For her, it had been one Friday afternoon after jumaa prayer when she had thrown a metal chair from the fire escape. To this day, Deya didn’t know why she had done it. All she could remember was her classmates staring at her with impish smiles, telling her that she didn’t have the nerve, and then standing at the edge of the fire escape and plunging the chair down five stories with relish. The principal had called Fareeda to tell her that Deya had been suspended. But when she went home, head bowed, Fareeda had only laughed and said, “It doesn’t matter. There are more important things to worry about than school.”
It wasn’t the only time Deya had broken the rules. She had once asked one of her classmates, Yusra, to buy her an Eminem CD because she knew Fareeda would never allow it. Yusra’s family wasn’t as strict as Deya’s grandparents, who only allowed her to listen to Arabic music. Yusra smuggled the Eminem CD to her in school, and Deya listened to it obsessively. She identified with the rapper’s tension, admired his defiant attitude and courageous voice. If only Deya had that voice. Some nights, whenever she had a bad day at school or Fareeda had upset her, Deya would slip her headphones on and fall asleep listening to Eminem’s words, knowing that somewhere out there was another person who felt trapped by the confines of his world—comforted by the fact that you didn’t have to be a woman or even an immigrant to understand what it felt like to not belong.
Thinking of it now, that was the only time Deya could remember ever asking anyone to do something for her. It wasn’t like her to ask for favors—she never wanted to be an inconvenience, a bother. But it was the only way now. In the lunchroom, she gritted her teeth and approached Meriem. Meriem gave her a small smile as she handed her the phone, and Deya tried not to flush in embarrassment as she rushed to the nearest bathroom. Inside, she turned away from her reflection in the mirrors. The face of a coward. The face of a fool. She entered a bathroom stall, closed the door behind her. She could feel her heart beating against her chest as she dialed the number. After four rings, someone picked up. “Hello,” came a woman’s voice.
Deya coughed. Her mouth had gone dry. “Umm, hi.” She tried to keep her voice from cracking. “Is this Books and Beans?”
“Yes.” A brief pause. “Can I help you?”
“Umm . . . can I speak to the manager? My name is Deya.”
“Deya?”
“Yes.”
Silence. Then, “I can’t believe it’s you.” Deya could hear nervousness in the woman’s voice.
She realized her hands were shaking, and she pressed the cell phone against her hijab. “Who is this?”
“This is . . .” The woman trailed off. Adrenaline poured through Deya.
“Who are you?” Deya asked again.
“I don’t know where to begin,” the woman said. “I know this must seem strange, but I can’t tell you who I am over the phone.”
“What? Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
Deya’s heart thumped so hard she thought she could hear its echo in the bathroom stall. It all seemed like something out of a mystery novel, not real life.
“Deya,” the woman said. “Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Listen—” Her voice was low now, and Deya could hear the dinging of a cash register in the background. “Can we meet in person?”
“In person?”
“Yes. Can you come to the bookstore?”
Deya considered. The only times she ever left the house alone were when Fareeda needed something urgently, like refreshments to serve unexpected visitors. She would hand Deya exact change and tell her to hurry to the deli on the corner of Seventy-Third Street for a box of Lipton tea, or to the Italian bakery on Seventy-Eighth Street for a tray of rainbow cookies. Deya thought of the breeze against her hair as she strolled up the block on those rare occasions. The smell of pizza, the distant jingle of an ice cream truck. It felt good to walk the streets alone, powerful. Usually Khaled and Fareeda accompanied Deya and her sisters everywhere—to their favorite pizzeria, Elegante on Sixty-Ninth Street, to the Bagel Boy on Third Avenue, sometimes even to the mosque on Fridays, crammed in the back of Khaled’s ’76 Chevy, eyes fastened to the floor whenever they passed a man. But on those rare walks alone, drifting down Fifth Avenue past men and women, Deya didn’t have to lower her