Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. Read online

  “Yeah, food that I can’t eat.” And a boy who doesn’t look the least bit interested in me, I think, as I see Peter walk past me without giving me a second look.

  During lunch I go to the library. My friends want me to sit in the cafeteria with them, but I tell them I can’t. If I see fries and smell the aroma of meatloaf, I’ll just die. My mouth already salivates all day long whenever I see my classmates snacking on candy in between classes. Stacks of books on symmetrically lined shelves will distract my mind from food. I convince myself of this. Archeology, mathematics, astronomy, music. Be interested in classy stuff, I urge myself. Forget food.

  I go to the fiction section to see if there are any romance books I haven’t read, and Shakira is there. She has a Stephen King book (good choice) open in her hands. I’ve read almost every Stephen King book out there. He’s classic. My parents read him, which was how I got into reading him. Now I see this pretty girl Shakira interested in him.

  For a moment I stand there dumbstruck. I’ve wanted to talk to her ever since she introduced herself in English class, but when the opportunity arises, I don’t know what to say. Shakira frowns. Of course she would, since I’m staring at her like some psychopath. I approach her.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi,” she whispers, in the silence of the library.

  “You like Stephen King?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do, too. I have all his books.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “You don’t like the lunch selection?”

  “I’m fasting.”

  “Me too.”

  She looks at me less severely. She’s taller than me, and I feel short and squat compared to her. She has at least five inches on me. I have to look up at her, whereas most of my friends are at eye level. Her hair is smooth and wavy, while mine is curly and frizzy. Her eyes are deep brown and rimmed with liner and mascara. How can a teenager be sultry, and why can’t I be sultry as well?

  “I’m starving,” she says.

  “So am I, but at least we get to pig out when the sun sets,” I say.

  “The last hour before sunset feels like forever.”

  “That’s so true.”

  “I’m Lebanese,” she says.

  Grandpa was wrong. She isn’t an American prostitute.

  “I’m Syrian and Persian,” I say.

  “I thought you’d be something like that.”

  “So, I have a bunch of Stephen King hardcovers at home.”

  “I do too,” she whispers. “I buy them used since I want the hardcovers.”

  “Yeah, paperbacks don’t last that long … ”

  The two of us are getting along, but then Peter walks by. Shakira’s eyes light up at the sight of him. “Hi, Almira,” he whispers to me. He gives Shakira a lingering look before he walks out of the library. Why can’t he look at me like that? I’m just a lab partner to him.

  “Is that your boyfriend?” Shakira asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  She says it with an edge to her voice. Tears burn behind my eyes. What does she mean? Am I ugly? Am I not boyfriend-worthy? What was I thinking, trying to talk to some tall, skinny, America’s Next Top Model look-alike?

  “You don’t seem his type,” she says, digging the knife in deeper.

  “And you are?” I say. I feel stupid insinuating that she’s interested in him, but I want to get a word in, and that’s something I once heard a friend say in retaliation to someone. And you are? Yeah, you. Who do you think you are? So I have my say, as small as it is, then I turn around and walk away from her look of boredom.

  I was wrong to think that beautiful Shakira, of the gazelle legs and high cheekbones, would want to talk to me. There are boundaries that can’t be crossed in high school. My friends are all in the middle of the social hierarchy, neither popular princesses nor invisible nerds. A jock will never ask me out, and I won’t go to a school dance with a science nerd (but I won’t be mean about it). That’s the difference: kids in the middle are not as cruel as those in the highest rank.

  I slowly breathe in and out. I blame myself for trying to talk to her. I should have known better than to talk to Shakira. Just because we’re Muslim and fasting doesn’t mean that we’re instant friends.

  “You should have told her to drop dead,” Lisa says.

  “Don’t let anybody talk to you that way,” Maria says.

  “You’re not ugly, and any boy would be lucky to have you,” Jillian says.

  I must look really upset after lunch when I blurt my exchange with Shakira to my friends. They instantly come to my defense and bolster my self-esteem. But I don’t believe their kind words, as I’m boyfriendless and will probably be so for the rest of my life.

