Girls of Riyadh

At first, the results were definitely satisfying. He showed an interest in her that indulged and gratified her vanity. From the start, she made it clear that their friendship did not mean he had the right to interfere or intrude in her life, asking her for an hour-by-hour run down of her daily schedule. And so he was constantly apologizing to her, justifying his concern about knowing when she was free by saying he wanted to be certain of not bothering her while she was busy. She also never returned his text messages. She informed him that she didn’t like to write messages, as she found that a waste of time and effort she didn’t have to spare. (Of course, had her cell phone fallen into his hands he would have found it crammed with text messages, sent and received, from her girlfriends and relatives, but he didn’t really need to know that!)

Gradually his obvious interest in her began to lessen, alarming her. His calls decreased noticeably, and his conversation became more serious and formal, as if he were beginning to set new limits on their relationship. Perhaps the time had come, Lamees thought, to ditch her plan. But she was afraid that she might regret her hastiness later on. After all, she was the one who always criticized her girlfriends for their naïveté and lack of patience when it came to men. She comforted herself with the thought that Nazir wasn’t the easy type—one of the main reasons she was attracted to him. She would be filled with pride if she was the one who ultimately captured his heart.

She tried to maintain her optimism throughout the three-month period that she had set to get the relationship on track. She reminded herself how much Nizar had seemed to like her, thinking hard to recall every single moment or gesture indicating his admiration. It seemed so easy the first month that she was back in Riyadh, when everything that had transpired in Jeddah was still fresh in her mind. He seemed to enjoy anything she said and did even if it was really silly or trivial, like telling a dumb joke or having to brew two cups of coffee first thing every morning. Even their phone conversations during the first month after classes began to imply some lingering, hidden affection, for even though she was often standoffish and disagreed with him openly on many things, he was always the first to call, and to apologize if need be.

As the second month went by, she started thinking about the moments with him that she hadn’t much noticed at the time, but that on deep reflection seemed meaningful. For instance, there was the memory of her last day at the hospital in Jeddah, when they had lunch together in the cafeteria. He pulled out a chair for her, something he had never done. And then he sat in the chair closest to hers, rather than across the table as usual, as if the chair across the table were farther away than he could be on the day of their farewell. And there was the way he so often tried to lure her into saying certain words that he liked to hear from her because of her particular way of saying them, like the word water, since she pronounced the t like a d, sounding just like the Americans. And the way he imitated the way she pronounced the word exactly in her Americanized accent: egg-zak-lee!

As the third month rolled around, Lamees counted two entire weeks since the last time they had been in touch. Two weeks in which she had gotten totally fed up with optimism and strict tactics and strategies, which only someone completely without a heart would stick to, right? But she was still afraid of relenting. After all, looking back, she had covered pretty impressive ground, when you calculated the amount of time actually spent in carrying out her policy. She convinced herself that Nizar would be back on her radar one of these days. But only if he was really meant for her.

Fate didn’t disappoint her. In fact, the plan she was intending to cut short succeeded. He came to her father to officially ask for her hand. Three entire weeks before her absolute drop-dead deadline!

39.

To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com

From: “seerehwenfadha7et”

Date: December 3, 2004

Subject: Pages from the Sky-Blue Scrapbook

Don’t wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality.—Mark Twain