Deen Queens

twenty six [saleena]

Saleena wrapped the hijab tighter around her neck, dark sunglasses covering her eyes as she glared at the magazine cover in disgust.

She had taken Yusuf out to their local Asda supermarket for some last minute baking essentials, a headscarf and a pair of sunglasses becoming the perfect disguise. Suddenly, nobody recognised her and that tasted like freedom.

Yusuf has been so excited to make brownies, dark eyes widening with joy as he jumped up and down, his little hand squeezing her fingers. They'd picked up some baking ingredients but before long, Saleena's gaze caught hold of a magazine featuring a large blown up cover of her face.

She usually ignored the tabloids and gossip columns, perfectly aware that 99.9% of information they spouted was pure rubbish. The negativity was astounding and it seemed that people forgot these celebrities they were criticising constantly were real, breathing people. But criticism would have been preferable to the array of photographs that had been chosen for the feature story - ones of her pouting with smoky eye-shadow and pointy nipples vaguely peeking out behind a bralette. Her tulle skirt was fluffed up, layers of fabric encasing her, fluttering against the ridiculously high black velvet stilettos. All in all, she definitely looked the part of good girl gone bad. It was exactly what Brian Williams had wanted - and exactly what she hadn't.

"Astaghfirullah," she whispered, her fingers trembling as she traced the face she barely recognised. What had she become?

"Can we put the sprinkles on them when we get home, Leena, baji?" Yusuf's eager voice brought her back to reality, his chubby face hopeful as only thoughts of chocolate filled his little mind.

"Of course, baby."

In the last split-second, she pulled the magazine into her basket, feeling as though she was committing a crime. Never before had she purchased anything to read articles about herself, never before had she allowed herself to get sucked into the world of lies and gossip. But it wasn't the words she was interested in, more so the images of the girl she barely recognised as herself. Her fingers trembled as she punched in her card details on the self-checkout machine, grateful she didn't have to face a staff member who could potentially recognise her. Yusuf chattered away the entire journey home, little face pressed up against the windows of the bus, amusing a pair of elderly ladies sat at the front row.

"Look Leena, more green cars, lotsa green cars! Can you get one, baji? Then we can drive it next to the bus and we can be the green car on this road!"

What a far cry this little boy was, even compared to just a few months ago.

Moving into a new home and spending time with the girls, including little Sofia had been so good for him. He had begun to open up from out of his shell, all smiles and laughter hidden deep inside a soul that had seen too much at too young of an age. And Jabar had also helped... well, that went without saying really.

When Yusuf had first met her bodyguard, he had hid behind her, using Saleena as a shield from the darkness that the world had thrown at him. But slowly, in the past year and a half, Jabar had carved a place for himself in their small, dysfunctional family. The ugly green pancakes had been a catalyst and suddenly, Yusuf was acting like a five year old again.

One night Saleena had woke, her heart pounding in her chest like a wild beast trying to escape, and had found Yusuf asleep on Jabar's chest, his chubby little hands holding tightly onto dark swirls of tattoo ink. It had caused a shift in the way she had viewed the three of them; something primal inside Saleena that melted at the sight.

Last week Jabar had tried to tell her he couldn't work for her anymore, admitting that both of them were teetering into dangerous territory. This was a job, and yet, both of them were consistently forgetting that. A small, cynical part of her, was waiting for him to leave. After all, he had said he would.