She knows it’s terrible to leave him hanging, but she can’t think of what to say. The shopkeeper has gone outside. She sees him smoking through the glass doors.

“I was thinking.” She flicks her nail at the little metal door on the coin return. “I was thinking you should see other people while I’m gone.” Later—in a year, in two years—she’ll recognize herself as the villain in this story. She’ll recognize that the nonchalance with which she was willing to let him go was atypical for her, a person afraid of losing everyone. Except her mother, who she sees as the original bad guy, the villain in every other story.

Hannah’s breaking her own heart.

The silence between them is filled with phone-line feedback. The distance that separates them is too much to bear.

“That wasn’t the deal,” he says. His words are puffed up with a sudden hatred that she knows she deserves. She ducks, as though he could throw something at her from where he is.

“I know, but—being here. It’s more than I expected. The letter explains everything.”

“You waited two months. Don’t send the letter,” Malik says. “You said everything you need to say.”

Outside, the afternoon sun stings her eyes.

Hannah’s father works constantly, especially after the UN makes its ultimatum at the end of November: Saddam has until January 15 to withdraw.

“It’s good timing,” Hannah tells her father. “Since I’m leaving on the twentieth. Hopefully he’ll surrender soon.”

“He won’t surrender,” Muneer says. “What if they close the airports on the fifteenth? You should leave sooner.”

She’s surprised he would suggest she cut her visit short. And she doesn’t want to, though often she’s bored. She wants to be like normal people and stick to a plan.

In early December, Summer drags Hannah to a holiday bazaar at one of the international schools and tries to convince her to buy pot holders decorated with an embroidered Saudi husband and wife—his head covered in tiny red-and-white check, hers in black. Their faces are made out of pantyhose pulled tight over cotton batting, and their sewn-on mouths curve into little red smiles.

“No way,” Hannah says, and worries she’s offended the nice British expat housewife who crafted the thing.

“We should plan a New Year’s party at the beach,” Summer says. “I’ll invite that Zee guy.”

“I don’t think I should see him anymore.”

“I met some cool Kuwaiti guys I could call.”

Americans and Brits stream by. Hannah and Summer are among a few Saudis at the bazaar—and Summer looks like an expat. It is a strange friendship between them. When they go to stores at the mall, the shopkeepers speak to Summer in English and to Hannah in Arabic.