Love from A to Z(8)

I turned away, to the back of the plane, willing myself to be calm. Willing myself not to tell the woman off.

Or even explain myself to the flight attendant.

You promised Mom and Dad.

Stay quiet.

Shut up, Zayneb.

Some of the other passengers peered at me, and I beamed back at them. Maybe if I looked like a happy Muslim teen, someone would offer to trade places with Hateful Woman or even with me.

No one moved.

I turned around so I wouldn’t make it even further awkward for everyone.

“Sit down, please, ma’am. I’ll come back after I check,” the flight attendant said to Hateful Woman again, his gaze then falling on my face.

Maybe I looked weird in my attempts to appear nice, because he shook his head slightly before turning to walk to the front of the plane.

Hateful Woman and I were still standing, me in the aisle, her in front of my seat so I couldn’t even sit down, her back to me as she watched the flight attendant go in search of “comfort” for her.

I clutched my things tighter to me and looked around again, at the passengers’ faces—some blank, some frowning, some whispering—my stomach squeezing over and over.

Most of them probably believed everything bad that they’d heard about Muslims, the headlines, the “news” stories, the online comments, the rumors.

Was there anybody on this plane who wouldn’t look at me and think troublemaker?

Or worse, terrorist?

? ? ?

Hateful Woman was moved to first class, and, even though I had both seats to myself, I stayed tight and unmoving, fuming.

Then I noticed a girl my age across from me, up one seat. She was working in a sketchbook, a container of colored pencils in her lap along with headphones, snacks, and a stuffed animal.

Coloring girl was white and blond.

The sight of her tore a hole in me.

The way she was bobbing her head while her pencil moved rhythmically across the paper, like she was immersed in some happy music only she could hear, though her headphones were not even on her ears.

Part of the coat she was sitting on stuck out into the aisle—cutesy for her, but if I’d let that happen? Belligerent.

Seeing her totally okay, completely comfortable in life, made me tear up.

I mean I’m sure that girl might have all sorts of other problems going on. Most probably she did.

It’s just that when people first saw her, a bunch of crap thoughts didn’t instantly load into their brains.

Her coat sticking out didn’t sum her up.

My coat sticking out could. Because of all the years of rumors about people like me.

I didn’t have to open my mouth or do anything for people to judge me. I just had to be born into a Muslim family and grow up to want to become a visible member of my community by wrapping a cloth on my head.

I just had to be me.

Angry people are not known to be public criers. They usually don’t succumb to displays of grief.

But I let the tears fall and fall without a care of who saw them. I didn’t sob or heave or make any movements. I just sat there staring at the white girl coloring happily and cried.

Maybe it was Fencer’s sigh in the principal’s office yesterday, the suspension note in my student file, and the fact that Ayaan hadn’t replied to any of my messages before I’d left home this afternoon.

Maybe it was imagining Hateful Woman enjoying first class, getting rewarded for her rudeness to me.

Maybe it was everything for a long time.

I succumbed to the sadness I’d held at bay.

And the questions flooded in:

If I had been that white, blond girl with a lap full of a journal, a pen, headphones, phone, and a sandwich, a coffee in my hand, would Hateful Woman have slammed her carry-on so hard above me? Would she have excused the time I’d taken to get up, thinking of her own daughter or granddaughter and how it took them a while to get their stuff together? Would she have made small talk and gotten to know me a teeny bit? Then would she have smiled fondly at me like the flight attendant walking by the coloring girl had smiled at her right now?

I just held myself, alone on a full plane, and mourned silently until I fell asleep for the rest of the flight.

? ? ?

And then, Marvels and Oddities, I landed in London.

She’s ISIS.

ISIS girl should have been expelled.

I can’t believe Kerr let the terrorist off.

You terrorist cunt.





MARVEL . . .


I can’t even think of one at the moment. But I know I promised a marvel for every oddity, so . . .

Okay, here, I’ll give you one: cute guys.

Well, the cute guy across from me as I write. He’s preoccupied with his laptop, so I’ll describe him.

Exhibit A: Cute guy at the airport.

He’s tall, his legs so long that if he didn’t keep them propped up kind of high, he’d be tripping people walking in front of his seat.

He looks like he’s of Asian background, like me.

Well, one half of me, because Dad is from Pakistan, which is in South Asia, but then Mom’s family being Guyanese (grandpa) and Trinidadian (grandma) makes her of West Indian background, which is considered to be Caribbean.

This guy looked like he was of East Asian ancestry—either Chinese or Korean or from another country—plus something else.