A Jew and a Muslim Walk Into an Indian Restaurant

"That honestly sounds frustrating.like you’re not really feeling claimed or valued. Just being real."

-AS

Aaliyah: we've been telling you that for months

Brittyn: yeah, but she's listening now because a man said it and that's embarrassing

Iman: it's not because a man said it, it's just like he only met him once and it was so clear to him? Like damn

Brittyn: it's clear to everyone. Like literally to everyone. No offense. He ruined your self-esteem and that's why you don't realize how crazy it is.

Aaliyah: yeah girl. He's horrible

Iman: 🤕

Brittyn: girl he was saying he thinks you're dating Adnan

Iman: ?????

Brittyn: yeah girl idk. He says he knows you're dating Adnan and I was so confused bc like...it doesn't make sense?

Iman: Adnan doesn't come until July. Like how would we be dating?

Brittyn: he's crazy. He was saying how you have people lined up like Hamoodi and Adnan. But like he doesn't understand that obviously other men want to be with you. Like he's not the only man attracted to you and there are tons of guys waiting for him to fuck up.

Iman: teaaa. Yeah like he thinks they are faking being my friends and I'm like they're not. Like they can compartmentalize. Normal people compartmentalize. They can happily be my friend the same way they will happily swoop on the minute I give up on trying to get him to listen to my needs.

Brittyn: he's never gonna understand, girl. You gotta just accept that he's gonna accuse you of cheating on him no matter what you do.

Iman: true

Kat: HES CRAZY.

Iman: I knowww

Back to the present

"Hey." Adnan spoke gently into his phone microphone and across radio waves to reach me. "Would you open the gate for me?"

"Yeah, it should be open now. Pull in by the paint store and I'll be right down to let you take my spot."

I was nowhere near ready. I was still topless, I didn't have any lipstick on, and my hair wasn't even finished curling. Adnan is almost always late... I wasn't expecting him to show up 10 minutes early. Not wanting to leave him waiting too long, I turned my blow dryer onto cool and started expediting my roller set. With the hand not holding the blow dryer. I carefully lined my lips with my Merit lip liner and filled them in with Tom Ford lipstick; a little look I stole from Afnan Dano. After about five minutes of cooling my rollers, I released them. However, before I combed them out, I slipped my taupe wrap top over my head, situated it over my dark brown maxi skirt, and plunked my feet into black slingbacks. Almost ready and 10 minutes into keeping Adnan waiting, I took a wide tooth comb and arranged my curls into a big 90s long bob. Now at 11 minutes, Adnan's patience wore thin, he called me. I decided not to answer and instead to just go downstairs.

If I didn't know any better, I would've thought Adnan was Shemar Moore in "Diary of a Mad Black Woman", but I knew better. I walked right up to the window of Adnan's Chevy Silverado and he rolled it down as he watched me walk. As I clack- clacked over to him in my slingback heels I tried to think of something witty to say about the braids. Unfortunately, he smiled at me, and I lost track of my thoughts.

"What are these? Who is this?" I yelled instead of saying something witty.

"You keep me waiting for 15 minutes! What are you doing?" He countered.

"Who did these braids?" I laughed as I ran my fingers over them.

"a Dominican woman in Union City" he winked at me. "Show me where I'm parking"

Adnan drives an XL pick up truck, I thought it would be better for him to park in my space and me to street park. I found a spot directly outside of my building so after only a few minutes we met up at the entrance. We were meant to go see a jazz show, but it didn't start for a couple hours. We decided to get a drink and some food first. Adnan, however, had changed his mind. He decided that he wanted us to go upstairs and read aloud my play about our first date;"A Jew and a Muslim Walk Into a Church." So, we did that. Before we did that though, I needed to take the dogs. I was watching down to pee. At first, I told Adnan to just wait upstairs, but I guess I forgot he is brown and that a brown woman raised him. He simply frowned and picked up a dog and a leash. We let the dogs pee and I appreciated him in that moment. I remembered Ranger telling me that no one would ever want to help me with my daily tasks like he does. He is wrong. Then we came back upstairs. We settled on the couch opened the play on our respective phones and began to read. It was a humbling experience to have him perceive the way I perceive him while I sat right next to him. It was humbling to see him smile at my descriptions of him. It was humbling for him to know that I find him beautiful and interesting. I'm working on it, working on being nice to men and not finding it humiliating. This exercise was excellent exposure therapy. If you've ever read or seen "A Jew and a Muslim Walk Into a Church" (if you haven't, you must), you'll know that halfway through the show Adnan kisses Iman. I suppose I should've expected that was his plan. He was rather smooth with it...As smooth as you one can be while doing something as cheesy as acting out something you have already done before while reading off of a script that the girl you're trying to rizz wrote.

