“You picked innocence,” I said, lightly touching the muddy-green dress in the middle that was supposed to signify power.
I meant, I know you’re keeping something from me.
Mishail’s head twitched, as if hearing something in the distance. She frowned. “Hurry up. My father’s car just pulled in. He won’t stay the night, but he likes to give us our daily scolding before he heads off to Number Two.”
I smiled, because I knew Mishail expected me to whenever she referred to her father’s second wife that way. I put on the dress that was supposed to make me seem powerful and stepped behind Mishail to see myself in the mirror. The dress had ribbing on the sides and front, leaving a hollow gap where my breasts would have gone if they existed. Mishail looked at me in the mirror and pulled out a padded bra with transparent straps from a drawer. She rapped the backs of her fingers against my shoulder, telling me to hurry up and put it on.
With a great clatter, Mishail emptied a large tray of makeup onto the counter and fished around for colors. She deftly rubbed shadows into her cheeks to make them more angular, and then held my jaw in her left hand and used her right to smudge a purplish lipstick onto my lips.
“How do I not get it on my teeth?” I asked.
“Kiss,” Mishail said, grinning wickedly as she placed her thumb in my mouth. “Now it won’t get on your teeth. Put on your abaya. I can hear him climbing the stairs.”
There was a knock on the door, and Mishail put on her abaya before she opened it an inch, hiding her scandalous dress under the black cloak.
Frenetic whispers, and then the door closed. Mishail sighed. “Can you wait outside? This is going to take a few minutes.”
I veiled fully to cover my face and left the room. The minister pushed past me impatiently.
I leaned against the wall, hearing muffled whispers from the other side. I heard my name, Mishail explaining who it was. There was a clatter, as if the various articles of makeup were being thrown to the bathroom floor. The sound of glass shattering.
When the door opened again, the minister stormed out and for some reason looked directly at me. I was suddenly glad of the veil, which kept him from seeing me. The intensity on his face was terrifying. It reminded me that this was a man of tremendous power who could destroy me for the slightest sin. I hoped he couldn’t see I was wearing lipstick.
He snarled, “Leena?”
I nodded mutely, surprised he even knew my name, never mind that he was speaking to me.
“Tell her to wait. The man’s a fool. I did try to talk to him, but he won’t sign.”
I nodded again, wondering what he meant. The minister wiped a hand over his mouth. For a second he looked younger, less frightening, and I was reminded of the earlier days, before Mishail and I had to veil, when the minister and my father used to lounge on sofas, smoking apple-flavored shisha and arguing lazily.
The minister hadn’t been a minister then. One night he’d been sitting with my father in the living room. My mother and Mishail’s were veiled but not fully, relaxed in the presence of their husbands. It hadn’t mattered then to keep up appearances of segregation, and Mishail and I had been fighting her brothers over a helium balloon.
My father had been saying something about nature finding a way, and he’d quoted some saying, probably the one about a river carving its own route.
“Don’t say such things in front of them,” my mother had said, her chin pointing at us.
“I wasn’t talking about—” my father had replied, ending on a phrase I hadn’t understood then and didn’t remember now. This time all the other adults hushed him, and the boys let go of the balloon to listen to the conversation they weren’t meant to hear. My father had laughed, said something else, and thrown an arm around Mishail’s father to draw him in close.
They’d been friends once.
Now when the minister refused to move, I muttered, “Yes, sir.”
The minister shook his head and walked off. I went into the room, expecting to find Mishail in tears or worse. Instead, she was leaning against the bathroom counter, curling her eyelashes, and studying her reflection in a shattered mirror.
“What happened?”
“Just a bad mood,” Mishail said, her voice expressionless. She was applying skin-colored foundation onto the bruises forming on her arms. “Something about work. It’s fine. I’m used to it. Don’t worry. He didn’t find out about the party.”
I picked up the fallen pieces of lipstick and eyeliner. My hands were shaking with fear and fury. How could he treat us like this? How dare he leave bruises on my best friend that I could do nothing about? And how was Mishail so calm about it all?
