the dance are all wearing pink or orange, the theme colors of our dance. I brought some extra clothes with me in case our other dancers didn’t have the right stuff. If we roll up the top of the shalwar, you can wear one of my suits? Just for the dance part, which will be at the end.”
I shrug. All this trouble to do a dance? “I don’t know.”
“Wait here. I’ll go bring my suitcase.”
Before I can protest, she’s gone.
The song comes on again. Mehndi hai rachnewaali…
I close my eyes and streamer my arms and screw lightbulbs and spread jam.
And try to forget about Nuah.
* * *
Zayneb comes back in, wheeling her luggage behind her, with an iPad in her hands. “Oh my God. Haytham’s in the lead now! And I haven’t even messaged everyone yet!”
I come over and peer at the screen.
It’s the Muslim Voice video summary of the three singers in the finals. A fifteen-year-old Malaysian girl with a ukulele who weaves Arabic and Malay into her covers of popular songs, an elderly man from Sudan whose renditions of traditional nasheeds are haunting, and then Haytham. They give a sample of some of his submissions for the contest, and I hear the song that made me cry in the car.
It’s called “Hold On.” The original is from a singer named Kareem Salama.
I look up the song on my phone. Country music?
I thought there was something different about it.
Zayneb unzips her suitcase and hands me folded clothes. “Try this. Just for the dance.”
I balk. Whatever she’s holding out is hot pink with gold embroidery, really extra-gold embroidery, at the edges. “I don’t do those colors.”
“But it’s not for anything IRL, you know? It’s like a costume for a play. Imagine we’re doing a performance just for Sarah.” She unfolds the outfit. “This one’s beautiful. It’s a cut called Anarkali. A traditional suit that’s an ode to the past. Look.”
When it’s unfurled, it’s a dress with a high, embroidered bodice, gold again, from which the soft skirt falls full with tiny pleats almost to the floor, ending in a wide, heavily beaded ribbon of a hem. She pulls out a pair of skinny ruched pants that are shocking pink as well, dotted with gold circles, before holding up the dress full-length in front of me. “When you twirl like you did just now, with your streamer arms, the skirt will flare in a circle, and you’ll look amazing.”
I look in the mirror. It is beautiful. The dress.
And so not me.
But maybe it’s DJ Mousefire?
* * *
I take the dress to the alcove bathroom as Zayneb is also changing to show me her “outrageously orange suit,” as she calls it. She assured me it’s an Anarkali cut as well. “We’re going to match,” she said excitedly. “I just want Sarah to be happy. Because she makes so many people around her happy, you know?”
I nodded, remembering how Sarah hadn’t let go of asking me if she could help me when she’d thought something was wrong before, when I’d gone quiet after the assault. And then, when everything had come to light, she’d called me every day. Even if it was for like a minute to say salaam.
I love her, and I’m going to do this thing all the way for her.
Before I try on the clothes, I find the original version of “Hold On” and play it while I change.
She’s like a boat that’s caught in the storm
Sees the sun through the clouds but she can’t stay warm
I wish I could write those words on a steamed-up mirror.
But it’s okay. I’m going to will myself to be warm, to be on fire, to rock this dress, this dance.
I unhook the loops at the back of the pink-and-gold neck, slip my T-shirt off, and slide into this thing.
The dress part, the kameez, is a little too big on the shoulders because Zayneb has a slightly bigger frame than me, but otherwise, I’m surprised at how epic I look.
I look like I stepped out of a fairy tale.
I’ve never worn something so extravagant, and I don’t think I ever will again, but something about this outfit makes me feel like I’m not the old me.
Even though I can’t do streamer hands, screw lightbulbs, or spread jam to the beat of this country song, I try out the moves Zayneb taught me, and when I’m finished twirling, I stare at myself and say yes.
Yes, I’m going to dance tonight in this shocking pink dress.
Everything