Ghena Hariri

The boutique was so small I almost walked past it.

A window full of wrong combinations that were somehow right. I went in. Maya, Meena, and Zeenat Mukhi were all three inside. They recognised me from a Chanel jacket I’d worn in a TV interview — in the middle of summer, over a white T-shirt. I was obese. It was the only thing that fit. Their mother, apparently, had opinions about this. I had known Chander Mukhi and Effat since I was a child. 

In Lebanon, certain names were simply present in the texture of things. The pieces your aunties pointed at. The language of elegance transmitted not by intruction, but by proximity. They named the brand after sisterhood rather than family. In Lebanon, businesses follow sons and brothers. The Mukhis named theirs after sisters — because their mother had shown them that a woman could simply decide to make something and then make it. 

“Three or thirteen — follow what you feel like. If you walk out like a Christmas tree and you love it, so be it.”

There was a ring in Effat’s boutique. An emerald cocktail ring, — green the particular green that emeralds achieve when they have nothing to prove. I tried it on for the first time and put it back. I came back and tried it on again. This happened across fifteen years. When I finally bought it, I felt something quieter than triumph. The ring was not the reward. The fifteen years were. 

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