Not the Girls You're Looking For

by Aminah Mae Safi

  “Super sorry. What can I say? You’ve got spectacular bangs,” Lulu tried. “I’m an asshole. Audrey’s an asshole. We’re all assholes. Don’t let Emma fool you. She’s an asshole, too.”

  At this Diana had a good laugh. “Same.”

  “Then you’ll fit right in,” said Lulu. “I am sorry, you know.”

  “We’re all sorry right now,” said Audrey. “Really sorry.”

  “You do know it’s a problem, right? Calling the bisexual girl ‘Bangs’?” said Diana, with an expression that indicated she had every idea how leading the question was.

  “Fuck,” said Lulu.

  “Pass me your extra cornbread muffin?” said Diana.

  Lulu passed her muffin over. “I take full responsibility for my idiocy. And I am sorry. Won’t happen again.”

  Audrey, who was on the verge of tears again, said, “Same.”

  Diana pinched Audrey’s arm. “No crying. You’re all forgiven. Except I kind of like that you owe me one now. Feels appropriate.”

  Emma groaned.

  Lulu snarfed into her carton of chocolate milk. She turned to Emma. “Were we this bad when we were her age?”

  “Lo was,” answered Emma. “You weren’t till sophomore year.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?” asked Lulu, miffed that her freshman year was clearly overshadowed by her sophomore one. She knew why. But it was less of a sore spot, somehow. More of a fact. Like a bad haircut rather than a terror on her memory.

  “Because it’s true,” said Emma and Audrey, in unison.

  “You’re awful chipper, all things considered,” said Emma.

  “I know.” Lulu looked over to the empty chair where Lo should have been. It was a pity to share this news without her. To share any of this without her. “I think. That the plan is working.”

  “What plan?” asked Audrey on the last of her sniffles. She was dabbing her eyes with a thin, papery napkin.

  Lulu looked at Emma. “Do you have it? The last one?”

  Emma nodded.

  “Have what?” asked Audrey, her exasperation overcoming her guilt.

  Emma dug into her bag. She got out a signed detention hall slip, and handed it over to Lulu.

  Lulu glanced around; nobody was paying them any attention anymore. “I think the final nail in the coffin belongs to you as much as it does to anyone. I think it belongs especially to you, honestly. Turn this in to the office today.”

  Audrey, her face scrunched up into a question, took the slip. She paused as she read it for a moment, then gasped. She said, quiet as she could, “This is for Dane Anderson.”

  “I know,” said Lulu.

  “How many of these did you do?” Audrey spoke in hushed reverence.

  “Enough,” said Lulu.

  Audrey looked around the table. Lulu’s eyes lit up. Diana smirked. And Emma, she kept right on eating her lunch, her face betraying nothing. Except the slight uptick at the corner of her mouth.

  Audrey stuffed the slip into her own bag. “I’ll do it today.”

  “Good,” said Lulu. And that was that.

  “I heard Scumbag Luke’s having a party next weekend,” said Audrey. “What do you think?”

  “I’m game,” said Diana.

  “I can’t; I have to go to a wedding,” said Lulu.

  Three heads swiveled to Lulu.

  “You have a wedding?”

  “Yeah, this weekend.” Lulu shrugged. There was no way she was missing Tanya’s wedding and living to tell the tale.

  “No,” said Audrey, rolling her eyes. “Not this weekend. The next weekend.”

  Lulu sighed. “All right, all right. I’ll go. As long as it’s not that Friday. I’ve got plans for Friday.” She didn’t, but she was planning on having plans. She didn’t need to reveal that all quite yet.

  “What kind of plans?” asked Diana.

  “The kind you’ll hear about from Emma after I’ve seen them through,” said Lulu, giving Diana a light boop on the nose.

  Diana wrinkled her expression at that. Emma laughed. Audrey smiled, half wonder, half relief.

  “Saturday’s your birthday,” said Emma.

  “Yeah, so?” said Lulu.

  “So. Are your plans midnight plans?” Emma asked with far more coyness than Lulu knew her friend could muster.

  “You know,” said Lulu. “They might be.”

  But rather than feeling like laughing, she wanted to cry a little bit. The exchange was incomplete, unbalanced. This friendship was a four-headed beast, not a two-headed one or a three-headed one.

