[D]

Jalilah smiled to herself and spoke back, “Oh my baby sis, how have you been? I’ve been missing you guys here too. I have no one to talk to but over the phone with either Mama or Farha. No one annoys me and makes me laugh as you two do. I don’t even separate fights anymore.” They burst into a fist a peal of laughter and Jalilah wished she could see herself at home right now. She missed those two teenagers, like they were everything she had and more, after Mama. She missed their silly fights and annoyance and everything.

“We don’t fight as often as we do when you were here, you know. And if Mama sees us, she won’t speak, the night thing we feel is Idi Maigadi’s stick on our bodies, I've been so careful since then.”

Jalilah didn't know how to control her laughter, she had been thinking of how Mama was going to be stressed out by these two, but it turned out she had gotten herself a perfect solution to her problem. “I’m glad she found a suiting solution to her problem, I'll be doing the same when I come back, you won’t be stressing my life with ‘Fareed! Fareeda! Won't you stop it for Allah’s sake?’ It will just be Idi Maigadi’s stick on your bodies, and you’ll stop for its sake.”

They chatted for a little while before they bade each other goodnight and ended the call. Jalilah was smiling while she rinsed her cup and kept it when a message popped into her phone, it was Farha, and the moment she saw ‘Girl, there’s a problem!’ She needn’t ask what the problem was.

She walked around the kitchen in her baggy nightwear and found herself a pack of cookies and a bottle of yoghurt before she walked to the living room, turned on the tv and sat down, she knew this would be a long chat.

Even before she was able to reply, another one popped up. ‘Girl! I'm in a dilemma!’

‘What is it, Farha? One, the problem has Baba in it. Two, the dilemma, another marriage proposal?’ She giggled because she knew this was the only definition problem had in Farha’s life.

‘You guessed right. I don't know what to do, Jalilah. You need to see the guy, yuck!’ Every guy was yuck to Farha to the extent that Jalilah wondered the type of guy she wanted for herself.

‘Can I see a picture of him, let’s rate him.’

It took her only a few minutes before she sent the picture, and when Jalilah opened it, he was a good looking handsome man in his probably mid-twenties. Even though the picture was discreetly taken, it was evident he was handsome and also cute. ‘Girl, are you sure we aren’t accepting this one? What's his name?’

‘Another turn-off, his name is Nura, how much I dislike the name. And to make it worse, he’s the last born and you need to see how he’s been acting childish to me. Girl, I can’t kill myself!’

Jalilah had to laugh out loud before she replied to her, ‘But he’s handsome, you want handsome men. I don’t think his name will be a problem.’

‘It’s a no for me, and you know when we say no...’

‘We mean no, baby girl. What should we tell Baba this time?’

“I’ll figure that out. How’s your eccentric boss?’

‘I’ve been searching for the right word to describe him, eccentric indeed. That man acts like he's on his period, I don’t even know what to say about him anymore.’

“My chest! How can I unsee this! Nura thinks I'm laughing because of him, oh my god!!!’ When Jalilah reread what she wrote, she had to laugh as well, and imagined how Yazeed would act if he heard that she said he was on his period. Maybe he was going to act like he didn’t know or he was going to throw a fist? She would love to see his reaction someday.