"Don't you think you should bring more clothes? You're going to be gone for two months!"
Mom's freakishly short arm was elbow-deep in a jumbo bag of "Feel the Heat" kettle-cooked barbecue chips while she leaned against my headboard.
"You know I don't like to check in luggage," I said, tossing my Learn Arabic in 30 Days handbook into my carry-on roller. They should really have called it Learn Arabic or Go Blind Trying because anyone who valued their sense of sight the least bit deserved a warning about the damaging effects of reading five hundred and forty-two pages printed in seven-point font.
Checking in luggage was always a hassle. The lines for the drop-off counters were especially excruciating when summer travelers flocked to the airports in droves in their shorts and flip flops. International travel was already a lengthy process, and the last thing that I wanted to do after nearly a day of traveling was stand at the luggage carousel and try to distinguish my suitcase from the sea of identical bags on display.
No. If I was flying all the way to Egypt, I didn't want to waste a single minute that could be better spent exploring my new surroundings.
"Still, you're going to be in the desert all day for eight weeks, " sweating in the hot sun. You're surely going to need more than a couple of pairs of pajamas to change into at the end of the day, Kitty. Do they even have a washing machine at the hotel?"
Mom's chomping was growing louder by the minute with all the talking and open-mouthed chewing she was doing on my bed. She'd better pray I didn't find red seasoning dust on my sheets, or I'd be bunking with her tonight, and I knew how she hated my habit of watching Turkish dramas—subtitles on but the volume extra loud—late into the night on my iPad. My oohs and aahs complemented by tearful sniffles weren't exactly soothing to a bedmate at two in the morning.
"It's not a hotel," I corrected. It's a hostel. And I'm sure I'll be okay. People go backpacking for like six months in Europe with two sets of clothes all the time."
"I was certain that my five outfits, complete with breathable linen shirts, jeans, and flowy skirts, and two pairs of pajamas were quite enough for the trip. As far as underwear, I'd opted for my most comfortable, made of cotton. The desert sun was said to be unforgiving, and I didn't need to worry about getting a heat rash under my boobs, or God forbid, on my cooch.
"What if you go out somewhere nice like for dinner or something?" Mom countered as she stared into the chip bag. She had evidently blazed through the contents already and now resorted to tipping the bag into her open mouth to catch the crumbs.
"You better not get any crumbs on my bed," I scolded, imagining being poked by a million razor-sharp, well-seasoned potato shards. "And I'm going on a dig, not to party it up with Egypt's finest." In about forty-eight hours, my life would be devoted to the whims of Dr. Camp ell, PhD, and his excavation team.
Mom abandoned the empty bag of chips and readjusted herself into a cross-legged position before dusting her hands off on her chinos with no regard for my warning or her clothes. For such a cute woman, she really operated more like a frat boy.
"I just want you to find time to enjoy yourself, too. You're flying all the way to your father's home country for the first time. This visit is more than just an internship. It's a chance to reconnect with your heritage." Her clear blue eyes shined glassy behind a film of wetness that threatened to puncture my chest.
I couldn't lie. When I had seen the announcement for the internship open to third-years in the "Stanford Archaeology newsletter in my email, my heart had throbbed in my chest. It was an ache for something that I had never had before—a connection to my father's heritage.
I didn't remember much of Mohammed Taha, lovingly known to me as Baba. He'd passed away when I was only four years old. According to Mom, he had migrated from Egypt to California to study computer programming in college and had ended up meeting another aspiring programmer named Wendy, my mother, and falling in love. They had married after completing their bachelor's degrees and soon discovered they were expecting me.
Mom said that he'd been the one to pick my birth name, Sanura, which meant "kitty." I'd ended up going by Kitty early on because it was easier for Americans to pronounce.
I'd been nearly three years old when Baba had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. His health had declined rapidly soon after his diagnosis. Unfortunately for him, his own parents had passed away years prior, leaving him and his younger brother, Yusuf, to be raised by family. Yusuf had planned to visit us while my father was sick, but according to Mom, Baba hadn't wanted anyone to see him sick. "The hair loss and constant nausea from chemotherapy and radiation and tumultuous seizures had been too much for Baba's pride to handle his baby brother seeing. Then, shortly after my fourth birthday, Baba had woken up one night vomiting uncontrollably, and Mom had rushed him to the ER. He'd never come back home.
Flash forward to now, I was a twenty-one-year-old half Egyptian, half American who had just learned enough Arabic per my degree requirement to carry on a conversation. At first glance, I looked Middle Eastern with my olive skin, large almond-shaped eyes, and long, thick, curly dark hair that reached just above my ass. And speaking of ass, that was definitely not something I'd gotten from my mom's delicate-featured side. My entire frame was thin with barely anything in the boob department, but my ass was round enough to warrant wearing one size larger than expected by the rest of my measurements.
My eyes were even dark brown like Baba's had been. Back in elementary school, I had always wished I could have pretty blue eyes and blonde hair like Mom so I could fit in better with the Ambers and Laurens, but that just wasn't in the A-T-C-G DNA base pair configuration that had been dealt to me.
