Forbidden Love by Norma Khouri Read Free Book Online Page B

He sounds really nice and he’s dying to talk to you. He’s just as nervous as you are.” I picked up the receiver, covering the mouthpiece with my hand, and snapped a loud stage whisper, “Now take this call!”
    “All right, all right, just give me a minute,” she said.
    “You’ve had at least half an hour to get ready enough!”
    At last she took the phone, and I left the room so she could have some privacy. I went into the break room and made a fresh pot of coffee, and only minutes later Mohammed burst in and plopped himself down on the couch, waiting for us to serve him. Dalia hung up swiftly when she saw him, but we’d have no chance to sit and go over our conversations with Michael. We could hardly bear it.
    “I told the guys I’d meet them at seven tonight, and I need to pick up Khaldoun before that,” he announced, insisting we cancel our seven o’clock appointment to speed his getaway.
    “With our regular customers during the week and wedding parties at the weekends for the next three weeks, when else will we fit her in?”
    But it was futile. This was Thursday and Mohammed knew we’d cancel our seven o’clock appointment to accommodate his silly plans. Thursday night is men’s night out in Amman. On Friday, the Muslim day of worship, everything is closed.
    “Norma, get me some coffee.” Never any ‘please’ from this idiot. I fumed that I had to kowtow to him, but I’d at least try to seize the moment to further our secret plans before he left.
    “Since we’ve been so busy, well, Dalia and I have been thinking that it might be wise to hire a girl, a student or something, to help out a bit. You don’t think your father would have a problem with that, do you? I’ve discussed it with my father and he doesn’t. We just need a shampoo girl, or
     
    someone to help with the clean-up a few hours a day,” I said. \020”I don’t see a problem. I’ll ask him tomorrow and see what he says. Anything else?”
    “Actually, yes. If your father agrees, you should know that we already have a candidate in mind. She’s a nice girl, a student, about twenty-one. She can juggle her schedule to accommodate ours. If you let me know tomorrow, then I’ll give her a call.”
    “OK, I’ll talk to my father tonight.” He swallowed his last sip of coffee and left.
    Dalia and I stayed in the break room, but we needed to focus on Jehan, not Michael.
    “Why did you tell Mohammed we wanted to hire a shampoo girl?” she asked, a bit shocked.
    “I’m just setting the stage for Jehan’s arrival. She’s his sister, by the way,” I said, not knowing if Michael had told her.
    Her shoulders slumped with relief and a smile spread across her face. “I thought she must be. Are you sure she can spend that much time here?”
    “According to Michael, she’ll rearrange her schedule to help the two of you.” There were now four of us in on The Plan. We must start thinking creatively, and with an espionage agent’s attention to detail. We were terrified of being caught, and must miss nothing. First, we must free ourselves more from Mohammed.
    “It looks as if Mohammed has got himself out of his rut. Let’s pray that he’ll go back to his regular routine and we’ll have our break room to ourselves again. I’ve been going nuts since he started hanging out here every day. We should convince him to take up an activity,” I suggested. “That would keep him out of our hair even longer.”
    “I don’t think there’s anything else he could possibly do on
    that dumb truck of his. How about a class or something?” she suggested.
     
    Yes. But what? Then it came to me weightlifting! \020”We could persuade him to take up body-building,” I said, ‘then tell him how wonderful he’s looking, what a noticeable difference it’s making. Oh, I can see it now. He’d live at the gym-if we could convince him to go there.” We both thought feverishly. “Let’s buy him a membership. Give it to him as a gift. And tell