Saints and Misfits

by S. K. Ali

  “How do you guys like that?” Dad asks. “I can get to know this Sarah girl as well then.”

  “I’m game,” says Muhammad, a sudden strange seriousness replacing the previous glee in his eyes. “If everyone else on the team is fine with it.”

  “Me too,” I say. “I can’t wait to squeeze that laddoo!”

  The laddoo gurgles and flails his pudgy hands forward toward me, smacking the keyboard. The screen goes blank.

  We wait, and then Muhammad closes the laptop.

  “Brilliant, Janna,” he says. “Just the thing we need—the whole team to see how Dad lives.”

  “What do you mean?” I say. “Oh, you mean Sarah? That she’s going to see that Dad’s not Islamic?”

  “It’s not only her,” Muhammad says, picking up his laptop. “It’s everyone.”

  “But then why’d you act excited first? When Dad brought it up?”

  “Because it seemed fun. And, for a sec, I forgot about what he was like.”

  “You’re awful,” I say. “You’re ashamed of Dad?”

  He’s walking away, toward Mom’s room. I follow him, this thumping feeling growing in me.

  “You think more about what others think than about how you feel about Dad?”

  “Well yeah, if his essential agreements include dictating my life into being a copy of his. I don’t want to marry a Linda and live like a coconut. Brown on the outside, white inside.” He closes the door on me.

  Dad is stiff, arm’s-length-only family to Muhammad, mainly due to their different views on Islam. Muhammad and Mom are becoming a team. And then there’s me. Dangling in the wind.

  • • •

  I pick up Fizz’s call right after that. I’m moving in a haze of anger at Muhammad, so it doesn’t register it’s her calling.

  “Guess who’s been asked to cover for Sarah as study circle lead while you guys are gone to Chicago?” Fizz asks.

  “Uh, no?” I say.

  “Uh, yes,” Fizz says. “I said no way. Me? Lead a study session?”

  “You’d be good, you know,” I say, warming up to the fact that we had a focus to our conversation, other than the one I’m avoiding. “You’d be totally in charge. Not like Saint Sarah, flaky.”

  “We’re reading Ghazali, remember? Which I didn’t even choose,” Fizz says. “How am I going to get people to reflect? You need to be Zen to do that.”

  “And you think Saint Sarah is Zen?”

  “She’s got that yoga look. Remember how she got us to reveal all our prayer flaws so easily?”

  “She’s just got the look. You’ve got the guts to get people talking honestly, with no BS.”

  “I’m not doing it,” Fizz says. “I’d rather work on my flaws on my own than talk it all out with the study group. What’s the point of figuring this stuff out anyway? Just get people to do their prayers on time, five times a day.”

  I stay quiet. We’re reading Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship by Al-Ghazali for study circle, and so far I haven’t found one flaw that I don’t have in my worship. I used up four pages of my 2011 Moleskine agenda writing them out. Rushing is my number one problem, and since figuring that out, I actually began slowing my prayers and working on my “conscious awareness,” as Ghazali calls it.

  “How’s school?” Fizz asks. “Did you find out what Tatyana—”

  “Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you—Dad wants the whole Quiz Bowl team to stay with him in Chicago!” I say.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because we’ll be there anyway. It’s going to be kind of fun, don’t you think? Too bad you’re not coming.”

  “Yeah. Aliya’s car is full. What about Sarah’s?”

  “Full,” I say quickly. “I actually have to go now. Study for history and math.”

  “Okay,” Fizz says. “What about Jeremy?”

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “Tats just told him I was best friends with you, and that you were Farooq’s cousin.”

  “Oh. That’s all?”

  “Yeah. I really have to go now . . . salaams.”

  “Waalaikumusalam warahmathullahi wabarakathu,” Fizz says. (Which is Arabic for extra heapings of kindness ladled on top of the simple “peace be upon you” we usually say to each other. Which makes me feel tons worse. Which makes me feel really really low. Which is why I take a long shower with Mom’s expensive hair conditioner. And then spend two hours working on my hair. Which is why I go to sleep with cascading curls, ready for gym tomorrow.)

