Not the Girls You're Looking For

by Aminah Mae Safi

  Lulu stabbed a green bean. She chewed the single pod thoroughly. “Did you know that chimpanzees will go to war with other chimpanzees over territory and cannibalize their kills?”

  “Little sister, aren’t you a disappointment tonight? You so got that from the Discovery Channel ten years ago.” Ben was too fun to fight with, and he knew it.

  “Not as disappointing as your sorry ass,” Lulu countered with the particular brand of sarcasm she saved for Ben alone.

  “Leila Saad, you apologize right now.” Her mother sat up with unintentional primness. “And do we have to talk about cannibalism at the dinner table? I hardly think it’s good for anyone’s appetite.”

  “Mom, it’s not human cannibalism. It’s monkey cannibalism,” Ben replied quite thoughtfully.

  “Chimpanzee.” Reza nodded.

  “Oh, excuse me. Chimpanzee cannibalism.” Ben laid his hand over his heart. “You’re quite right, Rez.”

  “My darlings, did you know,” their father started, and Lulu was quite sure that she did know, whatever it was that he was about to communicate, “that during a bad winter the most vulnerable people in a medieval European village were likely to be cannibalized?”

  Aimee set down her fork loudly. Reza coughed into his napkin. Ben snorted soda.

  Lulu laughed with unexpected pleasure. “No, I didn’t.”

  “That can’t be right,” said their mother, her nasal twang coming out in full force.

  “There’s evidence. And here, during the harsh winter in Jamestown. There’s more than circumstantial evidence.” Their father turned his attention to Lulu. “So your ancestors were, during the height of Baghdad, you know, writing treatises on the Qur’an, while the people of Europe, with their kings and their ‘Holy Roman Emperors,’ which, as you know—”

  But he was interrupted by Lulu, Ben, and Reza in chorus with one another, “—weren’t holy, or Roman, or emperors!”

  “Yes, yes, exactly.” Their father smiled, appreciating the teasing. He had an audience and little could ruin his thrill. “These people, they were starving and eating one another. And you, your people were writing philosophy.”

  “No, they weren’t!” exclaimed Ben in mock surprise.

  “They were!” said their father.

  Reza shot Ben a glare. “He’s kidding, Baba.”

  “You know.” Their father took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Your grandmother still carries a gun.”

  Lulu’s mischievous grin was reflected back at her in her father’s face, particularly in his eyes. It was a non sequitur to anyone outside the family, but Ahmed was full of these.

  “We know, Baba.”

  17

  Spectacular, Spectacular

  Lulu had spent the week off from school staring at her phone. Willing it to buzz. Hell, even willing it to ring. And Lulu hated picking up phone calls. But Audrey maintained her silence, and Emma maintained her newfound distance. And as for James, Lulu had gotten an are you okay? Which she’d followed up with a super that had garnered no response but a series of three dots hovering every few moments, only to be bounced back to nothing. When Lulu had broken down and messaged Lo, her phone filled with cryptic one-word answers and petty GIFs raising their eyebrows sardonically.

  Better to go without a response at all.

  Lulu was coiled—pent up with memories of her friends choosing boys over her, and boys groping her friends, and other hands altogether gently helping her find her balance again.

  She was angry and she wasn’t quite sure with whom. It could have been Audrey and her drinking, or Luke and his leering. Lulu wanted it to be Lo and her questing for unattainable boys. Or even James and his inability to keep his nose out of other people’s problems. Or her mother’s unwillingness to punish her and get the damned thing over with.

  But it wasn’t any of that. It was just a rage that had been simmering, waiting for the right moment to boil over. Hovering on the edge of the pot. A readiness that sank into Lulu’s bones and told her the world was her enemy and would never be her friend.

  So, of course, she had to paste on her old, pretty smile and go and celebrate a holiday.

  The Alkatis had pulled out all the stops, including but not limited to at least a hundred people piled into their home, a modern credenza that functioned as a mere side buffet, and a live musician playing the oud for this large party in honor of the Little Eid.

  Lulu made her way through the throng of people clumped at the entryway. Lulu had already lost her brothers somewhere in the crowd and she could barely make out her parents—her mother was kissing Auntie Salwa’s cheeks and her father was already shouting with Amu Yusuf, Miriam’s father. He reminded her of a big, friendly bear. He clapped, singing a famous Iraqi song about a beautiful girl named Leila when he saw Lulu.

