Riad Fancy-Dance wants to be anyone but who he is, like the half-American, half-Italian he creates for the lovely blonde who giggles and crosses and recrosses her legs so often that he puts his hand on her thigh just so she’ll stop; and the Greek photographer who loves to take snaps of American beauties, like you, ya sharmuta, which means whore in Arabic, not oh beautiful one in Greek like she thinks it does.

They know he’s foreign because he leans closer to them than American men do and he looks them square in their blue, green, or purple eyes. He’s American enough though that he changes his clothes daily and his breath smells minty, which is all part of a sadness he’s fashioned into something that men have contempt for and women eat up in one bite.

Riad, Geros, Gianni, whoever he is today, can drug anyone at least a little bit with his sadness that he fashions into exotic characters. And though he grew up in the refugee camps in Lebanon, his body is beefy and strong like an American’s. Even when he first came here it was like that. I remember. He always scared me a little, always seemed to be looking behind me when he spoke, maybe searching for ghosts. He worked for my father for a while, but my father had to let him go because he never showed up when he was supposed to.

He lives near us, though, and almost every day I see Riad Fancy-Dance with a new lady lovely he will call sharmuta if he’s angry or habibti, my love, if he’s happy. Either way they always think he’s wonderful for a day, or a week, or sometimes two.

Not me, though. No matter how handsome Riad Fancy-Dance may be, I know there is something missing in him, and I’ve seen his eyes when they are red from hashish. He lost his country more than any of us, but what I see ain’t dancing; it’s searching, like looking for his own self and not being able to find a mirror.

So I know what I’m in for when I see him at the mall and he asks me to have pizza with him, “as a sister, the greatest sister. God always keep you pure.”