What We Learned Along the Way (2 page)

As usual, men flocked to her, but she ignored
them all. She sauntered past the whistles and cat calls like she
didn’t even hear them. Aliya used to talk to those kinds of men,
the immature, aggressive ones that would start a conversation with
“Damn, you fine, girl,” the kind that felt completely free to grab
her hand—or any other body part he saw fit— without asking
permission. But she was 20 now, and she was looking for something
different, someone different.

She saw a small refreshment stand and decided
to get a drink. As she walked toward the stand, she studied the
menu. She studied it so hard that she didn’t even notice she was
walking directly into a man who had knelt down to tie his shoe.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said as she began to
walk away, eyes still fixed on the menu. She didn’t even see his
face and wouldn’t have paid him any more attention if it hadn’t
been for his voice.

All he said was “No problem,” but that was
enough to stop her in her tracks. His voice was so deep that she
could actually feel the vibration in the hand she had placed on his
shoulder to catch her balance. She turned around to see the face
the voice belonged to and, to her surprise, it was even more
breathtaking. Among all the gold teeth, baseball caps and sagging,
male skinny jeans, she had managed to trip over a gorgeous man in
pair of nice fitting dark denim jeans with a crisp white button
down and a thick head of freshly twisted locs.

Aliya was usually pretty witty when she
talked to men, but this time she couldn’t think of a thing to
say.

“You alright?” he asked as he dusted off his
shoe and stood up with a million-watt smile.

She couldn’t think of anything more to say
other than what she had already said. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
Aliya had talked to many men before, and this was the first time
she had been rendered speechless by one.

“It’s okay. I guess I picked a pretty bad
spot to tie my shoe.”

“Oh no, it’s all my fault. I mean, I should
have been looking where I was going. I’m not usually this clumsy.
I’m actually pretty graceful, or at least that’s what people tell
me. I’m not crazy, you know. I don’t make it a habit of walking
into cute men.”
Oh no, did I really just say that out loud?
Aliya was nervous. She couldn’t stop talking. She couldn’t believe
she was becoming one of those goofy, rambling women she usually
felt sorry for.

He could tell she was nervous and thought it
was cute, but he knew he had to rescue her from herself. He put his
hand on her shoulder and cut her off in mid-sentence. “My name is
Langston. What’s yours?” Finally, she had stopped talking.

“Aliya,” she managed to say after a deep
breath.

“Well, Ms. Aliya, I have to get going. I hope
you enjoy the show.” He shook her hand and then began to walk away.
Aliya stood there in shock, trying to get herself together. She
watched him walk toward the entrance, and then turned around to
walk back to her car. She had forgotten all about that drink and
needed to sit down. Just as she turned around, she heard Langston’s
voice rise above the crowd. “Aliya,” he said in a loud and firm
voice. “Thanks for bumping into me.” He flashed yet another one of
his addictive smiles and walked into the building.

Mariam was only a few minutes from the
concert, and she couldn’t wait to get out of the car. She couldn’t
stand the tension between Malikah and Jaime. For as long as they’d
all known each other, she had been the peacemaker between the two
of them. She had been the backbone of the whole relationship, and
it grew tiring at times. Because of the vital role she played in
their friendship, the other girls nicknamed her Mama Mariam. She
liked that her friends looked up to her for advice, but sometimes
it was more than she could handle. She wondered at times what they
would do once she got married and started her own family. She and
Rashad were pretty serious and he could propose at any moment.

After they passed the third “Divas All-Star”
poster, Malikah started to get suspicious, but when they pulled
into the crowded parking lot of the concert hall, her suspicions
had been confirmed.

“You got tickets to this concert? They’ve
been sold out for weeks! I can’t believe it!” Malikah blurted out.
She had been dreaming of going to this concert for months, but had
written it off as impossible. The tickets were sold out before she
even got a chance to try to buy them. She was excited to actually
be there and forgot all about being mad at Jaime. When they got out
of the car, she gave both of her friends a huge hug. “Thank you so
much,” she screamed.

