Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Read online

  While we drive, I look at all the kids walking to school with their bookbags and trendy clothes. I’m the only Muslim in my school. It’s weird, but at the same time cool. Since we live in the middle of Miami-Dade, most of my classmates are Hispanic. I blend in, with my dark hair and brown eyes, but at the same time I’m different. Dad is Syrian and Mom is Iranian. Grandpa once told me that he forgave my mother for being Iranian, as if it’s a sin not to be Syrian. I was like, okay Grandpa, forgive someone for something they can’t control! My mom didn’t choose her nationality. But I didn’t really say all of that to him, since he scares me.

  I meet with my bestest friend Lisa Gomez in front of school. We’ve known each other since kindergarten. We’re exact opposites. I’m brainy and love to read, while she’s in love with celebrities and only reads magazines. She’s tall and skinny, while I’m short (five foot three) and on the heavy side. We have the same round brown eyes and curly hair, though, and sometimes our friends joke that we’re sisters.

  There’s twenty minutes left until the bell rings, so we hang out on a bench by the school entrance watching buses and parents drop off students. Lisa has some squiggly black marks on her upper arm that she made with a Bic pen. She’s totally obsessed with Angelina Jolie and literally wants to be her.

  She catches me looking at her messy tribal armband, which must have gotten smeared when she dressed this morning. “I can’t wait until I turn eighteen,” she says. “I’ll be in a tattoo parlor on that birthday.”

  I sigh, because I’ve heard all of this before. “You shouldn’t get a tattoo because you might regret it,” I say. “Can you imagine being an old lady with tattoos all over your wrinkled skin?”

  “There’s always laser surgery. Aren’t you getting any tattoos?”

  “No. Mom said it’s against our religion.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible,” Lisa says with genuine sadness in her voice. She pulls a magazine out of her bookbag and shows me the cover story about Angelina’s latest adoption.

  “She’s going to run her own school the way she’s going,” I say.

  Lisa brushes her curls out of her face. “I’m sure this will be her last kid.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Ohmigosh, look at him.”

  “Who?” I say.

  This awesome guy with deep-set eyes, brown hair falling around his face, and broad shoulders walks past us. It’s Peter Hurley from our biology class. Lisa’s been drooling over him recently and I think he’s cute, too. He’s quiet and keeps to himself. He isn’t loud and obnoxious like the popular boys.

  “He’s like Brad Pitt,” Lisa dreamily says.

  I don’t see the resemblance, but Lisa likes to humor herself by comparing everyone to a celebrity. I look like Penelope Cruz, with an added twenty pounds and glasses, and Lisa is Jennifer Lopez (during her Selena days, not when she became blond and bronzed after becoming superfamous).

  “He’s hot,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s sit next to him in lab today.”

  “That’s a good idea, Almira.”

  The bell rings and we get up to go inside. As we walk, I lick my finger and use it to swipe at the Bic tattoo below Lisa’s sleeve. I rub a good chunk off.

  “Almira!” she screeches.

  I step away from her to get to my locker, which happens to be next to Peter’s, and I get a good look at his Greek god profile—he resembles the gorgeous statues from the world civ textbook that I’ve taken a liking to, even though it’s sort of sick to lust over a hunk of carved marble.

  • • •

  Mr. Gregory is my biology teacher. He used to be a Hollywood actor but somehow ended up teaching science at Coral Gables Preparatory. He’s hot, for an older guy. Lately I’m thinking that most guys are hot. It must be my hormones. I imagine all these wriggling bubbles of hormones flowing through my blood, swooshing through my body in swift rage. They’re microscopic, but they pack a punch.

  While watching Twilight, I saw Mr. Gregory in a cafeteria scene. He was an extra in that film, and he’s young enough to pull off being a high school student, but he denied it when many of us saw the movie last week on cable. So my teacher is sort of famous and had the honor of working with Robert Pattinson, who’s immensely talented and extremely hot.

  Mr. Gregory flashes a smile my way. He has brown hair combed back with gel and a fit body under his suit. But his canines are yellowish. The birth of a coffee stain, as my dad would say.

