One of my Fav chaps!
Chapter 6
The mirror on the wall shuddered when Aaliya slammed the apartment door behind her. Just who did he think he was? she thought. What right did he have to give her ultimatums? The instant she thought the words, she knew the answer. Her father had given him the right to decide whether she met the requirements of the will or not, but her father hadn't given him the right to control every minute of her day, she thought defiantly.
She opened her closet doors. Statue of Liberty, she thought with disgust, knowing how much she genuinely hated anything that could remotely be called a tourist attraction. In the four years she had lived in Santa Fe she had never visited anything that was frequented by busloads of people who were ruled by timetables prepared by someone else.
As she looked at the contents of her wardrobe, she smiled. Perhaps he could force her to do what he wanted her to do, but he couldn't make her enjoy it. Perhaps if she were disagreeable enough, he'd leave her alone. Rummaging inside two packing boxes, she found what she was looking for.
* * * * *
Zain wrote the letter to Taha, called an express mail service, and sent it off, letting out his pent-up breath when the letter was gone.
Now it was up to Taha as to what he did, but Zain hoped he'd allow Aaliya and him to visit. It was Zain's guess that the old man would very much want to see his granddaughter - at least Zain hoped that was the case. But who could tell what a ninety-one-year-old man was going to do?
As Zain watched the express mail truck drive away, his thoughts turned to Aaliya and he smiled. For all her bristles, all her hostility, he was looking forward to spending the day with her. It wasn't just that she was the sexiest female he'd ever seen or that he wanted to take her to bed, there was something about her that intrigued him. He wondered what she was like when she wasn't angry. Now and then he caught a glimpse of her, a glimpse of what he had come to think of as the real Aaliya. He'd seen the real Aaliya the first day he'd met her, and last night when she'd drunk the glass of wine and had made jokes, he'd had a look inside her. These rare sights made him sure there was another Aaliya under the one she presented to the world, or he thought with a smile, maybe she presented the bristle-coated side only to him.
Now, he wondered, what did one do with a young lady who looked as though she wore a hat and gloves to church on Sundays? He couldn't very well take her to his favorite New York haunts, some of which consisted of bars, nor did he think she'd appreciate visiting nafeesa and her friends.
Picking up the telephone, he called his sister Juhaina, for she would know what to do to entertain someone like Aaliya, he thought as he dialed his parents' telephone number in Colorado. His mother answered the phone.
"Mom, is Juhaina there?"
"No, Zain, dear, she isn't." Suraiyya Abdullah knew the sound of each of her children's voices, and she knew when they needed something. "Can I help you?"
Feeling a little odd asking his mother such a personal question, Zain prayed she wouldn't start asking awkward questions, but he did need a woman's advice. "I met a woman- Now, wait a minute, before you start thinking orange blossoms -"
"I didn't mention orange blossoms, Zain, dear, you did," Suriayya said sweetly.
Zain cleared his throat. "Well, anyway, I met this woman. Actually, she's the daughter of a friend of mine and-"
"Is this the young woman who's living in your house with you?"
Zain grimaced. His mother was in Chandler, Colorado, over two thousand miles away, yet she knew what he was doing in New York. "I don't even want to know how you know who's rented the apartment," he said.
Suraiyya laughed. "Tehniyath cleans for your cousin Rizwan, too. Remember?"
Zain rolled his eyes. The big mouth of one of his Qureshi cousins. He should have known. "Mom, you want to answer my question or find out every tiny detail of my life secondhand from other people?"
"I would love to hear directly from you."
"She's never been to New York, and the place terrifies her. Where can I take her to make her like the city?"
Suraiyya's mind raced. Why was the young woman living in New York if she hated the place? To be near her son? And if she and Zain were in love, what was she like?
"I mean, Mom, should I take her to the top of the Empire State Building? Rockefeller Center? What about the Statue of Liberty? How about Ellis Island?"
Suraiyya drew in her breath, for she knew that Zain hated tourist attractions. Unfortunately, her son was much more at home in a smoke-filled bar than in a group of gawking sightseers, but he must be serious if he was willing to brave the Statue of Liberty for her. "Is she a normal girl?"
"No," Zain said. "She has three arms, practices several bizarre religions, and talks to her black cat. What do you mean, is she a normal girl?"
"You know exactly what I mean," Suraiyya snapped. "Is she like that stripper who visits you, or is she one of those muscle girls from your gym?"
"Knowing you, Mike, she could be a down-on-her-luck prostitute."
