Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Asma pulled the carafe off the coffee maker and placed her stainless steel tumbler directly under the basket while it was still brewing. It was her third cup of coffee that morning and she didn’t have the patience to sit around waiting for the entire pot to brew before getting her fix.
She had been working nonstop—so much for residents not working over eighty hours a week. The frenetic work schedule had her exhausted, as did constantly thinking about Farooq. When they first reconnected, Farooq said he’d moved on. But either he hadn’t been entirely truthful or something had shifted between them; she just couldn’t figure out how she might test these new waters to see if his feelings for her had, indeed, changed.
Her phone buzzed. She picked it up, expecting a return call from Fatima. She’d called her earlier in the day to check in after having to cancel dinner with her that night because of work. But it was Maryam.
“Can’t talk, Maryam, I’m about to see a patient,” Asma said by way of greeting.
“I need you to pick me up.”
“Where are you?”
“In Daly City.”
“Why are you in Daly City?”
“Long story.”
“I’m at work.”
“My car broke down.”
“That’s why we have Triple A.”
“I don’t have my card. And Hassan’s not picking up. He’s at work.”
“As am I!”
“Oh my God, Asma! The boys’ field trip to the zoo is this afternoon and I’m stranded.”
“Call Saba, she doesn’t have her GRE class today.”
“You know I hate asking her for anything.”
“Oh, Maryam, have you spoken to Abu?” It had been more than a week since she’d told her father about remaining in Palo Alto, and Mr. Ibrahim was still refusing to answer her calls. Despite Asma’s request, Iman had refused to referee.
“So now you want my help?” she had asked. “You’re perfectly fine going over my head to Abu to boss us around from out there. You’re on your own for this one.”
Asma wondered if she could get Maryam to intervene.
“No, why would I call Abu? He’s in Sacramento. You think it would be faster for him to come here and pick me up?”
Asma spotted Jackson gesturing at her from the nurse’s station.
“Never mind. Maryam, I have to go.”
Asma grabbed her tumbler and headed toward Jackson.
“What’s going on?” Asma asked.
“We’ve just had another admit from Green Meadows,” Jackson replied. “This one is an eighty-five-year-old woman with dizziness, a fever, and shortness of breath. Bacterial pneumonia, I’d bet my life on it.”
“Just like the others,” Asma said, glancing over the intake form in the woman’s chart. “I thought the health department was investigating the Legionnaires’ outbreak. The last I heard, they ordered Green Meadows to replace all the air-conditioning units in the building.”
“I asked her about that,” Jackson replied. “She said they started doing work on the air conditioners a month ago but only got through about a third of the building. The rest still have the old units. Apparently the administrative staff claims they’re clear of Legionnaires’, but people are starting to get sick again.”
“I’ll put another call in to the health department,” Asma said, handing the chart back to Jackson. “Thanks for letting me know.”
—
The cake was in the shape of a Quran. This was the cake du jour at ameen parties, gatherings that celebrated a child’s reading of the entire Quran in Arabic, but Asma still thought it strange—and slightly sacrilegious—to bite into a chocolate page covered with God’s word in icing.
A friend of Aunty Bushra’s was throwing a huge party at her home to celebrate her granddaughter. Bushra insisted they all attend. She said it was important for Zaki and Zayd to see what they could look forward to once they, too, finished reading the Quran. How religious instruction had changed since she was growing up, Asma thought. Her Quran lessons had been with the hafiz at the local mosque, she and her sisters huddled around him reading under the threat of hellfire. The fire and brimstone of her youth had been replaced by frosting and Bavarian cream.
Asma, standing in the middle of a crowd of children struggling to get to the front of the dessert table, felt herself jostled by small bodies. She stood firm, holding up Zaki to help him get a better look at the cookie crescents and stars, cake pops in the shape of mini mosques, and tasbeehs made of chocolate-covered raisins.
“God, who doesn’t have a Quran cake these days,” said Maryam, staring at the table. She scooped up Zayd, who had been tugging at her sleeve, and pushed her way to the table, grabbing some dessert for herself and the boys. One look at the plates his mother was holding and Zaki scrambled out of Asma’s arms.
Asma waited until the crowd dispersed before helping herself to some cake, taking extra slices for Lubna and Saba. The cake looked so delicious, she figured it would almost be a sin not to eat it.
Asma looked around the living room and saw Maryam heading over to a corner where Lubna and Saba sat on metal folding chairs, their eyes focused on their phones. Asma made her way over to them, dodging toys, half-empty plates and cups, and car seats with abandoned sleeping infants.