  We have to do a lab exercise. Eww, dissecting a frog. Lisa gives me a meaningful look and then darts her eyes toward Peter, who is seated a few feet from me. We planned on doing lab with him, so I go in for the ambush.

  “Hi, Peter,” I say, sidling up to him.

  “Uh, err, hi,” he says, looking confused.

  “You want to be my lab partner?”

  “Yeah, okay.” He’s awkward for someone who’s good-looking, but he seems like a loner. I know he’s on the chess club, so he’s an intellectual. He also carries a sketchpad around for art class, and I hear that he’s really good at drawing. I also know his hotness grows incrementally by five percent a month, because last year he was slightly heavier and had more pimples, and when he returned to school this August, he had clear skin and a defined waistline. Some people are like that: they’re okay looking, and all of a sudden you notice they’re hot. I wonder when I’m going to blossom, if I ever am destined to. Soon, I hope.

  “Hi, Peter, can I join you?” Lisa says.

  “Uh, yeah, okay.”

  Peter isn’t much of a talker, but that’s fine. I’m satisfied by looking at his wavy brown hair and jade green eyes. Sometimes someone doesn’t have to talk, because it’s enough to just admire the person. When I go to bed at night I leave the television on mute, like an animated night-light, and it’s great looking at Eric Bana or Jake Gyllenhaal while I doze off. There’s no need for them to speak. Look handsome for me. Thanks.

  Lab groups consist of two or three people, so this is our trio. Lisa glows and squeezes my arm. Then we both watch with horror as Peter leaves our station and returns with a metal tray that has a brownish blob on it.

  I hold my hand to my mouth and Lisa looks pale. Peter hands us latex gloves and when his hand touches mine, I feel nothing. This romantic moment of skin colliding is ruined by the dead frog in front of us. I think of my Kermit stuffed animal that’s propped up against the lamp on my nightstand. Dead Kermie.

  Peter wields a scalpel and follows the directions in our lab guide. When Mr. Gregory walks by, he admonishes Lisa and me on our lack of participation. “Ladies, you need to give a helping hand.”

  I gingerly pull at one of the frog’s legs as Peter cuts into the abdomen. I’m touching the leg of a dead frog. Eww. I really want to vomit. The formaldehyde stench gets to me and the sight of torn froggy corpses doesn’t help my nausea either. Lisa doesn’t look as bothered. She’s participating the easy way by playing nurse and handing Peter a pair of surgical scissors. She leans in, pretending to be interested in the frog, but really she’s staring at Peter’s profile. She gets so close to him that she places her cheek on his shoulder.

  Is it normal to hate my best friend? Yes, because this is the first time that either one of us is dealing with Peter and she’s throwing herself at him. Plus, she showed interest in him first and now I want his attention, too.

  “Do you need help?” I ask.

  “I’m okay,” he says.

  A quiet, dignified boy. How regal. I sigh. I wonder what it’ll be like to have a boyfriend. Dad and Grandpa both say I’m not allowed to date. They tell me over and over again that if I ever want to be with somebody, they’ll find a husband for me. Grandpa once mentioned that he knew many boys my age or a little older who would be perfect for me, but his style is old-fashioned. Arranged marriages are so last century.<
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  Peter discards the frog. Poor frog. He died for our lab and he’s crudely thrown in the garbage. At least I’m no longer gagging, on the verge of throwing up, at the sight of the carcass. We have to do the questions at the end of the lab and Lisa continues to hover over Peter. They’re head to head, laughing at something, but I can’t hear their conversation. Students are clanging their metal trays and scalpels, talking amongst each other. I feel left out. When I scoot my stool closer to Peter, I hear him talk about intestines. Lisa smiles at him as if she’s listening to a comic act.

  “It’s like our intestines are the same as a frog’s,” Peter says. “Did you see how the frog’s intestines were all curled up like ours?”

  “We have nothing in common with frogs,” Lisa says, giggling.