Zain smiled at the phone. "And what would you say if I said she was one of those and that I was going to marry her?"
Suraiyya didn't hesitate. "I'd ask what you wanted for a wedding gift."
Zain laughed. "Okay, she's normal. Very normal, if by that you mean prim and proper. Aalu could marry a preacher."
Suraiyya put her hand over the phone, rolled her eyes skyward, and whispered, "Thank you." "Take her shopping," Suraiyya said with enthusiasm. "Show her the stores on Fifth. Take her to Saks. Your cousin Vicky is a buyer at Saks."
"Oh?" Zain said without much interest. He had too many relatives to remember half of them. "And which one is she?"
"You know very well that she's J.T. and Aria's youngest. If your young lady still doesn't like New York after she's seen Saks, take her walking on Madison. Start at Sixty-first, walk up to the Eighties, and look in all the store windows."
Zain was laughing. "Especially in the jewelry store windows? Maybe buy her a diamond or two? The kind of diamonds in engagement rings? Tell me, Mom, how many women have you mentally married me off to in my short life?"
"At least six," Suraiyya said, laughing in return.
Zain's voice changed to serious. "Mom, you and Dad are happily married, aren't you?"
At the tone of his voice, Suraiyya thought her heart skipped a beat, for something was troubling her child. "Of course we are, darling."
"Aaliya - that's her name - said that any woman who has been married for longer than two years to the same man has a very high pain tolerance. You don't think that's true, do you?"
After a futile attempt at controlling her laughter, Suraiyya released it. Even when Zain kept saying, "Mom! Mom!" she kept laughing. Even when she knew he put the phone down in disgust, she still couldn't stop laughing."
Zain put down the telephone, more than a little annoyed at his mother, actually, annoyed at all women. If they thought marriage to a man was so horrible, why were they all trying to get married? All of them except Aaliya, that is, he thought. Or maybe her reluctance was merely an act.
Smiling, he went to the bedroom to dress. For Saaliya he would put on a suit and tie. Maybe he'd even wear that Italian number his sister had picked out for him.
Forty-five minutes later, he emerged from the bedroom, showered, shaved, and dressed, then checked the hall mirror and straightened his tie. Not bad, he thought. Not bad at all.
"Aalu!" he yelled up the stairs. "You ready to go?"
He had to wait a few minutes before she came down the stairs, but when he saw her, he smiled at her and offered her his arm.
* * * * *
When Aaliya saw the way Zain was dressed, she wanted to die. Just plain sit down and die. She'd had dreams of embarrassing him, of making him say that he wasn't going to be seen with her dressed as she was - that's what her ex-husband would have said if she had appeared wearing her workout clothes - so she'd dragged an ancient pink sweat suit, worn bare in places, discolored in others, from the closet. Across the chest of the sweat shirt was emblazoned "At first he put me on a pedestal and now he wants me to dust it."
As Aaliya stood at the head of the stairs, looking down at Zain in his beautiful dark suit, she knew she had never seen a better-looking man in her life. At least this time when her father had chosen a man for her, he had picked one who looked good. She hadn't been as fortunate with Zeeshan.
After one look at Zain's eyes, she knew he wasn't going to be embarrassed by her. In fact, she wasn't sure he was aware that what she had on was inappropriate. Smiling at her as though he was looking forward to going out with her, he held up his arm for her to take.
"I can't-" Aaliya began. "I have to-"
"Aaliya, it's eleven o'clock. If you take any longer to get dressed, the stores will be closed."
"Stores," she said, horror in her voice as she tried to pull away from him, but he held her firmly.
"I cannot go to a store looking like this," she said.
Zain looked her up and down and read her shirt. "You look fine to me. I like pink on you. Besides, we can buy you new clothes if you want."
Pulling at her arm didn't gain her release. "I have to change."
Giving her a look of frustration, one of those count-to-ten looks, he said with exaggerated patience, "If you didn't like what you had on, why did you wear it?"
Aaliya wouldn't answer that, since she couldn't very well tell him that it had been her intention to make him refuse to be seen with her, especially not since he didn't seem to notice what she had on.
Feeling like a child who was being punished, her chin down, she followed him out of the house and into the streets. So far, her total experience of New York had been Lexington Avenue. Now she walked with Zain toward Madison Avenue, then to Fifth, and the closer they got to Fifth Avenue, the more Aaliya became aware of her atrocious clothing. In magazines one saw models wearing gorgeous designer clothing, and a person in the real world of Middle America sometimes wondered who in the world wore those things. Most Americans wear bright-colored sportswear, looking as though they spend their lives climbing mountains or running marathons. But in New York the men and women - especially the women - looked to Aaliya as though they had stepped from designer showrooms.
