JIHAD

FOURTH | THE CHICK AND THE HUSBAND MATERIAL

I'm somewhere, far far away. Free. No parent to impose therapy on me. No brother calling for help in my dreams. No school. Just long long hours of leisure to spend with whom I please. Biggy. Mike. Ameer. Any guy that tickles my fancy, evokes a thrill that begins there where it matters and sends it zipping through my body. Oh, the things I'd do in that place, with those boys. I could even join a porn industry, breathe life into the wild wild fantasies that have built their base in my head. I'd do the...

Danielle shoves me."Look who finally decided to take a break from poo-poo-ing and grace us with her presence and a... a  feace-y perfume." Her remark, and the laughter that follows, is loud enough to cut through the ears of every student in class. There's only a scattering of them; still, if I were Unaisa, I'd just poof away.

The real Unaisa only rolls her eyes, shuffles to me and pecks—french kisses—my temple. Danielle gets even sloppier kisses on both cheeks and bushy brows. A wave and a dimpled smile is all that's left for Rasheedah. She hates being touched. "I had a runny stomach, Dani," Unaisa says. She hefts herself onto our desk. It yelps. "So what did I miss? The class is quite scanty. Dr. Makinde moved the class to YouTube again, abi?"

I open my mouth to answer but Danielle beats me to it. My lips remain apart.

"What do you expect? The man is a thief and a quack and I gave him a piece of my mind today."

"Ooh!"

"You should have seen him!He ran from the class with his legs between his tails.I've never seen anything funnier except that one time when I poured pepper in my father's bathing water and he danced around the house naked for ten minutes before my mom could cover him up." She cracks up. Unaisa and I join in. We've heard the tale more times than I touched myself yesternight—ten, I think—but Danielle loves it when we find her funny and I love it when she loves what I do. 

She whirls on me. I jump. "You could try it with your mom, Jihad!"

"Try... the pepper thing?" I try to infuse as much horror as I can conjure into my tone. Deep down though, the idea lights a spark of excitement in my belly.

"Yes. Yes. Yes." She rains blows, which I believe she supposes are light but are actually kind of painful, on my laps. "Why didn't I ever think of it? Ya Allah, it would be so much fun to see your mom in all her high and mightiness run around the house naked, clawing at her eyes and body and  screaming, 'My eyes. My eyes. Water. Pepper!'" She dissolves into laughter. "God! Can you picture it, Jihad!"

I can't, and it's not for the lack of trying. Still, that does nothing to douse the sparks crackling within me. But: "Danielle..."

"What! Don't tell me you haven't ever thought of treating your mother's fuck up? I can even help you. Just invite me to your house, and I'll take care of the rest. Even the pepper."

"Dani, seriously." Unaisa. "This is her mommy were talking about. You shouldn't make jokes like that, you know."

"Who says I was joking?"

"You're not?" I squeak.

"No. And don't—"

"Rasheedah has been talking to Ameer since I came in." Unaisa cranes her neck, her gaze pinned at a spot above and far behind my and Danielle's heads. "Hasn't she sorted out her scholarship issues yet?" It's clear she needs a change of topic.

I kind of do, too, but I look to Danielle for a go ahead. She doesn't seem like she'll mind. She's swivelled around already. Her knees push at the side of my laps. One arm, the left, rests heavily on my right shoulder. She's most likely forgotten all about Ummi and the pepper... prank? Punishment? And is now fully tuned to the Ameer and Rasheedah station. Still, I wait for her to speak—"No. And according to her, Ameer knows someone who knows someone."— before I twist my head to the side—it's the best I can do; I don't want to turn too much, risk Danielle's arm slipping off my shoulder and her thinking I did it on purpose—and almost go blind trying to watch Rasheedah converse with Ameer from the corner of my eye.