  MISFITS AND SAINTS

  Muhammad and I are at the breakfast nook checking e-mails and eating cereal when both our phones make a simultaneous beeping sound. It’s a text from Dad.

  Confirmed: hosting 7 kids this weekend. Going to call the caterers for a super breakfast.

  “Hope the food’s halal,” Muhammad says.

  I kick him under the table, and my cereal spills. Muhammad laughs as he takes his bowl to the sink.

  “Why do you hate him so much?”

  “Hate’s a strong word.” He’s filling up the sink with soapy water and sliding in dinner dishes from last night.

  “Here, you need to hear this, Dad’s message for today: Share your home, your time, yourself. Share and you enlarge your networks and widen the possibilities to achieve your success scenario that much faster. See, this message is read by—whoa, the last I checked there were about four thousand people on his mailing list. Now this is read by nine thousand and sixty-two people. He’s encouraging all these people to go out and do things.”

  “You read his messages every day?” Muhammad stops sponging to look at me. It’s a weird look, almost like he’s looking at someone in the hospital.

  “They help my day, okay?” I secure my phone in its zippered compartment in my backpack and stand up.

  “How does that message help your day? He’s telling you to share so that you can get what you want. It’s like he’s saying that he invited all of us this weekend so that he can maximize things for his business. We all know what his success scenario is: make loads of money.”

  “You’re just a hater.” I yank the front door open. “And a mama’s boy.”

  The last thing I hear as the door closes is his laugh.

  • • •

  I doodle in history while Mr. Pape reviews points of view. Sandra is sitting next to me, peeling an old student council vote sticker off her desk with precision, lifting this end, then that corner, making her way around the edges carefully. I look up from my picture of a hideous Muhammad in an apron and catch an intense stare from Lauren, who’s at the desk nearest to the door. It’s a glazed gaze. I turn the corners of my mouth up and do a little wave. She registers me, softening her face with a smile. Then she lifts the end of a lock of hair and drapes it under her nose and nods toward Sandra, a smirk on her face. I turn back to my doodle and pretend to be intent on my work.

  When we pack up to leave, I notice I’ve doodled a huge mustache on my brother. It’s scribbled in quite ferociously.

  I let Sandra go ahead of me and wait for a bit before I head to the cafeteria. It’s bothering me that Lauren’s homing in on me like that. Maybe I’ll cool the reacquainting with Sandra for a while.

  But when I get to our lunch table, Sandra is already sitting beside Tats. And like yesterday and the day before, she doesn’t say anything, just sits there and eats. Tats has run out of impersonations, and I’m quiet, aware that when I passed Lauren’s table, her friends muffled their chatter.

  We have a subdued lunch, and I wonder if Tats and I will end up muted like Sandra by the time school lets out next week.

  • • •

  We get to the locker room early. Tats places her backpack on a bench and pulls out an enormous transparent makeup bag. She picks out two tall canisters from among the makeup. “Leave-in conditioner and/or mousse. I didn’t know if you wanted to go for the slick look or big curls.”

  I unwind my hijab and stick it in a cubby. Taking a claw clip out, I shake my hair side to side in slow motion
as if auditioning for a Pantene commercial.

  “WOW!” Tats puts the hair products down and rushes over to me. “You don’t need my help! Your hair looks amazing!”

  “Thank you, thank you very much,” I say, grabbing the mousse canister to use as a microphone. “I’d like to thank my mother for suddenly becoming so obsessed with her hair and thus investing in the best conditioner in the world. Also, for buying us a top-of-the-line curling iron just two weeks ago. Thank you, Mom, for making this moment possible.”

  “But doesn’t she wear a scarf everywhere?”

  “She’s been trying new stuff out. It’s like she just remembered that she has hair and a face. After the divorce, I mean,” I say, remembering that Linda has great hair. And always manicured hands. “You should see all the new makeup she, I mean we, have.”

