Read Tripping on Tears for Free Online Page B

unfortunately.
    Safia told me that despite having graduated from college and taken business administration courses, she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life; the job at the coffee shop was a pleasant substitute to make some money until she decided; something that was enjoyable enough to do, but not stressful. She’d been interested in art and drawing, but her parents hadn’t supported that notion. They wanted her to get a solid practical education, and had been pushing for her to get a job at a bank, or something respectable like that. I told her my parents were just happy I had a job and wasn’t in prison or living out of a cardboard box, when I was starting out. I’m sure Mom and Dad weren’t sure I’d amount to anything, seeing how they’d had a front row seat to all my stupidity during my teenage years and college days.
     
    “A respectable job makes me more, I don’t know how to say it properly, but, valued, I guess, if my parents were to arrange a marriage for me,” said Safia.
    An arranged marriage? This took me by surprise. I’d never considered the possibility, or that such things still went on today.
    “Does that still happen these days?” I asked.
    “You’d be surprised. It seemed that the older me and my sister got, the more serious my Father and Mother became about honoring such traditions.”
    “Have they tried to set you up with anyone?”
    I was truly curious. The prospect of an arranged marriage is fascinating to me, yet scary. Back in the day, we didn’t trust my Father to pick a movie from the video store, let alone let him pick a woman or man for one of us to marry. Mom would have been different, as she would have put some thought into it, but Dad, he wasn’t that thorough and would have went shopping for us off the rack. At the same time, having my parents bring home women for me, would have severely cut into the stress and insecurities of dating and having to approach women on my own.
    “They’ve brought families over; friends from the Mosque, with their children. Usually there is a son who is old enough for either my older sister or I. It’s funny, because we both know the reason for the visit, but it’s unspoken. My parents want to follow the tradition, but just don’t want to come right out and say so.”
    “If that’s the case, what do they make of something like this? Our date?”
    Safia smiled coyly and took her time sipping on her wine.
    “I take it they don’t know you’re out on a date with a white guy?” I said.
    “I wouldn’t be allowed out of the house.”
    “What? Grounded? At your age?”
    “In a way, yes,” she said.
    “Oh, you’re a naughty girl, aren’t you?”
    “I know they mean well, but times have changed. We’re not living in Pakistan. Other than my older sister who was five at the time my parents left, neither my brother nor I have ever been to Pakistan. You could say we’ve been Westernized. That’s all we know and understand.”
    “So why don’t you just tell them that in love you plan to follow your own path?”
    “You make is sound so easy. It isn’t,” she said.
    I could see in her eyes she wasn’t lying; there was conflict there – conflict I couldn’t understand.
    “It’s funny,” I finally said, “the conceit of man...sorry, not mankind, but humankind.”
    She looked at me.
    “We always think we can control things; things well beyond our control. You mentioned earlier that your parents became more serious about honoring their traditions as you and your sister got older, right?”
    She nodded her head in agreement.
    “You mean after puberty, when you both had started developing from little girls into young ladies and eventually young women, right?”
    She nodded again.
    “After puberty. Your sexual development,” I continued.
    “We’re going to talk sex? On a first date?” she asked.
    “In a roundabout way,” I said. “I guess I was lucky in that my parents were open about sex. They didn’t hide it