Sabah and I passed the day getting groomed and pampered. The steam and hard scrubbing of a Moroccan hammam reawakened my skin. I felt renewed, reinvented by water. We lay side by side through the scrubs, massages, and body oiling. We got facials, manicures, and pedicures. Our hair was blown out and styled. And after we ate lunch, we took a nap and went back for makeup, then got dressed and headed to the wedding.

I don’t remember much about that evening except that the more I danced, the less my heart hurt. The music was mostly pop Khaleeji, Egyptian, and Lebanese. But they played some of the classics with a takht orchestra and some instrumental taqseem. There were enough of us from the Levant that they even played a jafra, and we lit up the dance floor, stomping out a high-stepping dabke. I dragged the bride into the middle as we dabke’d around her, and she liked that. I only stopped dancing when the DJ paused for the women of both families to exchange compliments and declare what an honor it was to give away and to receive the bride.

An older Kuwaiti woman sat down at our table and squeezed into a chair next to me, introducing herself simply as a relative of the bride.

“It’s a good thing Khaleeji weddings are segregated. All these women would have torn you to pieces if you were dancing like that in front of their husbands. Palestinian weddings are mixed, right?” she asked.

“Usually. But it depends on the family. Some are more traditional and keep things separate. But usually they’re mixed. Except for the henna night and sometimes the zaffa.”

“Does your husband let you dance at mixed Palestinian weddings?”

I hesitated, unsure if I could still claim to have a husband. “He doesn’t mind.”

“I hear your husband is a Palestinian hero,” the woman said.

It was the way she said it, like she knew something. I nodded and turned away.

“Pardon me for being nosy,” she said. “I tend to run off my mouth, but I mean no harm. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Um Buraq. It’s nice to meet you, Yaqoot.”

It seemed this bitch knew a few things about me. My legal name wasn’t a secret, but not many people knew it.

I stared her down.

“Oh! There I go again, running off at the mouth. I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how I know your name. I’m sorry. I was intrigued watching you dance. I asked, and the bride told me.”

I didn’t respond, unsure what to make of her.

She smiled. “I know I’m older than you, but I am just trying to strike up a friendship. A few of us are going to finish out the night at another party when this one breaks up. I wanted to see if you’d like to join us.”

To my twenty-year-old eyes, she looked ancient, but I know now that she was barely forty. “The wedding party will go on well past midnight. Who is even still awake at that hour?” I asked.