and her voice has gone soft.
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
Her hand, unspooled across the console,
is suddenly beneath mine.
It trembles like a trapped bird;
mine shakes like a storm-tossed leaf.
I have never done anything like this,
never known anyone like her.
I thread my fingers through hers.
“Maybe I am.”
elise
The next day, after a walk on the beach, after depositing Bambi in the yard, Mati and I sit on the curb in front of my cottage. He’s walked me home again—this is apparently a thing we do now—and we’re laying low to avoid Iris and (though I don’t say so aloud) my mom.
She’s treated me coolly since I got home from Sacramento just before dinner. Whatever, though. After the way she and Audrey ganged up on me, I don’t care if she somehow figured out that I had company yesterday. I like Mati—I like him a lot. He makes me feel understood, and important; he makes me feel likeme. My mom can be passive-aggressively aggravated all she wants, so long as she doesn’t try to keep him and me from hanging out.
I’m thinking of our conversations in the car yesterday, about the way Mati held my hand, about inevitability, when he asks, “Are you busy tomorrow?”
“I’ve got my regular beach walk in the morning and I’m babysitting my niece in the evening. Otherwise, no.”
He rescues a smooth, round stone from the grass behind us. “Will you join me for lunch?”
My first thought is,Like, a date?But, no. Mati doesn’t date. He doesn’t have to, because a companion will be chosen for him.
“Okay,” I say, despite my reservations. “Where do you want to go?”
He rubs his thumb over the surface of his stone. He’s been antsy all morning, running his hands through his hair, repeatedly chucking Bambi’s ball into the surf, paging through his ever-present notebook. Like he’s anxious or something.
“How about my family’s cottage?” he says, likeOh hey, this is an idea that’s just now occurring to me.
“Uh…”
“I promise, it is a civilized place.”
“But—”
“But you’re worried about my parents.”
“Okay, yeah. Will they be there?”
“Yes. I told them I want to invite you.”
“And they’re okay with that? With me? In your house?” I thought there were rules about this—about Muslims spending time with,befriending, people of the opposite gender. Yet Mati wants me to sit down to lunch with him and his parents?
“My baba is. It will be nontraditional, you visiting, the four of us dining together, but he’s open to the idea. Honestly, I think he’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“And your mother?”
He looks away, turning the stone over in his palm. “She agreed to cook.”