“The maid will take care of it. And my mother’s going to spend the rest of the evening sulking with her TV show.”
I pulled Mishail into a hug and kissed her hair. Mishail held me close until my pulse slowed down, and then she let me go.
“My grandmother used to say,” Mishail said, “women’s hearts are like sand dunes. Everyone is welcome, but no one can leave footprints.”
She smiled, meeting my eyes in the mirror. For a moment she looked wiser than any imam, looked like the amazing woman I hoped to be someday. Then she wiped off the dull-pink lipstick she had on, replacing it with a defiant cherry-red.
You chase the storm and I chase you, I thought, giddy as we raced downstairs to the waiting car.
A variety of emotions played across Mishail’s features. Mouth determined but trembling slightly. Eyes flitting everywhere nervously, settling on mine every once in a while.
Softly, they said, I know you’re afraid of this.
Then they got wet. I really want this.
And then they held that look that was ours alone. Nothing will touch us.
I looked away first. My face was hot. I wanted to say, And what about Daria? But that wasn’t fair. There were enough prisons in our lives that friendship shouldn’t be another. If Mishail wanted the company of someone else, that was what freedom was about, wasn’t it? Besides, Mishail was always going to go places, move in more powerful circles. It had been only a matter of time before she outgrew my world. I had always been Number Two.
I blinked away the tears and forced my breathing back under control.
Daria’s father was away on business again, and he had taken his wife with him, leaving Daria in the care of an eighteen-year-old cousin who was only too glad to let her throw a party while he played football with his friends. Mishail’s driver pulled into the walled ARAMCO campus and rolled down his window to speak to the military officer guarding it.
As soon as the car was through the campus gate, Mishail threw off her abaya while I looked on in surprise. The houses inside the campus were small bungalows, barely separated from one another by hedges and rosebushes, with no walls in between. Nothing at all like the isolated, lonely villas of the rest of Riyadh. Neighbors could look into one another’s houses through windows without bars or contact paper covering them. There were even parks where children played on swings and monkey bars. It took a moment for me to comprehend that I wasn’t just seeing little kids. Boys and girls my own age were in the park. Together. They weren’t doing anything sinful, either, just playing and talking.
A group of women jogged down the pavement in conversation, some wearing loose cotton full-sleeved shirts and track pants and a hijab, others in T-shirts and shorts, their ponytails bouncing from side to side.
I felt a knot in my throat at Mishail’s lack of surprise.
“Have you been here before?”
“Just once or twice,” Mishail said. But her voice was too high, and I looked away. I wondered if it wasn’t Daria who had stolen Mishail’s heart but this place and what it promised, and I didn’t know whether that made me feel better or worse. I had a strange urge to shut my eyes to this so I wouldn’t want to stay in this paradise forever, and the growing knot in my throat made me want to find something wrong, something worse about Daria’s life that would make my own life bear
able. And that, in turn, made me feel like the worst human on the face of the earth. So what if my best friend was finally, finally, getting to live her life? Given what Mishail had to deal with at home, she deserved this.
Inside the Abulkhair home, Daria sat on a high four-poster bed with silver satin sheets, clutching an embroidered silk pillow. Girls gathered around her, dull as wallpaper, all the better for Daria to shine in contrast as empress of her court. Daria wore a bloodred gown that hung off one shoulder by a thin silver strap. The other shoulder was completely bare, the light shining on it as if it were polished porcelain.
A demon sat on one of my shoulders and said that Daria looked cheap, that respectable women did not dress like this. Another demon sat on the other shoulder and ached to look like her, a beautiful and confident woman who knew her own heart and mind.
“Finally!” Daria said, standing on her bed and jumping off to give Mishail a hug. “I thought you’d never get here. Now we can really start the party.”
Mishail glowed at the attention. It was one of the things I loved most about her. Mishail was the most popular girl in school, but she was constantly surprised at being liked.
