Love from a to Z

He hasn’t read your message, Zayneb. He knows you’re a faker, Zayneb.
He wants the real deal, just like you want the real deal in a guy, Zayneb.
Just like you want him, Zayneb.
I closed my eyes and imagined opening the door to Adam. Like after we
were a thing, and everything was legit, with family, with everything.
I imagined opening the door to him without my hijab on, hair tousled,
kind of getting in my eyes, but not so much that he couldn’t see how done
up those eyes were—with eye shadow, mascara, and all.
He would have been gazing at the floor when the door first opened,
wearing that blue shirt I saw him in at the airport, but then his eyes would
flip up and light up, and that small, consistent smile he mostly wore (before
it trailed off yesterday) would spread and spread and spread, and then he
would just swoop in and—
Beep beep beep. The alarm went off again.
Agh. That meant I only had thirty minutes before the Uber arrived.
As I threw on clothes, I tried to unpack my fantasizing about Adam.
I want to kiss him.
That mouth with that smile.
Agh, why was I in such lust? Astaghfirullah, Sadia would caution.
I barely knew the guy.
Well, other than Auntie Nandy telling me his background, her knowing
his mom and dad. And him being seemingly a great big brother. And caring
about animals. And having tons of friends who he was super quiet around
but who obviously liked him a lot. And him becoming Muslim on his own
so early.
Okay, that last one was a heavy one. To be that mature when you’re so
young.
But I didn’t know him, the guy. What he was like personality-wise.
It was just his looks that were getting to me.
That made me want him to swoop in, from the door I’d opened in my
fantasy, and wrap his arms around me as I pushed my hair away from the
tight space between us so my lips could find his with urgency, his face, as it
became one with mine, getting surrounded and caressed by my curly locks
—
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.