As she walked with Zain, her hand held firmly in his arm, Aaliya was painfully aware of the women around her. They were so fantastically well groomed. Their hair looked as though they shampooed it with fairy nectar, their nails were perfectly trimmed and polished, as though they never used their hands, and their clothes were nothing less than divine.
Of course one drawback to New York women was their snobbery. Many of the women gave Aaliya looks of pity when they saw the way she was dressed, and some of them even smiled at her in a way that made Aaliya move closer to Zain, as though for protection. Turning, he looked down at her, patted her hand, and smiled when she moved closer to him, seeming to have no idea what was going on between the woman who clung to him and the women on the street. Aaliya thought it must be wonderful to be able to be oblivious.
By the time they reached Fifth Avenue, Aaliya wanted to crawl in a hole. Zain seemed to have a place he wanted to go so they hurried past store after store with beautiful clothing in the windows. They passed Tiffany's, Gucci, Christian Dior, Mark Cross. After a while Aaliya stopped looking at the clothes because the more she saw, the worse she felt.
At Fiftieth Street, they came to a large store with dark blue awnings, and to her horrified amazement, Zain started toward the revolving doors. Aaliya pulled away from him. In the first place, revolving doors puzzled her; she couldn't seem to get the hang of when she was to enter and when she was to exit. Once, she had gone around one of the things three times before she was able to get out. In the second place, she saw that this was Saks Fifth Avenue. She could not, absolutely could not, enter a world renowned store dressed in a worn-out, faded pink sweat suit.
Zain went round the revolving doors, saw Aaliya wasn't with him, then went round again, this time stretching out his hand and grabbing her arm. After wedging her into the pie-shaped door area with him, he pulled her out of the door into the store at the appropriate time.
When they entered the store, Aaliya stood still for a moment, dazzled by what she saw before her. To anyone who had spent four years in a town like Santa Fe, Saks was heaven come to earth. Here were consumer goods that did not have howling coyotes on them. Here was clothing that was not made from Pendleton blankets. She saw saleswomen who wore something other than Mexican cotton and acres of turquoise and silver jewelry. She saw people who moved faster than sun-warmed lizards, and people were wearing shoes that in no way resembled the footwear of cowboys. Best of all, there was not one single solitary piece of leather fringe in sight.
"Like it?" Zain asked, watching her face, which showed her awe as she looked at the sparkling Judith Leiber purses in the case before her.
Aaliya could only look at him, much too stunned to speak.
"Want to do a little shopping?" He was on the verge of laughing at her as he asked the rhetorical question. "I think the escalator is back there."
As Aaliya came out of her trance, she became aware of the women in the store looking her over, knowing full well that she failed on every count. Maybe she could go back to the house, she thought, change her clothes, and come back here. With the money she had saved, she could afford a new dress. But the truth was, Aaliya knew she didn't own a garment that was up to the fashion standards of the women she saw in this beautiful store.
"I can't go shopping wearing this," she whispered to Zain.
From the look on his face she could see that he didn't understand what she was saying. Sometimes it seemed that the language difference between men and women was as great as that between Chinese and English. How could she explain to a man that saleswomen would have nothing to do with a woman who looked as though she needed their goods?
"You look great," Zain said, then began pushing Aaliya toward the back of the store.
There were tall, beautiful young women offering other customers samples of perfume, but they took one look at Aaliya with her pulled-back hair and repulsive old sweat suit and didn't offer her the perfume. One woman after another glanced at Zain, then at Aaliya, then back at Zain, with an expression that asked, How could a great-looking guy like you be seen with a frump like her?
As Zain practically pushed her into an elevator, Aaliya almost hid behind him, trying to keep anyone from seeing her.
Pulling Aaliya along, Zain got out on the ninth floor, then led her through the children's department.
"Where are you dragging me?" she asked, trying to pull out of his grasp, but it was like trying to break free of a tow truck.
"I'm taking you to see a friend of mine. Not really a friend, more like a cousin."
Pulling her through offices, he didn't stop until he came to one glassed enclosure. Behind a desk sat a young woman who was not beautiful exactly, but very striking. Her hair looked as though it were incapable of being out of place, and her clothes had obviously been made for her body alone. The sight of her made Aaliya look about for a hiding place where she wouldn't be seen by this elegant young woman.
