Deepa brought me a bottle of sparkling water. I gulped it down and let out a satisfying burp that made us all laugh. Then Deepa handed me a glass. “Scotch with fizzy water,” she said, bobbing her head in the way of South Asians, smiling. “Sip, sip only. No drink.”

I sipped. It was awful. Then it wasn’t that bad. We joined Fifi and Susu in the living room, grabbed our purses, and walked out together.

“Wait.” Um Buraq took the little red purse from my hand, looked inside, then handed it back. “Good girl. You don’t want to take any ID with you,” she said.

That moment, too, stands out in my memory. Putting a wallet and my ID in the new purse would have been the natural thing to do. Was there some part of me that knew I should not have anything on me that could reveal my identity? Had I imagined, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, that we could be stopped by the police? Or was I just drunk?

My body was relaxed in the car, my heart open to the world, warm and full of love. I felt affection for Um Buraq and Deepa. Maybe even Fifi and Susu, whatever their real names were. The three of us were wrapped in black abayas over our little dresses in the backseat of Um Buraq’s Lincoln Continental. She sat in the front, next to Ajay, who kept his hands on the steering wheel, occasionally looking at us in the rearview mirror.

I liked the dress hugging my waist, squeezing my tits together like they were going to burst. It wasn’t really me, but Almas. I put the window down to let the cool wind of the desert winter blow against my face.

“Girl! Close it! The heat is on!” Um Buraq yelled, and the girls giggled. “Deepa gave you too much to drink,” she said, warning, “Do not forget that your name is Almas. Try to sober up. Understand?”

“How?” I asked.

“How what?”

“How do I sober up?”

She thought about it and said, “Do arithmetic in your head.

Count things. Count everything around you. It’ll help you focus.”

It was nearly eleven when we arrived at the seaside chalet. My head was light. I wobbled in the ill-fitting high heels Um Buraq had given me as we approached a grand, ornately carved wooden door. It opened before we reached it. Out came a middle-aged Kuwaiti man, welcoming us with exaggerated delight. He wore a traditional dishdasha, but without a ghutra-o-egal on his head. Inside, we were met by the cheers of a small group of men in a vast diwaniya room. “Ahlan ahlan ahlan! Welcome, all you beauties. Now the party can start!”

We were the only women there. “You kept us waiting, ladies! But you are well worth it. Come, have a seat. What can I get you to drink?”

Count things to sober up, I reminded myself.

I counted ten men, then four bottles of Black Label scotch and six bottles of Red Label scotch, three of them empty, two partly consumed, and five still sealed. Ten packs of cigarettes, three argilehs. One piece of mirror glass with two lines of a white powder. Ten ashtrays full of smashed cigarette butts, six bowls of nuts, two fancy silver buckets of ice, three bottles of Pepsi, two bottles of ginger ale.