  I open the zippered compartment at the front of my backpack to reveal a sample from Mom’s makeup collection, most of it acquired recently. I refuse to link the purchases to the Meet Your Match flyer in her dresser. No, just no.

  “Okay, let’s do your face.”

  I succumb to a bit of lipstick and mascara. We put the makeup away as the rest of the girls come in. I change in the bathroom stall and wait until I hear Lauren’s voice trail out of the locker room. When I come out, it’s only Tats and me. “Thanks for waiting.”

  “You’re wearing a tracksuit?”

  “Yeah.” I look in the mirror and zip the jacket up all the way. I’ll be hot, but it will feel better than wearing shorts and a tee. I can only do so much.

  We walk out into the gymnasium and head to where the girls are sitting down, by Jeremy’s feet. He’s got a catcher’s mitt on, and he’s throwing a ball up and down. I sit at the edge of the group, wrapping my arms around my legs, willing him not to see me yet. I want to have a moment to take a breath. I know I look good, but, oddly, I don’t want him to intentionally look at me. Maybe if it’s by accident, it would feel better?

  A long, blaring whistle invades my thoughts. Ms. Eisen is coming out of her office, her whistle stuck in her mouth. It emits another long screech.

  I look around like everyone else to see what the problem is.

  “Janna Yusuf, get up! Did you forget there’s a male present? Go get your hajeeb!”

  I’m so startled that her words don’t sink in. So I continue to sit there dumbly. Then Tats, who’s more with the program, steps up to the plate with her input.

  “Ms. Eisen,” she says, her tawny hair almost bristlelike beside mine, “Janna doesn’t need to wear her hijab for gym. It’s in her religion. In the Qur’an.”

  Some of the girls laugh. Miriam laughs the loudest because she’s Muslim—one who doesn’t wear the hijab but still knows the Qur’an, still knows that it has no verses on gym class.

  Ms. Eisen blows the whistle again. I get up and walk to the locker room, trying to decide if I should act like I’m shocked there’s a male present, or if I should rock my silky hair for all its worth in its last foray in front of Jeremy’s eyes.

  I end up hunching over and slinking away, shame curdling inside me then reaching its fingers to wrap tight around my body. So tight that it squeezes tears out of my eyes. She just embarrassed me in front of the whole class. In front of him.

  I don’t come out of the locker room again. Tats comes looking for me, but I’m pretending to take a shower, so she leaves after trying to talk over the waterfall. I’m actually wearing my tracksuit and standing in the water, thinking of those lyrics about love going to waste.

  As soon as Tats leaves, I peel off my soaked clothes and dry my hair back to its fried frizziness. Then I stuff that frizz into my black hijab, cover my body in black layers, and take the roof key from Tats’s pencil case.

  Someone broke up the gummy bear heart collective I left up here. They squished the two gummy bears in love. Smeared remains, colors entwined, cling to the asphalt.

  Is Allah upset at me?

  I sit there and let the heat wave coil over my covered self.

  • • •

  When the bell rings, I walk home without stopping by Tats’s locker as usual. I want my bed before anyone else gets home.

  Through the double doors, I notice a familiar figure in the lobby and slow down, briefly debating whether I should go around to the back of the building, near the dumpsters. Instead, I pause by the mailboxes and take out a textbook from my backpack.

  Mr. Ram is parked by the fake-plants extravaganza. He’s staring out the wide windows at nothing.

  I open my textbook and direct all my attention to it, walking nimbly, so as not to catch his eyes. I don’t want a tour of his memories today.

  “How’s the book coming along? The book about Prophet Muhammad?” Mr. Ram calls out as the elevator doors open and I’m about to sneak in. I stop in the doorframe and let the sensorless doors slam hard into my shoulders. Why is he asking about that now? He’s Hindu, so why does he even care about my seerah book? It’s not the Mahabharata.

  I retrace my steps, walking backward. I don’t want to talk to him, but I just can’t let the elevator doors close on his stiff and proud back. I’ll have to see him when I take him out tomorrow, and ignoring him now would mean a double dose of those pursed lips and teepee fingers later on. Maybe like a kid he’d even tell his son about my rudeness, and I’d lose my first job ever. I stop and sit on the ledge that keeps all the fake plants at bay, beside his wheelchair, refusing to look at his face. I’m not in the mood to act nice.