As soon as the woman saw Zain, she smiled and stood up, but Zain did not smile. Drawing himself into a military at-attention stance, he clicked his heels together, took her fingertips in his hand, and kissed them. "Your royal highness," he said in a voice of an official courtier.
Looking about the office at her co-workers nervously, the woman said, "Zain, stop that."
Grinning, Zain grabbed her into his arms, bent with her like something out of a Fred Astaire movie, and kissed her neck enthusiastically. "Better?" he asked as he lifted her to stand straight again.
"Much," she said, blushing, trying to act annoyed but obviously charmed by him as she moved out of his grasp.
"So how's the palace and the folks?" Zain asked, smiling as though very pleased with himself.
"Everyone is fine - as you'd know if you bothered to visit. Zain, as honored as I am by your visit, I have work to do. What can I do for you?"
"Help us shop." Pulling Aaliya from the hiding place she was trying to make for herself between the door and a filing cabinet, he presented her as though she were something he wanted repaired, like a watch or, actually, more like a squirrel-eatin', rifle-totin' hillbilly.
Seeing the way the woman looked from her to Zain in question, considering the proprietary way Zain was holding her arm, Aaliya tried to explain. "It's not like it looks. He's my guardian." As soon as she said it, she realized how dumb the words sounded, how she was making things worse by speaking.
"Rather like Tinkerbell," Zain said, still grinning.
"More like Captain Hook," Aaliya retaliated quickly.
At that the young woman laughed and walked toward Aaliya with her hand extended. "It sounds as though you understand him. My name is Vajiha Qureshi and Zain and I are cousins of sorts." Looking Aaliya up and down with a professional eye, she appraised her face, her figure, and the dreadful clothes. "What can I do for you?"
Giving the young woman a crooked smile, doing what she could to redeem herself, Aaliya said, "Make me look like one of those women on the street."
With a smile of complete understanding, Vajiha said, "I think we can manage something." She turned to Zain. "Why don't you meet us in about three hours?"
"Not on your life," Zain answered. "I'm staying through all of it. If she's left on her own, she dresses like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Can you fix her up?"
He made Aaliya sound like a car whose transmission had fallen out and it was questionable whether the car was repairable or not. After one sympathetic look at Aaliya's face, now the same color as her deplorable sweatsuit, Vajiha turned to her cousin. "Zain, you've been using your muscles too much and your brains not enough. Mind your manners!" Her voice carried authority as well as much affection for her handsome cousin.
After a smile filled with gratitude directed toward Vajiha, Aaliya turned toward the elevators and started walking, feeling better already.
"How much?" Vajiha whispered to Zain when Aaliya was a few feet away.
"Whatever," Zain answered, shrugging.
Vajiha lifted one perfectly plucked eyebrow at him. "Are we talking Christian Dior or Liz Claiborne?"
"I guess that means expensive or cheap. I want her to have both. Everything. But don't let her see the prices on the clothes and send the bill to me." He paused a moment in thought. "And I want shoes and whatever else women wear."
"What about hair?" Vajiha was studying her cousin. She knew very well that he could afford what he wanted to buy, but she also knew that he didn't spend his money frivolously.
Zain was looking at Vajiha with eyes that nearly begged for her help. He was so tired of seeing Aaliya with her beautiful hair scraped back into a tight, ugly bun. "You know," he said wistfully, "I think her hair just may be curly when it's down."
"You don't know for sure?" Vajiha asked archly, doing her best to figure out what this woman meant to him.
"Not yet," Zain said with confidence and a wink at his pretty cousin. "Not yet."
* * * * *
Aaliya knew she had never spent such a heavenly day in her life as the one she spent at Saks with Vajiha and Zain. When Aaliya was a child she had often gone on shopping expeditions with her mother, and they had been an enormous amount of fun, but after her mother had died, she hadn't seemed to have much time or even the inclination to adorn herself. After she was married and had moved to Santa Fe, she had had neither money nor time nor the desire to shop.
But even when she'd been with her mother, she'd not had as good a time as she had on this day. Vajiha's taste in clothing and corresponding accessories was irreproachable, and her diplomacy in guiding Aaliya toward the correct garments was something that had to be experienced to be believed. At first Aaliya haphazardly and hesitantly chose a few outfits from the racks and tried them on, but when she looked in the triple mirrors, she found that she looked as she always did: boring. Then Vajiha very sweetly, casually, tactfully, asked if she might be allowed to choose a few things for Aaliya, and of course Aaliya agreed. What woman hadn't yearned for an elegant, regal-looking woman like Vajiha to help her dress?