He simply used the script to make the same move again. He leaned across, took my phone, I lurch towards him, and then he kissed me. Honestly kind of meta.

An hour later, our tickets were wasted and we were hungry. We struggled to decide between Japanese and Indian food. We wanted the refreshing of Japanese cuisine as an opposition to the sweltering day. However, we craved the comfort of Indian food. Adnan decided we would have both.

First, we walked to the Japanese restaurant. Along the way we passed Jiang Nang.

"What's this?" Adnan asked.

"It's a Szechuan restaurant" I replied.

He looked it up in his phone and scowled at the results. "Chain restaurant. Nope!"

I was rather excited to hear that Adnan too does not like to eat at chain restaurants. As we walked, he told me about his ideas to keep small business alive in the United States. We discussed Walmart and how it's single hand destroyed the Midwestern economy. We talked about the importance of small business. We talked about what it means to us and how our parents helped shape our reviews on it. If you don't know, now you know that I am incredibly passionate about small business. One of my requirements actually used to be that the man I marry owns a restaurant. I required that because my father owns a restaurant and because restaurants keep similar working hours to me. I also thought it important that whoever I marry understand the family business so that when my father retires or passes his legacy is in great hands with us. Unfortunately, Adnan cannot be my husband ever...because he believes in ethical non-monogamy. I bet you thought I was going to say it's because he's Jewish. You're what's wrong with the world. No offense.

We ended up at Honshu. I like it there, when I don't wanna spend money at Domo Domo. It's an interesting restaurant to me; the interior I mean. It looks like a set from a 2000's sitcom. They also play that kind of 2000 jazz that played in every restaurant. Adnan, in all his peculiarity and similarity to me went inside of the main restaurant decided he was unhappy with the climate and asked to be seated outside. I was grateful that I didn't have to tell him I wanted to be outside. This time of year in New York and New Jersey is difficult for we Floridians. You see the air conditioner is not quite right. It creates a sticky humid interior. That's simply unacceptable by Floridian air conditioning standards. The waitress informed Adnan that the exterior seating would be closing at 9. He assured her that we would be done before that. It was 8:15 pm. We continued on talking about the small business economy until the waitress returned.

"what do you recommend on the menu?"Adnan asked her.

She blushed a little *sigh* hanging out with pronouns that/guy is not for the faint of heart. I've evolved quite a bit though so it hardly bothered me. I subdued my territorial lizard brain while she spoke.

"Well...we make the gyoza in house! It's our best seller" she bubbled nervously.

"What's the meat in it?" He asked her.

"Pork"

"Do you have chicken?" He inquired.

"No just pork, but they're really good you guys should try them." She failed to realize the nature of the question despite the clear indicators of reason seated in front of her.

"She doesn't eat pork, I usually don't either..." he clued her in.

Usually hmmm

"Oh! Ohhhh. Then try the Montgomery roll" she urged.

Adnan looked at me to see my reaction. I looked at the menu to see the ingredients. Salmon, tuna, eel, and avocado sounded great to me. So, I smiled. He was happy with my reaction.

"We'll have the Montgomery and the Gyoza" he informed the waitress.

My jaw was slack as he handed her the menus.

"I won't make you eat it, babe, relax" he shocked me further.

"You...eat pork?" I grimaced.

"Usually, no! But she was really hyping the gyoza up! It's their specialty, I wanna try it." He explained.

I looked at him with eyes full of judgement. He rolled his back at me. That made me chortle just a little bit. He chortled too. Then, we looked back at each other. When we made eye contact again, I saw him for the first time in a long time. I'd avoided making eye contact the last times I'd seen him. Piercing cognac eyes are the last thing you want to look into when trying to seem aloof and disinterested. I suppose all the chasing he'd done leading up to this moment made me okay with losing some aloofness...I searched them for some clarity. I couldn't quite understand the fever he'd maintained over the past month for my attention. I couldn't understand his demand to court me. Then, in the flecks of black around his iris, I found his reason. He saw part himself in me. Though my eyes aren't nearly as striking (they're a humble ochre color), they are always abuzz with ambition. They are always spinning a story or telling a tale. Adnan sent me his poetry a few weeks ago. I realized then that he wants to use me as a mirror to his creative side in order to draw it out further. How am I so certain of this? He once told me that he is very different with everyone and that I draw our the parts of him that I see. My passiveness encourages his dominance. My career as an artist encourages his indulgence in his own art despite it not being his career. Really though, what I saw when I looked at him tonight was the pre-teen boy I once knew. I saw that he was uncertain of himself. That he doesn't actually know how to manage me.

