Saints and Misfits

by S. K. Ali

  The Prophet had been an orphan from a young age so he really understood what it means to have no anchor. To be on your very own, maybe with problems no one can know or bear for you.

  Mr. Ram settles his glasses snugly and grips the book. The smile remains on his face.

  I’m reading history notes, thinking, This is nice. Me and Mr. Ram, reading together, surrounded by plants crammed into every available surface in the condo. Thank you, Allah, I mouth. Being nice to Muhammad appears to have been a good idea.

  Mr. Ram interrupts my reverie, a shaking hand holding a page taut. “Do you know Rumi?” he asks.

  “A bit,” I say. “Mom has a book of his poems.”

  “Yes,” he says. Then he stops. I wait and then go on reading about the creation of the United Nations.

  He puts his hand on my arm.

  “Do you know what Rumi said?” he asks. “What he said about love?”

  “Um, no,” I say.

  “He thought love was confusing until he realized there’s only one real love,” Mr. Ram says. “Love of the divine. Through which you could love everything.”

  “Oh,” I say, flipping a notebook page. “Okay.”

  “Here, let me give you this,” he says, pulling himself upright in his overstuffed chair. “This is Rumi.”

  This is love: to fly towards a secret sky,

  to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.

  First, to let go of life.

  In the end, to take a step without feet;

  to regard this world as invisible,

  and to disregard what appears to be the self.

  I ask him to recite it again slowly, while I copy it, to make him happy, to make him feel important again. He falls asleep almost immediately after he finishes the last line. I close the seerah book and take it from his lap.

  I’m shuffling through my backpack to find my English notes when the house phone rings. The noise is so loud in the shady stillness of the plants and gentle huddled form of Mr. Ram that I’m ticked as I pick up.

  “Janna?” It’s Tats.

  “Hello?” I whisper loudly. “Mr. Ram is sleeping. Shhh.”

  “What’s with your cell phone?” Tats says.

  “It’s charging for the Chicago trip. But not with me,” I say, annoyed at her blustery intrusion. “Who gave you this number?”

  “Yo mama. Log on to Facebook.”

  “Why? I’m working.”

  “Working at your neighbor’s while he’s sleeping? That sounds illegal. Anyway, log on, Lauren’s posted you.”

  I scramble to Deval’s laptop, but it’s password protected. “I can’t; I don’t have access here. What did she post?”

  “It’s you without hijab, in gym, I think from yesterday,” Tats reports. “Don’t worry—you look good.”

  “Did she tag me?” I ask, about to puke. “Untag me if she did.”

  “She did, but I can’t because I’m not you,” Tats says. “You want me to log in as you?”

  “No, I’ll do it. I can’t believe this. I hate her.”

  “Why? She called it ‘Hotness uncovered.’ That’s the title, so maybe she thinks it’s okay to put it up. Everyone’s commenting. I keep refreshing to keep track of it for you. Am I a good friend or what?”

  “Thanks,” I mumble. “Can you message her to take it off?”

  “Me? Like she’d listen to me.”

  “Can you ask Jeremy to message her?” I say, desperate, thinking of everyone from the mosque on my friends list who’d see it on their news feeds. “Please, Tats.”

  “I don’t get it, but okay, I’ll try,” Tats says.

  “You don’t get it? What’s not to get?” I whisper-yell, keeping an eye on Mr. Ram. “I don’t want pictures of me without hijab on the Internet!”

  “Sorry! I forgot! I just thought you looked good. I forgot it’s something in your religion.”

  “How can you forget? It’s been on my head since seventh grade!”

  “You forget too. What about gym class? Janna, stop getting mad at me when you haven’t figured it out yourself!” She’s actually yelling. “AT LEAST I CALLED YOU ABOUT IT! BECAUSE I ACTUALLY CARE!”

  I glance at Mr. Ram again, wondering if her shouts are reaching him through the receiver. His eyes are closed.

  I take a deep breath. “Okay, thanks. Thanks a lot for telling me, Tats. I’m just getting worried, that’s all.”

  “Chill, I’m keeping on top of it for you.”