  Lulu would have to figure out how to crack Dolores Campo.

  * * *

  Headed to French class the next day, Lulu was walking up the narrow stairwell in the back of the building when she heard a loud thunk from behind her. She nearly tripped, the noise startled her so. She looked down and behind her to discover Dane standing below, looking impish. A book rested on the step behind her. Dane must have thrown the book at her, missing her hips by mere inches.

  “What the flying fuck was that for?” Lulu raised her shoulders, a cat with her back in a corner.

  “I don’t know.” He took a step closer. “Why are you ignoring me?”

  “You really have to ask that?” Lulu picked up the book. She took another step up the stairs. “No, seriously, stay back.”

  At the challenge, Dane lunged across her, clearly not aiming in the least for the book. He caught her waist in his other hand. His words were barely audible. “Make me.”

  Lulu could smell the Old Spice he used at some point in the morning. That scent was now ruined for her forever. She wiggled backward to little avail. She could taste his breath, not sweetened with peppermint or laced with alcohol. Just his smell invading her space, until there was a cloud of him surrounding her. Lulu shoved the book up against Dane’s chest, pushing him back two feet.

  The dazed focus in Dane’s eyes broke. “You’re such a fucking bitch.”

  Lulu took a deep breath. She stepped forward. “Did you know that the penalty for more than two unserved detentions is a Saturday work hall?”

  “The fuck does that have to do with anything?”

  Lulu continued to hold him at bay with the book. “You see, two or more unserved detentions is a Saturday work hall. And Saturday work halls are serious.”

  “Don’t be cute with me.” Dane pushed his body forward; Lulu stepped back, out of reach. She kept the book in her hand.

  “Of course you knew that. Or at least, you probably learned that when you were yanked out of class last week. But did you know that if you’ve accrued enough detentions in a short-enough period, you’ve basically earned a suspension by proxy.” Lulu tutted.

  Dane’s face hardened. With rage. With awareness. With a kind of violence Lulu would have feared before.

  But she had an ace up her sleeve and she meant to use it. “And suspensions right before graduation never look good, do they, Anderson?”

  Horror flooded Dane’s eyes in earnest. He was piecing the puzzle together—a chat last week with the dean, his strange attendance record, his extra five detention halls in four weeks.

  “I see you get my meaning,” said Lulu, a smile playing at her lips. It wouldn’t do to gloat. But she couldn’t bite her joy back, not all the way. “You’ve got two months to graduate. And I’ll bet your attendance record is already keeping you barely above the line.”

  “What exactly are you getting at, Saad?”

  “You need me to spell it out for you?” Lulu paused. “I’m getting at the fact that if you don’t leave me alone, if you don’t leave my friends alone, you’ll find that diploma hard to access come May. I’m hanging on to a last slip. I’ll get it to you and not the office if you behave. If you don’t, well.”

  Lulu handed Dane his book. Her eyes were glinting daggers, her smirk was razor sharp. He didn’t reach out for the textbook. Lulu dropped it with a loud thump on the floor. Dane jolted slightly. Lulu turned, whipping her hair around as
she walked away.

  “Wait,” Dane called.

  Lulu stopped.

  “Are you fucking with me?” His shock was palatable.

  She wished Lo had been here to see the look on his face.

  “No, I’m not.” Lulu laughed with an indescribable lightness to her tone. “You better take me seriously. Get your shit together, Anderson. I’m going to class. You probably should go as well.” Lulu walked out of the stairwell and into the upper hallway.

  Freedom comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s the emancipation of adulthood. Sometimes freedom is a car—transportation that all you have to do is load up with fuel and go. Money often offers freedom; education, too. Lulu had the latter in spades. Today freedom was a well-delivered threat. It was unchecked, silent power—pure and simple. Lulu reveled in this kind. The air tasted cleaner. Her limbs swung more loosely from her sides. Her hair blew more lightly through the breeze. It was all meaningful, symbolic. Lulu, grand conqueror of the known world. Why aim to be a queen when she could be an empress?

  But Lulu thought better of that. She didn’t want to conquer anyone who hadn’t already tried to subjugate. She would not use her newfound power to take away anyone’s freedom that hadn’t taken a potshot at her own.