"Don't put the gyoza in front of her" Adnan directed the food runner. "Give her the sushi. Thank you."

I thanked the food runner as well. Then, I watched Adnan cut into that nasty, swine laden gyoza. I could hardly believe that he was really doing it. My breath was baited as he lifted the gyoza to his lips. He's really gonna eat it. Then, he bit down on it and a horrified whimper left me throat.

"Eat the sushi" he sort of laughed at me when he realized I was staring.

11 minutes before 9pm, we left Honshu and headed to Brick Lane. Before we got to Brick Lane, we passed Downtown Yogurt where Adnan decided the he must have a yogurt bowl. He got vanilla yogurt, but he was rather annoyed with the toppings system. At Downtown Yogurt in Jersey City, the workers serve the toppings for you instead of them being self-serve like most yogurt shops. Adnan did NOT like this. He wanted to put them on himself and when he couldn't, he was rather disgruntled. He ate it though and then he made me have some. He was adamant that I had some. He's one of those men that gets sad if you don't let him share with you. Then, we continued on to Brick Lane. We sat in the window per Adnan's request. He wanted to people watch. He wanted to people watch with me by his side. So, he said "come here" and pulled me and my chair to him. Our waiter this time was a man; which at first brought me relief since I'd already fought back my territorial nature once tonight. Unfortunately he was just as enamored with Adnan as the waitress at Honshu was. Well, not just Adnan actually, he was also a bit enamored with me. Adnan was actually even sort of rude to him, in the way that he can be rude when he's not masking. In a sort of Larry David way. He said "do you actually care?" When the waiter asked how we were doing. This didn't phase the waiter at all, he actually just seemed giddy to get such a thought out response from Adnan. When I said "he's joking" they made the waiter even more nervous. Then he spilled his tea to us.

"I'm very happy right now because I asked this girl who also works here to come out with me and she said 'okay'" he explained.

Adnan softened at that. "That's great!" He encouraged. "I hope it works out."

"Yes, I hope so too." He looked down. "How long have you been together?"

Adnan smirked and I braced myself for whatever insane thing he was cooking up in response. "She's had a crush on me since she was 12." He beamed.

I flicked him. "I haven't had a crush on you since I was 12. I said that I thought you were beautiful with your old nose when we were kids."

Adnan looked at the waiter, raised his brows and said "so, she's had a crush on me since we were 12."

"No-"I rolled my eyes.

I didn't have a crush on him when I was 12. I actually found him rather intolerable then, but I did find him beautiful all the same. The crush came when Caroline and I stalked him on Facebook at G'mas in the summer of 2020. Whatever suits Adnan's ego though. I was cooked anyway. At this point in the conversation; my head was nuzzled into his neck, his arm was around me, and I was laughing at everything he said. There was no use in defending myself, I'd just look like I was in denial. Instead, I just started playing with the beads at the end of his cornrows.

"That's beautiful. You two look great together." The waiter said timidly before departing.

Adnan then spoke to me again. He said something silly about the posture of a man walking outside the window. What he said didn't matter as much as the change in his voice when he said it. I realized then that he took a much gentler tone when he spoke to me than he did when he spoke to the waiter. It was rather gentlemanly. Men are horrifying creatures that have collectively lost their purpose on this earth with the rise of technology. This hasn't happened to all of them, but it has happened to many. With their loss of practical skill, outlet for strength, and opportunities to express yearning; they have devolved mentally and physically. The concept of how to "speak to a lady" is lost on most. I've been thinking about this a lot. What it means for a man to "speak like he's in the presence of a woman". I think at base, it's avoiding crassness and violent language, but there's more. Walk with me and give me grace as I try to verbalize this. I think that it's like when you meet a small animal and you level with it, so it can feel safe coming to you. I'm not saying that women are small animals. We are humans too, but we are not given the brute strength and societal power that men are. We all live in an awareness that any man we interact with can usually overpower us should he choose to. I think talking to a lady is proving to her through speech and even body language that you are a safe space for her. Taking a gentle tone, bringing her into your space, just overall softening in her presence. I'm not sure if Adnan does it on purpose or if it's nature for him. My guess is that it's nature just based off of the fact that his hands still had little specks of house paint on them and his braids had saw dust scattered about them.

"This guy wants to fight me." Adnan snickered about a short, stout man staring at him through the window.

While we were laughing about the "tech neck" on a man that had passed, the short, stout man right in front of us had seen it. I suppose he assumed we were laughing at him. I shook my head in Adnan's neck, hoping he wouldn't choose to antagonize the man further.

