‘Thank you for what? You’re the one who gave up your whole Sunday to transform me!’
‘And you trusted me to do it. For the first time in a long while, I feel like I have a purpose in life, you know? Something that goes beyond the nine-to-five grind. I’m going to be a stylist and you believed in me.’
Tears springing to my eyes, I reached over and hugged Lucy and she hugged me back harder. I realised then that I wasn’t the only one who was lost. We all were, in a way. Some more than others, but we all had a certain amount of emptiness inside us, voids of time we were trying to fill. And although we succeeded in filling them, there was a difference between existing and living. Maybe finally we could both do the latter.
Chapter Sixteen
After our emotional moment in the Selfridge’s changing room, I let Lucy persuade me to go to a fancy Japanese restaurant with her, so we could ‘test out my new look’ – her words. I didn’t know what she meant by that. I was hardly a showroom car going for a test drive.
We stepped back onto Oxford Street, laden with so many bags that it was a struggle to keep track of them all. It was dark and the twinkling Christmas lights that decorated the street and all the shop windows created a magical atmosphere that I’ve loved since I was a child. There’s nothing quite like Christmas in London: the lights, the songs playing in all the shops, the spiced drinks. My family and I don’t celebrate it though, unless you count the family roast dinner on Christmas Day and the baked salmon the day after because it’s heavily discounted in Morrisons.
‘Here we are,’ Lucy said, pushing open the heavy glass door to the restaurant, which was just around the corner from Selfridge’s. I followed her into the dimly lit room, where the waiter hurried to relieve us of our bright yellow bags before ushering us to a table at the back.
I slipped off my brand-new coat and brown leather handbag – a mid-range one because I wasn’t ready to part with three grand for the sake of a fancy logo the way Lucy wanted me to – before carefully hanging my coat on the back of my chair and placing my bag on my lap. I hoped I wasn’t going to ruin them seconds after I’d bought them. I had been known to spill soya sauce on my clothes before, with my chopstick-handling skills being borderline inadequate.
As I took my seat opposite Lucy, who had already begun to pore over the menu, I felt the uncomfortable sensation of someone looking at me. Turning around, I found Zakariya staring at me in disbelief. Our eyes connected and I instantly looked away, embarrassed. Why did he have to be in this restaurant, of all places? I hadn’t heard from him at all since I sent the rejection text and now, he was right there, ready to make my dinner experience as awkward as all of our previous interactions.
‘Don’t look now, but remember that guy I had to meet for marriage a few weeks ago? He’s here, in the restaurant,’ I murmured to Lucy, who automatically turned to look.
‘Lucy! I told you not to look now!’
‘Sorry.’ She didn’t look particularly sorry. ‘The Asian guy in the suit?’
‘Yes! And don’t you dare look at him again. He’ll know we’re talking about him!’
‘Maya, I need to check him out properly! I didn’t get a good look the first time!’
‘You can’t!’
‘Just quickly!’ Lucy, completely ignoring my pleas, looked over at Zakariya’s table again. ‘Ooh, he’s a bit of a fittie, isn’t he? You sure you don’t want to give him another chance?’
The rest of the meal was torture. While I should have been enjoying my new hair and the way it elegantly swished around my face, I couldn’t. I kept wanting to look over at Zakariya to see if he really was looking at me the way I thought he was. This was the second time I had run into him and the third time we had ‘met’. Why did God keep planting him in my face like this?
‘It’s called coincidence, not divine intervention,’ Lucy said with a giggle when I posed the same question to her. I felt my stomach tighten at her response. Not because she didn’t believe in God. A person’s faith, or lack of, had no bearing on how I felt about them. But it was at that exact moment that I missed Dina. She would have thought it was fate – or qadr – that we kept bumping into each other.