  “Mr. Ram, I don’t want to work on it. That’s the truth,” I say, staring at his plaid sleeve. “I’m not going to finish it.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not that person anymore. I’m old, not the little kid I was when I started it,” I say. Why is he wearing a lumberjack flannel shirt with pearly snap buttons tucked severely into high-waisted dress pants today? And a plaid scarf (that doesn’t match the shirt) around his neck? His inner temperature monitor must be way off, because the lobby is stifling hot. People at school who groan on seeing my summer look would positively melt on seeing Mr. Ram.

  “You’re old?” Mr. Ram laughs. “Miss Janna, do you know how old I am?”

  He leans forward and lifts a shaky hand to his heart.

  “Seventy?” I lie. I really think he’s ninety-six, but I don’t want to hurt his ego. I don’t know if it still hurts people’s feelings at that age to be thought of as older, but it’s better to err on the side of caution.

  He laughs again, this time doing his Belly-Laugh smile. At least one of us is having a good day.

  “Ninety? Ninety-one? Ninety-six? Ninety-nine?” I say, looking right into his eyes, which are tearing up because he’s having so much fun. I can’t stop myself from smiling on seeing his face. It’s like a baby’s, his mouth slack and loopy like he can’t fully control his smile.

  “No, no, slow down.” He puts his hand out to my arm, patting it to stop me. “I am at the great age of ninety-three.”

  He stops smiling and places his hand back on his wheelchair armrest. “What do you think of that?”

  “Um, I think that’s old but not too old?” I say.

  “Yes, exactly that.” Mr. Ram beams at me. “You’re a smart girl; that is what I always tell my son. That is why I told him you have to be the only one to walk me—you know that.”

  I nod. He always tells me that. Only I’m allowed to walk him, he tells his son, nobody else. He makes it seem like there’s a lineup of people waiting to do my job.

  “I’m not too old. That is exactly what I am. I grow in years, but some things, they stay the same,” he says. “Who I am inside this body, what I know to be true, that all stays the same. My kernel is me all the time. I let no one change that, Miss Janna.”

  “Okay.” I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “You don’t remember the day you showed me that book you made about your prophet? After I showed you the Mahabharata? You liked it so much; you were so proud of yourself.”

  Then he just
looks out the window again. And doesn’t speak anymore. Am I supposed to go now? He’s acting really strange today, like he’s on slow mode.

  “Mr. Ram, why are you here alone?”

  “My son left me here. He takes me with him to pick up Ravi from school every day. I told him to go by himself today. I’m tired, so he’ll be tired pushing me.”

  “Mr. Ram? I have to study. I have exams.” I hold up my textbook as testimony and get off the ledge.

  “Yes.” He nods at the window. “But you didn’t get a poem from me yet.”

  “Oh.” I sit back down, suppressing a huge sigh of impatience. Mr. Ram used to recite things to me when he was in a good mood as though he was giving me gifts. When I was eleven, it was okay because I excitedly called myself a poem collector and wrote down his words as though they were precious. I was really into tongue twisters and funny Shel Silverstein stuff back then, and I loved reciprocal reciting, surprising him with things he’d never heard. But now? Now I want to curl up in bed in mortification, imagining Jeremy’s face as I slunk away from gym.

  “This one is by Rabindranath Tagore. It is about the birth of my country.”

  I nod, glancing at the elevators. The good one is making its way down again. I hope the poem is only three floors long.

  Mr. Ram straightens his already erect back, fixes his eyes on me, and begins, his words precise and loud, like he memorized them for school in India.

  Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

  Where knowledge is free;

  Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

  Where words come out from the depth of truth;

  Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

  Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

  Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

  Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

  He closes his eyes on finishing.

  I pat his arm and whisper thank you, infusing it with as much authenticity as I can. Then I speed-walk to greet the elevator that’s lumbering open.