Finding Mr Perfectly Fine, page 19
‘Amina! Yas! Sabs is here!’ I yell to my sisters as I grab my bag and head down the stairs. I hear the doorbell ring and the sound of squealing as Sabs greets and hugs Mum and Nani, towering above them in her heels.
‘Ahlan wa sahlan habibti!’ I call out in Arabic, grabbing my cousin in a bear hug. I’m looking forward to catching up with her and getting her perspective on the Bollywood drama that is currently my life.
‘What’s happening, tart?’ she replies with her trademark, blinding smile. ‘You’re looking good!’
‘Thanks.’ I shrug modestly, hearing the thundering steps of my sisters running down the stairs.
There are more hugs and shrieks, then much to Mum and Nani’s dismay, we head out soon after. Nani grumbles about us choosing to go out for dinner instead of eating home-cooked food, and Mum looks put out at being unable to catch up with her niece. We assure them that Sabina will be staying over tonight and they can feed her and gossip as much as they want in the morning. They reluctantly let us go, making us promise to behave and not stay out too late.
‘By the way, Samia’s going to meet us at the restaurant and will come back with us and stay at yours too,’ Sabs says as we climb into the car.
‘Yeah, cool.’ I shrug, although truth be told, I’m not sure how I feel about seeing Sam after she lied to me, but I say nothing and grab Sabs’ ancient pink iPod and flick through all the old school hip-hop and R & B tracks instead. She stops me, making us all recite the travelling and protection prayers first, and I gulp, hoping she still remembers how to drive on this side of the road.
Windows down and music blasting, we sing and dance the entire drive into Central London, screaming every time Sabs takes a corner too fast or slams the brakes too hard. People are looking at us disapprovingly, but we don’t care. In fact, the more the car swerves and shudders, the more I let go of my worries and my fatigue. It’s summer, the weather is amazing, we’re young, we’re healthy, we’re attractive. We have so much to be grateful for.
Our first stop of the night is to an Indian restaurant in Covent Garden; not exactly the place to party but the food is amazing. Samia is already there waiting for us, a scowl on her face because we’re half an hour late, so we all hug her and compliment her on her new outfit to soften her up before making our way to the table where we order every halal item on the menu.
‘So! What’s been happening since I was last here?’ Sabina asks, touching up her siren-red lipstick, so I copy her and do the same. I look around the table and see that my sisters and Sam are also pulling their lippies out. As well as being a hugely successful makeup artist whose client list includes members of the Dubai royal family, Sabina is also beautiful and always looks flawless. Back in the day, she was approached by a modelling agency, despite wearing a hijab. Now she’s in her mid-thirties but she still looks fabulous and she’s always being gawked at, stalked or stopped by random people; men and women alike. Whenever we’re around her, we all make an extra effort with our makeup because if we don’t, she’s bound to look at us with a pained expression and murmur, ‘Are you sure you blended your eyeshadow properly today?’
‘Erm . . .’ I flounder, not sure where to begin, or how honest to be with Samia right there, ears wagging. I don’t really want to spend the evening dissecting my marriage prospects, but then, having been married for donkey’s years, Sabs is the right person to explain my dilemma to. It all comes out: Mum’s threat on my twenty-ninth birthday. Hamza. Dr Farook. Mr MoneyMaker Mo. The rejection from the Tower Hamlets man I never even met.
I go through the events as succinctly as possible, with Yasmin and Amina chiming in every so often, until the food arrives. Then they’re all too busy munching away on the gorgeous grills and fragrant curries to bother. I can tell that Samia is paying close attention, though. I find her silence off-putting, but I can’t exactly stop talking, not if I want Sabs’ perspective on things.
‘Let me get this straight,’ Sabina says, picking up a lamb chop with her hands and biting into the tender flesh with her teeth bared. That’s the endearing thing about her; she looks like a Muslim supermodel and then she does something uncouth like fart in public.
‘OK . . .’ I prompt her as she loses her train of thought, grease all around her mouth as she savours every last morsel.
