CHAPTER 1 #3
Solomon ordered something sensible. Safiya ordered enough food to feed three people and then announced that she probably wouldn't finish.
"You do this every time."
"Do what?"
"Order with ambition."
"I like options."
"You like wasting money."
"I take leftovers."
"You forget leftovers."
"I do not."
Solomon looked at her.
Safiya sighed. "Sometimes."
When the food came, she stole a piece of his toast.
He stared at her.
"What?"
"You have toast."
"Yours is darker."
"You said mine looked burnt."
"I changed my mind."
"See, this is why I don't trust you."
She laughed. "Over toast?"
"It starts with toast. Next thing I know you done took half my plate and revised history."
"That is dramatic."
"That is documented."
Safiya laughed hard enough that the woman at the next table smiled at them.
It was such a small thing, sitting across from him while syrup stuck to the side of her fork, but Safiya felt full in a way breakfast could not explain.
This was what she had missed overseas.
Not the declarations.
Not the serious conversations about marriage and futures.
This.
His face across a table.
His hand reaching for the hot sauce.
The way he squinted when he read small print.
The way he knew she was about to ask for a bite before she asked.
Ordinary access.
After breakfast they walked through a discount home store because Safiya said she needed one thing.
She needed no things.
Within six minutes she had a basket.
"What happened to one thing?"
"I remembered other things."
"You remembered a candle?"
"The apartment needs atmosphere."
"Your apartment got electricity."
"That is not atmosphere."
She picked up a throw pillow.
Solomon looked at the price tag and put it back.
"Excuse me."
"No."
"That's not yours."
"Neither is the couch you're trying to decorate."
Safiya snatched the pillow back. "One day when we have our house, you are not controlling the decor."
"Our house?"
The words had escaped before she thought about them.
Safiya looked at the pillow.
Solomon did not rescue her from the moment.
He leaned against the cart.
"Our house?"
She hated how shy she suddenly felt.
"You know what I mean."
"No. Explain."
"Solomon."
"I'm listening."
She looked at him.
He was enjoying this.
"If we get married."
"If?"
"Do not start."
He smiled. "Where the TV going?"
Safiya immediately forgot her embarrassment.
"Not in the main living room."
"What?"
"I want that space peaceful."
"It's a living room."
"Exactly."
"Where people live."
"People can live without a seventy-inch television screaming at them."
"Ain't nobody screaming."
"You know what I mean. I want somewhere we can pray together. Read. Sit."
"We can pray with a TV in the room."
"That's not the point."
"Then what's the point?"
Safiya put the pillow in the cart and started walking.
"The point is I want one room in my future house that doesn't feel like the whole world is demanding something."
Solomon stopped joking.
She kept walking until she realized he wasn't beside her.
When she turned, he was watching her.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That's your lying face."
He caught up.
"I heard you."
Safiya looked down.
It had been a simple statement, but Solomon heard the thing beneath it.
She wanted a room where nobody needed anything.
A room where usefulness wasn't the price of admission.
A room where she could just be.
Maybe that was why she pictured prayer there.
Maybe that was why she pictured Solomon there too.
He nudged the cart forward.
"Fine."
She looked at him.
"Fine what?"
"Prayer room."
Her smile appeared.
"But I'm putting a TV somewhere."
"Obviously."
"And it ain't gonna be no little TV."
"Why do men think television size is a personality?"
"Why do women think pillows need cousins?"
Safiya gasped.
They argued through three more aisles.
Neither bought the pillow.
Solomon bought the candle.
He pretended it was because Safiya had put it in his hand at checkout.
She knew better.
That evening, Maghrib found them in the car.
Safiya's prayer reminder chimed while Solomon was explaining something about an investment he had been researching.
He stopped mid-sentence.
They looked at each other.
Safiya smiled. "Allah said enough finance."
Solomon laughed. "Apparently."
They found a quiet place, made wudu as best they could with what was available, and prayed.
Safiya still watched him sometimes.
Not because she wanted to copy every movement anymore.
Because there was something about seeing the man she loved bow before Allah that rearranged her understanding of him.
Solomon could be stubborn with people.
He could debate a point until everybody else got tired.
He could carry himself like he had an answer even when he was still searching.
But in salah he put his forehead down like everybody else.
Safiya loved that.
She also feared how much she loved everything connected to him.
Later, sitting in the car again, she rested her head against the window.
"You tired?" he asked.
"A little."
"Want me to take you home?"
She should have said yes.
Instead: "Not yet."
Solomon looked over.
Safiya smiled.
He started another video.
They sat there another two hours.