  What an ugly situation I’ve just experienced. To be starving and then told that Peter will never go for me … from the lips of someone I now view as an archenemy. I’ve never had an archenemy before—I thought they only existed in comic books or macho movies—but Shakira is definitely my foe. I panic at the thought of being uncomfortable every day of my life. I’ve also never been bullied before—in the past I’ve experienced light teasing, but nothing close to harassment. Am I going to dread every school day, at the prospect of seeing Shakira in classrooms and hallways? Am I going to be like the nerdy girls who wash their hands in a rush to get out of the girls’ bathroom because they don’t want to be seen by anyone? And a new girl is making me feel this way! I want to tell Shakira the school is my turf more than it is hers. Wretched new girl.

  “She makes me so mad,” Lisa says, squeezing her eyes shut.

  “Can we just forget about it?” I say. I’m still upset, but I’ll get over it.

  We go to science class. I see Shakira sitting in the back. Her eyes meet mine and I quickly look away. I wish I hadn’t. She’s just arrived, while I have a solid foundation within the school. She should be looking away from me.

  Peter has his sketchpad open and he’s gliding his pencil over it. I know he takes art, which I won’t dare sign up for since I can only draw stick figures. I walk up to him so that I can inspect what he’s drawing, but he closes his pad shut. What he’s working on is left a mystery.

  “Oh, hi,” he says.

  “Hi,” I say, sitting on the stool next to him. My dark mood is lifted by gazing at his handsomeness. On a scale of one to ten on handsomenosity, he’s a ten.

  We look at each other silently. I nervously twist the spigots of the Bunsen burners. They’re inactive, since Mr. Gregory teaches biology not chemistry. What should I say next? I have to say something, because he isn’t a big talker.

  “You like science?” I ask. What a lame question. I’m so uncool.

  “Not really.”

  “I bet art is your favorite class.”

  “Yes, it is. How did you know?” He sounds impressed by my psychic abilities.

  “Just a guess.”

  Peter pulls his bangs off of his face. What pretty green eyes he has. He smiles. Such good, strong teeth, albeit his two front teeth are long and rabbity. Why do I have to be so teeth-conscious just because my dad’s a dentist?

  “I’m trying to find a really good picture of a knight and a maiden,” he says. “My art teacher gave us a medieval project to do, and the first step is finding a model or source of inspiration.”

  “Maybe I can help you look for it,” I say.

  “Would you?”

  “Of course.”

  Lisa comes over. Go away, I think. Just … go … away.

  “I made this drawing last night,” Lisa says. She reaches into her bookbag and pulls out a wrinkled paper darkened with graphite. Her picture is of a fugly man with small eyes and big teeth.

  “Who’s that?” I ask, my voice raised in disgus
t.

  Lisa glares at me. “It’s Robert Pattinson,” she says.

  “Don’t even joke about that!”

  “I’m just kidding, Almira. It’s my older brother.”

  “That looks nothing like him,” I say.

  Lisa puckers her mouth angrily. Peter clears his throat and says, “That’s really nice.”

  “Really?” Lisa says, her face brightening up.

  “Um, yeah, it’s a really good portrait.”

  Lie! The picture is super gross. It’s covered in eraser marks, there are no ears, and the hair is scraggly. Lisa’s older brother is a hot college guy and the picture doesn’t resemble him in any way. Lisa puts the picture away and I’m relieved that she’s no longer embarrassing herself in front of Peter, who’s a real artist.

  “You’re coming to Parent Night?” Lisa says, a large grin on her face.

  “Yeah,” Peter says.

  “Do you want to come with some of us afterwards for pizza?” she asks.

  “I’d like that.”

  She just asked him out, sort of. A bunch of our friends are going to a pizza place after Parent Night, but I’m not sure if I’m going. I’ve been breaking fast with my parents ever since Ramadan started, but now I feel that I have to go to this pizza shindig to spy on Lisa and Peter. Even if our friends are surrounding them, it’s still a date. Lisa is going to go out with my crush. That’s unbearable. I have to be there to supervise and see what Lisa is up to.

