Mama does not believe, as some people do, that girls should not wear makeup until their wedding days, or that listening to music will send you to hell, where hot lead will drip into your ears. Her own father, she tells Muneer, was a music lover who kept a horsehair violin in a red velvet–lined case. But Muneer’s divorce was a disaster, a catastrophe, and she blames herself. She isn’t going to let that happen again. He needs a girl who won’t make trouble or gossip too much, will not smoke shisha, will be devoted to her husband and family, covers her face and does not mix with other men—not brothers-in-law, even with her scarf on—and prefers listening to the Qur’an over listening to music.

This is the kind of girl Mama was looking for at the Madinah wedding.

Either of these girls would do.

“Who are those girls?” she asked a woman sipping orange soda at the next table.

The girls were first cousins from a well-known Madinah family, the woman said. The father of one owned a date factory on the outskirts of the holy city.

Midnight had slid by. The drums were dun-dun-ing and women were trilling for the entrance of the bride, who wore a beaded white dress with puffy lace sleeves. Her bangs were curled and teased, her lipstick orange-red. She followed an entourage of women and little girls carrying ribbon-wrapped candles that dripped wax on their delicate hands.

Mama sat. The two suitable girls were two tables over. One tapped her foot in time with the drumbeat. The other sipped coffee. The girls removed pink and white candy-covered almonds from little mesh bags tied with ribbons, popping the candies in their mouths and snapping the clasps of their purses in time with their chewing.

The trilling in the room rose to a crescendo, and Mama’s temples throbbed. The bride arrived at the stage, her closest family members gathered round her as she sat, stiff as a doll in a gold-and-white armchair, for everyone to gaze upon.

Mama spat the clove she had been chewing into an empty coffee cup and moved to the girls’ table. The candied almonds had sweetened the girls’ breath. The young ladies smelled like sugar.

“Is your mother here?” Mama said.

“No, Auntie,” said the foot-tapping girl.

“Over there,” said the other. She pointed her little porcelain cup, embellished with delicate roses and a gold rim, toward a woman in a golden dress at another table.

“You’re like twins,” Mama said. “Neither of you is married?”

The mother of the one girl gamboled over. She had a big gap between her upper front teeth, deep pink lipstick, and silver eye shadow. To Mama’s chagrin, she knew this woman. Karamah was a grade-school friend of Faizah’s who married a man from al-Madinah and moved here years ago. She kissed Mama on the cheeks, back and forth several times.