unblinkingly. “You guys have such an awesome theater in the basement!”
“Oh yeah, my dad. I have to actually check with him if it’s okay we use one of his cars. He’s sometimes not cool with it.”
“Just use Haytham’s.” Sarah holds out the keys. “He’s okay with it.”
I take them and slide them into my tiny backpack purse. “That’s nice of him.”
“I’ll talk to Muhammad to get the rest of the wedding details. He and Haytham are hanging out on the front porch right now. Perfect place to tease out information!” She lights up. “I already found out the ’Arrys are free tomorrow, so maybe we can get him to switch them to perform at the bachelor party instead of the wedding!”
Dawud scrutinizes me as I wind the scarf on my head. Geez, hasn’t he seen Sarah put on her hijab before?
I shoot him a scowl. I hope he’s not one of these creepy eight-year-olds who has a thing for older women. Ugh.
“You have purple icing on your forehead,” he announces. “And I don’t even know why. Because none of the cupcakes we had at the meeting had purple icing.”
I look in the mirror. There is purple icing on my forehead. So weird.
“There was pink icing and blue icing, so they must have mixed together. On your forehead.” He breaks out into a big grin and turns to leave, clipboard in hand.
I grab my own clipboard and head to the en suite bathroom to take care of my forehead before Haytham sees it.
Tats texts me while I’m in the bathroom.
I’m changing my dress for the wedding! When we were looking for a tie for my date I found a dress JUST LIKE THE ONE LINDSAY LOHAN WORE TO THE MTV EUROPE AWARDS!!! But it’s yellow not metallic gold.
Tats is going through a huge Lindsay Lohan moment. We’ve been watching Lindsay movies every weekend since May. She even dyed her hair ginger. Which means there’s a lot of ginger around her, because Tats has huge hair.
Can I see a pic of you in the dress? And your date in his tie? I smile at the way I slid that in so deftly. Maybe I’ll finally find out exactly who Tats is bringing to the wedding.
Is it okay that the dress is above my knees and off my shoulders?
Avoidance in action.
Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?
Because when I go to the mosque with you I don’t dress like that?
It’s okay. We’re not at a mosque. Something dawns on me. OMG, you and I are going to match the wedding decor now. Blue and yellow.
Blue and yellow? That’s kinda ew, tbh?
Don’t worry, Sarah’s here and we’re working hard on the ew factor. Really hard.
* * *
Haytham’s car is a Honda Civic, which I’ve never driven in my short six months of driving, so I’m kind of nervous.
As I prepare to ease it out of the long driveway, he saunters over from the porch and approaches the rear passenger’s-side window, which Dawud has rolled down all the way. “Would you guys be able to pick up some Gatorade? Need it for after bench-pressing. Cool gym your dad has by the way, Janna.” He holds out a fifty. “The blue kind or, if they don’t have it, white. And only Gatorade, please. I’m a purist.”
Dawud snatches the bill. “Perfect. This leaves enough for ice cream after.”
“You guys are getting ice cream, too?” Haytham raises those compelling eyebrows at me, and I fiddle with the keys in the ignition. “I love ice cream.”
“We are?” I say, shrugging, turning to Dawud.
“Yeah, that’s why Muhammad thinks we’re going to town, so we have to,” Dawud says, folding up the fifty smaller and smaller.
“But the ice-cream truck comes by here almost every day. Because of the laddoos.” I close my mouth. Oops, I didn’t want Haytham knowing my endearing name for my little brothers. It feels kind of private.
“Oh man, I love ice-cream trucks more than ice cream itself!” Haytham laughs. “Did you ever notice the people who drive them fall into two categories: jolly happy souls or mean uncles? But mean uncles holding out ice-cream cones, which is the best.”
I can’t help laughing. Because it’s true, our ice-cream guy is a mean uncle.
But…
“Actually, our ice-cream guy is a mean uncle, but he gets excited and ho-ho-hos when he hands you your ice cream. Like serious Santa-level excited.”
“I need to see this. When does he come around?” Haytham leans his elbows on the door next to Dawud and peers across at