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Despite all this, LS was considered a cutting-edge school, and set tuition proportionately.
    â€œIf it was any barer, it would almost be like they were going for an ultramodern look on purpose,” said Jo when we arrived for the first day of training.
    â€œDon’t judge.” I gave her a condescending schoolmarm look.
    Jo wrinkled her nose and giggled. Arriving at the school library, we brightened up at the sight of the other teachers. The faculty was evenly split between foreigners and Egyptians and roughly so between men and women. But while the word
foreigner
denoted the same thing throughout the room—we were all educated and middle class, dressed in the same ambiguous nonstyle of the expatriate—the word
Egyptian
covered a much more diverse group. Some wore traditional clothes, but others wore Italian shoes and dark jeans, and spoke to each other in English. Of this group, the girls were especially friendly, and mingled with the expat teachers learning names and making introductions. Jo and I were swept up in the familial atmosphere as returning teachers wandered in and shouted greetings to each other, joking about weight gained and lost over the summer.
    I looked around for Omar. He was sitting in the back of the room with a group of teachers who chatted quietly in Arabic. Many of the women wore head scarves and loose robes in green and ocher. The men were dressed in carefully pressed oxford shirts. There was something a little desperate in the razor-sharp creases of the fabric, as if it was very, very important for these men to make the right impression. When the vice principal called for our attention I sat hastily in the chair next to Jo’s, troubled; I sensed that it would be inappropriate for me to approach Omar in this setting. There were two competing Egypts in the room: that of the westernized upper class and that of the traditionalist. As westerners, Jo and I were automatically considered part of the former group. I realized that for the past couple of weeks, Omar had been sneaking me into his Egypt—a place where I did not belong, and could not be sustained.
    I kept looking over my shoulder at him, trying to read his expression. He listened attentively to the vice principal with his arms crossed, and leaned over every so often to comment to the man sitting next to him. I never caught him looking at me. I watched Jo as she took notes on her legal pad, and plotted my next move.
    When we broke for lunch, I ambushed him.
    â€œHi, how are you,” I said, trying to strike a true note between cheerfulness and reserve.
    â€œBored,” said Omar, smiling. “None of what we are discussing can be applied in an Egyptian classroom. This training program was made for western teachers.” His accent sounded heavier than I remembered.
    â€œThat isn’t why it’s boring,” I said, and he laughed. There was a pause. “What are you doing after work?” I asked finally, and cursed myself in silence for sounding forward.
    Omar shrugged. “I’ll call you and Jo in the evening,” he said.
    â€œIf you want. I mean if you’re free. Don’t feel obligated to find things for us to do.” I could feel myself turning red, and felt childish.
    â€œI don’t,” he said, and turned back to the lunch table.
    Omar called that evening, inviting us to meet Nuri, one of his close friends. The four of us went to a café in Maadi. As soon as we ordered, Jo excused herself to go to the bathroom, with a glance in my direction that inspired me to do the same. When the door was shut behind us, she turned to me in alarm.
    â€œIt’s two guys and two girls,” she said. “Are we on a date?”
    â€œJesus,” I whispered, and forced down a nervous giggle. She might be right: as far as I knew, most unmarried Egyptian girls didn’t appear in public with men unless it was in large mixed groups. Ben accidentally dated a girl for weeks before