Chapter Seventeen - Family Dinner
Months before Lutfiyah went into labour, Sara had researched it all to death for her. She googled every question she had and joined all the Mum groups on every social media platform that she could. And then she would none-too-subtley email all this information to Lutfiyah until she had no choice but to read it.
Sara had appointed herself Lutfiyah’s research guru from the get-go and for some reason, she felt that that job title would remain with her for life.
So when Lutfiyah answered the door one day to find a delivery man holding a thick manilla envelope out to her, she wasn’t surprised. What she was surprised to find was the title written neatly across the folder inside: “Operation: Hot Neighbour”.
She only glanced briefly at the shockingly thick stack of pages before opening a drawer and stuffing it inside. Then, she picked up her phone.
“Hello, can you please put me through to Dr Sara Bi-
“Ah yes, she’s been waiting for your call. One moment please.”
“Fee, my dar-
“Don’t you dare, 'Fee, my darling' me! Sara, I told you not to do this!”
There was a heavy sigh and then the sound of shuffling pages, a chair scraping back followed by a door closing,
“Look, I didn’t read it, okay?”
She gave a sigh of relief. “Well, thank Allah for that. This is a human being, Sara. Not some project or fantasy adventure that we’re thinking of going on. We can’t just invade someone’s privacy like that.”
“Well, according to the man I hired, there wasn’t much privacy invasion going on. More just...sifting through news articles.”
Despite herself, Lutfiyah asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Apparently, at one point and time he was all over the news in the business world. So it seems like your man didn’t always do ’nothing’.”
“Nope. No no no. I don’t want to hear anything else. Look, I appreciate what you did only because I know the reason behind it but please, Sara, there are limits. If there is anything for me to know, I would like to find out the old fashioned way. Okay?”
Lutfiyah could almost picture Sara holding up her hands in defeat. “Okay okay, if that’s what you want. But at least keep the folder. You never know when you might need it.”
Many greetings and proclamations of love later, she finally put the phone down and went to get dinner ready. May would be home soon.
After that first time when she had walked in on Jane calmly perusing through a magazine, she had never allowed Jaafir to be alone with May again. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, it was just that she had heard one too many horror stories and she couldn’t take that chance.
Well, she couldn’t take that chance before. She didn’t know what it was about him, but her neighbour had made her more open to people and maybe she did feel like she could let May out of her sight for more than a few hours. Not that she would ever admit that to him. So after Jane had agreed, the two adults had taken her daughter to the park. Jane was more a supervisor than anything else what with the way May and Jaafir carried on. One would think they didn’t even remember Jane was there, poor woman.
Her eyes strayed to the drawer with the hidden envelope more than once but by the time the door opened and her giggling daughter stumbled in followed by her minder, she had managed to push it to the back of her mind.
“Where’s Mr Abdullah?” she asked Jane, who smiled indulgently down at her ward before replying.
“Mr Abdullah went to take a shower and change. Little naughty girl over here splashed mud all over his jeans.”
Her words belied her tone as she reached to ruffle May’s soft curls.
“It was an acshident, Mama. An acshident. Uncle Jaafi said soooooo.” She sang the last word, running into the house before skidding to a stop when she saw her mother give her the Big Eyes.
Realising her error, she quickly took out her shoes. “Sorrrryyy!”
Giggling, she ran to give her mother a hug.
“Looks like you had a lot of sweeties before you came home.”
Jane shrugged and spoke in rare fashion. “Mr Abdullah said no ice cream before dinner but then she turned her big baby blues at him and I think he melted.”
Jane smiled and then before Lutfiyah could ask her anything else, she hugged May goodbye and left.
“I didn’t even get a chance to invite her for dinner.”
On hearing the magic word, May squealed and ran for the bathroom, singing the entire time. Lutfiyah sighed. The sugar rush would take hours to wear off.
Then she smirked. If she was going to suffer for Jaafir’s mistake, she would not do it alone.
* * *
The roast was almost done when the little party had come back from their outing so by the time she was done with the veggies and gravy, she knew that Jaafir should have been done with his shower a long time ago.
She wrapped her hijab around her head before walking across the hall and knocking on the door.
“Coming!”
She stepped back as the door opened into the flat, Jaafir uncharacteristically grinning at her when he saw who it was.
“Well, someone is in a good mood today.”
His grin brightened before he schooled his expression and gave a slight nod. “May can do that to you.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I know.”
