“No, for good. ’Cause you’re getting married.” My hands are still in front of my face. This is the best makeup I’ve ever had. It’s not coming off or getting messed up.
My hands are in front of my face so I don’t have to see Muhammad’s face.
Because if I do, my makeup will most definitely get messed up.
“Janna, come here.” He calls me but actually moves back to me and wraps me in a hug. “I’m not going for good. You think I would have said yes to Sarah asking me to marry her if I’d had to leave my family for good? No way!”
Uh-oh, tears are starting. I try to quickly think about something else.
Layth handing me the yellow handkerchief comes to mind, the handkerchief with the name Muhsin.
And suddenly it hits me.
I’m not alone and won’t be.
I’m surrounded by love. Mom, Muhammad, Dad, Linda, Sarah, the laddoos.
So is Layth—he just can’t see it. Uncle Bilal, Dania, Lamya, his mom—they all love him.
Wait… did Muhammad say Sarah asked him to marry her?
I start giggling into Muhammad’s jacket, my shoulders shaking lightly. He hugs me tighter and says, “Come on, don’t cry. When you find out that I’m never going to be out of your life, you’ll regret these tears. You’ll be like, I wish I’d said good-bye and good riddance to him!”
“I’m not crying. I’m laughing.” I break away from his hug and show him my face, tearless. “Yeah, right, as if Sarah asked you to marry her.”
“She actually did. She cleared it all with her parents and then invited me to dinner with them and pretended to pop it out of a fortune cookie. A slip of paper that said Will you marry me?” He says all this seriously.
“You’re joking. You’re the one who was after Sarah from day one!”
“But she was the one who said I was a keeper.” He grins and puts his hands on his hips. Dad loops his arm through his left one, and Mom loops her arm through his right one and then holds out her arm for me to loop mine through.
“Okay, let’s do this. Walk me down, guys.”
As we walk down the stairs, I’m kind of in awe of Sarah. My sister-in-law-to-be.
To have that kind of guts is goals.
* * *
After the pictures, Tats and I head to the guest sign-in table.
We get there as several people walk toward it from the driveway, and we see more leaving the parking field and getting ready to cross the road.
I turn to a fresh page in the guest book and prepare myself to receive guests.
I realize I’m actually standing taller now, more proudly, and I let the smile I feel take over my face.
The first few families all have girls around my age—Aalya, Varisha, Lybah, and Hanaa—but I don’t know any of them. I realize from their dads and moms exclaiming in delight at how much I’ve grown that they’re people our family used to hang around with in Chicago, when I lived there as a kid. It feels strange that there’s this whole bunch of girls I could have played with long ago that I don’t remember now. At their parents’ encouragement, they lean in to hug me, and I appreciate the way they do it so lightly, so respectfully. I give them all a smile as they go to find seats.
After that, it’s a blur of people coming, smiling, signing, going to sit down.
The blur is interrupted by the arrival of family from Dad’s side, including Imran and Adnan, who pause to take pictures with me and their wives. From Mom’s side, only Amu and his wife, Khaleh, who packs so much sweetness into her tiny quiet self, were able to come to the nikah. The rest of Mom’s family live too far—Mom’s other brother and my little cousins are in Dubai with Teta—so they’re coming to the reception next year, insha’Allah.
Then Soon-Lee and Thomas arrive, and I run ahead to greet them.
“I missed you so so much!” Soon-Lee is almost jumping up and down while hugging me in her lavender dress—which is officially the cutest thing I’ve seen so far.
We squeal some more as Thomas stands apart with his hands in the pockets of his—are those jeans? With a really nice suit jacket?
“What? Dress jeans are a thing. Look it up.” Thomas shrugs, his hands still in his pockets.
“Just stay away from my dad,” I warn. “Oh my gosh, I have to get a pic of you two. This is going in my personal wedding album.”
I take pics of them posing cutely with each other, and as I’m finishing, I notice someone else who makes me scream again.
Sandra. And Ms. Kolbinsky. Dressed to the nines.
Who knew weddings could be so much fun?
Sandra has on a black pantsuit, which looks perfect on her, while Ms. Kolbinsky is in a raspberry-colored lace dress with a black hat that reminds me of those hats British royalty wear in pics. Fascinators, I think they’re called.
I give them hugs, and Sandra, who’s usually quiet and more of a listener, gives me a quick update on her summer so far, while Ms. Kolbinsky keeps pinching my cheeks, telling me she misses sharing food with me. After I promise her that I’ll be back in Eastspring tomorrow, I lead them all to the table to sign in.
That’s when I remember Sausun. Why wasn’t she with Sandra? “Hey, where’s Sausun? The girl who drove you?”
Sandra points toward the barn. “There. Talking to some guy.”
I stand on my tiptoes to see, and, yup, Sausun is talking to Haytham, with her sister by her side. Her sister doesn’t wear niqab, and I can see from all the way down here that she looks impatient. She keeps turning her head and looking around and moving away then coming back.
After I watch Sausun and Haytham for a bit, in between directing my just-arrived friends to their seats, I decide to go over there to check if all’s okay, leaving the table in Tats’s capable hands. There’s something weird about how Haytham is unmoving, while Sausun’s sister keeps moving, and Sausun’s talking nonstop.
I introduced them, so I feel a bit of responsibility for whatever’s going on up there.
* * *
“It just doesn’t feel authentic to who I am. No one would even believe me,” Sausun’s saying as I get closer. “Country music? So totally not my thing.”
Haytham’s everyday, confident stature is gone. It’s like his muscles all deflated, and he’s standing there shriveled. “But it’s Muslim country,” he protests weakly.
“If we’re talking Muslim music, I’m more of a Khalil Ismail fan. Perfect Tupac vibes, you know?” Sausun sees me. “Janna knows. Tell this guy it doesn’t make sense for me to tell people to vote for his singing. My followers would see right through me. They’d think it was a plug.”
I never considered that. It’s true that Sausun has pretty uncompromising taste, but I really thought she’d just help.
“But can’t you make it an unpersonal thing? Can’t you just say if you had to choose for the Muslim Voice competition, you’d say Haytham?” I appeal.
“But that’s the thing. I wouldn’t choose Haytham. I’d choose Abdul Kareem.”
“Who?”
“Abdul Kareem. The man who sings those traditional nasheeds.”
“The old man?”