‘Yeah. As I was saying. Let me get this straight. You rejected the doctor, and now you’re going out with the unattractive one?’
‘I wouldn’t class it as “going out”,’ I interject hurriedly, while Amina and Yasmin roll their eyes. They’ve heard this a million times already. ‘And he’s a bloody dentist, not a doctor. And Hamza’s not unattractive. I’m just not madly attracted to him.’
‘Whatever,’ Sabina says dismissively. ‘So, you don’t know if you want to marry him because you don’t fancy him?’
‘Er, I suppose it could be simplified like that, if you decide to leave out all the detail and nuance,’ I concede reluctantly. When she puts it like that, I sound like a right flaky floozy.
She looks at me incredulously. ‘What I don’t understand is: why the hell are you going out with a bloke you don’t fancy?’
‘You’d understand if you met him,’ Amina pipes up. ‘He’s really intelligent and well spoken—’
‘He is,’ Yasmin agrees. ‘He’s also one of those genuinely decent guys.’
‘See what I mean?’ I tell Sabs. ‘I really like him and get along with him. He’s funny. He’s smart. He’s respectful. He reminds me that not all men are bastards.’
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s all well and good, Zara, but you can’t marry someone you don’t bloody fancy. How are you going to do the dirty with him? How are you going to have kids? Lie back and think of England?’
‘What does that phrase actually mean?’ Samia muses. ‘Like, why would you think about England when you can think of other stuff, like what you need to do at work the next day?’
Sabina looks at her as if she’s crazy. ‘Why would you think of work in the middle of the deed?’
‘Why would you think of England?’ Samia retorts, her expression serious.
‘Er, can we change the subject? All this vulgar talk is putting me off my food,’ Amina groans. I look at her wiped-clean plate and so does everyone else, and we all burst out laughing while she turns pink.
‘I meant my next helping!’ she wails, covering her blushing cheeks and making us laugh harder.
The rest of dinner and dessert passes by in a similar fashion with Sabina bestowing her wisdom on us in the way only she can, with her strong London accent and tactless comments; Amina moaning about her colleagues in the Muslim charity she works for and cracking us up with her impressions of the chairman; Yasmin telling us all about her friends in uni and all the wild things they get up to, and Samia finally filling us in on her trip to Zimbabwe. By this point, I’ve nearly forgotten the animosity I felt towards her and I decide to try and let it go. You can’t force someone to confide in you and it’s up to her who she wants to share her business with. It has, however, made me more mindful of how honest I am with her about my own life and problems.
‘I can’t believe you lived without a washing machine for two months,’ Sabina says, part-awed and part-horrified. ‘You never used to even change your own sheets, so how did you manage to hand-wash your clothes?’
‘Washing my clothes was the least of my worries,’ Samia admits. ‘There was no hot water. I took a cold bath every morning with one bucket of water. Even after two months I never got used to the sensation of ice-cold water hitting my hot, sweaty body. It was hard.’
‘It must have been amazing, though,’ Amina says wistfully.
‘It was,’ Samia affirms, eating the last spoonful of chocolate cake. ‘It taught me a lot about myself and gave me a lot of perspective. Before I went, I started obsessing over getting married, if I would find someone, or would I be still single at almost thirty like Zara.’
Ouch. Even when I’m trying to be zen and trying to move on from all this marriage malarkey, the Universe still goes and plants comments like that right in my face. I wait for her to reveal the agreement she made with her dad about meeting suitors, but she doesn’t.
‘Sorry, no offence, Zara,’ she continues. ‘Anyway. When I got there, the fact that my First World Problems are super-trivial really hit me. Babies crying themselves to sleep out of hunger? Now that’s a real problem.’
There’s a long silence after that. I mean, what could anyone possibly say?
After dinner, we climb back into the Range, the vibe slightly more subdued than it was earlier on. Until Samia starts moaning that she has to sit squashed between Yasmin and Amina instead of riding shotgun, and my sisters nudge each other and murmur, ‘First world problems.’ This naturally has the rest of us (minus Samaritan Samia) in hysterics and, once again, we’re in the mood to party.