  Lulu waved and smiled, then ducked away—all the while cursing musicians who had the gall to fall in love with women named Leila. She ran from the sound of his discordant singing as quickly as she could without giving offense. Lulu had been cursed twice over with her name. White boys sang Clapton and old Arab men would sing this. She couldn’t win.

  Lulu emerged from a throng of people into a secluded piece of hallway before the rear entryway to the kitchen. She took a deep breath, but the relief didn’t come. The strange lonesomeness of the crowd only increased when Lulu finally had a moment to herself. She pushed through the hallway, longing to be embraced by the rich cardamom and saffron wafting out from the kitchen. Lulu stepped into bright light ahead of her and let herself be enveloped in the sounds of chatter and the friendly clink of metal on china.

  Ali and Thabit and Mustafa stood in a clump in the back of the large, warm kitchen. Reza and Ben had found them, and Ben had already started an animated story that required the full length of his arms to tell. Reza kept smacking Ben’s hands down so he wouldn’t inadvertently hit anyone as they walked by.

  Across the kitchen, Lulu’s mother had joined Ame Nadia. Auntie Farrah went right on chattering around Lulu’s mother. Ame Nadia kept trying to include her. It was nearly funny, watching her mother be spoken over and purposely included at every other turn. One of the crowd broke away—Auntie Salwa maneuvered around the party, mistress of the house and the consummate hostess. Lulu admired her, working the room as well as Queen Noor might have in that monarch’s heyday.

  Lulu was so busy surveying the kitchen, she ran headlong into Miriam.

  “‘Eid Mubarak, Lulu!” Miriam said, grasping Lulu for balance. Neither one of them toppled over, and Miriam went in for the requisite three kisses across the cheek.

  “‘Eid Said, habibti.” Lulu avoided eye contact. She didn’t want to be reminded of the weekend. She didn’t want any memories flooding back now.

  “Don’t start habibti-ing me yet,” said Miriam. “We’ve still got three hours to go.”

  Lulu laughed—a relief. “I like the word. Better than sugar,” said Lulu. “My Mimi used to always call me sugar. But she’d drop the r somehow, and it came out more like shuga.” Lulu clicked her tongue in disapproval.

  “Fair enough.” Miriam snorted. “I’m dying for a smoke.”

  Lulu turned away, not wanting to be reminded of smoking at all. “You’ve got like two hours before you can inhale the secondhand fumes of the hubbly bubbly. Pace yourself.”

  “You’re a buzzkill tonight.” Miriam absently picked at her teeth. “Dina alert, eight o’clock.”

  Lulu turned, her smile painted back on. “‘Eid Mubarak, Dina! ‘Eid Mubarak, Tamra!”

  “‘Eid Mubarak, habibti,” said Tamra.

  Miriam raised her eyebrows at Lulu over Dina’s head as they hugged. Lulu held in her laughter as she endured another smattering of kisses across each of her cheeks.

  “Hungry?” asked Miriam.

  Dina laughed, bright and sunny. “Starving!”

  Dina picked up a plate and started adding food to it. Tamra followed behind her, circling the buffet table, followed by Miriam. Lulu trailed behind them all.<
br />
  “Lulu, habibti! You don’t have enough food on your plate! Here—” Dina added a full serving of rice to Lulu’s plate. “There you go!”

  Lulu smiled through her gritted teeth as graciously as she could. As the oldest of the four, Dina had such rights. Lulu put a spoonful of the rice back on the platter once both of the girls’ backs turned. Miriam mimed a tongue clicking, as though Lulu had been naughty.

  It was meant to be a joke, a gentle teasing, but Lulu bristled under the criticism. Even if it was fake criticism.

  “Oh, and you have to try these,” said Tamra, turning back and adding five grape leaf–wrapped rice nuggets to Lulu’s plate. Tamra was younger than Dina but still older than Lulu. “My mother made them special for tonight. Took her all day yesterday.”

  Lulu stuffed a dolma in her mouth and hummed her appreciation. Tamra preened. And as Lulu’s mouth was full, Auntie Salwa swooped into their small band, with three kisses each for the four girls. Lulu did her best not to spew grape leaves and rice onto her hostess.

  “Habibtis, how are you? Keifich, keifich, keifich?”