  I hang up and chew my nails. Only thing to do now is count down until Deval gets back. Or go upstairs quickly for my laptop.

  As I cover Mr. Ram with a blanket before I leave, I notice that he hasn’t even changed out of his pajamas. It’s almost lunchtime.

  • • •

  The apartment is empty, so I take my laptop to the dining table and position myself facing the front door to watch for Muhammad’s potential reentry.

  Opening Facebook has never been so scary. I close one eye and click.

  There’s a gruesome picture of me jogging by with my ponytail flying toward the camera. The intense look of concentration on my face tells me the photo was taken soon after I ran away from Farooq.

  I untag myself, horrified that it’s already received so many likes and comments.

  Twenty-four people like the picture.

  Sixteen comments.

  I stop reading after the posts hawt turd and sizlin brown stuff.

  Who are these people? I click on names and see faces I don’t recognize.

  I scroll through Lauren’s list of friends. Some are vaguely familiar from the hallways at Fenway, but most don’t ring a bell for me.

  I open random profiles of those of her friends without privacy settings. Some of them appear to make it a habit to post compromising pictures of their friends. Is that why Lauren thought it was okay to post me like that?

  A part of me wants to remove her as a friend, but the pragmatic side reminds me that then I’d never get to see what else she puts up.

  I go back to her profile and read it over, trying to figure her out.

  She’s so poised in her selfies, like she’s at Who’s Who events, but the pictures she puts up of her friends make them look less than refined. There’s one where Marjorie and another girl are laughing with their mouths open wide in unattractive poses while Lauren smiles serenely at the camera. Her hair is parted to the side, and the white of her diamond earring catches the light.

  I look up at the mirrored hallway closet and try a Lauren smile. Mona Lisa in a pashmina stares back at me, and I feel spooked.

  My charging cell phone rings in Mom’s bedroom and I jump.

  “Janna?” Mom shouts. “Where are you?”

  “Mom, why are you yelling?”

  “Deval just called me because he’s been calling home and no one’s answering!”

  Mr. Ram. I forgot him.

  “Mom, I came up to get something.” I run to the door, glancing at the clock. How did an hour and a half pass?

  “He said he left instructions for Mr. Ram’s medicine and food!”

  “I’m going down now!”

  I fumble with the key as I lock the door. I hit the bulkhead that sticks out right by our door.

  “I have to go—the phone won’t work in the elevator.” I end the call. There’s no way I’m waiting for an elevator, but I don’t want Mom’s input right now.

  I run down the stairs, wondering if Mr. Ram is all right. He can’t move without help. He’ll be trapped in the overstuffed chair.

  I hate Lauren.

  My laptop. It was open to Lauren’s profile and my unhijabbed picture. Muhammad would see it for sure.

  I hesitate mid-step. Should I go back and close my laptop?

  I take a breath and continue down the stairs, a prayer on my lips. After all, Allah knows about Facebook problems too.

  • • •

  He’s awake. But he doesn’t smile at me when I enter.

  I follow Deval’s instructions silently.


  After I feed him, I put the seerah book in his lap once more. He doesn’t open it. He just falls asleep again.

  Sitting beside him, I don’t move a muscle except to turn my English notes.

  The plants don’t offer shady stillness anymore. Instead, they make ominous shadows on the wall as the afternoon sun moves, bringing Deval home soon.

  • • •

  As soon as Deval enters, I try to slide past him in the doorway to the living room, but he stops me. “Janna, you could have just said no. They could have found another parent for the field trip.”

  His face, normally relaxed and jovial, is held taut by raised eyebrows. With his receding hairline, he looks eerie, like he’s presiding over my sentencing.

  I flinch in the witness stand. “I wanted to do it.”

  “Then where were you?”

  “I went upstairs to get something.”

  “He’s very frail.”

  “I needed something for school.” I can’t look at him anymore.

  “Just let us know if you don’t want to do this any longer. We’ll find someone else.”

  “I want Janna.” The blanket around Mr. Ram has fallen and reveals an unbuttoned pajama top. He is so skinny. And shaky.

