“The Bachelorette.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s sort of like that. Sort of.” I frowned again. Turned to face him, again. “You’ve really never heard of khastegari?”
“Why on earth would I know what that means?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It’s a pretty common thing.”
“You mean this is normal? This happens all the time? More than one guy will ask the same girl to marry him and then just stand around waiting until she chooses?”
I laughed. “No.”
“Thank God.”
“But, I mean, sometimes.” I took a sharp breath. I was beginning to feel self-conscious. “Sometimes that happens.”
“That sounds insane.”
“It’s not completely insane,” I said, no longer smiling.
Ali turned in his seat without warning, one of his arms bracing the back of the bench. He was studying my face from an uncomfortably close distance when he said:
“Holy shit. Are these assholes kasigaring you, too?”
“It’s khastegari.”
“Whatever.”
“They’re not assholes.”
“Oh my God.” He sat back against the bench, stared at me, slack-jawed. “Who would propose to you? You’re seventeen. How is that not illegal?”
I bristled.
Who would propose to you?was possibly the most offensive question I’d ever been asked, and I’d been asked a great deal of offensive questions.
“First of all, I’ll be eighteen in like a month.”
“Still illegal!”
“Listen,” I said, irritated. “You’ve clearly been away from the mosque for too long, because you don’t seem to understand how this works. You don’t justget married. Proposing is a formality, a custom. A khastegari is basically just a request to date, to get to know each other with the specific intention of possibly, one day—maybe even years into the future—getting married. It’s considered a courtesy. Dating done properly,respectfully, with honorable intentions.”
He wasn’t listening to me. “How many guys kassgaried you?”
“Khastegari.”
“How many?”
I hesitated.
“Two?” His eyes widened. “Three?”
I looked away.
“More than three?”
“Five.”