  “We’ll have fun,” I say.

  Lisa gives me a sharp look, which quickly disappears. I’m Almira, her fun-loving, smart, goofy friend. She doesn’t see me as competition.

  Parent Night is a week away. I have to figure out what to wear. My hair needs to be straightened. I have to get a mani and pedi. My clothes are getting bigger on me, so I have to cinch my dresses with belts or buy a new ensemble for that night.

  Mr. Gregory gives us a lecture on cell life, and then we have some book work to do. I’ll hand in my work early, before Lisa can ask me for it. I hate it when she wants to see my work, so that she can change her wrong answers and copy off me. I work for myself, not for anyone else. Anyway, she’s after Peter, which isn’t cool. Now I have a grudge against her, even though I love her.

  “Here you go,” I tell Mr. Gregory, who’s standing at his lectern.

  “Almira, you’re always a model student,” he says, putting my work on his desk.

  “I try.”

  “You seemed upset after lunch,” he says. “Is anything wrong?”

  I look at his handsome face, which is frowning in worry. He’s one of the few teachers who asks about my emotional well-being, but I’m not going to regale him with girly gossip. If I have a beef with Shakira, I’m sure he isn’t going to be interested in it. If I’m after the same guy that my best friend is, it’s not like he can help me in any way. I turn around and see Shakira hovering over some boy. Man-eater. That’s what she is.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I say. “I’m just hungry.”

  “I’ve never met someone celebrating Ramadan. You’re the first, and I see that you have great willpower. I don’t think it’s something I could do.”

  “Thanks.”

  I go back to my seat. As soon as I sit down, Lisa leans across Peter and asks me, “Can we see your paper?”

  “I turned it in,” I say.

  “Shoot,” she says, wrinkling her face. “We’re stuck on a question.”

  I shrug my shoulders. I feel rotten and I’m not sure why, since Peter isn’t mine.

  “Oh, by the way, Peter told me about the knight and maiden picture he’s looking for,” Lisa says. “I told him my mom has an old art book that has a picture like that. I just have to find it.” She smiles big, as if she’s won an award, even though neither one of us has found a picture for him yet. Which one of us can help him first on his project? I need to start looking right away for a suitable picture, so that I can receive due credit. Almira, thank you so much for finding this old painting of a knight and maiden, I imagine him saying. You really care about me. I care about you, too.

  At the end of the day, I see a new Bic tattoo on Lisa’s wrist. She shows it to me, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Peter, it says, in misshapen calligraphy. The font is close to Angelina Jolie’s Billy Bob tattoo, the one she had lasered off to ink the coordinates of her children’s birth places. I don’t want Peter to be her Brad Pitt. I want him to be my Brad. We won’t be Brangelina, but Petmira.

  • • •

  A few nights later, we have shrimp for dinner. My family eats it as if we’re in a competitive eating contest. No chewing. Just scarfing it down. I’ll never invite my friends over on a night that we break fast. It would be too mortifying. Oh my God, Becky, the Abduls eat like savages. They don’t even know how to swallow. I just know people will say that. But it’s understandable since we’re so hungry. When it’s not Ramadan, our etiquette is normal and high-class, I swear.

  I’m minding my own business, watching late-night news, when Dad sees me laughing at a story about a cat who’s nursing a puppy. It’s cute and makes me giggle.

  “Almira, have you been brushing the back of your teeth?” he asks.

  “Yes, Dad,” I say. Always about the teeth. Can’t he leave me alone? He cleans my teeth twice a year like clockwork. He should only bug me about my teeth during those visits.

  “You haven’t been flossing.”

  I don’t want to tell him that I floss when I feel like it, which isn’t much at all. I’m tired before going to bed and skip that task most of the time. And in the morning I’m in a rush to go to school. Our house is like a dentist’s office with a plethora of dental supplies. We have enough floss, prescription toothpaste, and electric toothbrushes to last a decade, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fanatic like he is.

