You Exist Too Much. Zaina Arafat

business trip,” I’d said, then quickly changed the subject.

      “So, ladies!” she draped her coat over the back of the chair beside me before scooting into the booth. “What shall we order?” She assumed we would want to share, which Anna and I usually didn’t. Part of eating-disorder recovery meant controlling your portions, which was easier to do with individual meals. “I’m open to anything!” Anna said, trying to be flexible. We chose two salads and two pizzas—arugula and beet, margherita and prosciutto. Until the food arrived, my mother talked about her work. Anna pretended like it was all new to her. Our waitress brought everything all out at once, overwhelming the table. We piled salad onto our plates while the pizza cooled. As we were taking our first bites, my mother mentioned a friend whose daughter was getting married. I felt a burn of jealousy. Anytime I heard of another Arab girl’s engagement, it immediately snapped me out of my gayness. “How’d she meet him?” I asked.

      “Through the community,” she said. Years ago I’d drifted away from the community, which consisted of Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinians living in the D.C. area. When I moved back to D.C. after a year in Italy post-college, I’d taken part in weekends of pregaming at posh lounges followed by bass-pumping, douchebag-frequented clubs, an activity I would’ve gladly traded for, say, cleaning toilets. “He’s from a very good family.”

      Anna silently observed this interaction. I could tell she felt left out; my mother had taken no interest in her, hadn’t asked her a single question. She was selectively observant—a female roommate’s background was of no consequence. In a misguided attempt to ease the tension and make Anna feel included, I decided to broach the topic of our relationship. I started with a hypothetical. It was a risky one, but at the restaurant that night, I felt safe with my mother. “How would you feel if I married a woman?” I asked. It was too much—I could’ve started with “dated”—but for some reason I chose to go extreme.

      My mother dragged a slice from the plate in the center of the table and placed it onto her own. “I would be very upset,” she said, avoiding eye contact. She took a bite and chewed it slowly, her breaths getting louder and deeper, her eyes blinking faster. Her instincts were onto us. I was becoming increasingly nervous—I knew all the signs. “Why?” she asked. She looked directly at Anna before turning back to me. “Are you planning on it?”

      I panicked. “I was just wondering—”

      “Because if you are, then stay away,” she threatened. “Stay away from me and the rest of my family.” In her mind, her lineage didn’t trickle down to me.

      Her breaths now sounded like crashing waves. She began to twitch. I tried to backtrack. “I’m not saying I’m going to.”

      “You know what . . .” She stood up, pushing the table forward, knocking over a glass and soaking the kitschy checkered tablecloth with red wine. “Do whatever you want.”

      Anna immediately grabbed napkins and started mopping up the wine. The people seated beside us looked over, then scooted in the opposite direction before turning back to their conversation. I gave them an apologetic look.

      My mother ran out of the restaurant, forgetting her coat. I grabbed it before pulling on my own. “Can you get the bill?” I asked Anna. “I’ll pay you back.”

      She nodded. “Just go.”

      I burst out the door and spotted her in the distance ahead. I tried to catch up. “Mama, please,” I cried. “I’m sorry. I won’t. I’m not!” By the time I caught up to her, I could see a tear streaming down her cheek. I could think of nothing more shameful—why was I doing this to her? At the time I thought the same thing: she should’ve had better. She didn’t deserve this at all.

      I REMEMBER FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS WHEN I WAS two and looking up to see my parents laughing at the top. They claim to have laughed so that I wouldn’t cry. But I rarely cried. “You were a happy baby,” Teta used to tell me, back when she could still remember my infancy. “You used to wake up singing in your crib. And you had such a healthy appetite.” Once, when I was still in diapers, a friend of my mother’s came over with a falafel sandwich. At the sight of it I crawled off the changing table and scurried over to the friend. I poised myself at her feet like a puppy and waited for scraps to fall.

      I also remember when my mother asked me to tell my father she was in labor. I was three years old. He was in the living room of our house in the D.C. suburbs, watching the news; the Iran-Contra scandal was covered on every channel that year. Back then my father wore a black suit to work each day, with a white button-down shirt and a shockingly bright tie. “You need to find a way to distinguish yourself, to stand out,” he’d say to my mother whenever she suggested a more demure color. He would spray a heavy cologne every morning that mixed with the scent of my mother’s perfume, delicious and thick. I would monkey around as they got dressed, collecting pennies off the bureau and trying on my mother’s heels, stabbing the carpeted floor with the spikes. My father wore only tighty-whiteys as he shaved, craning his neck with pursed lips as he dragged the razor through shaving cream like a plow through fresh powdery snow. I would pump Gillette into the open palm of my outstretched hand and watch it poof before patting it onto my cheeks. Having heard from my mother that shaving could cause hair to grow where it hadn’t before, I resisted the temptation to drag the razor across my smooth face. Instead, I would derive satisfaction from dipping an index finger into the shaving cream cloud and holding it to the end of my nose, dotting the tip before smearing it onto my chin and upper lip. I’d watch myself in the mirror, unsmiling.

      At my mother’s request I ran down the stairs to tell my father it was time to go to the hospital, gripping the wooden banister and slowing down when I arrived at the knob that marked its end. “Baba!” I screamed.

      “What! What!” The coffee table squeaked as he jumped up from the couch. Within seconds he was in the hallway.

      “The baby’s coming!” I felt both important and scared.

      Hours later I was staring at newborn Karim through the glass partition, thinking him superfluous and knowing things would now be different, my mother no longer mine entirely.

       3

      A WEEK HAD PASSED SINCE THE RESTAURANT INCIDENT. Anna and I had been trying to act as though nothing had happened, but the memory of that night was still thick between us. That evening we were both at home, reading on opposite ends of the couch—me a novel, and she leather-bound law books—when my phone buzzed. My heart leaped when I saw who the message was from: the professor.

      “I’m tired,” I said to Anna, lying. “I’m going to bed early tonight.” I looked up from my book and we made eye contact. She held my gaze for a few moments, as if she knew something was amiss and wanted me to crack. “Cool,” she finally said. “I’ll join you once I’m done.”

      I got up, cradling my laptop in my arms, then kissed her good night, shut the door to our bedroom and immediately opened the professor’s email. It was just one line: “Where do you live?”

      We’d met the previous summer, almost a year earlier. She taught French literature at the Alliance Française in Midtown East, in between semesters at Columbia. The class was on Thursday evenings, before my shift began. I was taking it to practice my French, a language I’d been learning since fifth grade and that seemed worth keeping up for the intellectual stimulation DJing failed to provide. On the first day, she’d announced that past students had told her she didn’t smile enough. “So . . .” She placed her palms on the edge of the desk and leaned forward smiling, as if to say, “Here you go.”

      I’d loved her since the day she kept me after class and suggested I was too harsh on Emma Bovary for her childish fantasies and for cheating on Charles. “Emma’s pathetic, sure,” she