Mariam didn’t have to call Aliya to see where
she was. Her long, curly hair and brightly-colored outfits always
made her an easy target. It only took a few minutes for them all to
meet up. Together, the four of them looked like an odd bunch, their
personalities and personal styles as different as they could
possibly be. They didn’t at all look like they would hang out
together. Jaime and Aliya looked like polar opposites, one
completely covered in beautiful Islamic clothing, the other dressed
like a bohemian model in a bright yellow, backless sundress with a
huge, golden brown curly afro.

Mariam wasn’t as stunning, but beautiful
still. Her style was more “all-American girl.” She often looked
professional, like she was going to work, even when she wasn’t
trying to. For the concert, she wore a cute pair of denim trousers
with a long pink tank top, a light green blazer, a simple pair of
pearls, and matching hijab. She looked like the Muslim version of a
Tommy Hilfiger model.

Potentially, Malikah was just as beautiful as
the others, but she didn’t know it. She was insecure and always
wished she looked like someone else. She has trouble seeing how
beautiful she was on her own. She wasn’t as tall as Jaime, her hair
wasn’t as long as Aliya’s, and her outfits never looked as cute and
put together as Mariam’s, but she was beautiful. Rather than focus
on her flawless skin and beautiful eyes, she obsessed over her
weight, thanks to her mother. She wasn’t fat at all (a solid size
14 and carried it well) but she didn’t like it. Mariam couldn’t
understand how unhappy Malikah was with her body. She had curves
Mariam would die for.

“Happy Birthday,” Aliya said as she gave
Malikah a huge hug. “How have you been? I feel like I haven’t seen
you in forever.”

Mariam loved the way Aliya always seemed so
warm and happy to see everyone. After 40 minutes of Malikah and
Jaime’s game of the silent treatment, it was all she needed to see
a smiling face. Ever since Aliya started working overtime at Starr,
they didn’t get to see that much of her anymore. When they were
younger, they did everything together, but now that they were
getting older, they saw less and less of each other. They hadn’t
all been out together in over a month.

Mariam and Malikah went to the same college,
but they didn’t see each other that often. Mariam was student body
president. She was always planning a bake sale, a car wash, a
sit-in, or some kind of forum. She had little time to spend
socializing. Jaime was head of the planning committee at the
mosque, but she really wasn’t as busy as you would think. The
committee was a fairly large one, and rather than take
responsibility like most leaders, she merely divvied up all of her
work for everyone else to do. Jaime loved being the committee
chair. She had no idea most of the committee hated her.

Mariam announced that they should be getting
to their seats, so they all started heading in. Because of the
large crowd, they held hands to keep from getting separated. As
they walked to their seats, Mariam hoped that everything would go
well. She didn’t have the energy to diffuse anymore tense
situations. When they got to their seats in the 5th row, Malikah
almost lost her mind. “I can’t believe we are this close to the
stage! How did you get these seats?” she asked with excitement. “I
could practically jump on stage and sing backup!”

“Don’t worry about all that. I’ve got
connections,” Mariam said nonchalantly. She didn’t tell her she’d
won them on the radio.

Mariam liked seeing her friend so happy.
After the fish fiasco, she needed something big, and this was it.
She looked down the row at her three friends laughing and enjoying
each other’s company. She could feel tears welling up as she
thought about how this might be the last time she saw them all
together for a long time. Though Mariam had known for a few weeks,
she still hadn’t found the right time to tell her friends she had
been offered and was accepting a job in Chicago. All the hard work
she had put into her college career was finally paying off.

Mariam had gone through a rigorous
interviewing process for a position as creative director at
Meredith Advertising firm. She knew it was a hard job to get, but
Mariam had always been the type to reach for the impossible. She
had an impressive resume and the GPA to match, so when she heard
that out of the 200 original applicants, she was in the top 4, she
wasn’t surprised. She was surprised, though, when she received a
letter from Meredith Headquarters. It said they were so impressed
with her that not only did they want to offer her the position, but
that they wanted her to work from the head branch in Chicago. They
would provide her transportation and living arrangements. The only
thing that would have stopped her was Rashad. They had been
discussing marriage a lot lately, and she didn’t know what would
happen if she moved to another state.