  “Bite down for me,” he says.

  I sigh. I turn toward him and bite down, my lips pulled back so that he can see my wonderful teeth.

  He tsks-tsks. “You’re bottom teeth have always been crowded, but they’re slightly crooked.”

  “What?” I say.

  “Look in the mirror.”

  I go to the bathroom. I don’t believe his words. My teeth have always been good. I received compliments my whole life on the straightness of my teeth. Leaning forward, the bottom of my shirt becomes drenched by the water pooling around the sink from the last person who washed his or her hands there. I stare at my bottom teeth. Dad is right. They’re slightly crooked, some teeth shooting at eighty-five degrees rather than at a perfect ninety degrees. It doesn’t look noticeable when I smile, and my teeth still look better than 99.9 percent of the population, but they’re flawed. I’m a freak. Every three seconds I run my index fingers over my lower teeth, feeling the ridges of teeth that stick out the slightest bit when they aren’t supposed to. I want a perfect oval outline, but I’m feeling crags as if my teeth are broken piano keys going in different directions.

  I stomp back toward the living room. It isn’t bad enough that I wear glasses, am fat, and don’t have a boyfriend. Now I have to have defective teeth on top of all of that! The world seems inordinately cruel. Can’t I have a relaxing Friday night without having to dwell on yet another problem?

  “Why me?” I ask him.

  “You might need braces. We’ll see.”

  “No!”

  “I don’t do orthodontia, but I’ll make an appointment with my friend,” Dad says.

  “No!”

  “We need to nip this in the bud. You don’t want to have crooked teeth for the rest of your life. And we’ll get x-rays. Maybe your wisdom teeth are coming in and are adding to the crowding effect.”

  Dad is right. I have to nip this in the bud. I go to my room and look into a hand mirror. Looking so closely at my teeth, I’m noticing a bunch of impe
rfections. A chipped incisor. A small crater on a canine tooth. Yellowish molars. I call Lisa, but her phone’s busy. I go online and she’s there.

  AlmiraRules: i’m going to the orthodontist soon.

  GorgeLisa: get out

  AlmiraRules: my bottom teeth are messed up

  GorgeLisa: you have beautiful teeth

  AlmiraRules: i thought i did too, but dad is a dentist and he can’t have a daughter with ugly teeth, so i’m going to get checked next week.

  GorgeLisa: get the clear braces so you don’t look like a metal mouth

  AlmiraRules: of course

  GorgeLisa: me and peter talked so much during science, we really bonded

  AlmiraRules: that’s nice

  GorgeLisa: i think he likes me

  AlmiraRules: great

  GorgeLisa: and this girl who sat behind us told me that he was sketching a girl in his pad before class. i hope it was me he was drawing.

  AlmiraRules: that’s really romantic

  GorgeLisa: i know. he’s quiet, but he’s not boring when you get to know him

  AlmiraRules: grandpa is going to give me a driving lesson tomorrow, so i’m going to bed now

  GorgeLisa: be safe

  AlmiraRules: thanks, but if you don’t see me monday …

  GorgeLisa: don’t talk that way

  AlmiraRules: i want to go to a real driving school

  GorgeLisa: this is what you’re stuck with. night

  AlmiraRules: night

  I spend an extra half hour on the net researching braces. There’s the regular metal type, the ones that go behind the teeth, the clear brackets, Invisalign. I know that any of them will be painful, since my teeth will be forced to shift around. For the first time in my teenage existence, I’m overwhelmed. I lead a charmed life, living in a nice home and attending the poshest public school in the county. There’s been little drama in my life until this point. I’m fasting for the first time, have my first serious crush, am learning how to drive, and now I’m going to get braces. What will Peter think about my braces? He’ll hate them. Who wants a girl with braces? How am I ever going to receive my first kiss now? This Ramadan is proving to be very hectic. I wonder what the rest of the month has in store for me.