Rifling through the underwear clearance bin, my mother says to me, “My great-aunt Fatima couldn’t get pregnant for ten years, so her husband took a second wife. Then, subhan allah, she and the other woman both conceived that same year.”
I look wearily at my mother as she pulls out a pair of baby-blue nylon briefs and holds them up high and I imagine them inflating like a hot-air balloon and lifting my mother up and away through the Marshall’s department store.
“What’s your point, Ma?” I lift a pair of black and red satin panties, hoping my mother doesn’t notice when I drop them in my cart.
She does. “What are those for?” she asks me.
I return them to the bin. “What’s the point of your aunt’s story?”
As soon as she turns away and pushes her cart down another aisle, I grab the panties and hide them under a terrycloth robe that’s been marked down fifty percent.
“No point,” my mother says, cocking her head to the side so I can hear her as she wheels ahead of me. She’s wearing a matching hijab and abaya, cream-colored with gold trimming. Her pudgy stature seems even shorter when she’s covered up in public. “I’m just saying that your sister’s getting married in a few months so maybe you’ll find someone, too, inshallah.”
I grip the handle of my cart, my knuckles turning white, and stop within inches of my mother’s heels. “Ma, I just got a divorce.”
“It’s been eight months, habibti,” she says. “Look how lovely you are, mashallah. Who would suspect you’re not a virgin?”
I follow her to Menswear and watch as she rummages through a rack packed with tacky-colored sweaters. She grabs an ugly brown and green knit pullover. “Do you think this will fit your Baba?”
“Ma, I’m not going to rush into another marriage.” I take the sweater from her and return it to the rack. I hand her a cranberry-colored one. “Here. Baba likes zippers.”
I will wear the satin panties tonight. I have no intentions of sleeping with any arrabi man on a first date; it’s just to feel sexy again. You take for granted how much touching goes on in a marriage—even a bad one—and when it ends, it’s like leaving a parking garage. As soon as you drive under the raised security arm, you can’t suddenly shift in reverse. After the third week of separation, I wondered, panicked, if I’d ever have sex again.
I met “AmeerAmeer” just a week ago on Arabica online dating. I don’t disclose this information to my mother. She considers many things ayb: yoga pants, Facebook, women smoking in public. She has an infinite list of shamelessness.
As we near the checkout, my mother stops every few paces to inspect a purse or sniff sample bottles of perfume.
“Ooof! What man would want a woman smelling like that?” she says and sticks a rust-tinted bottle under my nose.
“It’s just spicier than what you’re used to, Ma,” I say, taking the bottle and returning it to the display.
“You’d be perfect for an older zalama,” she says, squirting a sample from another bottle on her wrist then rubs it against the other. “Mmmm. Smell that. Now that’s the scent of a marra.”
I crinkle my nose and wave her hand away from my face.
I’m only thirty-two, and if I decide to marry again, my mother believes I’m already too mature for any man under thirty-eight. But, I ignore her assessment when I register on Arabica for a free one-month trial and defiantly click on the 25-35 age range. I choose a username and become Haneen78.
Within an hour of posting my photo I receive over a dozen “winks.” It’s a picture from the Morton Arboretum where I’m standing in a front of a carpet of daffodils. I’m wearing shades, but it’s a full body shot. The angle makes me appear leaner and taller than I actually am. Or maybe it’s the sundress. All in all, it’s an optimistic photograph.
A torrent of personal messages floods my inbox from men with usernames like Falasteenpride or Hookahluvr. One came from Sultan25: Wld lke 2 get 2 no u.
I finally settled on AmeerAmeer. He’s thirty-forty and doesn’t have a profile pic and I think it’s a good thing because the lower my expectations, the better the date will go. An androgynous silhouette is in its place, with a “no photo available” caption. I accept his invitation to meet for dinner, and then almost cancel when he suggests Olive Garden. I decide to give AmeerAmeer a chance and instruct him to meet me at Café Iberico on LaSalle Street. When faced with a selection of tapas, a man’s inhibitions tend to manifest.
My mother rolls ahead of me again and we loop back to Women’s. She pretends not to notice when we pass Newborns where matching knit hats and booties are displayed. It’s the only section she doesn’t reach out to touch fabric or pull accessories off a shelf.
“Has anyone come to see the condo again?” she asks. She’s now sifting through the pantyhose drawer like a filing cabinet. “Any interest?”
I don’t tell her that I’ve decided to stay in the city, in Printers Row so I can still bike along the lakefront, and it’s close to Columbia College where I’m an admissions officer. “No. It’s a bad time to sell, Ma,” I say.
“I worry about you being alone. So much crime,” she says and we both know that’s not it at all.
In Misses, she makes a new discovery.
“Look here!” She holds a package of flower-shaped nipple shields. “You know who can use these?” She waves the pasties at me, accusingly. “Ghadeer, Muna’s daughter. Ya ayb a’shoom! They’re like thimbles when she’s in a t-shirt.”
“Yes, I’ve seen them,” I say. When I was married, I couldn’t orgasm without him constantly rubbing my small nipples. I wonder if new fingers would have to do the same.
“Are you ready, Ma?” I push my cart around hers and roll ahead to checkout.
“Yallah, let’s go,” she says, but stops again in Housewares. She turns to me with a purple fluted vase. Peacock feathers overlay its base and it’s like a dozen unblinking eyes studying me.
“Is that for Rehan?” My sister has already registered for gifts. “I don’t think that matches her decor, Ma,” I say. The fatigue of being with my mother begins to settle on my shoulders, and I lean against my cart, letting my arms rest across the bar. I want to drop her off, grab a cup of coffee, and get my nails done.
My mother turns the vase upside down to check its price. “Mish ghalli,” she says. “I thought it’d be more expensive. Look how lovely it is.”
Before I can respond, she carefully sets it in my cart. The terrycloth robe cushions the vase within its folds. “It will look nice on your coffee table.”
I don’t say anything and my mother seems glad that I don’t because she is not one for sentimentality. I smile and reach over to squeeze her hand, and it’s slightly liver-spotted and paler than the rich olive her skin had been when she was a bride.
We roll to checkout without stopping again.
When I arrive at Café Iberico, the hostess, wearing a one-shouldered dress and who looks like a European model with long blonde hair parted down the middle of her scalp, welcomes me. I inform her I’m meeting someone, but I’m not sure he’s arrived.
“It’s a blind date,” I say and she gives me a smile that’s more sympathetic than encouraging.
Near the bar, I see a dark-haired man speaking on his cellphone, his back to me. I sense it’s AmeerAmeer. He appears shorter than the 6’2 profile he’s posted and a few pounds heavier. He’ll turn around and know me because he’s had the advantage of seeing my photo.
The hostess is anxious to seat me, but I’m in no hurry. I stand and wait, imagining all of the possibilities.
Sahar Mustafah is a writer, editor, and teacher from Chicago. Her work has appeared in Word Riot, Hair Trigger 35, Mizna, New Scriptor, Chicago Literati, Ploughshares, Prime Number, and Dinarzad’s Children: an Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Literature. She is the 2012 recipient of the Guild Literary Complex Fiction Award and a 2013 Pushcart Prize nomination, and most recently won 3rd Place in the 2013 Gold Circle Awards from Columbia University Scholastic Press Association for collegiate magazines. A Follett Graduate Scholar at Columbia College Chicago, Sahar is at work on her MFA thesis collection of short stories. She the co-founder and fiction editor of Bird’s Thumb, an online literary journal.