“This cake is amazing,” Asma said, taking a bite as she settled into an empty seat next to Saba. “Here, I brought you some.”
“No, thanks,” Saba said, hand on her stomach. “I’m so stuffed.”
“Me too,” Lubna added, shaking her head as Asma held out the plate to her. “I want to leave already. This is so hella boring.”
“Things have become infinitely more interesting since I started eating this cake,” said Asma, marveling at the plate in her hand. “You sure you don’t want some?”
“I don’t know why Ammi drags us to these things,” said Lubna, shaking her head. “We’re too old for this.”
“I know, there’s literally no one else here our age.”
“If you were at home, you’d be sitting on the couch on your phone,” said Maryam.
“Which is what we’re doing here,” Saba said. “But at home we could be in our PJs and wouldn’t have to answer a bunch of questions from nosy aunties about when we’re getting married.”
“God, I can’t wait for that line of questioning to be over,” said Lubna.
“Me too!” replied Saba.
“How are things going with you and Farooq?” Maryam asked Lubna.
At the sound of Farooq’s name, Asma stuffed the last of her cake into her mouth and started in on the second slice.
“He’s been crazy busy with work,” Lubna said. “I haven’t seen him in two weeks.”
Asma’s ears perked up. That meant Lubna hadn’t seen Farooq since their dinner at Dr. Saucedo’s house.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to him about this sponsorship deal I was just offered. And usually he’s so easy to talk to, but now that he’s gone AWOL I’m starting to think that he doesn’t feel the same way about me.”
“It’s probably just like you said, he’s busy,” said Saba.
“But it’s not just that. I feel like I really open up with him, but he doesn’t do the same.”
“That’s all men,” said Maryam.
“You should just ask him directly,” Saba said. “That’s the healthiest thing to do in a relationship.”
“Definitely don’t do that,” Maryam countered. “Honesty is generally good, but you don’t want too much of it before you have a ring.”
Asma felt her stomach turn at the conversation. There were the competing pulls of jealousy at the prospect of an engagement ring for Lubna, and also hope for herself. Hope, in that Farooq had perhaps begun to pull away from Lubna.
“I’ll be right back,” Asma said, getting up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
Once inside the tiny powder room, Asma threw some water on her face. When Farooq and Asma were together, she’d often heard him talk about the necessity for directness in undefined Muslim boy-girl friendships. She remembered Farooq telling his roommate not to waste time wondering where he stood with a mutual female friend—to clarify what was going on with her or move on. So if Farooq hadn’t been clear with Lubna about the contours of their current relationship, maybe it meant that they didn’t have one. Or maybe things had changed in the years since college. Maybe Farooq realized that relationships were less black-and-white than they’d seemed when he was twenty. Asma could go crazy, turning the implications of his silence over and over in her head.
Asma left and made a beeline for the percolator of chai in the kitchen. She rummaged around the table to find a clean, empty cup in between discarded sugar packet wrappers and used plastic teaspoons. Nothing noisy enough to stop her from overhearing the aunties congregated nearby.
“MashAllah, my daughter is pregnant with her third child. That’ll be eight grandchildren for me. MashAllah.”
“Oh, MashAllah. I have ten grandchildren, they are such a blessing. My eldest grandson just made it into Dartmouth. MashAllah.”
“Dartmouth? MashAllah. That’s a good school. My grandson is premed—at Cornell! That’s an Ivy League school, MashAllah.”
“Dartmouth is in the Ivy League too. MashAllah.”
Asma couldn’t help but grin, despite her mood. In the mouths of the aunties, MashAllah could simultaneously ward off the evil eye and give a symbolic middle finger.
“That reminds me, did you hear about Huma’s boy, Salman?”
“The one who went to Harvard?”
“Yes! His wife just left him!”
Asma’s amusement was replaced by a cold wave of horror. They were talking about Fatima.
“She seemed to be the quiet type, but I heard she was very bossy, always complaining that he was working too much.”
“Poor Salman is a lawyer, he has to work hard!”
“I heard she wanted to move to New York, even though his job is here!”
Asma felt her hand burning and looked down to see her mug overflowing with chai. She grabbed a dish towel from the counter and bent over to clean up the mess, choking back the rage gathering in her throat.
Fatima had abandoned her dream of going to grad school. And here, all these years later, these women were using that sacrifice against her, assuming that was why she had left him?
“These girls today!” One of the aunties gasped in mock outrage.
“That’s not what happened!” Asma interrupted before she could stop herself. It was one thing for the aunties to gossip about her lack of marriage prospects or the personal price of her career ambitions. It was another for them to talk about Fatima, who had always played by their rules, done everything correctly, right up until the moment she couldn’t anymore.
