Love from A to Z(83)
“Oh my God. That’s why I couldn’t move when we came here on the weekend. I couldn’t believe I was in the presence of the manuscript. The one I saw online when I was sixteen.”
“Upstairs. Where we had our weird fight.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I have to tell you something. But you have to promise you’ll be okay with it.”
“No way. How can I promise I’ll be okay with something I don’t know. Uh, no, I don’t agree to those kinds of things.” She crossed her arms, laughter in her eyes, and sat back. “I reserve the right to get upset. Proudly.”
“Fine. The entire time I’ve known of your existence, I knew that you had a marvels and oddities journal.” I leaned back and crossed my own arms. “Because it fell out of your bag. In the airport waiting area. And I saw.”
“And you stalked me because of it?” She crossed her arms tighter, but her eyes twinkled with humor. “Oh, now it makes sense. That’s why you wanted to talk to me on the airplane. It wasn’t my magnetic eyes or smile.”
“I saw that after,” I assured her. “But first, it was your hijab. Not even the color. But the fact that you had one on, and I thought, Muslim alert. Second, it was the color, yeah.”
“You have a thing for blues, noted.” She reached for her journal and her pen and pretended to write it down.
Or maybe it was for real.
I couldn’t tell, because her eyes were smiling.
“Then it was your journal. That you might see the world like I do.” I paused. “Then it was everything else, all at once—your smile, your eyes, your personality, like a landslide, like Zayneb.”
She looked up from writing.
“Um, this is where I admit, for me, it was your looks.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Only?”
“At first I mean. Then when you said salaam, I was like, This guy is super cute AND Muslim? Then it was your layers. Calm, cool, slightly sad layers. You were mysterious, and I wanted to peel you away like an onion.”
“So you like sad onions.”
“Yeah, they make me cry, instead of angry.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel good?” I asked, laughing, but weirded out. Sad onion?
But it was Zayneb. And anything she said came from somewhere, had some sort of depth.
But sad onion?
“It’s supposed to be real, Adam.” She stopped smiling. “I like being real. Like, if I’d noticed that you journaled the same way as me, I would have just whisper-yelled, Hey, dude, I’ve got a journal like that too, right across from you at the airport in London.”
I nodded. “Actually, I tried. On the plane. But you were sleeping.”
“Anyway, one way of being is not better. Like, look at me: I’m the one in trouble with my mom.” She sighed and closed her journal.
“I was wondering about that. Why you’re here when you’re supposed to be with her. What happened?” I noticed the sudden change in her. That everything about her was slumped, her mouth, her face, her shoulders. “Wait. Let me get you something. From the café.”
She nodded. “Do they have karak?”
“No, but I can get you regular tea. And something to eat with that. They’ve got cakes and stuff.”
“Thanks.” She looked over at the café counter. “It looks fancy.”
“It is. French-pastries fancy.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh God, that’s my secret love. Okay, choose something for me. They’re all amazing to me.”
ODDITY: HATERS
We took our stuff to a newly empty table by the window.
I poured her tea and placed the plate of raspberry cream mille-feuille in front of her like a waiter, and she laughed. “Wow. Beautiful. Did you know that I watch dessert-making videos? It’s my de-stressor.”
“And then you try to make them yourself? The desserts?”
“No, I just like watching others making them. Less work.”
“Ahem.” I cleared my throat. “As a maker, I have to advise you that that’s extremely wrong. To watch from the sidelines and not participate.”
“I’d fail.” She used the side of her fork to cut into the layers of her pastry. “Look at this delicate thing. So many steps, so many ways to get it wrong.”
“You were named after a maker.”
She paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. “I was?”
“Yeah, Zayneb bint Jahsh, the prophet’s cousin. She made leather crafts, bags, and other things. Apparently, she was known for the quality of her work.” I picked up the chocolate chip cookie I’d brought for old times’ sake. “My father, the historian, makes sure I get this kind of info, especially if he thinks it’s about something I’d be interested in. Like other makers.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard that long ago about sahabiya Zayneb. In Sunday school.” She nodded and took a forkful of her pastry. “Maybe one day I will try making some French dessert. Or maybe I’ll start with my grandma’s roti.”
She took a knife and cut through her pastry, put half on a napkin, and passed it to me.
“For me?”
“Yeah, it’s really good.”