“I got you another pair in pink.”
But before Emma could take it, Tanesa appeared and reached past her, snatching the bag. She took one look inside and crunched the bag closed.
“You are not welcome here,” she said to Shane, “bringing this kind of trash around. And you”—she pointed her long finger at Emma—“and I are going to have a talk.”
Nobody had ever spoken to Emma like that. She was so stunned she reeled into the living room as the door closed on Shane’s shocked face.
“Emma, sit down.”
Emma dropped onto the couch.
“Let me tell you something about boys and this stuff.” She held up the Palm Bay and the purple thong as if they were diseased. “There is no free lunch with guys. And when they start giving you this kind of stuff, they want the whole buffet. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, but maybe I want the whole buffet, too,” Emma said, making another stab at defiance. But she felt more tentative than she sounded.
“You may think you do, but you don’t. What’s important to you? Really important. Can you tell me that?”
Emma looked like she’d hit her personal mute button.
“What are you good at, girl? Come on, tell me, please. You play an instrument? Swim fast? Do you like art? Soccer? Science?”
“No, I suck at science. I’m not really good at anything.”
“I don’t believe that. What do you want to be?”
“A movie star.” Emma loved telling adults that, even a young one like Tanesa, just to see whether they’d be honest or say something completely stupid, like, “You could do that.”
“Are you working at it?” Tanesa said. “You do any plays at school, that sort of stuff? Or do you just dream about it?”
Emma felt boxed into a corner, but she knew one sure way to shift the subject fast: “Boys like me.”
“I believe that. But if they’re coming around like that loser, they’re only liking one thing about you.”
“So what?”
“So once they get it, they’re gone.”
“Not always.”
“Mostly. Hey, I know.”
“I doubt that. My mom says you’re in a Baptist choir.”
“Yes, that’s right. But do you think I was born in that choir? Uh-uh. I was not. I’ve only been in the choir for two years. Before that I spent most of my time striking the wrong notes with the wrong guys, and I paid for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I got pregnant and had an abortion.”
Shocked, Emma had to look away. When she turned back, Tanesa’s steady gaze met her own.
“Has anybody talked to you about birth control?” asked Tanesa.
“My mom. I know everything. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s good. I’m glad you know everything. Where do you keep your condoms? And are you on the pill, or getting a monthly shot?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“I’m your caregiver. That means I am going to take care of you, and if you’re so sure that the only thing you’re good for is having sex with the first guy who throws some panties at you, then I am going to make doubly sure you have those condoms and birth control pills. I am not kidding. And we are also going over the ABCs of the STDs. Those things and a whole lot more. You hear what I’m saying?”
Emma looked out the window. Shane was gone. She turned back to Tanesa and sighed. “There is something else I like.”
Tanesa waited, one foot tapping the carpet. “What’s that?”
“I like to sing.”
Ruhi’s uncle Malik waited for him at the end of the terminal, where his nephew passed through the airport’s tightest security zone. Bearded, Malik still wore plain black glasses with tinted lenses, and dressed as traditionally as the Saudi immigration officers.
Malik was the father of eight children, with two wives. “One wife was enough,” he often said in the presence of his spouses, “and two were twice as bad.” But he called his children “the great consolation for the curse of matrimony.”
“It is really good to see you, Uncle Malik.”
His uncle hugged him and held him by both shoulders. “I’ll bet it is also great to stand on Saudi soil after the way they treated you in that disgusting country that you call home. You are a hero to us here, Ruhi.”
He certainly hadn’t received a hero’s welcome in passport control, but the Saudi street was often at odds with Saudi officials, which was why the royal family had to keep a tight lid on the populace — and tossed their subjects an occasional bone from the skeleton of democracy.
But Ruhi mentioned nothing about the immigration officer who had questioned him, saying only that it was always good to see family.
Uncle Malik led him to the exit. “You return an older and wiser man, Ruhi. Are you thinking of staying this time, now that the U.S. is the world’s biggest disaster zone?”
It irked Ruhi to hear his uncle take such pleasure in America’s pain, but he responded evenly. “That is possible. I am considering it.”
“I had to laugh when I saw pickup sites for Saudis to donate clothes and food for Americans. I donated one of Shabina’s old hijab. I tell you, that made me laugh even harder. Oh, how the mighty America has fallen. And good riddance, right? So tell me, what did they do to you?”
Hard to get, Ruhi reminded himself again.
“They did what you would expect,” Ruhi said as they approached Malik’s luxurious Mercedes, one of the perks of being an executive of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company.
Ruhi stretched his long legs, appreciating the cool air in the idling car.
The driver, who had been with Malik’s family for forty years, merged the full-size sedan into traffic.
“But what could you tell them, right? You know no secrets. Not like Ahmed.”
Malik had always been so proud of his firstborn boy, even after years of Ahmed’s radicalism.
“I know nothing.”
“Not really. You know Ahmed. I’ll bet they wanted you to tell them everything you could about him.”
What Ruhi wanted to tell Malik was that his uncle’s firstborn was an asshole and the reason he himself was caught up in this mess. But again, he refrained, confining himself to a nod.
“I expect my boy will be a martyr one day.” Malik shook his head. “That is so sad. I share so much of his faith, but not his methods. Saudi Arabia is a great society. We do not want to undermine the great spiritual wealth we have by seeing our best and brightest kill themselves.”
Ahmed? Best and brightest? Ruhi shuddered, he hoped not visibly.
“You will see that you are in the best place in the world to find your faith again, Ruhi. I hope you do. You look like a lost sheep to me.” Malik shook his head again.
“No, the first step to finding my faith again came when they threw me into a dark cell with a big dog. That was the first time I prayed in many years.”
Malik took Ruhi’s hand in both of his. “I’m so sorry they did that, but I am so grateful to Allah that you have found your faith. You remember the Prophet’s words: ‘A sincere repenter of faults is like him who hath committed none.’”
Not another proverb. Uncle Malik had always been a great one for quoting the Prophet. Ruhi forced himself to nod, then looked out the car window.
As far as he could see, the Saudi Arabian desert rose and fell in wind-sculpted dunes. Riyadh lay in the direction they were speeding.
Malik leaned so close that Ruhi could smell his breakfast of eggs and onions. It didn’t smell good. “Did they put that dog on you? I have seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib.”
Ruhi nodded.
“They are beasts!”