The sky is pink and gray just northwest of I-75, behind the old-brick factories in St. Bernard, on the highway where it’s gray and the air smells of soap-factory. It’s almost time and the car won’t start, so we’re here, waiting on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry, lady,” you say. But really I’m more sorry, because just now, it’s your iftar we’re losing.
You turn the engine over, a few times. We knew it would just cough, and that’s all it does.
“It usually works if I let it sit for a while.” That the cars we drive have personalities is mutually understood.
We watch the pink sky become more gray. I sit on my hands to keep them warm. You have fingerless gloves. We don’t talk because I think you’re tired and hungry and I wouldn’t want to talk either.
But sometimes, sometimes I do talk. Sometimes I pretend you have the energy to listen even when your mouth is dry and having opinions makes you tired, because I can’t quite help myself and I want to tell you everything I know. And sometimes, I ask you a personal question – Do you remember? A Personal Question – and you say:
“Alhamdulillah.”
“Alhamdulillah.”
And the first one I think is resignation, and the second one is gratitude, and I say it with you because I am thankful that after all, we’ve both found ways to be fine. And now, why push for details if it’s alhamdulillah already? A friend should make a fast easier, not harder. Alhamdulillah.
There are three minutes left and we know we won’t make it.
“I’ll text her and tell her we’re late,” you say, as if this isn’t the text we both send every time we go anywhere at all.
You unwrap a pack of vanilla Oreos and break your fast with some water from your thermos, the one that is stainless steel and alway at your side, and then your can of Arizona Iced Tea. The 99¢ kind. The kind we got from the gas station for free when the clerk saw this ukhti walk in thirty minutes before maghreb. The kind I got for free, too, because I was with you and he wasn’t asking questions. The kind I saw you buying when I bumped into you at Walgreens at 1 a.m., and we were both hanging out there like losers, and we giggled hard and bought more snacks together. The kind we got when we stopped to put $5 of gas in the car before driving up to the northern suburbs. The northern suburbs that I think we only ever abandoned Greater Clifton for when we had an iftar to find.
“Do you mind if I pray real quick?” you ask, as if five minutes of communion with God would bore me off you forever. As if you weren’t the one who made me laugh the most, or the one who knew my secrets, or loved me even when I drank wine at my parents’ house. As if tonight I weren’t burning palo santo in my bedroom, writing just this. As if you weren’t my Sister already. I feel embarrassed and grateful.
You’ll always ask if I mind, and I will always tell you no, and I do hope we’ll do this until we are very, very old ladies.
I lose my fear of getting wrinkles when I remember that we can get them together.
When the car finally starts, it’s thirty minutes past maghreb, and the radio blares Drake or Nelly or Sean Paul, and even though we like it, tonight we turn it off.
Place and words 