Love from A to Z(32)

I guess it was a good thing that he wasn’t reading my message.

? ? ?

I already had a bit of makeup on, like lip stuff, but at the Fenty pop-up Emma Domingo said we should get our faces redone as the mini-makeover lines were short.

We emerged fresh faced, me with a smidgen of color and highlight on my cheeks, and my eyes—“so big and wide and fantastic to work with” according to the makeup artist—lit up a bit, with neutral lips. My look matched the taupey-pink hijab I was wearing.

Emma Phillips checked a message on her phone. She was in white again, but this time it was white jeans and a white T-shirt. “The guys are already at the food court,” she said, undoing her hair that had been tied back with an elastic while she got her makeup done. She held her phone camera up and fixed herself, pumping some volume into the back of her hair with her fingers.

My Adam hair fantasy came back to me.

I wonder if I blushed even further under the fake blush I had on.

“And, yay, Connor got him to come,” Emma Phillips added, reading another message that had popped up, in between peering at her engorged-looking lips. She’d paid for the full-lips deal, and you could see the effect from several feet away. “Adam will be there!”

Adam was here? I flushed further. I thought it was just us girls.

“Well, you look perfect, then,” Emma Zhang said pointedly, and I whipped my head at her, wondering how she knew about my fantasy.

But she was smiling slyly at Emma Phillips.

Emma Domingo, the one I felt the most connected to, because she was super sweet, and who had her arm laced with mine as we walked, whispered to me, “Emma P. has had a crush on Adam forever.”

“No, not forever, just since sixth grade,” Emma Phillips announced.

“After his mom died and he became kind of emo,” Madison said.

“That’s cruel.” Emma Zhang shot Madison a look. “It’s because he was the only one who helped Emma P. when she got picked on for her scoliosis brace.”

“Emma P. had to wear a thick brace for her back all through middle school, and it was uncomfortable under her clothes, so she wore it on the outside,” Emma Domingo told me. “And when kids began bullying her, Adam drew these amazing Avatar: The Last Airbender scenes on it. We were all into ATLA back then, so her brace became instantly cool. And then she was too.”

“But he was still emo,” Madison continued, grinning.

I wondered why the Emmas let Madison hang around with them. Were friends in short supply in Doha? Anyway, I didn’t need her friendship. “Way to be insensitive. Just like with your gross, racist-as-hell Coachella clothes. Maybe grow a heart?”

The Emmas looked at me in unison. Was that a tiny bit of awe I saw in their eyes? Or shock at the disturbance I’d created?

What? She’s awful, I mouthed to Emma Zhang, who nodded.

Madison ignored me, per usual, and went on. “Who says that’s bad anyway? Being emo? He had a reason to be.”

“The point is that’s not why she likes him,” Emma Zhang pressed. “She likes him because he’s kind.”

“Yeah, not like your bae Jacob, who kept calling me names throughout middle school,” Emma Phillips said, staring into her phone, still combing out her hair with her fingers while we walked. “Anyway, that was a crush back then. Now we talk.”

“Really? Since when?” Emma Domingo looked up eagerly. “I thought he’d dropped off the face of the earth when he went to London.”

“Then he got back. He’s around the corner from me, remember?” she said, as Emma Zhang side-hugged her excitedly. “But you know how he is; he’s not the type to show it.”

I listened to this part quietly, my face growing warmer.

Right.

Right, right, right.





MARVEL: REVELATIONS


Exhibit A: Emma Phillips and Adam.

I guess this marvel is about God.

Because He’s the one who lets you know the things you didn’t know before. Who allows circumstances to come into your life that make you see.

I’m so grateful my crush on Adam lasted exactly five days. Six if you count the airport first sighting.

Wow, Emma Phillips’s crush on him lasted six years. And was only now coming to fruition.

She’s zen. He’s zen. I’m not.

That’s what’s important.





ADAM


TUESDAY, MARCH 12


MARVEL AND ODDITY: FRIENDS


SHE WAS SITTING AT THE next table over, on her phone, fries untouched in front of her. Emma Domingo was across from her, Emma Zhang next to her. They were both talking, but she wasn’t.

I was at the end of a longer table parallel to hers. Connor directly in front of me, going on about Nancy, his TA, with Tsetso and Isaac beside us, then Emma Phillips and Jacob across from Madison. There was another table with a few other guys from DIS behind us.

But all I could see was her.

She wouldn’t look up.

She hadn’t even said salaam back after I’d salaamed her when she and the other girls had first shown up.

Maybe she hadn’t heard?

“Adam, you in for the dunes this weekend?” Emma Phillips asked loudly. “Everyone else, except Tsetso, who, ahem, decided to ditch Doha early, is coming.”