any words left. Audrey’s version of the truth was the one Lulu feared most. It froze Lulu, creating a sensation that a deep hollow had been scooped out of her chest. Lulu rubbed at the sore spot in her back, where she had hit the lock. She hoped it wouldn’t bruise.

  “Come on. Let’s not think about it anymore,” Audrey said.

  Lulu had heard Mrs. Bachmann say the same thing when Audrey was upset. It was an unsettling vision of the future. “Easy for you to say.” Lulu picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder as she stood.

  She and Audrey headed down the hall.

  “True. I only have to say it and not do it. But you know what, I get how you feel. All the time.” Audrey preened with this wisdom.

  But Audrey didn’t get how Lulu felt. And Lulu was too worn down to argue the point. Too unsatisfied by the turn of the conversation. Lulu followed where Audrey would inevitably lead. “Clark?”

  “Obviously.”

  “He’s an idiot,” Lulu responded robotically.

  “They all are, Lulu. They all are.” Audrey smiled.

  Lulu faked a laugh, hoping it would alter the expression she felt forming on her face. She wrapped her pain into the hard casing of humor. “I think it’s so much worse because I’m so hungry. I could eat a horse.” She thought her hunger during the day would have abated by now. She’d been mistaken. Hunger didn’t abate; the pain of it simply dulled.

  “God, that has to be the worst.” Audrey scrunched up her face, sympathetic and slightly disapproving.

  “Sometimes it is.” Lulu shrugged. She couldn’t explain fasting to someone who’d never done it. There were only so many words for the experience that weren’t trite or repetitive.

  “When isn’t it?”

  “I guess, when I know it serves a higher purpose.” The sentiment tasted foreign on Lulu’s tongue. She didn’t know how else to express the feeling, though. She’d have to resign herself to sounding a bit devotional, even if it wasn’t her exact truth.

  “When’s that?” Audrey pulled out a stick of gum and started chewing it. Audrey knew better than to offer a piece to Lulu, but she did so anyway.

  Lulu declined with the shake of her head. “Like, I could eat anytime, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “But some people can’t. This ends in a month. For some people, this never ends. They’re always this hungry. I mean, getting anything done is a struggle during the day. I can’t imagine if this were my life. All the time. Always hungry.” But that wasn’t it entirely, either. Lulu also knew her family half a world away fasted. Fasting tie
d her to them in a way she needed. They did not share a homeland. They did not share a time zone. But this, this hunger, they shared. This time on the ever-moving calendar, they shared.

  “That’s some serious shit, Lulu.”

  “Sorry.” Lulu shrugged.

  “Nah, it’s cool. And here I thought it was tough giving up chocolate for Lent.” Audrey stood by the door to her next class.

  Lulu leaned against the wall, clutching a book. “I can eat as much of that as I want. As long as the sun’s not up.” She winked.

  Audrey laughed. “You are the funniest person I know.”

  “I know.” Lulu shrugged her shoulders.

  “And modest, too.” Audrey swatted Lulu’s arm.

  “Modesty’s overrated, Audrey,” said Lulu. “Hey, are we going Halloween shopping today?”

  Audrey grabbed at the doorknob, holding the door open to the classroom. “Let’s go Friday. After school.”

  Lulu frowned. “Cutting it close, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve gotta get this lab analysis done tonight. Plus we’ve got a quiz tomorrow in US History.” Audrey continued holding the door open as half the students in the class and Mr. Medina walked through.

  “Ughhhh. Quizzes.” Lulu rolled her eyes.

  “Tell me about it,” said Audrey.

  “Is there somewhere we can run away to? Where there’s no quizzes or boys or anything stupid ever again?” asked Lulu.

  “Doubtful. Besides, if we miss Halloween, Lo will kill us. For sure.”

  “How did you ever get so wise?”

  “Looking after your ass for three years,” said Audrey.

  “Shut up,” said Lulu.

  Audrey laughed and flitted inside. Lulu, seeing how deserted the hallway was by this point, took her leave quickly. She hustled to her next class, barely making it to her seat in time for the bell.

  7

  Costumed Drama

  One purple wrap dress, a pair of red hot pants, and a ribbed orange turtleneck later, the girls were happily driving away from the thrift store with the spoils of their shopping excursion. They found two pairs of coordinating combat boots and made their way to Nina Holmes’s house to pick up a wig for Lulu to borrow. A stop at a costume store procured the toy weapons and accessories they would need for the night. Once at home, Audrey got out a pack of multicolored permanent markers and two pairs of thick false eyelashes. After sundown, Lulu picked up an enormous burrito and scarfed it down as they readied their costumes. They were armed for the night before them.