  “Of course we do. We have similar anatomy.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  Lisa can be really stupid. The whole point of biology is to learn that we’re related to animals and have the foundation of the cell. It’s about evolution stuff and how we all came from the sea. So my best friend is a man stealer and a dummy.

  I can smell his balsam shampoo—he even smells good. I want him to turn his head to look at me, but he’s still leaning toward Lisa.

  “So, like, how did they kill that frog?” Lisa asks.

  “Probably drowned him,” Peter says, shrugging his shoulders.

  I emit a loud, hysterical laugh, forcing the humor out of me. Notice me, Peter. Peter raises his eyebrows. I can be such a dope. Why do I have to act like an idiot in front of him? Now he must think I’m a nutcase with a horrible, unsexy, high-pitched laugh. I touch my hair and it’s frizzy since it’s a muggy day. My face is oily because I didn’t have time to blot it before getting to class. How am I ever going to get a boyfriend when I’m such a mess?

  “Ohhhhhhhh!” Lisa says. “I get it, like, frogs are manphibians.”

  “Amphibians,” I correct her.

  “Ohhhhhhhhh!”

  “So you can’t drown them,” I say.

  “It was a joke,” Peter says.

  “Ohhhh,” Lisa says. “So they strangle them instead?”

  “Why don’t we stop by the library later to find out,” Peter says.

  Now they have a library date? This is the first time Lisa has talked to Peter and now he’s all over her, educating her about frogs and offering to show her our library’s reference website. I laugh again and neither one of them turns to look at me. I have to try harder to get him to notice me, even if that means pissing Lisa off.

  • • •

  Mom picks Lisa and me up from school. Sometimes I walk, but if Mom’s available she drives by. It’s nice to have a ride, especially on rainy or sweltering days, but things can get uncomfortable. Boys stare at her. Mom’s gorgeous with her hair down and full makeup; sometimes her tanned shoulders are left bare by a tank top. And the boys look and look. It’s a hard blow on my self-esteem that my mom gets more attention than me.

  Lisa and I get in the back seat of her blue Mercedes. Mom has the radio tuned to the ’80s pop station and she’s singing to Madonna’s “Dress You Up.” She’s crooning with her eyes closed.

  Traffic after school is terrible, with the seniors driving out of the student parking lot from one side, teachers leaving from an adjacent lot, and buses coming from the other direction. We’re at a standstill behind dozens of automobiles. Some football players stand to the side of the parking lot. One of them, a husky giant, catches sight of my mom and blows a kiss her way, which she doesn’t notice since her eyes are still shut.

  “Mother,” I whisper.

  “Hmmm,” she says.

  “Mother!”

  “I love vintage Madonna.”

  “Mom!”

  She hears the urgency in my voice above the radio’s volume. She stops, knowing I’m embarrassed. She just gave a juicy show to the jocks and they all saw me—now they know Almira’s mom is an American Idol wannabe who sings off-key. At least she isn’t singing to “Like a Virgin.”

  Mom shimmies her shoulders to some Aerosmith tune. “Your mom’s so cool,” Lisa says to me.

  Then you can go ahead and have her, I feel like saying. Lisa has a normal mom. Her mom has short hair and glasses and practices podiatry. She barely says a word to me whenever I visit, so there’s no room for embarrassment with Lisa, unless it’s embarrassing to have a mom who cures feet all day. Feet are gross, unless they’re fresh from a pedicure, and I can’t imagine touching them for a living.

  We drive by Peter, who happens to be walking home. He looks up when he sees our car. His eyes become glued on my mom.

  “Do you see how he’s looking at me?” Lisa asks.

  Um, no, he’s like totally checking out my mom! A burst of rage explodes inside of me. I want Peter to notice me like that! I look at Mom, whose eyes are on the road. She doesn’t even notice Peter’s attention. That’s completely ungrateful of her. If he ever looks at me like that, I’ll feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.

  Peter crosses the street, his head turning as he walks so that he can continue to look at Mom. He’s going to morph into the girl in The Exorcist, but he can’t swivel his head in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree angle, so he turns away. I don’t feel relieved, because now I know I’m the only female in the world he won’t pay any attention to. He admires Lisa, the other girls at school, and now my mom. Everyone but me will be graced by his attention. I close my eyes and silently pray that he was looking at me instead. I’m right behind Mom in the back seat. But it really did seem like he was focusing on her. Why would he look at me like that?

