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Back You Exist Too Much Save as PDF
Chapters (23)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Chapter 6
  9. Chapter 7
  10. Chapter 8
  11. Chapter 9
  12. Chapter 10
  13. Chapter 11
  14. Chapter 12
  15. Chapter 13
  16. Chapter 14
  17. Chapter 15
  18. Chapter 16
  19. Chapter 17
  20. Chapter 18
  21. Chapter 19
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. About the Author

I left Italy six months earlier than planned, at the end of March. I flew back to D.C., grabbed the rest of my stuff from my mother’s apartment, and immediately moved to New York. I’d found a sublet in East Harlem that I could afford, and a job working as an administrative assistant for a magazine. It wasn’t exactly the role I wanted—I would essentially be a secretary. But still, it was a start.

•

I looked past Charlotte as I answered her question. “I suppose it’s usually unattainable women.”

“Unattainable, how?” she asked.

“Like they’re straight,” I said. “Or married. Or there’s a professional boundary.” I looked off to the side, away from her. “Or all of the above.” I was certain right then that she knew.

“Well, I encourage you to look at why this happens, and what’s really going on.”

She was starting to sound clinical and it made me nervous. “Do you think I’m completely fucked up?” I asked.

“No, I don’t.” Then she looked me in the eye. From that close I could see more wrinkles, like stars in a rural sky. I could smell her watermelon-flavored chapstick. She raised her shoulders and parted her lips, and said, “I really like you!”

My insides lit up like E.T. She didn’t intend it the way I wanted her to—at least not yet—but still. It meant something.

BY MID-JULY OF MY CHILDHOOD SUMMERS IN JORDAN, I was homesick for America. I’d make a list in my journal of the things I missed most about the States: peanut butter, cow’s milk, Nickelodeon, grass, Heather, my next-door neighbor and best friend. From a distance, the U.S. seemed so beautiful, so welcoming, so easy. How could I spend a minute unhappy there? I promised myself that when I returned I would appreciate every little thing.

This heightened fondness for the States lasted for the duration of the car ride from Dulles Airport to our house. The first night back in my bed always felt strange, like it was someone else’s. By the time school started the next day I was desperately missing Jordan. I’d long for nights on Teta’s veranda, watching her lay out Arabic newspapers and roll grape leaves, the combination of watermelon and halloumi cheese, fried falafel balls poking out of oil-soaked paper bags, roadside fruit tents with peaches spilling off the display and onto the earth, the sound of the three-stringed oud coming from the wedding at the nearby hotel, the sight of the green-lit minarets and the muezzin’s lyric voice calling everyone to prayer. Above all, I longed for the smell of the jasmine flowers that were outside every apartment building, though curiously I hardly noticed them while I was there. It seemed I could only ever smell them from thousands of miles away.

Chapter 9

9