  Deval goes to the bathroom, from where Ravi is calling.

  Mr. Ram points a trembling finger at the bookcases. “Janna, go to the shelf. That one. And get that folder for me.”

  I take a bulging manila folder to Mr. Ram.

  “Can you take this to your teacher?” he asks, not taking the folder, but waving slowly at it. “It is my thesis. On Shakespeare.”

  “Okay.” I hold the folder against my chest, imagining Ms. Keaton’s reaction.

  “I think she’ll like it.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Ram. For leaving you like that.”

  “You were gone for thirty poems.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My son. Tell him that. Not to me, Miss Janna.” He smiles. “I even recited Mr. Silverstein’s poem. That one that is our favorite. That is when you came.”

  I lean down to hug him. Deval enters, and I whisper sorry as I leave.

  • • •

  I take the laptop into Mom’s room and check in. No new tagged pictures of hijabless me, but the comments have grown exponentially. Nothing from my mosque friends though. Dad’s message is apt today: While sharing may seem limitless, it ends where privacy begins. Privacy keeps the sacred safe.

  I’m about to click off when Fizz pops up on instant messaging with a ?. Then: OMG Janna, is that you??!! I don’t reply, and a new message window appears: Why is there a haram picture of you online?

  Haram means “forbidden” in Arabic. Somebody must have captured a screenshot of my picture before I untagged myself.

  I change my status to offline.

  Something pops up in my friends’ activity bar just then: Fizz likes Farooq’s status: “So sad Muslim girls are letting go of their modesty these days. A sign of the End Times.”

  A faint bicycle horn sounds. It’s from Muhammad’s phone out in the hallway. I turn my laptop to shield my face that’s exploding in unnamed emotions, each one rearing itself and layering on top of the others before I can express it. Something like rage, something like disbelief, something like shame, and something so intensely sad that the only way to release it would be to wail.

  In the end, I sob quietly, not even letting a whimper out. Fizz likes what he has to say about me.

  Her ideas of good and evil are split so clearly into one side or the other. In her mind, because of the posted pictures, I’ve taken a step to the other side. The evil one.

  And for her, the monster is firmly on the good side.

  I swallow and stop my tears. Fizz likes what he has to say about me?

  She doesn’t know about him. Because of his cloak of piety, he is untouchable.

  Rage at the unfairness rears its head again. It ripples away from my previous thoughts: No, he’s not. If you don’t let him be, he isn’t untouchable.

  I start typing under his status you are a despicable . . . and then stop.

  I don’t want to be seen, or known, or discussed. I don’t want to be part of holding him accountable. It means me, exposed again.

  I erase my part by erasing my words, deleting backward, despicable a are you. I wish I could keep deleting into my life, deleting the Sunday the Monster came down into the basement.

  This time I don’t try to stop the tears.

  The bicycle horn sounds again. In Mom’s bedroom, right outside my privacy screens.

  I gulp. “Go away.”

  “Quiz Bowl practice. At Sarah’s house!”

  “That’s later.” I hover my cursor over the unfriend button on Fizz’s profile. I don’t click it, even though the wetness blurring my sight is telling me to.

  “That’s now,” Muhammad says. “I’m leaving. The chauffeur will meet you outside the lobby, your royal highness.”

  I close the laptop and look in the small ornate mirror that hangs by a ribbon on my bedpost. The area around my eyes looks inflamed, a typical outcome of crying when you have sensitive skin. People might comment, especially Saint Sarah, who makes it her business to pounce on evidences of grief, bereavement, any occurrence that mars the tra-la-la-la gaiety of everyday life. I wish I could stay home. But I’m pretty sure Saint Sarah would bring the whole team over here to visit me/practice if I called in sick.

  I go over to Mom’s side of the room and open the junk drawer in her dresser. She has an old pair of sunglasses that would appear fashionable yet do a good job disguising my condition. They’re a prescription pair, but there isn’t much to see at Quiz Bowl practice anyway.

  The Meet Your Match flyer is gone.