  28

  Tanya the Wife

  Lulu would be loath to admit that she loved weddings, but she did. On her mother’s side they were all doom and gloom—wifely obedience and manly fidelity. They were the kind of services that boiled her blood. And still she loved weddings. Wedding ceremonies on her father’s side—and any Arab that lived within the county limits was considered to be on her father’s side—were intimate. Lulu was rarely invited for the ceremony. Those were for grown-ups and witnesses and holy men. But the reception—that was where the life was.

  When Tanya the Bride walked in with her groom, Ali, she’d transformed from your average Arab American young woman into a frothy meringue to behold. Lace and tulle and beading and anything that could add volume and glimmer under the lights of the hotel ballroom. Here, subtlety was not a forgotten or lost virtue—merely a worthless one.

  Tanya the Bride—no, she was Tanya the Wife now—and Ali the Groom took their seats at the head table for two, giving their attention to those who came and waited attendance on them. They were grabbed for hugs and kisses. Envelopes of money were aggressively stuffed into Ali’s pockets by jolly men. Big-haired women grabbed the bride’s hair, her chin, her cheeks, while they trilled and clapped. Joy and sexism, ritual and finance, love and family all tied up in these small gestures.

  Lulu loved weddings.

  She loved watching two families come together. Loved the rites of it all. She loved getting dressed up and putting on the flashiest dress she owned. She loved to dance well into the night, until it was morning again, until she knew she’d ache from the effort the next day. Tanya had even invited Lulu to her henna party. Lulu loved to watch as the bride got all the best designs, all the most intricate work across her hands and feet. But first, at this wedding, Lulu had to find Sheikh Fadi. She’d made a promise that she intended to keep.

  “Hello, Sheikh,” said Lulu.

  Sheikh Fadi kissed her hand and reeled Lulu in for a hug. “Hello, habibti.”

  “Thank you,” said Lulu, pulling back, “for all your help.”

  The sheihk shook his head. “La. It is my job to help. You don’t thank. You do.”

  Lulu shook her head. “I couldn’t have done it without your help. Thank you.”

  “La, la.” Sheikh Fadi swept his hand forward a couple of times and quickly, indicating that it was nothing, that Lulu was practically dismissed. “The work is yours, habibti. Opportunities are easy to give, where I stand. Not always easy to take.”

  “Thank you, Sheikh.” Lulu gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “La.” The Sheikh shook his hand again. “Go, habibti. Dance.”

  And so Lulu took her place on the dance floor among the women, many of whom still shunned her. Tanya had been right—Auntie Salwa would likely never forget what Lulu had done. But not all would be so stringent. The younger ones were more forgiving. Tamra was actually standing within a foot of Lulu. Dina twirled beside Lulu, even if Dina wouldn’t make eye contact the entire time. Miriam didn’t dance, but she’d stepped onto the gleaming white polished tiles just for Lulu’s benefit. And that was a glimmer of hope for Lulu. She had sequestered herself to the outskirts of her people for years. Then she’d alienated herself with a few choice but terrible words. And even then she was less alone here than she’d believed. Less alone than she’d feared.

  Browns swirls of henna climbed and crawled up Lulu’s hands, past her wrists. She watched them flash in the light as she moved. But as beautiful as the designs were, Lulu didn’t care about them. Caring was for when she was still, when she was no longer in motion. She loved this dance. The insane beat of the drums, the impossible pace of her hips shimmying back and forth. Here she never danced the Dance of the Seven Veils. Here, she danced until she was exhausted. She danced until she couldn’t feel her feet anymore. Then she danced some more. She took her turn with Tanya the Wife, and she was not shut out of the dancing circle. She was granted the same rights as anyone else. And at long last, Auntie Salwa turned and faced Lulu. She gave Lulu a curt nod, then turned away again. There. That was enough.

  Lulu left the dance floor. Breathless, she plopped onto the seat beside Reza.

  “You looked like you were having fun out there,” said Reza, who along with Ben had flown back into town for the wedding. Smoothing more of Lulu’s ruffled feathers. Everyone in her family was doing some degree of penance for her.

  Lulu wiped sweat from her forehead. She grabbed the napkin she’d left at the table and dabbed at her upper lip. “Such fun.”