  Lisa’s house is at the beginning of our block and Mom drops her off. Then we make it to our house. It isn’t until I’m inside the kitchen that I realize how empty my stomach is. During lunch I had studied in the library, away from the temptations in the cafeteria. I watch Mom prepare chicken for sundown. But I’m really not that hungry to begin with. I’m too flustered about Peter, and trying to hatch a plan to get him to notice me.

  Sifting through my folder tonight, I see that Parent Night is coming soon. Traditionally, students go to Parent Night all dressed up and afterwards they find a hangout. Last year it was so fun. I got a manicure, had my hair straightened, and wore a little red dress. While my parents did the boring task of talking to my teachers, I gossiped and texted. When the conferences were over, my friends and I went to a Chinese buffet, which cut into my curfew, but Dad kindly didn’t rip into me when I came home at midnight.

  I give the flyer to my parents, hoping that they’ll go again this year even though they embarrass me. I’m at the age when everything they say or do irks me. Dad clipped his nails in the bathroom this morning and I could hear the snip-snip of shorn fingernails through the door. How uncouth. And a week ago, the living room curtains were wide open and some boy from school stood on the sidewalk watching my mom do contortions to an exercise video. They don’t see that their behavior is uncool.

  Sometimes I feel that I don’t fit in. Years ago, during a sleepover at a friend’s house, some girl I barely knew asked questions about my ethnicity. I was wearing pink nail polish and she asked me, “Your parents allow you to wear nail polish?” As if Muslim girls can’t wear something harmless like nail polish. Those ignorant comments only come once in a while, because my real friends know that I do fit in. People who know very little about me think my mom will come to school wearing a veil or sari, and they’re wowed by how hot she is (the only time her hotness makes me look good). Or they think Dad will have a long terrorist beard and bland clothes, but he always comes to school in a suit, looking all suave and charming. I don’t mind if my classmates see my parents, but it’s best that they don’t. Like most people my age, I pretend that my home life and my school life are on different planes of existence.

  “Dad, are you going to Parent Night?” I ask dur
ing our nightly snack. It’s late, and we eat as much as possible during the night hours.

  He neatly rips the meat off a chicken bone with his precise teeth. As a dentist, he sees his teeth as fine instruments, like meat cleavers to a butcher or cuticle scissors for a manicurist. “Yes,” he says.

  Mom walks in, wearing her usual tank top and shorts—which she wears all day long, unlike normal moms who wear sweatsuits, housedresses, and robes. She perks up her ears when she hears my question. “Of course we’re going, Almira,” she says.

  “Woo hoo! Can you just drop me off, though? I get good grades. You don’t need to stick with me or talk to all my teachers. I just want to go to dinner with my friends after the meetings.”

  “We want to see all your teachers.”

  “Their pictures are on the school website!”

  “Stop whining, Almira,” Dad says.

  I pout, feeling put out, as if my emotions don’t matter. I guess I’ll just suffer through things the way I normally do.

  “My father called today,” Dad says.

  “Yeah,” I mumble through a mouthful of chicken.

  “He’s going to give you driving lessons starting this weekend.”

  My jaw would be dropping, but I’m still chewing. A few months ago I had an argument with my parents about how I’d be sixteen soon and that I wanted my driver’s license. They had taken me seriously, so Dad gave me some lessons. Driving is terrifying. And now with Grandpa as a teacher! In his tanklike car. Will I live to experience my sixteenth birthday?

  “Isn’t it best that you continue to teach her?” Mom says.

  Thank you, Mom, I think. You overexercise and sing in a crummy voice, but thank you for defending me.

  “My father insists,” Dad says. “Almira has had a learner’s permit for nearly a year, and I don’t have time to finish teaching her.”

  “Dad, with six lessons already, I know how to drive,” I say. “But I’m out of practice.”