“Finally!” says one of the twins. She clicks the remote, and the opening notes of Pride and Prejudice, the miniseries, begin to play.
“My mom’s on the hunt for kitchen maids,” Fizz tells me, ripping open a bag of chips. “She keeps talking about a birthday feast. Which means we’ll be in the kitchen for hours, making something that will be eaten in ten minutes. Like homemade samosas or something.”
I grab a handful of Cheetos and feed them into my mouth one by one as if I’m operating mastication machinery, contemplating how to tell Fizz about the latest development on the Jeremy front. She’s the second person who knows about him, but only as a major forehead crush. I don’t get into things too much with her because she’s not exactly rah-rah about my liking a non-Muslim guy. Fruitless, she calls it.
Rambo joins us on the sofa with a far-from-nimble leap from the floor. He peers at the remainder of my chips cupped in my left hand, as if wondering what they are, so perplexed is his expression.
“Did you see him heave himself? He’s on a never-ending diet and he’s still a lardo,” Fizz says. “Don’t feed him.”
Rambo tilts his head and looks into my eyes. His own eyes are blue and soulful. I sneak him one chip that he gratefully accepts before being pushed off the sofa by Fizz.
“It’s his breed,” Aliya says. “Let him be.”
“He’s prediabetic,” Fizz says.
“Because of the stress you give him,” Aliya says, folding Fizz’s pajamas.
On-screen, Elizabeth Bennet and her older sister, Jane, give each other cuddly compliments.
There’s a click, followed by footsteps on the stairs. Fizz’s mom, Auntie Fatima, leans her head over the railing. Uncle Aziz, Fizz’s dad, shows up behind her, munching on a samosa.
“Everybody, upstairs,” Auntie Fatima says.
Only Aliya makes a move and stacks the folded piles into a laundry basket.
“FIDDA, HANA, HADIA—and, Janna, sweetie, if you want to—UPSTAIRS NOW!”
We shuffle to the dining room, where the gargantuan oval oak table is covered with evidence of a mass operation. Tupperware containing various candies are laid out at two, four, eight, and ten o’clock. Twelve o’clock has a box of clear plastic bags and twist ties.
“We are making loot bags,” Auntie Fatima says. “For your party.”
Fizz stands still. “What party?”
“Your birthday party.” Auntie Fatima motions for Aliya to take the head of the table. Hana and Hadia snicker as they head to the gummy bear packs and bubble gum at two and four, respectively.
“No one told me about a party.”
Auntie Fatima crosses her arms. “I didn’t want to tell you because you would say no. As the chair of the mosque social committee, I have to be hospitable.”
Fizz takes a seat in front of happy-face lollipops the size of my palms. “So, who’s coming to my party? Six-year-olds?”
Aliya raises her eyebrows at Fizz in warning.
“What is wrong with being a good host? Giving out goody bags? Back home we always welcomed our guests with a treat, no matter how old they were, fifteen or fifty!”
Auntie Fatima marches around the table clockwise, making a sample bag to show us what we are aiming for: a muddle of cheap, kitschy candy. She tells us she’ll be in the kitchen finishing the storm she’s cooking.
“No, really, Mom, who’s coming to my party?”
“Family and friends.”
I freeze when I hear that. Family means Fizz’s cousin Farooq.
Farooq the monster.
? ? ?
I dribble candy hearts into the bags passed to me from four o’clock.
Hana and Hadia get an idea to change the carefully organized composition of the loot bags, to add some pizzazz to the whole thing. Their passive-aggressive mutiny campaign gets limited to making bags with only red-colored candy or smiley lollipops by Aliya; she vetoed and confiscated the patent-pending eerie bags of gummy bears with their heads chopped off and lollipops with smeared smiles.
“What happened?” Fizz asks after Aliya puts on some music and I scoot my chair over to nine o’clock. “Why do you look so down?”
I tell her about Tats’s treachery. Tats and Jeremy out together when they should’ve been at drama club.
“I’m not surprised,” Fizz says. “Some people have no morals.”
I consider that. I don’t know if that’s even true. “Well, that’s not who she really is. She’s never done anything even close to this before.”
“Anyway, it’s a gift from Allah, isn’t it?” Fizz watches my face for a reaction. “You can unlike him now. He’s non-Muslim. I told you from the beginning to drop it.”
I slump. “It’s not easy like that.”
“Come on, a Muslim guy, a real one, is what you need to focus on.”
“Sorry, don’t know any.”
“First, check how much they’ve memorized the Qur’an. That will tell you what they’re like.”
I stop myself from picturing her cousin. I know that’s who she’s thinking of.
Instead, I see a husk of corn. An empty one. Because, like Mr. Ram said, that’s what the monster is, just a husk with nothing inside.
I hate the husk.
“I know what I need to do,” Fizz says, tapping my shoulder with a happy-face lollipop. “Imma jus gonna hafta find you some hot Muslim guy tomorrow night at the—”
“Fun-Fun-Fun Islamic Quiz Game,” I say, groaning the words out.
The Fun-Fun-Fun Islamic Quiz Game is another brainchild of Saint Sarah. She wants the teens at our mosque to compete against other youth groups in our region and be the smartest Muslims or something. She is so nice that she let her five-year-old brother name the competition, as she told us on the flyer.
I’m laughing, but, really, what if I tell Fizz I don’t want to find some hot Muslim guy?
? ? ?
We finish at five. Auntie Fatima declares that the leftover candy will go to the mosque to be distributed at the Fun-Fun-Fun Islamic Quiz Game.
The doorbell rings as we put away the Tupperware and box up the remaining candy. It doesn’t stop ringing until almost every girl from the mosque is in the house. And some of their mothers. The monster, who has the whole Qur’an memorized, has been invited to say a few prayers and then disappear upstairs so the girls can “relax.”
He’s standing in the foyer talking to Uncle Aziz. I scuttle to the kitchen through the dining room and busy myself ladling things into bowls and serving plates.
“All meat. Not surprising.” Someone tall and slim in a black gown is looking out the sliding doors to the patio, parting the vertical blinds to do so. She turns. It’s Sausun, a sullen girl from study circle. “Like there are no Muslim vegetarians in the world.”
“There’s okra.” I point a drippy wooden spoon at a pan.