Lucy and I parted ways after dinner. Somehow, while she was wandering around the department store creating content, she had met a man and now had a drinks date, despite dating someone else ‘casually’. I wasn’t surprised. Lucy collected dates – or ‘sneaky links’ as she called them – like I collected Clubcard points. I was in awe of her talent and ability to put herself out there, time and time again.
It did, however, mean that I was now lumbered with all my bags. As I struggled to carry them while I took my phone out to book a ride home, Zakariya came out onto the pavement. I was hoping to avoid him altogether. The fact that he hadn’t come over to say hello meant that he also wanted to steer clear of me. Whatever the reason, I planned to disappear to avoid any awkward conversation.
‘Hey, salaams, Maya,’ he said casually, watching me as I dropped a bag in my haste to book an Uber and get away from him. ‘How are you? You look really different.’
‘Wa alaikum salaam,’ I mumbled back, my face heating up almost immediately. Why did he mention the way I looked? Was it a good ‘different’ or bad ‘different’? Flustered, I ignored the comment and reluctantly answered his question, ‘Good, thanks. You?’
‘All right, considering. Do you need any help with those bags? What did you do, buy up the whole of Selfridge’s?’
‘No, it’s OK,’ I replied casually, grateful that the phone in my hand meant that I didn’t have to look at him. ‘I’m trying to book an Uber and the next one is available in . . . thirty-two minutes? What the hell?’
‘It’s hard to get them in central London these days,’ he said and I couldn’t tell from his tone if he was taking the mick or being serious. ‘My car’s around the corner if you would like a lift home.’
His offer came at the same time as I felt a drop of rain on my newly styled hair. I stared at my fifteen yellow paper bags in dismay and thought about all the beautiful new things they contained, not to mention my expensive hair and makeup. Was it worth ruining my epic makeover for the sake of my pride and dignity?
‘I would love a lift, thank you,’ I managed to croak as graciously as possible.
Within seconds, he had scooped up most of my bags and I trailed behind him with the rest, trying to match his long strides with my much shorter ones.
‘Thanks,’ I said, as Zakariya held the door of his fancy Mercedes open and I climbed inside, seconds before it really began to pour down with rain. He took the last few bags off me and stuffed them into the back of the car. When he finally got in, he was drenched. His hair lay lank and limp across his forehead and his eyelashes, which were abnormally and unfairly long, had drops of rain clinging to them.
‘Here,’ I said, pulling out a pack of tissues and handing him a couple. He took them gratefully and wiped his face, before switching the engine and the heating on.
‘What’s your postcode?’ he asked, turning to me. I got the sudden, overwhelming desire to brush away a lock of wet hair that had fallen across his forehead. With a gulp, I told him and hastily averted my gaze as he typed it into his phone and then pulled away from the kerb.
We began to drive through London in silence. The radio was on, but so quietly that I could barely discern what song was playing. The rain was louder, beating down heavily on the windscreen, the wipers thrashing away but unable to keep up. Zakariya didn’t seem to mind the rain or the silence. I glanced at him a couple of times. He had a nice profile, more so because of his beard and his straight nose. I thought back to Noah’s nose. I remembered it being imperfectly lovely, but I couldn’t remember why. He was fading from my memory faster than I thought he would. Painfully fast. Would I ever see him again, or was that morning on the Tube all the time I was destined to get with him?
‘That’s the third time you’ve looked at me.’ Zakariya’s low voice broke the silence and once again, heat rushed to my cheeks. Why did he always go out of his way to embarrass me?
‘I’m trying to figure out why you’re being so nice to me,’ I replied stiffly, turning to look out the window. Not that I could see much in the dark and rain. London was a blur of lights and buildings.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘We didn’t exactly part ways on a positive note,’ I replied frankly. Whatever game he was playing, I wasn’t about to be a part of it. ‘And you didn’t reply to my text message either.’
‘The one where you dumped me?’
‘There was nothing to dump. It’s not like we were dating!’
‘Dating? Interesting term. Not very Islamic.’
‘What am I supposed to call it, then?’