  “Ziena, Amti. Wa anti?” was Dina’s reply.

  “Alhumdulillah, habibti. Alhumdulillah,” said Salwa, squeezing Dina’s cheeks between her index finger and thumb.

  “Allhamd’Allah,” parroted Tamra.

  “I’m good, shukran, Auntie,” said Lulu.

  Miriam smiled. “Same.”

  Auntie Salwa appraised them all for a moment before grabbing Lulu by the chin. “Always you have the look of your father, mashallah.”

  “Shukran, Khala.” Lulu wasn’t sure why one of the Arabic words for auntie had slipped out. It was unbidden, as though Lulu had something to prove. As though she were Audrey tap dancing wildly for approval. Lulu needed no one’s approval.

  “Of course, habibti.” Salwa pinched Lulu’s cheeks. “But what are you girls doing here by yourselves? You should be mixing. Go and say hello to Auntie Farrah. She’s been asking about you. She’s very worried, you know. Her daughter is stuck on immigration. She wasn’t born here, the eldest. We’re all worried for her, inshallah. An engineer, too. Khala needs girls to dote on.”

  “Of course, Amti,” said Dina, with all the respect in her voice.

  “Ya, Mama, of course we will,” said Tamra.

  “Sure,” said Miriam, on a shrug.

  A tightness wrapped around Lulu’s chest. These women knew how to look after one another. But they never extended the courtesy to her mother. And they only gave such consideration to Lulu when they saw her father in her. Lulu had built her own allies, and last time they had failed her. Or maybe she had failed them. And these ones, this family that should have been ready-made for her eyed her warily, as though she might prove unworthy at any moment. Lulu couldn’t quite swallow the feeling, giving her voice a coiled, unsteady tenor. “Do you think she would want a baklava?”

  “La, habibti, she has her own. You are such sweet girls, aren’t you?” But Auntie Salwa couldn’t seem to help herself and decided to add, “Despite everything, ay wallah?”

  Salwa’s eyes flickered to Lulu’s mother in the distance. It was unconscious, Lulu could tell. Then Dina and Tamra glanced toward Aimee as well. Lulu bit her tongue hard enough to taste the tang of metal in her mouth. She held on to that taste, that sensation. Miriam, trying to break the spell, gave Lulu a good flick on the leg. Lulu nodded her thanks in return.

  Auntie Farrah, apparently impatient, fluttered over to their small group. She greeted Salwa and launched into the middle of a conversation Lulu knew they had been having earlier. They spoke to each other in a rapid-fire Arabic that was difficult for Lulu to follow clearly. But Lulu could always pick out important words, no matter how fast the speakers might talk.

  Lulu munched on one of her baklava, knowing it was impolite to interrupt. Dina and Tamra also listened attentively to the older women. Lulu watched as Salwa relayed Lulu’s concern for Farrah. They both looked to Lulu, with kindness in their eyes. Farrah pinched Lulu’s two cheeks with her forefinger and her thumb. It was a loving kind of pain that Auntie Farrah delivered. Lulu did wish her mouth hadn’t been full of baklava when Farrah had chosen to do it. Lulu swallowed, then smiled.

  The two women moved on in their conversation. They glanced over to Aimee. They continued to talk, their expression meaningful, their words slightly more hushed. The same, like always. The same whispers and looks Aimee would always get. The same whispers, if she was lucky, Lulu would get for the rest of her life. Everywhere was whispering. She’d never be free of it. Not here. And especially not at Sealy Hall. She’d been so foolish to think she could have built something unbreakable of her own there. Something impenetrable. Something that couldn’t, wouldn’t shatter. Lulu gritted her teeth.

  “And her,” said Auntie Salwa meaningfully, still in Arabic.

  Auntie Farrah clucked distastefully. She answered in Arabic that Lulu could follow. “La, no, I know. ‘Sharmoota.’”

  Lulu turned her head; she stared at the two women. Her attention drew the attention of Miriam and Dina and Tamra. But Lulu couldn’t think beyond the ringing in her ears. Sharmoota. Whore. Slut. Same slur in any tongue. Lulu was haunted by it.

  “Ey,” said Auntie Salwa, with wide, knowing eyes.

  “Limadha?” Auntie Farrah shook her head.

