So where to now?

As the closing bars of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" faded away, Fatima bin Laden bounded off the stage while patrons stood and cheered. She hurried through the side exit into the service area, where a dark-skinned woman with bouffant blonde hair and the most immense breasts Fatima had never seen, wearing the merest excuse for a bikini, what there was of it made from gold lame and string, was getting off the elevator.

"Bitch!" the blonde snapped, pushing past Fatima. "Aleesha is supposed to follow that s---? Huh!"

"A bit high-strung, that one," said Gus Higa, the grandfatherly elevator operator. "Don't let it bother you."

On the elevator's closed-circuit TV, she saw Aleesha make a grand entrance on stage. Back in the dressing room, her new friend Jennifer Hira greeted her with a hug. "That was awesome, Fatima!" Jen said. "I've never seen anything like it. Where'd you learn that hankie dance?"

"From a teacher back home," she replied, pulling off the belly dance costume, reaching for the black velour track suit that now seemed absolutely and blessedly burqa-esque.

"Hey, you're not done already. We have three shifts each."

"Oh, no," Mama Hanna said in her smoky rasp, entering in a cyclone of dragon lady bluster. "This one done! People stop gambling! Stop drinking! Only watch you. Why you not take off your clothes? Then they don't pay so much attention! We dance here, not tell stories! You finished!"

Fatima lowered her head, biting her lip, trying not to smile. Allah the most merciful be praised! She would not have to dance on that stage again!

Mama Hanna blustered out, muttering, leaving Jen and Fatima alone.

"I thought you said you were a dancer," Jen said, "like in Manila or Angeles or something."

"I misunderstood your question. I do a different kind of dance."

"Well, it was still awesome. I'm glad I met you."

There was something about this Jennifer, something good and big-hearted. But one thing Fatima did not understand

"Jen, why do you choose to make your living this way?"

"Hustling from job to job, greeting people at the airport in that goofy hula outfit, dancing here, selling Amway on the side? Cuz I got a kid, little girl, Jesse, 3 years old, whose father is too busy hanging out and being a braddah to get a job and support her, and I'm trying to finish my degree in nursing. My parents are retired, can't help me financially, but they watch Jesse for me."

"I see." That would never happen in Muslim society.

"You can hang around here. I've got two more dances to do, then I'll give you a ride to where ever you're going."

"Thank you, Jen." But where would Fatima go? She had no idea.