She intended to say more but the words got caught in her throat when she realised that he was wearing, well for lack of a better word, pyjamas. To be honest, it was just faded flannels and an old t-shirt but the collar hung loose, giving her a grand view of his collarbone and he looked so... good lord, yes those were his bare feet!
“Did you bring dinner for me again?” he asked, prompting her to return back to earth.
“Uhm, no actually,” she said, her eyes flying back to his face before looking away. “I came over to invite you to eat with us but I mean, if you don’t want to that’s fi-
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. I’d love to. Let me get my shoes, yeah?”
“Yes, okay. I’ll leave the door open,” she murmured, half in shock as she walked back to her flat. Something was wrong with her. Her heart was beating too fast and her fingers were tingling. What if she was having a panic attack?
As soon as she entered the kitchen, she splashed cold water onto her face, forcing herself to take deep breaths. Her stomach was doing some sort of weird twisting thing. She had never experienced this feeling in her life. Not in this extreme way. When she thought of Jaafir, something flip-flopped in her chest and she realised with dawning horror, that yes, she was possibly crushing on her neighbour. She liked him. Romantic stylez.
Agh! The Brooklyn 99 re-runs had to stop. This nonsense she was blaming the staff for; they had it playing constantly in the break room.
And now she was worrying about her TV habit. Great. Just the thing she needed right after a life-changing realisation.
“Well, not life changing. Just shocking or rath-
“Mama, who are you talking to?”
Lutfiyah whirled around and pasted a smile onto her face. “No one, my sweetheart. Oh look at you, ready to eat, hm?”
May smiled broadly and hopped onto her seat, being careful not to knock anything over from the table. “I washed my hands and everything.”
A knock on the door prevented her from replying and she smiled with exasperation at his politeness. She'd told him that she'd leave the door open. “It’s safe to come in!” she called, tucking her stray strands of hair back under her hijab.
She told herself to ignore his entry and turned to face the stove, commanding herself to breathe normally when she heard Jaafir’s greeting. She heard him sit down and let out another breath. She could do this, right? She’d been doing it all her life. In. Out. In-
She started coughing and in an instant Jaafir was up, chair scraping back in his hurry.
“Are you okay?”
“Mama, what happened?”
Lutfiyah felt Jaafar behind her, hesitant to touch her without permission. She cleared her throat loudly. "I'm fine, I'm fine."
She turned and startled to find him so near to her. He took a step back, looking at her with concern. "You forgot how to breathe or something?"
She went red with embarrassment as she couldn't exactly say that she'd choked on her own spit but she just shook her head and ducked it down before turning back to the food.
Gravy warmed and on the table, she carried the roast pan and motioned with her head to the stove when Jaafar stood up to help. He grabbed the veggies and rolls and placed them onto the table before he settled down next to May.
"What's the occasion?" he asked, gesturing at the spread.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know, actually. I was in the mood to make roast?" It came out more like a question than an answer but he accepted it anyway.
"Well everything looks and smells delicious and I can't wait."
She was surprised at his verbosity but didn't comment on it. It was nice to have some adult conversation at the table.
They tucked into the food, her mouth watering as she dished multiple mushrooms and sweet potatoes onto her plate. She prepared May's food, separating the food into little 'houses' before placing it in front of her. Her baby read her meal prayers without being prompted and tucked in with relish.
There was the silence of a meal, with only the sounds of chewing filling the air but it wasn't an uncomfortable one, she found. Rather, it was soothing and she'd catch Jaafar wiping May's mouth once in a while, pushing her plate farther onto the table as it inched towards the edge and even mischievously dropping one of his mushrooms onto her plate when she pronounced that she was done.
"Then what's that?"
May curiously looked at her plate then turned to glare at Jaafar. "Uncle Jaafi! I was finished, finished, finished!"
He grinned back innocently and shrugged. "I don't know. Looks to me like there's still a mushroom there."
She looked at his plate suspiciously. "It's from there. You want to have cold drink faster than me but I beat you. Neh neh neh neh neh."
She promptly plopped the mushroom back onto his plate and pushed her plastic cup forward. "Mama, am finiiiiished."
Lutfiyah couldn't help the wide smile that broke out on her face with the interaction. It was so sweet and innocent. So…fatherly.
Before her mind could process that thought, she shoved it aside and poured some diluted cold drink for May before going back to her own plate.
That was something she would deal with later.
For now, she would enjoy her meal.