The aunties stopped talking.
“He cheated on her! He was sleeping with one of his co-workers.”
No one responded, although she heard a few clucking tongues and whispered Astaghfirullahs.
Asma stood glaring at them before turning on her heel and storming out of the kitchen. But she could still hear the hushed comments even from the next room.
“I don’t believe he did such a thing.”
“He comes from such a good family.”
“Sometimes these things happen, nothing to leave him for.”
There was no way to win. Asma understood it now—none of the women she knew would be spared the gossip that accompanied even the slightest misstep, even if they’d sacrificed their own happiness to live by the rules, like Fatima had. Asma staggered out of the house and into the garden, just in time for the two slices of Quran cake to come back up in the bushes.
—
It had been over two months since Mr. Ibrahim and Iman had moved to Sacramento, and Sophia and Yusef’s housewarming was Asma’s first time back at her old home. How odd to be visiting as a guest, she thought, as she pulled into the driveway. But as she entered through the French doors with gold handles that her father had insisted on installing, Asma barely recognized the place. The Abdullahs had managed to make her father’s ostentatious McMansion look chic. Free of the Ibrahims’ clutter, the striking pillars, double grand staircase, and cool marble floors actually seemed modern and sleek, like a home in Architectural Digest .
Maryam, of course, wasn’t impressed.
“I hate what they’ve done to the place,” she said as they walked past the bare floors and sparse shelves on their way to the back patio, snapping pictures on her phone to send to Iman. “It’s so cold and impersonal.”
The transformation of their home extended to the outside. Except for her mother’s garden—which Asma was relieved to see the Abdullahs had maintained—the backyard was the complete opposite of the last time it had seen a group of people, at her father’s retirement party. This was a casual barbecue, with no caterer, ice sculpture, or miniature cakes in sight. The Qawwali singers on the stage had been replaced by a side table with an iPhone and small speakers. Children were not only invited, they ran underfoot, several splashing in the pool.
Asma, too, was different this time. She’d made an effort with her outfit and makeup, for starters. But something else had changed as well, in response to the gossip she’d overheard about Fatima. She didn’t want to be like her, giving up something meaningful in order to please those who could never be pleased. She no longer cared that her father wanted her to move to Sacramento and get into private practice. She was proud of the life she’d built for herself and she intended to see it through.
Zayd and Zaki ran to join the other kids, while Hassan headed over to Yusef at the grill crowded with hot dogs, hamburgers, and kabobs. Asma took in the scene. A herd of men surrounded Yusef, drinking soda and talking loudly, focused more on their phones than the meat on the grill. Not far from the men sat their wives, chatting while tending to small children and periodically yelling across the backyard at the older ones. Across the lawn, as far as possible from the children and the married couples, were the young single women, Lubna and Saba among them.
To Asma’s disappointment, Farooq was nowhere in sight. She was finally ready to face him, and had even been hoping that she could get him alone this afternoon so they could talk about what had happened at Dr. Saucedo’s house.
“Reema Akhtar is here?” Maryam scoffed. “She said she was too busy to join the parents’ committee at the boys’ school. But she’s such a social climber, of course she’s not too busy to figure out a way to get herself invited to something like this.” Maryam stalked off, leaving Asma to stand awkwardly by herself.
She was saved by Sophia, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, an empty tray in hand.
“Asma! I didn’t see you come in,” she said. “I am so behind. I haven’t even finished the salad.”
Asma admired Sophia’s casual honesty. In their social circle, a hostess would never admit to not having everything together. In fact, Asma had been working one night when an acquaintance of Maryam’s had come into the emergency room, complaining of stomach pain. The doctors had examined her closely, running multiple tests, sending her home hours later when they could find nothing. It was a nurse who told Asma the real reason for the woman’s trip to the ER.
“She had a dinner party planned this evening for a hundred people,” the nurse, an older white lady, said to Asma in the break room. “And an hour before the first guest was to arrive, she found out the caterer had mixed up the dates.
“Can you believe it?” the nurse had asked Asma with a shake of her head. “She pretended she was sick! I told her, honey, you should’ve just ordered pizza or bought those rotisserie chicken dinners from the grocery store. Your guests would’ve understood!”
Asma had turned away to mask her smile, tickled by the image of Maryam’s friends, dressed to the nines, chomping on drumsticks from Costco. The guests would’ve understood absolutely nothing—they would’ve spent the evening asking themselves and each other why the hostess hadn’t double-, triple-, and quadruple-checked with the caterer. Who waits until an hour before a dinner party to have catered food delivered anyway?
