Nuah laughs some more. “And you, Janna, are indeed the daughter of the squire of this land.”
Why is Nuah linking me with Haytham?
It’s just a dumb joke, Janna, the calm part of me whispers. So I laugh along, pretending I’m having fun too.
As Nuah, Haytham, and Dawud head over to the stable turned guesthouse, I notice that Nuah pulls out his phone, reads something on it, and smiles.
He didn’t even respond to my text to him earlier, the one I sent during the movie.
Part Two
FRIDAY, JULY 16
HENNA PARTY DAY
To do:
Tell Nuah
Spend time with Mom—without certain people intruding on our conversation!
Assemble wedding favors without losing patience with Muhammad
Go to Jumah
Practice wedding roast with Nuah (!!!)
FINALLY FIND OUT WHO TATS’S DATE IS
Surprise Sarah with the best henna party ever
Chapter Thirteen
There’s an arm around me when I wake up the next morning. I’m disoriented until I see the wrist with its familiar silver bracelet. And hear the familiar light snore.
Mom kept her word.
I glance at the bedside alarm clock. It’s seven forty-five.
I shift, and she dislodges her hand tucked under my shoulder and opens her eyes. She still has her scarf on, but it’s fallen back, and tendrils of brown hair, with graying roots here and there, peep out.
“Morning, sweetums. Did I bother you when I got into bed?”
“No, but Mom, I didn’t know you meant this early when you said early.” I groan and then laugh. “Seven a.m.?”
“Six thirty, actually. I left the hotel right after Fajr.” She smooths my hair and then runs her fingers through it, combing it, and after letting her for a bit, I shake it off. Mom can get very babying if I don’t stop her.
I once heard her tell a friend that she’d wanted five kids because she always wanted some that were young enough to baby when the others got older.
She ended up with two kids in real life and, no, I’m not willing to be perpetually babied.
“Did you pray Fajr?” she asks, turning onto her back. “You were snoring when I came in.”
“No, missed it. I’ll make it up now.”
Her head swivels. “Have you been doing your prayers here, Janna?”
“Yeah, just not Fajr on time always. Only when Muhammad wakes me up sometimes.”
She sighs and tuns back to the ceiling. “Okay, I’m not going to lecture you now. I came early to spend some happy time with you in peace before everyone wakes up.”
“Wait, are you even my mom?” I flip on my side to face her. “Did you forget that I’m not a morning person? I thought you meant eleven or something.”
“Even just lying here with you is spending time. You’re my baby, so, you know, breathing you in is enough. Even your morning breath.”
“Ugh.” Still groggy, I let my eyes settle into opening by gazing beyond Mom, at the photo on the wall above the tall dresser, an aerial shot of a beach, one of the generic pictures on the theme of “vacation” that Dad has hanging here and there throughout the house, and I think about love. And the different things it means to different people.
I don’t know if I would be excited about breathing in my kid in the morning is what I want to say.
But what about your one true love, the person you wake up next to every day?
Would I want to breath in Nuah? is what I really want to ask.
Um. I don’t know. He makes me feel so good—when I think of him, when I look at him, when I’m around him (well, except for yesterday), but I don’t know if I’d want to breath him in like that.
I don’t want to breath anyone in.
I’m okay admitting I have proximity issues.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” Mom asks. “Your eyes became so still suddenly.”
I shake myself out of my reverie and am about to give my standard answer of “nothing” when this sudden, uninvited thought enters my head: Hello, what about telling her the truth?
And maybe it’s this disruptive thought, and maybe it’s because I’ll be going to college in a month, going away from Mom after having been away from her for three weeks already, that I can’t stop myself from blurting out, “Nuah. I’m thinking about Nuah.”
I cringe. Did I just do that? Tell Mom about Nuah?
She flips herself to face me now. But I put a hand out and gently turn her back so that she can’t see me.
Then I lie on my back too. “Can we both stare at the ceiling so we can forget what I just said?”
“We can stare at the ceiling, yes, but no, I’m not going to forget what you just said.” She turns only her head. “Can I look at you at least to talk?”
“No. If we’re going to talk about this, we have to look at the ceiling.”
“Okay, looking at the ceiling. Talking about Nuah.” She pumps her fists in the air above her. “YES. Nuah! A perfect first crush! Janna, I’m proud of you!”
“He’s not my first crush, Mom.”
“I know, Jeremy was your first crush. I mean a perfect first proper crush.”
“What?” I look, no, stare with hints of glare at her. “How did you know about Jeremy?”
Jeremy’s this guy that I lost my mind to two summers ago. He of the perfect forehead, but unperfect academic aspirations and, ultimately, unmatched faith. We parted ways after what must have been the shortest foray into tentative potential love ever.
The Jeremy thing taught me that I have to be strategic in who I choose to set my sights on in the future. That it was kind of wasting my crush time to put all my pining into a train going nowhere.
The Jeremy thing, and a brief detour to this other guy at school who also didn’t cut it, taught me that Nuah made sense all along.
But I thought I’d kept the entire reconnaissance mission to discover the potential mines and pitfalls in a girl’s route to true love from Mom. “Ugh, how did you know about Jeremy?” I ask again.
“Moms know. And remember when he came by the apartment? With Tats, to see if you wanted to go hang out? I saw your face, Janna, and I knew. Anyway, Nuah! He’s so special! And he treats you so well, kindly, always. I’ve seen it!”
“Mom, he liked me for a long time.”
“I know. I know. I told you—moms know these things. Well, this mom knows things. He didn’t come over all the time just to hang out with Muhammad, you know.”
“You knew?” This was making me feel a bit weird now. That Mom was in the background, rubbing her hands together, thinking, Perfect. Two Muslim kids—one a true gentleman, the other my precious baby—falling for each other.
“Yes, and I’m happy.”
“You are? Why?” I’m not sure I like this. I hadn’t wanted to tell her, but I hadn’t expected this, either.
“Because he’s a good kid and I—I don’t know—it makes me feel safe, to know my kid likes a good kid.” She sits up and fixes her pillow so that it props up behind her before she leans back on it. “I think it’s because he values the same things you do. It’s easier to build a life together when you share the same values.”