Within twenty minutes after Vajiha handed Aaliya the first garment, she began to see a completely different version of herself. Stepping back in the large, luxurious dressing room on the third floor, she looked at herself in the perfect-fitting suit by St. John and saw a person she did not recognize: elegant but maybe a little sexy, comfortable but refined, fashionable but classic.
"May I?" Vajiha asked as she removed the rubber band from Aaliya's hair and let her blonde hair float about her shoulders.
Looking at herself in the mirror, Aaliya remembered that she had started pulling her hair back to get it out of her way when she was working on computers, but she'd also found that she was taken more seriously when she didn't have a couple of feet of blonde hair falling in her face.
Stepping back in the dressing room, Vajiha studied Aaliya, looking at her as an artist would look at a painting, first one way then the other. "Could we cut your hair? Perhaps style it and shape it so it falls properly? Would you mind?"
Mind? Aaliya thought. It was as though someone was asking her if she'd mind going to heaven. "I think that would be all right," she said, trying her best not to sound as though, inside, she were jumping up and down and yelling, Yippee!
Vajiha smiled graciously, pretending she couldn't see how Aaliya was feeling, but her happiness was infectious. Vajiha seldom got to work with a customer who was so purely delighted with things as ordinary as new clothes and a haircut. "Now you must show your suit to Zain."
Involuntarily, Aaliya frowned because she didn't want to show Zain anything. In fact, she'd just as soon forget that he existed. Vajiha had explained that a Saks credit card would be issued in Aaliya's name and that Vajiha could arrange for the cost of the clothes to be prorated over months. Aaliya would receive the clothes at Vajiha's cost, thereby making her able to afford an entire new wardrobe. If Aaliya was paying for them, why did she have to show her clothes to this man?
Seeing Aaliya's reluctance to model for Zain, Vajiha didn't understand it, because when she'd first seen them together, Aaliya had been clinging to Zain as though he were a life perserver. "I think he will want to see you in your new clothing," Vajiha urged, feeling a little guilty at the elaborate lie she'd concocted to keep Aaliya from knowing Zain was actually paying for the clothes.
Hesitantly, and with more than a little reluctance, Aaliya left the dressing room, walking onto the sales floor where Zain was ensconced on a pretty pink sofa with a cup of tea someone had brought him and a newspaper. He was so comfortable that he looked as though he owned the store, looking as at home here among these women and the very feminine clothes as he had looked the first day she'd seen him, when he was wearing cutoffs and a torn shirt.
Remembering too vividly the indifference she had received from her father and her husband when it came to her clothes, Aaliya didn't want to model for him. Her husband had wanted her covered up and looking neat and tidy, but past that he hadn't cared what she wore. Her father didn't notice the difference between his daughter in heels and hose and his daughter in jeans and a gardening shirt.
But Zain didn't ignore Aaliya and was far from indifferent to her. When he first saw her walking toward him, he put down his paper, slowly got out of his chair, and went to her. When he reached her, he took her hand, turned her about, and studied her, looking at the fit, cut, and color of the suit. "Yes," he said after considerable thought. "It shows her off."
Aaliya tried her best to control her enormous grin at his praise. It wasn't the words so much as the way he paid her the compliment, as though she were beautiful and he was judging whether the clothes were worthy of her. As she turned to follow Vajiha back to the dressing room, Zain caught her shoulder.
To her consternation, he leaned forward, put his face in her neck and kissed her ear. "You ever cover up your hair again and you'll answer to me."
Aaliya moved away from him, but not before goose bumps of pleasure raised on her body.
Within an hour she became used to modeling for Zain. In direct opposition to her first opinion that Zain was oblivious, she found that he was very aware of women's clothes and she soon learned to trust him. "No, the jacket's too long for you. Covers up your rear end," he said in utter seriousness.
"That is not a reason to dislike a garment," Aaliya snapped, but Zain just grunted. Aaliya decided to buy the jacket and wear it often, but in the dressing room, when Vajiha asked if she would take it, Aaliya hesitated. "No," she said at last.
Aaliya soon began saying yes to what Zain liked and no to what he didn't like.
