He returns with rice, lamb, cilantro, pita, plastic packets of cinnamon and cloves, dried orange and fresh oranges, carrots, tomatoes, and two hot peppers the size and shape of his thumbs. Saeedah sits in the wicker rocking chair reading an Arabic translation of Gone with the Wind. He notices signs that prove his point about bundling up: Her hands have cracked and bled along the knuckles. Her lips are so chapped they look perpetually rouged. Her hair flickers with electricity. He wants to offer her petroleum jelly and ChapStick.

Instead he says, “Didn’t I tell you Jameel is coming?”

She turns a page. “Welcome to him.”

“Do you want to help?”

“Welcome to you.”

It bothers him that she won’t say a straightforward “No.” Alone in the kitchen, he preps the lamb and rice. He grates orange peel into the pot, and the scent adheres to his hands. He goes into the living room to ask Saeedah a question, but she’s disappeared. The empty chair rocks.

He calls into the bedroom, “How much hot pepper in the salad?” His words drown in her silence. Is she in the house?

The doorbell rings, and Jameel arrives with Diane, a woman he’s been dating since last year. She’s an elementary school teacher with long, straight, hennaed hair and a silver cross at her neck the length and width of a pinky nail. Once, when Muneer picked Jameel up at her place, her German shepherd, Jack, scared the shit out of him. This is the story Jameel chooses to tell when Saeedah comes out of the bedroom.

She greets them in Arabic, kisses them on both cheeks, and lets Diane touch her belly and ooh and ahh over her. Everything seems so normal. Muneer can’t believe he thought things were strange between him and Saeedah.

“And Jack licked him on the eye and he had to wash his face seven times!” Jameel says.

“I don’t understand why,” Diane says. “They were kisses.”

“Dogs are dirty,” Saeedah says.

Muneer agrees, yet the way she says it, and the way Diane freezes with her mouth open, as though she is about to disagree loudly, make him jump in quickly.

“He’s a nice dog. I was taken off guard.” He wipes his face, as though the dog has licked him again. “Let’s eat, OK?”

Diane asks if she can help set the table.

“Shouldn’t we sit Saudi-style?” Jameel says.

Muneer doesn’t care, but Jameel seems to want to turn this into some sort of cultural display. They spread a plastic cloth on the floor and eat with their knees bent beneath them. Diane sits cross-legged.

Saeedah takes a mouthful of rice. “You shouldn’t cross your legs,” she says. “It’s not etiquette.”