To her surprise, Rashad was excited about the
news. He said he was growing tired of Houston and thought a change
of scenery might do them some good. He was the head chef at Starr,
the same restaurant where Aliya worked as a bartender. He knew it
was a national chain and felt pretty sure they had a location in
Chicago. All he had to do was get transferred. After hearing that
Rashad was on board, Mariam was sure about her decision. She was
moving to Chicago after graduation. She loved Rashad and couldn’t
believe they were going to be making a move like this. She just
hoped he would propose soon.

By the end of the night, they were all tired
and decided to go back to Aliya’s for a nightcap. Though Jaime
wouldn’t have admitted it to her parents, she had a great time.
They didn’t like her listening to worldly music, so she didn’t
bother telling them about the concert. She only hoped they wouldn’t
ask what she did once she got home. By the time they got to
Aliya’s, it was after midnight. Jaime loved Aliya’s house. Though
she was a lot less religious, Jaime never talked to Aliya the way
she did Malikah. Part of it was because she knew Aliya wouldn’t
hesitate to put her in her place, but a bigger part was that she
secretly admired Aliya for being so strong and independent. Aliya
never worried about what others thought of her and didn’t spend her
life trying to impress people. She was free to be herself.

Though she was the youngest in the group, she
was the first to have her own place. It was decorated so nicely
that you wouldn’t think a 20-year-old lived there. It looked more
like a swanky apartment that belonged to a 30-something fashion
designer or maybe an up-and-coming artist. It was full of color and
texture. Jaime loved all the art on the walls. Her favorite was her
framed black and white picture of Ella Fitzgerald.

Jaime dreamed of having her own place, but
her parents wouldn’t hear of it. They wanted her to stay home until
she got married. If she was as bold as Aliya, she would have told
them she was an adult who could take care of herself. She would
have said it would be good for her to step out on her own and start
to establish her own life instead of having it dictated to her. She
would have told them getting a job and making her own decisions
wouldn’t make her a bad Muslim, but she couldn’t say any of that,
not to their faces anyway. Sometimes she felt so trapped that she
wanted to scream.

While Jaime sat on the couch and imagined
what it would be like if Aliya’s apartment where her own, everyone
else raided the fridge. “Take anything you want,” Aliya yelled from
the bedroom. Mariam and Malikah were already busy feasting on
pizza, chips, cookies and ice cream.

“I really shouldn’t be eating this,” Malikah
said between bites. “I’m trying to lose 20 pounds, so I can be
skinny like yall.”

“For what?” Mariam asked with her hand in the
potato chip bag. “You have a cute body. Why are you obsessed with
losing weight?”

“Because I’m sick of being fat.”

“You obviously haven’t memorized the house
rules,” Aliya said as she came into the kitchen. She had changed
into a pair of sweat pants and an oversized tee. Even then, she was
beautiful. “In my house, we don’t talk negatively about others or
ourselves. We only talk about how fabulous we are and how all the
men love us!” Aliya laughed as she grabbed a bottle of water from
the table and sat down with her friends. “No, seriously, though,”
she said softly as she put her arm around Malikah. “Don’t ever
doubt how beautiful you are. You are always comparing yourself to
us, but the man you’re going to marry won’t want a woman that looks
like us. He’ll want you.”

“And how do you expect to attract a good man
if you don’t even like yourself?” Mariam added.

While the other girls talked, Jaime was
quite. Finally, someone noticed.

“Why are you so quiet, Jaime?” Mariam asked.
It wasn’t normal for her to pass up a chance to talk about herself
in front of everyone else.

“Oh, no reason.”

“She’s probably scared her parents will find
out she’s been listening to music with us pants-wearing heifers,”
Malikah joked. Jaime remained quiet. Malikah knew then something
was wrong. The Jaime she knew would never take a shot from her
without firing back an acidic response.