“Need help?” Asma asked Sophia.
“Please, if you don’t mind?”
In the kitchen, Asma chopped cucumbers and tomatoes while Sophia prepared the dressing. She held out a spoon to Asma, who leaned in for a taste.
“I’m so impressed by your spread,” Asma said. “Aunty Bushra’s been trying to teach me to cook, but the lessons aren’t going so well. I think it’s only partly my fault, though.”
“Not like you’ve had anything else to do—you know, like being a doctor,” Sophia said, picking up the salad. “I’ll take this out. Do you mind grabbing the plate of kabobs in the fridge?”
Asma opened the door to the fridge as Sophia went outside. The plate was on the top shelf, wedged between a gallon of milk and an open bowl of yogurt. Asma had just maneuvered it out when she saw, through the crack in the door, Farooq enter the kitchen. She felt the same flutter in her stomach that used to accompany adolescent crushes—a feeling she’d long since thought she’d outgrown.
She shut the fridge, and Farooq jumped at the sudden movement. “Hi,” Asma said, carefully. She didn’t want to risk whatever had built up between them that night at Dr. Saucedo’s house, and she didn’t think she could take it if he looked at her as coldly as he had during the last conversation they’d had in a kitchen. When they’d poured out chai together, and he’d told her that he didn’t think about her at all anymore. But to her relief, there was no coldness in his eyes this time when he looked at her. They were kind, even. Warm. Almost like the way he used to look at her.
“Hey,” he replied softly. “If you have time today, we should probably talk.”
“Okay,” Asma said, something like anxiety—or even excitement—gripping her stomach.
But Maryam was nothing if not the master of ruining a moment, so Asma couldn’t be surprised when her sister chose that instant to stick her head through the patio door.
“What are you guys doing?”
Farooq and Asma exchanged glances. Now was not the time.
“Bringing out more stuff,” Farooq said. He grabbed a two-liter off the counter, then slipped out the door past Maryam.
Farooq took over Yusef’s place at the grill and the crowd of men drifted away, quickly replaced by Lubna and Saba, who pounced the moment Farooq appeared. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who’d been desperate to talk to Farooq today. Asma stood at the patio door, kabob plate in hand, and hesitated. And she realized, as she watched Lubna smile as she chatted with Farooq, that any reconciliation between Asma and Farooq would come at Lubna’s expense. Asma, somehow, had become the other woman.
Lubna saw Asma standing at the patio door and excitedly waved her over. Asma headed toward them, heavy with guilt.
“Asma, you have to come too!”
“Where?” Asma asked, placing the platter on the table next to Farooq.
“To San Francisco! This weekend!”
“Farooq invited us,” Lubna explained. “There’s a huge tech conference. He’s giving a presentation on Saturday morning. We can stay all weekend and hang out with a bunch of his friends!”
Despite Lubna’s enthusiasm, and the fact that Asma loved San Francisco, Asma would happily have pulled a triple shift at the hospital if it meant that she could escape a weekend spent with Lubna and Farooq.
“Thanks for the invite,” Amsa replied, feigning real regret, “but I don’t think I can. Graduation is in three weeks and I have a lot going on with residency.”
Lubna and Saba exchanged a distressed glance.
“Please, Asma, Ammi will totally let us go if you come!” Saba said. “Think of it as a favor to us.”
“Yeah, you should come,” added Farooq. Asma was surprised by the resolve in his voice. He seemed not to share her hesitance about spending the weekend together…with Lubna.
“You have to,” Saba added, her smile already betraying the fact that she knew they were wearing Asma down.
“Come where?” Maryam materialized out of nowhere.
The delight on Lubna’s and Saba’s faces vanished. There was silence as Maryam looked from one person to the next. No one answered.
“Where? Asma, you have to come where?”
Asma shot Saba and Lubna an apologetic look before responding. “San Francisco.”
“Ugh, I hate San Francisco,” said Maryam. “It’s so cold. And dirty. The sidewalks are always covered in poop.”
Lubna and Saba looked relieved, their smiles returning.
“But if Asma is going, Hassan and I will come too,” Maryam continued, as if there were no question in it at all. As if it were as simple as that.
Lubna and Saba sighed. But it was just a momentary disappointment, as the plan to spend the weekend in the city with Farooq and his friends was too exciting to permanently dampen their moods. As they chattered about the trip, Asma kept glancing over at Farooq, who was focused on the grill. What did he mean by inviting her to San Francisco? Was it simply so Saba and Lubna would be allowed to go? Or was he looking for the same thing as Asma: an excuse to spend time together, to figure out what on earth was going on with the two of them?