Since Sabs and Sam are hijabis, we can’t exactly hit a club next, so we head for where every other Not-Overly-Religious Muslim girl goes for a bit of a laugh; a shisha café. As we sing at the top of our lungs, Sabina weaves in and out of the Friday night Central London traffic, almost colliding with other road users too many times to count.
‘We’re heeeeere,’ she finally calls out, coming to a screeching halt outside one of my old haunts in Bayswater.
‘You can’t park here, it’s a double yellow,’ I tell her as she gets ready to leave the car right there on the main road.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ she huffs. ‘Why isn’t there valet parking anywhere around here?’ She’s obviously become a bit of a diva after all these years in Dubai, and of course, the rest of us scream, ‘First world problems!’ and start laughing all over again.
‘I haven’t been here in years,’ I murmur when we walk up to the joint, Arabic music emanating from the open door. We step inside, inhaling the sweet, fruity fragrance of the hookah floating in the air, and with it comes a wave of old memories.
I’ve been avoiding this place because Tariq and I used to come here every week and I’m terrified of bumping into him. I don’t want to mention this, though, so I plaster a grin on my face and follow my sisters and cousins through the restaurant to the outdoor area. Pretty Ottoman-inspired lanterns and fairy lights twinkle amongst the shrubs, and Gulf-style red and black upholstery covers the low sofas. It reminds me of the Middle East, but where exactly in the Arab peninsula I’m supposed to be, I’m not sure, because there’s a little bit of everything in the eclectic décor.
It’s nearing the end of June now and the weather in London is warm and muggy, so I take my blazer off as we sit down and am immediately greeted with ‘oohs’ from the girls as they all lean in to touch my newly toned biceps. I push them away and laugh uncomfortably, looking around the restaurant to see if he’s here. The garden is crowded and noisy with the hum of voices, occasional laughter, and Lebanese pop music playing in the background. The tables consist of mostly Arabs and Asians in their twenties enjoying their Friday night, but I don’t see him.
Once our orders are taken, we settle back and chill. We’ve gone for two pipes between us; pineapple and coconut, and grape and mint, and after a few puffs I feel relaxed and a tad woozy. It’s been so long since I’ve smoked this stuff that I’ve become a bit of a lightweight. Yasmin, however, is somewhat of a connoisseur it seems, because she handles the tongs like a pro and blows out perfect rings.
‘How’s Fufu doing? She seemed a bit down when I came to the house,’ Sabina asks once we’re all comfortably settled in, smoking lazily and sipping on our mocktails.
My sisters and I exchange glances and Amina decides to fill Sabina in.
‘Mum’s completely stressed out with trying to Zara a husband,’ she reveals, doing her best to avoid my stare. ‘She’s scared she’s never going to get married because she’s too fussy.’
This is news to me. I’ve been so absorbed in my own dramas that I hadn’t noticed a change in my mum’s usual neurotic behaviour. I look away.
‘Too fussy?’ Sabina raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
‘Because she keeps saying no to everyone,’ Yasmin butts in, blowing another smoke ring. I’m tempted to lean over and ruin it.
‘The atmosphere at home is pretty tense right now,’ she continues. ‘There’ve been no new proposals and with each day that passes, another hair on Mum’s head turns grey. She’s terrified that one of us will end up like Ruby – forty-one years old, unmarried and probably unable to have kids.’
Oh yes. Ruby. The family example of what happens to women who focus too much on their careers and don’t focus enough on finding a husband. The women who have dared to spend their twenties and early thirties studying hard, working hard, living abroad and experiencing life. The women who are ‘too fussy’, ‘too unrealistic’ and ‘too experienced’; who aren’t willing to compromise because they’ve already tasted the finer things in life and anything less than perfection isn’t worth settling down for. Women who want partners who will complement their already fulfilled lives; not bring them down.
Well, you know what? If Ruby’s happy, and living her best life, then good for her. Only . . . I don’t want to be single, and childless, forever.
