Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 109178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“You’ve never been asked to join the business?”
A strange look came over the man’s face, followed by a twisted smirk and a dark chuckle.
“Oh, he’s asked, baby. He’s demanded, too. In fact, Old man Wilde, good ol’ Grandpa, has put me between a rock and a hard place. If he can’t have me, nobody can.”
“What? Is he threatening you? Your own grandfather?”
“Oh, yes, but that’s a long story. I promise to get into that later. For now, let’s stick to Chapter one.” She nodded in understanding. “Onto my mother. The woman who brought me into this world… Aaliyah Abdallah.”
“Hold on, that name sounds Muslim.”
“Yeah. My mother was Lebanese. She is Sunni.”
“Really? I never knew that.” She looked at him curiously now.
“I know. Most people didn’t know.”
“Now that I look at you, yeah, I can see that. Your skin is tan all year long.” He laughed at that, but she was serious. “You look like you could have some Indian or Middle Eastern in you. Yeah, I can definitely see that. I never thought much of it when we were younger. Just thought you were fine as hell. Why did you never tell me that your mother was Muslim? My uncle is, too.”
“It wasn’t somethin’ I was tryna hide—it just wasn’t relevant. Not only that, but I also kept details about my mother away from most people, friend or not. She was a very private person, and raised me and my sister to not discuss anything about her with outsiders, unless it was completely necessary.”
“Was she paranoid or just secretive?”
“Neither. She was trying to protect herself and her children. She’d been disowned by her family after she married my father, and she didn’t want any information about herself getting back to them if it was in a negative light. Honor and reputation were very important to her family, and even though she was the type of person to think for herself and do her own thing, she still wanted the approval of her family. She wanted them to be proud of her. She always wanted to prove them wrong about their reservations regarding her choices and actions, so she guarded information carefully. Her marrying my father really pissed them off, but she was determined to prove that her marriage was good.”
“Oh, wow. So was she disowned because your father is White? Wait, is Lebanese White, too? Excuse my ignorance, baby, I just—”
“No, it’s fine. It depends on who you ask, but America, to my mother, is one of the few countries that is hung up on complexions and race. My mother explained that it was never really talked about like that in Lebanon. For all intents and purposes, my mother’s ethnicity is Middle Eastern. Her race, by most people, would be considered White, but when asked, she always said Arab or Mediterranean. She never, ever considered herself White, and to my recollection, never claimed to be.”
“What did she look like, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Her skin was olive. She had jet black hair and was mistaken usually for bein’ Italian, sometimes Latina. Her eyes were a grayish green color. A little darker than mine. She didn’t look White, in my opinion, but because she was Muslim, and there’s a lotta anti-Muslim feelings ’round here, some folks don’t see her as American, either, even though she got her citizenship long before she got married to my father.” Nadia nodded in understanding. “Anyway, nah. My mother’s family didn’t get mad because my father was White. It was because he was Christian. They wanted her to marry a well-educated, financially secure Muslim man. Funny thing though, Nadia… She kept a lot from them when she moved from Lebanon to America on her own. Like the fact that she worked as an escort before I was born. I told you about that. “Yeah, and I know what you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“How did I find out if my mother was so private?” He was right. She was thinking just that. “Well, let’s just say a family member made sure that I knew, and it wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart.”
“Do you know why she did it? Or was no reason given?”
“She was havin’ money problems, and her family didn’t want her to move here in the first place, so she couldn’t ask them for help. She was about to be evicted from her apartment. Her family was very traditional, and to them, she should have kept her ass in Lebanon, marry a Muslim Lebanese man by the time she was eighteen or nineteen, and have a bunch of children. Instead, she wanted to study abroad and go to college. Be a doctor, like one of her brothers. A friend of hers told her she could make money by escorting so she could pay for school. She was desperate so she did it, and because of her beauty and exotic looks, the clients came fast. Pun intended.” He smiled sadly.