To bring Aaliya garments from floors other than the designer apparel on the third floor, Vajiha enlisted the services of two saleswomen, telling them what she wanted and where they were to get it. The women brought armloads of lacy underwear, nightgowns, and even shoes to Aaliya, and they brought purses, gloves, hosiery, and costume jewelry from the first floor.
It was when Aaliya was trying on a lovely Carolyn Roehme dress, that she realized Zain was also approving or vetoing the underwear that was being presented to her. "That color's wrong for her," she heard him say. "No, not black. I want the white nightgown," she heard him say twice. Aaliya felt her face grow red as she remembered what he'd said to her on that first day: that he wouldn't be able to control himself if she wore something white and lacy.
"Do you have any blue nightgowns?"Aaliyaasked Vicky.
Vajiha smiled and moments later a sedate, blue nightgown appeared. "Zain doesn't like it," Vajiha said.
"Good," Aaliya answered. "I'll take two of them."
Aaliya bought many, many items. By four o'clock she had lost count of all the suits, shoes, dresses, and casual clothes she had said yes to, only a few of which were to be charged to her account. "This is going to cost too much," she said to Vajiha. "This must be hundreds of dollars."
Vajiha had her back to Aaliya so Aaliya couldn't see Vajiha's raised eyebrows. Hundreds? Vajiha thought and realized that Zain had been right. He'd said he doubted if Aaliya could even conceive of a single dress costing seven thousand dollars, so all price tags had to be removed before she tried on the clothes. Removing the tags had been a great bother to Vajiha and her assistants, but for what Zain was spending, they could afford the bother. And, as Aaliya had an unconscious eye for quality, she had spent many thousands. If she were presented with two pairs of shoes, one costing six hundred dollars and the other pair a mere two hundred and fifty, Aaliya unerringly chose the more expensive shoes.
Straightening, Vajiha looked at Aaliya. "They are ready for you now in the hair salon."
Nodding, Aaliya wondered what Zain would have to say about her hair, hoping he wasn't one of those men who said, "Take off a quarter of an inch and no more." When it came to feminine hair, her father and her husband had thought that women should have one style: They should be able to sit on their hair.
Preparing herself for the coming disagreement, Aaliya thought of arguing that she should be able to choose the way she wanted to wear her hair, but she knew before trying that it would be a useless attempt. Zain walked into the salon, not seeming to be bothered by the sheer femininity of the place - in fact, he even winked at a woman who had her hair covered with folded pieces of aluminum foil. Immediately, he began telling the hairdresser how Aaliya's hair was to be cut. "I want her curls to show," Zain said. "And I don't want and style that makes her use hair spray. I can't stand the stuff, scratches a man's face."
"I will wear my hair any way I want to," Aaliya said. Both the hairdresser and Zain turned to her with blank looks on their faces, as though they were surprised and totally unconcerned with her opinion. As they turned back to each other, Aaliya looked in the mirror and sighed. That Zain was saying what she herself wanted to say made no difference; it was the principle that mattered.
While her nails were being manicured, the hairdresser cut inches off her hair, cutting it into layers of different lengths. With each inch that fell away, Aaliya felt lighter and younger. Even before the dryer was held to her hair, she could see the curls forming about her face. When it was done, she shook her head and laughed.
Zain was beside her, looking in the mirror at her. "I didn't think you could be prettier, but you are," he said softly, making Aaliya blush.
Taking her by the hand, he led her to another chair and there she got a makeup lesson and a small shopping bag full of cosmetics and skin care products. She would have been shocked to learn that the cosmetics alone were over three hundred dollars.
It was late afternoon when Aaliya, dressed in a red Christian LaCroix suit, her hair short and curling about her head, her face perfectly made up, left Saks on Zain's muscled arm. They carried no bags since Vajiha had said she'd have everything sent to Zain's house. This time, when they went through the cosmetics area on the first floor, many of the tall, thin young women rushed forward to offer Aaliya a sample of their perfume, but she waved them all away. Zain stopped at the Lancme counter, and in spite of Aaliya's insincere protests, he chose Trsor for her, paying for it with cash.
Holding the little bag of perfume tightly in her hands, as though it were very precious, Aaliya looked up at Zain. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for today."
He smiled at her, a smile of pride and pleasure. "Want something to eat?"
"Yes," she said, "I'm starving."
Tucking her arm under his, he led her from the store. As they walked out together, Aaliya noticed that Zain was as proud to be seen with her when she was wearing her old sweat suit as he was when she was in designer clothes. It really didn't matter to him what she was wearing.
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