Love from a to Z

oddities, written in the top left-hand corner.
I picked it up so she could see it clearly. “I just realized this thing literally
got me through the hard, alone years after my mom’s death. That I was able
to see the marvels around me through it all.”
“Wait.” She flipped through her journal. “But that’s not me. So we don’t
have something in common. Because reams and reams of pages in this thing

---

are about the awful things in the world. And I’ve got six more of these
journals at home. Mostly full of crappy happenings in my life.”
“You didn’t record any marvels?”
“No, I did, but they were short. Except, yeah, after we started liking each
other. Then it became better.” She opened her journal and did a mock
reading. “Marvel: Adam, blah, blah, blah, Adam. Adam, Adam, Adam, and
you get the picture.”
I flipped to random pages throughout my notebook. “Marvel: Zayneb.
And here’s another one. Marvel: Zayneb. And another one . . . so you get
the picture too.”
We looked at each other and burst out laughing. Then I looked beyond
her, through the windows, to Doha Bay. At the sky above it.
It was perfect.
This moment was perfect. That we were so in sync and it was happening
at my favorite place in the city.
“This is unreal.” She took my journal and placed it beside hers and then
drew her phone out to take a picture. “Why—I mean, how did you start
yours?”
“Because of this museum. Because I used to come here a lot and wander
through the exhibits, and one day I couldn’t stop thinking of that manuscript
upstairs. The Marvels of Creation and the Oddities of Existence.”
“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.”