"He'll be fine" I said as I looked up to make eye contact with Adnan.

I was hoping to distract him from deciding to entertain himself with the man. The waiter, guided by Allah? Hashem?, did a better job. He brought our dinner. Chicken Korma and naan.

I think we both overestimated how much we could eat tonight. We were pretty full after Honshu, so we didn't quite dig in. We talked about how good it tasted and had a few bites, but eventually it wasn't enough to keep Adnan from wanting to poke at the oaf outside the window.

"Look he's staring at us again, he's furious" Adnan smiled.

He wasn't wrong, the man was fixated on us. On Adnan really, He would glare at him then look at me briefly, then become more angry and glare at Adnan again. Adnan, never one to bore himself, winked at the man. This startled him! Startled him as though he thought we couldn't see him looking at us through the glass that whole time. Then, he looked at his friends seated around him, looked at us one last time, and walked away. I'm ashamed to admit that I too was rather entertained by the interaction. I was even more entertained when the man stormed back cross the window, swung open the door to the restaurant, walked in, looked at us, and then kept walking. It was all very strange.

"Is everything okay with you food?" The waiter checked on us.

"Yes, thank you!" I replied. "Could we take a box?"

"Yes." The waiter said. He turned just a little before deciding to stay. "Where are you guys from?" He asked nervously.

"I live down the street" I replied. "He's just moved bad here from New Orleans."

"You met in primary school here?" The waiter asked.

"In Florida." Adnan replied.

"That's nice..." the waiter replied. "You two seem very cool. I figured you were visiting."

"I've lived here for 4 years!" I replied.

"Oh wow! I've never seen you. Do you guys go out a lot?" The waiter asked.

Adnan tensed, which surprised me. "Not really."

"I would love to know you guys. Like to be your friend." The waiter said timidly.

Adnan didn't say anything and I wasn't quite sure how to respond either. So, I just said "that's so sweet" and yawned.

"Oh yes, yes! The box." The waiter said and scurried away.

Adnan ran his fingers through my hair, brought my head down on his shoulder, and whispered "is this normal behavior for a waiter?" In my ear.

It was not normal behavior for a waiter. I shook my head and "shhhhshhhed" him. The waiter was harmless, he was just stricken. I ask you not to take this as arrogance or inflated ego, but autism + beauty is absolutely intoxicating for neurotypicals. We are like ethereal beings to them. It's like this when I hang out with Kat too. One of us is a lot for them, multiple is hard to regulate around. I think we are like the elves in the Lord of the Rings to neurotypicals. I think also that Adnan and I were sitting in a way that says "maybe looking for a third". Our energy is weird and doesn't match our actual relationship. We've known each other for nearly 20 years now, we dabbled in seeing each other once years ago, and now we're doing it again. We were kind of giving off the energy of a couple that's been together for decades and is looking to spice things up despite it not being true. The waiter probably wanted to be a Unicorn. Poor guy. More than probably actually...when he brought the cheque, he looked at us with this doe eyed hope that broke my heart. We thanked him , he nodded and left.

"You want me to get it?" I baited Adnan.

"It's okay." He said as he lifted his hips to reach for his wallet.

"Are you sure? You paid for Honshu."

"You're ridiculous. You know that I know that if you pay for this, I'll never see you again." He didn't humor me.

I didn't like being outed like that so quickly, so I pretended some more. "No, really! I can!" I said as I reached for my purse. "Look I brought my purse"

Adnan had already put his credit card on the bill. "There's nothing in there." He smirked and shook his head.

There was something in there though! "Nah uh! There's this lipgloss and a dollar" I giggled. "I could have tapped to pay!"

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head before laughing with me. When we stopped laughing , he looked at me sort of seriously and said "You can get the next one".

Lots of rizz on this guy.

I started packing up the food when a bit of the Adnan I find so soothing popped out. I reached for the naan to pack it and he said "don't take that". I turned my head to him and frowened. Before I could say "why?" He continued. "It's not gonna taste good tomorrow, just leave it." Then, he took the to go bowl for me and packed up everything himself. "Eat this for lunch tomorrow." He directed me. Thank god he did it for me because I'm really bad at those aluminum to-go boxes.

We went back to my house after Brick Lane. An hour or so later, he went home. He moved his truck from my space and I replaced it with my little SUV. He waited in his truck for me to park and get out. I waved to him, but he wasn't happy with that. He beckoned me over. So, I went up to his window. He moved his face to put his cheek right in front of my face. He held it there until I kissed it. Then he turned the other one for me to do next. So, I did it. Then he faced me and kissed my lips. I thought getting me to kiss his cheeks like that was kind of big baby, but whatever.