Rola nodded, carefully avoiding her aunt’s eyes. Her mother asked if she wanted to make a falafel sandwich, and Hanan shook her head. “See ya.” She sailed out of the kitchen, suppressing an urge to smile. Maybe she’d call John later in the afternoon and cajole him into breaking from his thesis and going apartment shopping with her. He’d do anything for a frappacino.

The club was the Eighth Floor, literally on the eighth floor of an old warehouse on the Delaware River. The strip along the river was full of these places that attracted the college students from Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania, the Center City crowd who wore suits in the daytime and miniskirts at night. The club was smoky and dim, with occasional flashing neon pink lights. The DJ stood on a suspended platform with his turntable, overseeing the dance floor, packed with dancing and gyrating and bouncing bodies.

“Do you like it?” Hanan asked, sipping a rum and Coke.

“It’s nice,” her cousin replied, sipping a plain glass of water. “You come here a lot?” She had a very thick accent, but she spoke English better than Hanan’s mother did. Why didn’t she speak to her in English before now?, Hanan wondered.

“Yes. My friends and I just come to dance and relax once in a while.” She looked over her cousin’s outfit and sighed. Rola’s jeans were ultra-tight and narrow at the ankles. Hanan had offered to loan her one of her baggy pairs, cinched with a belt. If she’d been stronger in Arabic, she would have told her cousin that tight jeans were the leading cause of yeast infections, but she decided not to even attempt it. She had offered to loan Rola some silver jewelry, but Rola had insisted on wearing her heavy gold bracelets, in the 21 karat Arabic style, the kind that Mama had stored away in a safe deposit box for Hanan, “to give you on your wedding day, God willing.”

“Your friend? His name is John?”

“Yep.”

“He is your boyfriend?”

“No, just a friend. He’s really nice. We met in college. I dropped out after the first year, but he stayed on to do graduate work.”

“Why did you leave the college?”

“Not for me. I work at a clothing store and spend my time reading, hanging out. We can’t all be geniuses.”

“Do your parents know that you have a boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend, Rola. There’s a difference,” Hanan snapped. There was an awkward silence, until Rola broke it.

“We have clubs in Jordan too, and I went once with my college roommate and her sister. It was fun. Good way to relax before the examinations.” She sipped her water. As the light flashed on her thin face, Hanan saw that she was pale and a thin layer of sweat glistened on her upper lip. She looked around nervously, then nearly jumped out of her skin when a young blond man bumped into her. Even Hanan, standing further away, could smell the acrid odor of beer on his breath. He looked at both Rola and Hanan appraisingly, then smiled broadly. Before he could say anything, Hanan said, “Keep moving, pal.” He shrugged and, grabbing another beer, moved off into the crowd.