Saints and Misfits: List 3

After watching me for a while with her pen poised, Simone lowers her clipboard. The blank spaces on the chart tell me that she hasn’t recorded anything.

This is so against my religion, I’m actually flummoxed for the first time since learning the word.

Should I grab Simone’s workout towel, a facecloth, and lay it on my head like a doily at the center of a coffee table? Or beeline to the locker room?

The laddoo starts crying on seeing my plight digitally.

“Six,” Muhammad says, a spark of excitement entering his eyes. Which is funny because Dad never elicits that kind of response from him.

I end up hunching over and slinking away, shame curdling inside me then reaching its fingers to wrap tight around my body.

His inner temperature monitor must be way off, because the lobby is stifling hot.

I don’t know if it still hurts people’s feelings at that age to be thought of as older, but it’s better to err on the side of caution.

Now I want to curl up in bed in mortification, imagining Jeremy’s face as I slunk away from gym.

I pat his arm and whisper thank you, infusing it with as much authenticity as I can. Then I speed-walk to greet the elevator that’s lumbering open.

If they were to materialize in our midst today, those among us without true knowledge of our religion would rush to authenticate them as exemplary Muslims, based on their appearance.

After dinner, Mom opens my bedroom door as I’m perusing the bootleg math exam.

“Just trying something new,” I say, placing the exam sheets in the middle of my math textbook. My fingers shake, as feigning nonchalance is hard with Mom scrutinizing me.

“Just trying something new,” I say, placing the exam sheets in the middle of my math textbook. My fingers shake, as feigning nonchalance is hard with Mom scrutinizing me.

Four layers of diverse fabrics: denim, Lycra, cotton, sweatshirt, and a slick (and thick) pashmina to knit the whole ensemble together. All in black, my feel-good color.

I look around for help and then gather the remains of my breakfast and stand up, flushed, realizing just how hot it is.

All this time I’m holding Flannery open on the page that says, right at the very top, Are you married or are you single?, fluttering it around as I move in ambivalent ways to collect myself.

Jeremy is almost at the steps when I back myself into the corner where the arts wing juts out.

Mr. Pape’s knuckles on the desk are white, the only telltale sign he’s getting stressed.

Tats is walking over to us, a curious expression on her face, and I cringe. She’s volatile.

Sandra’s beside her, drab in her jeans and gray T-shirt, long hair parted flat on her head, stringing down and covering the sides of her face.

“You didn’t end up choosing the fez?”
“Nah, my brother's not that dapper.” He swipes the screen and turns the phone to me again. “And, I couldn’t resist.”

Mr. Ram interrupts my reverie, a shaking hand holding a page taut. “Do you know Rumi?” he asks.

A part of me wants to remove her as a friend, but the pragmatic side reminds me that then I’d never get to see what else she puts up.

With his receding hairline, he looks eerie, like he’s presiding over my sentencing.

Dad’s message is apt today: While sharing may seem limitless, it ends where privacy begins. Privacy keeps the sacred safe.

The area around my eyes looks inflamed, a typical outcome of crying when you have sensitive skin. People might comment, especially Saint Sarah, who makes it her business to pounce on evidences of grief, bereavement, any occurrence that mars the tra-la-la-la gaiety of everyday life.

The area around my eyes looks inflamed, a typical outcome of crying when you have sensitive skin. People might comment, especially Saint Sarah, who makes it her business to pounce on evidences of grief, bereavement, any occurrence that mars the tra-la-la-la gaiety of everyday life.

“Oh,” Mom says, appraising Jeremy. “And you are?”
“Jeremy,” Jeremy says. “I go to school with Janna.”

“Oh,” I say, apprehensive now. When I hear the word “date,” I get scared.

There’s this hush that comes over Muhammad and me as we step lightly through the white hallway toward the door at the end that leads to the basement. Pristine white tiles, glowy white walls, with no pictures or decorations to mar the sobriety.

There’s this hush that comes over Muhammad and me as we step lightly through the white hallway toward the door at the end that leads to the basement. Pristine white tiles, glowy white walls, with no pictures or decorations to mar the sobriety.

This is what Muhammad gets treated to every time he visits? This vision of the feminine mystique?

Sausun: tall, thin, languid, bored, yet easily irritated, especially by pleasantness of any kind; has immensely set-apart, huge, dark-lined hazel eyes, like a manga character; memorized the whole Qur’an in Arabic at a young age; born to a loaded Saudi father and a beautiful South African-Indian mother; speaks Arabic and Urdu in addition to English.

Sausun, rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped around her knees and a frown on her face as if she’s experiencing menstrual cramps right in front of everyone, clips her Qur’anic answers in staccato.