“Okay.” I say, and I pull the pink top over my head. I move to pull my hair out from under the collar but she beats me to it, gathering it into a ponytail and kissing my neck. I moan sweetly.

“Well, whatever her reasoning was, I think it’s a gorgeous name, and it’s uhh… perfect for you… and if you keep doing that thing to my earlobe we’re…ohh… never gonna make it to Radar.”

“***** Radar,” she whispers, just a breath of vibration in my ear.

“Hmm, ***** me.”

“Not now. What’s your middle name?”

“Hmm. Long story.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I turn around and face her. “Long story. It’s Sadah and it means good fortune. Because I had the good fortune to be born in a free country.”

“And what does Darah mean?”

“Um, it’s Hebrew for something.” I move to my vanity table and run a brush through my hair. “The midwife who delivered me picked it out. She was helping my mom escape from Jordan.”

“Why did she have to escape?”

I sigh, ready to launch into the familiar story. “In Jordan, a woman can be killed for even being seen with a man who is not her brother or father. Her family kills her, and it’s not prosecutable by law. It’s called an honor killing. My mom was studying in Amman. My father worked for the English consulate. They met and hooked up because they were young and stupid. My mom was a political activist, and she was very brave and stupid.”

I pick a berry-colored lipstick and put it on.

“Anyway, one day she came home. Single women in Jordan live with their parents until they marry. Her brothers looked at her differently. She didn’t know how she knew they knew, but she did. They were probably plotting her death when she walked in. Luckily she knew a woman, a Catholic nun from America, and her order was helping women like my mother escape the country. The nuns helped her get to Greece, and then to the States. She had me two days after she arrived. I was born in a convent and the midwife who helped deliver me was a nun named Mary Sue Malloy. And Mary Sue got to name me. She picked Darah for some reason. My mom picked my middle name. That’s the story.”

“What ever happened to your dad?”

“I don’t know. She’s told me a lot about him, but she didn’t contact him since the day she left Jordan.”

“Wow. That’s some story.”

“Yep. Told you it was long.”

“It’s cool. You have roots. A history.”

“Yeah.” I stay quiet for a minute, hoping she’ll tell me some more of her history, but she doesn’t.