“Answer the question, Dee!” cried a young girl with a heart-shaped face, whom I recognized as an unveiled Zainab. “You can’t leave us like this!”
“I’m not going to tell you,” Daria said, swatting away Zainab’s hand with a smile that showed off her dimples. “Well, I’m not going to tell you until you confess something first. How are things going with you and Mansoor?”
Zainab put the edge of her scarf in her mouth and bit it shyly. “Mahmoud. But promise you won’t tell anyone? That goes for everyone here.” But she continued without waiting for the promise. “You were right, Dee. After I met Mahmoud, I realized there is nothing sexier than a real man, a serious one.”
“Wow, madam,” Mishail said, stiffening. “One month of engagement and you suddenly know everything about men, huh?”
“It really only takes one night,” Daria said, winking, and the girls gasped and gave her high fives.
“Have you really sampled the merchandise?” asked Zainab, eyes darker than dates.
“Nah,” Daria said, but the energy in the room crackled anyway. “I know my limits. I’ve never gone all the way. Just had a little snack, not the full dinner.”
The older girls in the circle laughed loudly and gave Daria hugs. Unsure how to feel about it, I glanced at Mishail, surprised at the naked jealousy I saw on her face.
“Let’s dance!” Daria declared, marching out to the living room, linking her arm through Mishail’s as if claiming a consort. I bristled. Mishail didn’t like being pushed around. Didn’t Daria know that?
Once in the living room, Daria turned on a sound system that seemed to have speakers in all corners. All the American favorites forbidden to us, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, streamed through uncensored and with a clarity I had never heard because we could only get pirated music shipped to us, years out of date and hidden inside the luggage of innocent-looking and elderly relatives.
My heart raced. I wanted to dance, wanted to be a part of this group, wanted to be at Mishail’s side at the center of the makeshift dance floor, but I couldn’t make my legs move. How did Mishail do it? The slow sashays of her hips ended with mischievous jerks, and she dragged her teeth across her lips with an averted gaze before sliding her fingers over her cheeks in a caress that left her skin the color of scorched sand dunes.
It was Daria, though, who took that place. Daria who headed for Mishail’s side, who ran her fingers along Mishail’s arms and up her sides without the slightest hesitation. Daria who spun Mishail out and pulled her back into an embrace, who put her hands on Mishail’s head and drew her in until their foreheads touched.
I stood in the corner, cheeks burning. The only person I hated more than Daria in that moment was Mishail. She’d promised she wouldn’t leave my side.
Did you really expect her to stand in a corner with you all night? asked a bitter voice in my head. I wondered where it had come from.
“And that’s how they do it in New York!” Daria said as the song ended, laughing and taking a bow as the girls applauded, slack-jawed. “Come on up, and I’ll teach you.”
As each song played, Mishail slipped into every girl’s waiting arms willingly but would never let herself be held too long by anyone but Daria, who always swooped in for the best songs and claimed her place.
Everyone is welcome, but no one can leave footprints. Is that what you’re doing, Mishy?
Suddenly, I realized someone was looking at me. I felt the weight of the attention before I even turned to see who it was. A boy stood at the curtained doorway, leaning against it with his arms crossed, watching the dance with an aloof and yet fond look in his eyes. From time to time he looked at me, and then his eyes had a question in them, as if he recognized me but couldn’t place me.
Daria’s cousin, I realized, seeing the resemblance. And another thing became blindingly obvious now. Mishail looked everywhere except at him, even though he was right there. Finally, I saw what I should have seen a long time ago. They were dancing to attract his attention. Mishail allowed herself to be held in Daria’s arms, letting her eyes close in surrender. Daria’s eyes met his boldly, as if inviting him over.
I narrowed my eyes at the boy. He was older, but not by much. Eighteen, Mishail had said. He was as handsome as Daria was beautiful, dark and hollow eyes in a serious, brooding face. His mouth was soft, and it was said that such men were of the weak type who let themselves be led by their mothers or their tribe. Sometimes I thought it was just a way we made ourselves feel better when we argued about why our favorite Egyptian actors who we fantasized about would make bad husbands.
