Free I Can't Think Straight by Shamim Sarif

them to Tala, had been just a little proud that Tala would see her name in print. But now she felt more than a strong misgiving that as soon as she read the stories, Tala would hate them. Every phrase in her writing that Leyla had ever been uncertain about began to haunt her. She wondered if the emotions they described were not trite and unreal. She coughed and tried to focus on the play.
    ‘Don’t worry.’ Tala’s voice was there again, unexpectedly, in her ear. ‘I’ll love them.’
    At exactly the same time on the following evening, Leyla found herself in a fluorescent-lit supermarket aisle with her mother and sister, a setting that could not have been further removed from the softly-lit, enticing ambience of the previous night’s theatre with Tala. But to Leyla, as she spoke on her mobile phone, the unvarying rows of neatly stacked produce seemed fresh and glowing. Even in the last twenty-four hours, she had missed Tala’s voice, had longed to hear its particular inflections and intonations, had missed the sharpness and the softness that it could so easily and equally encompass.
    ‘You haven’t returned my calls,’ Tala said.
    ‘You left one message,’ Leyla said, smiling. ‘This morning. I was going to call you later.’
    ‘I hope that’s true.’
    ‘It is.’
    Leyla glanced up at her sister, casually, and Yasmin caught the look, conquered her instinct to eavesdrop and quickly went off to choose a brie.
    In the ensuing pause Leyla felt the blood rise up to her cheeks.
    She could think of nothing to say, nothing that was acceptable and friendly, no phrase to move the conversation on, no question that would not open up her heart like the quiet slit of a scalpel.
    ‘Why did you call?’ Leyla asked.
    ‘I wanted to thank you for last night,’ she offered at last. ‘But more than that, to thank you for giving me your stories to read. I loved them. You are very talented Leyla.’
    Leyla felt herself blush and stammered out her thanks, which Tala interrupted.
    ‘Would you like to come with me to Oxford at the weekend? My family are sponsoring a lecture series about Jordan. And we have a meeting at one of the colleges there to discuss starting it in Oxford.’
    Tala hesitated, before adding ‘My sister Lamia will be there. She’s flying in from Jordan.’
    ‘Okay,’ Leyla said.
    ‘Really?’
    Leyla laughed. ‘Really.’
    She looked up to find her mother watching her from the fish counter, and she moved casually away to continue the conversation.
    Maya had heard Ali’s phone call come in that Sunday but had been unable to get any sense out of her husband. She suspected, therefore, that something had been hidden from her, but by Monday evening, as she led her daughters through the supermarket, she decided against instigating a formal investiga-tion. Maya looked over at Leyla, and a smile touched her face. Her daughter was skulking around the Tinned Fruit and Veg aisle, whispering into her mobile phone, blushing and giggling. Obviously, Ali was on the phone, managing the situation perfectly, for her daughter was finally behaving exactly as Maya had always hoped – like a young woman in love.
    She turned away and back to the fish counter, where the whole fish she had selected had now been weighed and priced. The shock of the number that the woman in the soiled white apron had just spoken jolted Maya out of her thoughts of Leyla’s wedding and focused her attention on the ice-packed counter before her. Maya wavered. She could easily afford the fish; that was not the issue.
    Whether it was value for money was the question. Thank God Yasmin was at the cheese counter and not there to pressure her. But there was a short line of people queuing behind her. Ranged along the display of clear-eyed dead fish, each one of them was watching her, politely but with quiet intimidation, waiting for her to accept the specimen that she had requested and move on. She calculated in her head – perhaps she should just buy