  “Because hoom niswangi. La,” said Auntie Salwa. Then she made a remark about a man like a tree, with the mind of a goat. They were speaking too fast to follow directly.

  Auntie Farrah wiped her hands theatrically. “Khalas.”

  Lulu watched knowing smiles grow on Dina’s and Tamra’s faces. They thought she didn’t know. They thought her quiescence was ignorance. They thought Lulu’s placidity equal to docility. Lulu could still taste the blood in her mouth. She was done biting herself. She would show them she knew how to snap.

  “My mother may have made me a slut.” Lulu’s gaze flickered to Tanya and her fiancé. “But at least she didn’t sell me to the highest bidder.”

  The air around them went still. Tamra flinched. Dina froze. Miriam looked ready to crawl under a rock. Auntie Farrah turned to stare, slack jawed.

  Salwa, though looking as though she had been slapped, had a bit more presence of mind than anyone else. “Excuse me?”

  “She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” said Auntie Farrah, with as much force as she could. As though her pronouncements could rewrite reality and the truth in one fell swoop. Salwa’s eyes narrowed at Lulu.

  Lulu knew she was drawing a crowd. She didn’t care. She heard the din of the room around her grow quiet. She’d lulled the women and girls around her into a strangled silence. But she couldn’t back down. Not now.

  “Oh. Is that not what you meant by sharmoota?” Here was the warped logic and beatific smile of Sealy Hall—an expression that belied Lulu’s words. Her rage had finally boiled over. But instead of the blinding hot sensation that typically flushed through her, Lulu shivered, like she’d been hollowed out and frozen. She was finally who everyone thought she might be. Who she feared she was. It was nearly prophetic, this feeling, and she gave into her villainy willingly. “My Arabic is a bit rusty. Translation is so slippery. I always thought it meant slut, but I can tell by your expression that it means whore. Can you say the same of your daughters? Is that why you sell them so quickly? So you do think my mother is willing to profit off my short skirts and American ways. You’re not so different from her, after all.”

  Auntie Farrah’s jaw had found the floor. Auntie Salwa was sputtering. Lulu didn’t break eye contact with her, though. Out of the corner of her eye, Lulu saw her mother whip her head around so fast, Lulu assumed she’d have a crick in her neck the next day.

  Lulu’s mother stood beside her in a flash. “Leila Margot Saad. You will apologize. This second.”

  “No. I won’t.” Lulu turned and walked away from the small crowd.

  “You will go back there and apologize. Do you hear me.” Her mother
snatched her up by the arm.

  Lulu yanked out of the grip almost. “No. I said I won’t. I meant it.”

  The crowd’s gaze followed them.

  Aimee’s mouth formed a hard line. “I have been so lenient with you. I’ve let things slide. I was giving you time to act like a grown-up after this weekend. I can see now that was a mistake.”

  “Mom, she was practically calling you—” but the look on Aimee’s face quieted Lulu. And the phrase wasn’t “practically” anything, but Lulu didn’t need to repeat the insult for her mother, word for word.

  “No, Leila. No. I’ve had enough. I’m a grown woman, and I decide what I can handle in this world, not you. I chose my life with my eyes open. This is nothing to what my own family does. You think you’re proving a point? All you’re doing is confirming the worst.” And with no further ado Aimee clamped her hand around Lulu’s elbow and yanked her. “You’re making life so much harder for your father, did you know that? And me. I hope you see that. And if you don’t, you’re going to see it. You won’t listen to me, you’re going to have to listen to your father. He’s going to be so disappointed.”

  Aimee had always explained the rules. Ahmed had always encouraged Lulu’s wildness. This was what made the threat of revealing the truth to Ahmed so incisive. Aimee would be mad when Lulu violated the rules; Ahmed would be heartbroken. Anger was easy to deal with. Disappointment was not. Lulu was being sold out. Aimee had always threatened it, of course, but Lulu never thought she’d see the day when her mother would make good on that threat. She was abandoned. All she had been trying to do was defend her mother. And now, she would reap her reward for that.

  Her mother yanked Lulu the final way to her father, calling him over. He had been in the middle of a jovial argument with Amu Yusuf. Aimee explained the situation with Tamra’s mother succinctly. Lulu watched Ahmed’s face fall. Lulu watched, knowing she hadn’t only broken a piece of his heart. She’d broken the piece of his heart that he guarded the most.