“No problem. I actually don’t mind the company,” she replied and opened the book she’d snatched. It was a collection of T. S. Eliot’s poems, and she automatically flipped through until she found “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”—her favorite poem, especially when she was in a self-pitying mood.

At that moment, Peter’s fat Persian snuggled up next to her. She stroked his back, wondering what was taking John so long. He ambled in twenty minutes later, looking pensive and haggard as usual. He saw her on the couch and, running his hand through his thick hair, immediately asked, “Coffee?”

The South Street Café was just a block away, and they settled at a corner table with their white mugs of hot coffee. Hanan listened to his woes about the slow process of writing his doctoral dissertation in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. When he’d finished telling her about uncaring thesis advisors and classmates who sabotaged each other’s research, Hanan announced, “I think my mom gave birth to the wrong daughter.”

He offered appropriately timed grunts as she shared her story, then asked, “But she’ll be gone soon, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know when. I don’t know why she came now, when she has no clue if she’ll be accepted into a program yet. She’s waiting for decisions from Stanford, Penn, and some other Ivy League big-wigs.”

“Don’t diss the Ivy’s,” he said sarcastically, flashing his University of Pennsylvania ring in her face.

“You haven’t even gotten your PhD yet!” she exclaimed. “How did you get a ring?”

He shrugged and asked, “So what are we going to do about your goody two-sandals cousin from the deserts of Arabia?” He leaned forward conspiratorially.

“Don’t diss the Arabs.”

“Touché.” He bowed his head low to the table. “Let me try to redeem myself: How about we show your cousin an evening on the town, you know, paint the town red and all that?”

Hanan pondered this thought. Her mother always hated it when she went out to clubs and parties, or just out with her friends. “We are Arabs,” she’d always say, “not Americans! This is not what we do!”

“What’s wrong with going dancing?” Hanan would argue back, wanting to truly understand this mysterious dividing line between Arabs and Americans, who faced off against each other in her mother’s mind like boxing opponents. In Mama’s mind, they stood in opposite corners, glaring at each other, waiting for the fight to start—in Hanan’s life, however, they were constantly dueling it out.