  “You always loved to dance at these things. I’ve always had two left feet,” said Reza.

  “I guess some things stay the same,” Lulu said.

  “I guess so,” he said.

  “Where’s Ben?” Lulu asked.

  “The buffet, I think,” said Reza.

  “Is Mom still off doing damage control?”

  “Come on, Lulu,” said Rez. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “That’s choice coming from you,” said Lulu.

  “Was I that bad about it?” said Reza.

  Lulu raised an eyebrow. “Worse. You’ve basically shunned me since November.”

  “Shit.”

  Lulu tutted. “Now, Rez, you should know better than to use such language in front of me.”

  “Come on, Lulu. Cut me some slack. You’re my baby sister. And I’m not perfect. You don’t have to treat me like I’m perfect. I get enough of that from Ben.” Reza gave his words force.

  “Sorry,” said Lulu.

  “For what?” asked Reza.

  “Thinking you thought the worst of me,” said Lulu.

  “Pardon granted,” he said. “And I’m sorry, too. I freeze when I don’t know what to do.”

  Lulu laughed. “Better than me. I run away.”

  “Is it that bad?” Somehow Rez knew. Maybe because Rez always knew. He was more intuition than logic, though he’d never admit that to anyone. Not even to Lulu. Especially not Lulu.

  “Right now? No. I’ve survived worse. This is a definite improvement from like three weeks ago. On most fronts.”

  “Most?”

  “I had a plan,” Lulu admitted. “It hasn’t worked all the way.”

  “A man, a plan, a canal—” started Reza.

  And they shouted in unison, “PANAMA!”

  Lulu laughed; Reza laughed.

  “How embarrassing,” she said once she’d caught her breath.

  “Whoa. You’re the embarrassing one. You’re the one Mama and Baba will be apologizing for, for like the next three years.”

  “That’s a very conservative estimate. These are a people who still haven’t gotten over the first sacking of Baghdad,” she said. “In 1258.”

  “You have
n’t destroyed the hub of culture and literature and leveled a city. Nor did you raid the museum of antiquities. You might fare better than the Mongols did.” Reza shrugged. “No promises, though.”

  Lulu punched Reza’s arm lightly. “Reza. Sometimes you are infinitely worse than Ben.”

  “I’ve always been worse than Ben. But nobody ever seems to notice.”

  “I have. You’re on notice,” she said.

  “Lulu. Go back to dancing. Leave your big brother alone.”

  “I’ll go back to dancing, but like hell am I leaving you alone. It’s the dabke. You’re not off the hook for this. No one is. Even Bibi Hookum dances the dabke.”

  Lulu grabbed Reza’s hand and dragged him into the circle on the dance floor, where it was impossible that he would miss a step. They danced a circle, hands held. Cross, step, cross, step. They danced for life and love. They danced, sweaty palm clasped to sweaty palm, because that was what their forebearers had done and it was what they had been told they must. They danced the dabke and Reza only tripped once. They danced the dabke and Lulu laughed, smiling not only at Tanya the Wife but also at Dina the Just and Tamra the Unforgiving and Miriam the Wild. They all danced the dabke, and as the circle turned, their hearts were lightened.

  * * *

  Ancient Astronaut Theory is the belief that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth and made contact with humans in ancient times—antiquity, prehistory, whatever. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of humanity. The intelligent extraterrestrials became deities in most, if not all, early world religions as such visitors’ advanced technologies were interpreted by early humans as pure divinity. In reality, it’s a bunch of pseudoscientists with purchased degrees who believe aliens built the pyramids. Ancient Astronaut Theory is the honest culmination of truthiness, scientific interest with no method, and racism. And it once had its own dedicated time slot on the History Channel.

  The men of the Saad family loved this show unequivocally.

  None of them—not Ben, not Reza, and certainly not Ahmed—were built for more than six hours of sleep in a night. This gene had definitively skipped Lulu. Reza and Ben and Ahmed would invariable find one another, late at night or early in the morning, watching streamed reruns of Ancient Aliens. It beat going to the gym at four o’clock in the morning. It was a ritual. Not a sacrosanct one, but one born of habit—the kind that means more than one that has been sanctified by dogma.