‘Right. So, Sam, what do you make of all this?’ I say to shift some of the attention away from me and to see if Sam will finally reveal what’s going on with her.
Samia shrugs, as though she hasn’t made a deal with her dad to get her biodata sorted. ‘I’m open to meeting people.’
‘Just open?’ Yasmin probes, nudging me discreetly. I nudge her back, harder. Shut up!
‘Well, yeah. I mean, obviously I have a lot more time than Zara so it’s not exactly a pressing concern right now . . .’
‘Are you actively looking then?’ Yasmin asks, and I take a long drag of my pipe and wait for the answer.
‘Not really. I’m not on a quest like Zara.’ She laughs uncomfortably and looks away, while steering the discussion back to me. As I struggle with how to shut this conversation down, I spot a familiar gait sauntering over to us. Although I know it’s him, for a second, I see him as though it’s the first time; tall, slim, with thick, dark brown wavy hair and a smattering of a beard caressing his strong jawline. He’s wearing a black T-shirt that shows off his toned arms and I drag my eyes away from all that golden skin and look into his amused face.
‘All right, Z?’ Adam grins cheekily down at me. ‘I couldn’t help but notice all the racket you ladies are making, although to be honest I almost didn’t recognise you. You scrub up well. Mind if I join you for a bit?’
I don’t know if I’m relieved or annoyed by the surprise appearance. I had a feeling I was going to bump into someone I know today, but I wouldn’t have guessed it would be Adam. I’m grateful that it wasn’t Hamza, or worse, Tariq, and I’m also glad that it’s interrupted Sabina’s line of questioning . . . but there’s something about the way the others are eyeing him up like he’s a juicy steak that makes the hairs on my arms bristle.
‘Ooh, of course you can, please take a seat,’ Sabs coos before I can open my mouth to refuse, scooting up and offering him a seat between us. Although Sabina is happily married, she likes a good flirt with a hot guy every so often. That’s not my main concern, though. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t help but hope that Adam is immune to her beauty and prefers me over her.
Ever since our bike ride back in the spring, Adam and I have become a lot closer and I’m beginning to see him as a real friend. He’s changed a lot since the days he would constantly berate me and I’ve realised that he’s not as immature and annoying as I thought he was. Hanging out with him is never boring.
Even so, we rarely spend time together outside the office, unless it’s a quick Turkish after a long day at work, so seeing him here amidst my sisters and cousins, while I’m dressed to impress and cradling a shisha pipe in my hands, is a tad unnerving.
I grudgingly move up and as Adam settles in between us, Sabs looks over at me and mouths, ‘Who the hell is that?’ and I glare at her, hoping he doesn’t notice. He has a big enough head as it is, without all this extra female attention to inflate it further.
Adam’s presence changes the vibe of our little table completely. The conversation has thankfully steered away from me and my (lack of a) love life and on to other topics, like work and family. All of a sudden, Samia has become deep and insightful, with her little rendition of how she tried to save the children of Zimbabwe; Yasmin is being sexy and aloof, barely talking but smiling her wide, seductive smile every so often; Amina has gone completely quiet and keeps checking him out from the corner of her eye when she thinks no one is looking; and Sabs is her usual outgoing self, laughing loudly and joking away with him like they’re old mates.
And me? I don’t know what they’re talking about half the time because I’m completely distracted by the fact that his bare bicep is touching my own. His skin is smooth and every time he laughs, it slides up against my arm creating instant goosebumps. This is a completely different experience from the night I rode on the back of his bike when there were at least six layers of clothing between us. Now, there’s just his cotton T-shirt and my flimsy silk top, and I can feel his warmth radiating through the fabric and setting my skin alight.
Bloody hell, I think I need a cold shower – and it has nothing to do with the temperature outside. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t usually get like this around Adam of all people. I see him every day, for God’s sake! So why is this happening now, at the worst possible place, with the worst possible audience? Is the shisha getting to my head? Or is it because I’ve been celibate for so long – my entire life, in fact – that anyone with a bit of facial hair and tanned skin gives me the kajeejees?
