“Are those sequins?” I squint at the screen.
“A little flashy, no, Zainab?” Maasi mutters, but Zainab ignores the comment.
“Yeah!” She holds up a flower to the camera. “I got it for free, only — as a sample — from a wholesaler who wants us to carry some at the shop. I don’t think we will, we mostly get tourists who want T-shirts and cheap skirts. But maybe we’ll string him along for a bit so I can get a few more!” We all laugh at the joke. Her mother tells her about my history project.
“You should send out a questionnaire to the family,” Zainab advises. “That way you can get some information in the next two weeks, before touching down here.”
“Good idea.” I write it in my notebook.
“I have to go and do namaaz,” Maasi says, consulting her watch, confirming that it is prayer time. “I’ll see who I can find who’ll help you, Sharifa.” We say goodbye and Zainab takes her chair in front of the computer.
“Have you heard of Survey Ape?” I smile at my cousin’s mistake but don’t correct her. Gratefulness wells up in me; I’ve always been able to trust in my resourceful family, and I’m certain this will be true for my sabbatical project.
SIX
Zee and I join Laura and Elena for a playdate at the park. Laura and I found each other here five years ago, and while our then two-year-old daughters tentatively navigated the sandbox, we slipped into easy banter. She’s a mompreneur who sells custom T-shirts on Etsy and blogs about parenting. A year after we met, she shifted her writing to marital communication, later separation, and after that, divorce and shared-custody arrangements.
This week’s column is about dating as a single mom. She’s gone out with four men since her divorce a year back and tells me about the latest.
“Research,” she says, with mock nonchalance.
“Pretty good job you’ve got!” I quip.
We watch Zee and Elena on the swings, pumping their legs to go higher. Six months ago, they would have been begging us to push them, but now they boast self-reliance. I sigh with gladness and disappointment. One day, she won’t need me at all, I think.
“This guy I’m dating is really good, Shari.”
“Good, how?”
Zee laughs when her swing hits its highest point. Her bottom briefly lifts an inch off the seat before the swing comes back down.
“Well, for one thing, he lasts a long time.” She grins and waggles her eyebrows at me.
“Lasts?” I ask, distracted by Zee’s high flying. She and Elena cackle, pump harder, then cackle some more. “Zee! Not so high!”
“Well, you know. In bed?” Laura rolls her eyes at my obtuseness.
“Really?”
“Minimum thirty minutes. Long enough for me to … you know … a few times.” She looks away, breaking eye contact, and focuses on the kids. As though noticing them for the first time, she shouts, “Elena, take it easy. You guys are being unsafe!”
Zee and Elena let their legs go slack, and their swings begin to slow. I ponder Laura’s words but can’t think of a good follow-up question. Instead I say, “Wow, that’s great. What’s he like otherwise? Is he relationship material?”
“Look, they actually listened to us, for once,” Laura gripes about the kids, but I know she’s considering my question. She lists a few common interests and the things that annoy her.
While I half-listen, a question bubbles up: is my problem about lasting? If Murtuza could last even fifteen minutes, or half an hour, would it happen for me? I reflect on my earlier boyfriends, all of whom were energetic, youthful. They’d all tried. And just like Murtuza, there was that flicker of disappointment when they eventually gave up. Afterward, I’d have to try to be cheery and satisfied. I’d read somewhere that something like fifteen percent of women don’t climax, and so I’d reassure them brightly, keeping my face open, unguileful: “Really, I get a contact high from you. All the feel-good chemicals you have, the endorphins, they come my way, just because I’m close to you.” I so badly wanted to be okay with living in a society where one hundred percent believe in an end goal that fifteen percent of us don’t experience.
Each partner grew progressively distant over time. In my head, I know they were poor matches, not meant to be, but my heart has always wondered if the sex had anything to do their serial demises. Did it weaken their confidence in our connection? Could it happen with Murtuza?
Laura is now talking about a different guy, someone new she hopes to see next week. I struggle to keep up. “What’s his name?”
“Matthew. I found him on OkCupid. I’d like to see what it’s like to date more than one person at a time. I’ve always been such a monogamist in the past.”
I nod, asking myself, In another life, would I want what Laura has? Multiple orgasms and the thrill of novelty? My phone beeps; Murtuza has texted me three pink hearts.
“It sounds fun. Very different from the ordinariness of marriage.”
“Yeah, it’s good for now. I’m not ready for anything too committed. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready again.”
“One, two, three, go!” Zee and Elena scream in unison, as they leap off their swings-in-motion. I’m on my feet in an instant, my heart pounding. But their young legs are springs, nimbly absorbing the shock of their landings. They race to the jungle gym.
“Hooligans.” Laura pats my arm.
“Yeah.” I sit.
“So, you all ready for India?”
“Haven’t even started packing, but we don’t leave for another twelve days.”
“Excited?”
“Actually, I wasn’t all that excited, but now I am. I’ve decided to do an oral history project about my great-great-grandfather.
I’m going to interview as many elders as I can. I’ve always wanted to do something like this.”
“Cool. So you’re writing a book?”
“No, nothing that formal. I was thinking about a wiki or a blog or something. Maybe you can give me a tutorial when I get to that point.”
We both look up when Elena cries out. She must have mis-stepped on her way down and fallen to the sand, but her wails sound more surprised than pained. Laura rushes over, brushes the sand off Elena’s shorts. In a minute, Elena ascends the play structure to meet Zee at its apex.
The commotion passes and I text Murtuza back three purple hearts.
I check Facebook when we arrive home. A notification tells me that Zainab has invited me to the Rangwala Family Newsletter page. I join, scrolling through posts about an upcoming get-together. I click through a large unedited album of someone’s wedding, but don’t recognize anyone and then lurk on Zainab’s page awhile, noticing that she’s been on a self-help kick, sharing articles about “The 10 Things Happy People Do,” “7 Ways to Love Yourself More,” and other numbered lists that I don’t open.
Zainab’s moniker includes her maiden name so that her school friends will find her. She told me they wouldn’t otherwise recognize her because she’s no longer stylish and pretty. I don’t see the frumpy middle-aged matron she views in the mirror; to me, she’s still that girl who automatically won the role of princess in our childhood games of make-believe. In some ways, thirty years later, Fatema remains the prince. And me? I was usually left playing the lady-in-waiting.