I was standing at the door with Ma just as Rosaria, with curlers on her head, came to the window. Rosaria came into the store and hung around outside so much that I knew all about her troubled love stories.

“Aye, Constantine, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” he asked with exaggerated shock spicing his gravely voice. He turned to us. “What am I doing here?” Then he turned back to her. “Rosaria, isn’t it obvious? I’ve come to ask you to marry me.”

Rosaria had no words. She stared at him. I remember this like it was yesterday. She touched her hair and remembered the curlers.

“Aye, how can you ask me to marry you when I have curlers in?”

Constantine turned to the small crowd that had gathered with us. “How can I ask her to marry me with curlers on her head?” He turned back to Rosaria and walked closer to the building. “Rosaria, you can have curlers in your hair from now until the day we die and I will still love you.”

Rosaria held her hands together over her heart and started to cry.

“So what’s the answer, Rosaria?” someone yelled from the other side of the store.

“Yea, what’s the answer?” shouted Sameer, who was delighted like a child. I know he liked Rosaria, despite her foul mouth.

“My answer? Constantine, my answer is yes!”

“Yeah!” we all shouted, and everyone clapped and made noises.

“Now open that door and let me kiss you before my lips fall off my mouth from desire,” said Constantine. I swear that’s exactly what he said: “before my lips fall off from desire.” Before he went in the building he turned to us and bowed. “Wish me luck.”

Everyone cheered again.

Sameer went back to work with the thought of Constantine and Rosaria in his head and couldn’t keep from smiling. “That will keep me happy for the rest of the day,” he told us. I guess you could call Sameer a romantic type.

Anyway, he had been working in the back for a while when suddenly he came up to us and told us he would like to leave—it couldn’t have been later than five in the afternoon and maybe even earlier. When Ma asked why, he said the strangest thing.

“I have to kiss my wife,” he said. “I have to love her and make her feel loved. I will treat her American-style, with no hiding words.”

Even Ma was surprised, but of course she said yes.

“Don’t worry, I will be back in time for closing.”

“Tariq can come. Don’t worry about coming back. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you. Good-bye, Maysoun. Bye, Soraya.”