Because of my looks, people expected me to speak Arabic fluently—especially other Middle Easterners I had met on the university campus—but if learning a foreign language hadn't been one of the requirements of my bachelor's, I probably would have struggled just to say "hello."
It wasn't my fault, though. I wanted to learn as much as I could about my culture, I just didn't have the tools to do so. And Mom tried to encourage my learning, but she was just as limited as I was in her knowledge. She didn't have any contact with Baba's family, and his brother Yusuf had never reached out again after Baba's death. So, when it had come time to choose what I wanted to study in college, Egyptology had been my first choice. It was a chance to learn the history of my people through the remains in the sand. "To start from the beginning—the birth of their civilization.
"Just promise me you'll make some time to connect to your roots. This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and I want you to make the most out of it." Mom dabbed at her eyes, the guilt of not doing more to educate me about my history clearly eating at her.
But it wasn't her fault.
I lifted my palm in the air and placed my other hand over my heart, ready to dry her tears. "I swear to party like an Egyptian rock star in an effort to make this the most memorable trip of the century," I said solemnly, then bit my lip to contain the giggle threatening to break through.
A pillow immediately flew past my head. "That's not what I meant, smart ass!"
"So, is that a no to smoking hashish while I'm there?" I jabbed.
She flashed me her famous don't-press-your-luck look. "Sanura Taha, if I have to bail you out of an Egyptian jail, I'm never going to let you step foot out of this house again."
I rolled my eyes. "Boring!"
We both fell into fits of laughter.
"Mom and I had a close relationship. It had always been just the two of us when I was growing up, so we had forged a bond that was more than just mother and daughter—we were best friends.
As a single mom working in Silicon Valley, Mom had often been burning the candle on both ends. She had started her career at a time when tech was solely a bros' club, so her managers had been less than understanding every time she had to rush home early when my school would call to say that I had a fever. But somehow, she had made it "work, and for that, she was my role model.
Mom pulled out her phone and started playing on it as she spoke. Candy Crush, no doubt. "So, who is this professor that you'll be interning with?"
"Dr. Campbell. He's some famous Egyptologist from Oxford." I had heard his name often during my three years of undergrad and had even read some of his research papers for classes. His write-up on statistical models for establishing morphometric taxonomic identifications was breathtaking, if you could even use the term to describe a thirty-two-page paper complete with scatter-plot graphs and citations. In short, he was a genius in the field.
"Have you Googled him yet?" Mom asked.
"What? No. Why would I look him up?" He was probably just like every other legendary archaeologist: in his sixties and still a fan of tweed.
"Ummm, maybe to know who you're dealing with?! What if this guy is a hard-ass? Wouldn't you want to at least do your research before you meet him—to give you the upper hand?" That was Mom, always prepared for some bullshit to go down.
But I was the opposite. I was a child of my intuition and based major decisions on gut feelings. A scientist who listened to her heart over her brain—nothing sounded crazier. But it had worked for me ever since I'd begged Mom not to send me to Camp Culkin when I was eight. Apparently, the entire operation had had to be cancelled only three days in due to a widespread outbreak of Hepatitis A. Now, the real reason I hadn't wanted to go was so that I could spend the summer "riding my new Barbie roadster bike, but I liked to think that my intuition had played a role in sparing my liver that summer.
"You know I don't believe in researching people before I meet them." I liked to give strangers the benefit of the doubt before meeting them so that we started off on a blank slate. Appearances were known to bias a person's impression before first words were ever spoken. Research would only lead to preconceived notions and false judgments about my preceptor or internship fellows, and I wanted to go into this experience with an open heart and an open mind. It could also be stressful knowing too much beforehand, and I didn't want that to ruin my excitement over the opportunity.
"Well, I do!" Mom tapped away at her phone. Her eyebrows nearly jumped off her forehead as she brought the screen almost flush with her face. "Holy shit!"
"What?" What could possibly be so surprising about Dr. Campbell? Archaeology was a male-dominated field, and most of the men looked similar across varying ethnicities: nonathletic build, middle-aged, and thinning hair.
I moved in closer to get a look at what Mom was ogling,
"curiosity getting the best of me. She pulled the phone away to her chest before I could peek. "I thought you didn't want to see?" She jutted her chin out at me, using my words against me. "What happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt?" Her lips rose into a smirk.
Straightening my spine, I pulled on the hem of my T-shirt, wishing it were my pride I were straightening out instead. "Fine. I don't want to see whatever it is you're looking at anyway." I was failing miserably to "salvage my ego—I sounded like a bratty four-year-old swearing I'd hold my breath forever unless someone put a chilled juice box in my hand.
Mom snorted and shook her head like the image of me packing my suitcase for a long trip was too much for her to bear. "God, Kitty. I'm going to miss you so much."
The nagging anxiety that had been bubbling just under my overt excitement spilled over. I had never left Mom for longer than a week. What was I going to do without my best friend for two whole months?
Hot tears filled my eyes. "I'm going to miss you, too, Mom."