Tariq would be the worse husband, I’d say to Mishail. He has no personality in his face, soft chin and round cheeks like a sack of flour.
Flour can be molded into shape, Mishail would say. Which is what you want in a husband. But Farouq is an Aries, and that’s not going to change. Irrational, stubborn, impulsive, always picking a fight and butting heads … that’s fun for flirting, but not for marriage.
I wondered how I could miss Mishail so much when she was standing in the same room.
To my surprise, the boy who had been looking at me smiled broadly and waved me over.
For a full minute I stood still and did the who, me? routine, shook my head, turned away, turned back, finally gave up, and inched over with all the suspicion of a street cat.
“What?” I asked as impolitely as I could to keep him from “getting any ideas.” Daria and Mishail could make fools of themselves in front of him. I wasn’t going to.
“You’re her, aren’t you?” he said unhelpfully. “Hadi Mutazil’s daughter? Mishail’s friend?”
“Best friend,” I corrected him. “Who are you?”
“Ahmed. Daria’s cousin. I’ve heard so much about you.”
I relaxed, just a little. I still wasn’t happy that this boy knew Mishail, that he was watching her as if he had the right, that Mishail knew him enough to have spoken to him about my father.
To my surprise, the boy bent down to whisper in my ear, coming so close that I shivered at the feeling of his breath against my face.
“We’re all still with him, you know. We take courage in his strength.”
What?
“Can we talk?” Ahmed said, jerking his head out of the room.
I hesitated. I turned to see Mishail and Daria glaring at me. How dare Mishail look so betrayed when she’d been the one to lie first, for weeks, keeping it secret that she’d had something going on with this guy?
“Sure,” I said, reckless with anger but smiling brightly so he wouldn’t see. I hadn’t perfected Mishail’s mask, but I knew when to use it. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.”
I let Ahmed lead me out into the courtyard, where date palms and golden streetlamps lined a broad pavement meant for campus residents to walk. I shivered, surprised
at the feeling of cold air against my bare forearms and legs, suddenly hyperaware of being outdoors without an abaya and in the company of a non-mahram man. I’d never done this before, walked alongside a strange boy, and I felt an unnatural electricity at the closeness.
True, we were safe from arrest because we were within the ARAMCO campus, but we were still doing something dangerous. He walked so close to me that I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. My pulse rose with guilty anticipation.
“My friends and I used to go to your father’s shillahs,” Ahmed said abruptly. “He’d text us the location, some apartment he’d rented on the outskirts of the city, a warehouse, a portable cabin somewhere. Sometimes we’d just meet in the open desert. We’d drop everything. Men who used to be religious but wanted something different. Young boys who were dropping out of school to drink sid and smoke drugs and wanted to turn their lives around. There were other movements, other shillahs. But they weren’t the same. We didn’t just admire Hadi. We loved him. He made us believe we could change the world.”
I nodded, wondering why he was telling me this. He seemed desperate to get the words out, so I stayed quiet, knowing he’d eventually get to his point.
“You probably don’t remember this,” Ahmed said, “but we’ve met before. You were only a kid, so your father brought you along. It was a youth rally in the base—”
“I remember it,” I said quietly. I couldn’t bear it if he were to tell the story. It was bad enough that I remembered. I’d gone with my father after kicking up the usual tantrum over being left at home with my “boring” mother. (These days I’d take a boring parent over an imprisoned one.) This rally was in the basement of an office building. A janitor let us into a room of young men sitting on plastic chairs and debating whether reform would have any effect or if the extremists had the right answer and violence was the only way. I hadn’t understood the debate, but I’d felt the reverberation of it, the heat and frustration of men who wanted very badly to do something, like flies trapped in a dirty bottle. I had turned around a second before I saw the terrible thing I’d somehow known was about to happen: a young man drawing his knife out and holding it to my father’s neck.
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