  I wear my hijab the fluffy way, so that certain essential folds fall forward, into my face. All in all, on inspection in the hall mirror, I look like a hijabi version of a paparazzi-avoiding actress. I’m trying to see what would happen if I totally shielded my face, bringing my hijab folds completely in, when I hear keys being fitted into the door.

  Mom.

  I whip off the sunglasses only to notice my eyes. I decide questions about me borrowing her sunglasses are easier to take than questions re my eyes, so I put them back on.

  “And where are you going?” Mom asks after salaams. She has groceries in her hands. I grab two bags and head to the kitchen.

  “Sain—Sarah Mahmoud’s. For Quiz Bowl practice. Muhammad’s taking me,” I say. “I think there’ll be pizza, so we won’t need dinner.”

  She follows me to the door, so I turn and kiss salaams on her cheeks, to disarm her from further questions. I can almost feel the querying powers gathering in her forehead. Why do you need to wear my sunglasses to Quiz Bowl practice? In a cocooned hijab? I open the door quickly, turn to blow another kiss, head out, and run right into Jeremy’s chest.

  I step back. Tats is at his side.

  Pulling on the door handle behind me, I swiftly move into the peephole’s line of vision, in case Mom decides to check up on things.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I ask. This is my first opportunity to talk to him, and this is what I think up?

  I look at Tats and tilt my head to the right, where the bulkhead juts out. Our apartment doors are recessed, so I’m hoping they’ll move along into the area of the hallway inaccessible from Mom’s peeping, should she decide to take the paranoid-parent route.

  Tats, being my friend of many years, gets my drift and begins walking. I let out a suspended breath and follow them.

  The door opens behind us.

  “Janna?” Mom says, stepping into the hallway and seeing the three of us. “You forgot your seerah book.”

  She holds it out, and I swiftly close the gap to get it, even though I have no need for it. “Thanks, Mom,” I say.

  “Hi, Tatyana,” Mom says, forehead animated with curiosity. “You’re going to the meeting too?”

  “No, Ms. Yusuf, I just came to see if Janna wante
d to go by the lake,” says Tats. “I didn’t know she had to go to the mosque.”

  “Oh,” Mom says, appraising Jeremy. “And you are?”

  “Jeremy,” Jeremy says. “I go to school with Janna.”

  It’s the first time I’ve heard him say my name. If it weren’t in front of Mom, I would have taken a moment to savor the experience.

  “Nice to meet you, Jeremy,” Mom says. “I’m Janna’s mom.”

  “Yeah. My mom,” I say, fiddling with the ends of my scarf. Awkward. Awkward. Awkward.

  My phone rings. I pick up, waving Mom back. Three long honks emit from the phone. Jeremy and Tats laugh, and Mom goes back inside.

  “My dumb brother is waiting for me downstairs,” I say.

  We walk to the elevator in this silence that I want to fill with words that would erase the awkwardness. He is so close by, Tats in between us, and there’s this question in the air: What are we going to do now?

  Now, meaning now that we started this thing rolling.

  “So, I guess it’s a no to going to the lake then?” Tats asks. “There are a couple of others coming too.”

  “I have this meeting to go to,” I say, glancing at Jeremy apologetically. He shrugs and gives me a cute crinkly-eye smile. I clutch my seerah book tighter.

  “What’s that?” he asks, nodding at the book.

  “That’s the book Janna made when she was a kid,” Tats says, ever ready to help me out. “It’s awesome. Like a comic book story of a guy’s life.”

  She dislodges it from my arms and flips it open.

  She’s showing the life of the Prophet to Jeremy.

  I’m stunned at the course of events that’s brought the Prophet Muhammad and Jeremy into such close vicinity.

  “Do you mind?” Jeremy asks, half reaching for the book.

  A totally out-of-the-blue possessiveness toward my seerah book takes hold of me, and it must show in my face, because Jeremy drops his hand and shoves it back into his pocket as we step into the elevator.

  Tats returns the book with an expression I rarely see her wearing: disapproval. Severe epic disapproval—such as moms and teachers do real well.

  As soon as the elevator doors close, awkwardness descends again, this time with Dementor-like strength.