“It is not surprising that prices are starting to dip in the city,” Abbas continues. “People are afraid of getting mugged, beaten, raped. What happened in Central Park is just the beginning. I love it here, but if I were to do it all over again, I would think twice before buying in the city.”
My mom just smiles, an eye toward the pot of ghormeh sabzi, and says, “Honestly, Abbas, I have no idea how you trained your cook to make Persian food this well.”
“Oh, my mom trained her,” Saadi says. “These are her recipes.” There’s no obvious venom in the way he says this, but his intent is hard to miss.
That’s when I deduce that it wasn’t Abbas who picked out the decor of this mausoleum we are living in. The gold, crystal, glass, and emeralds of the dining room, the old paintings, the cacophony of rugs, the lacquered picture frames and heavy curtains, they were probably all selected by this woman I have never met. For a moment, a feeling of warmth toward Abbas washes over me. Because if he was married to a woman this tacky and over-the-top, and then traded her in for a woman as classy as my mother, then perhaps he isn’t as bad as I want him to be.
“Her recipes are delicious then,” my mom says diplomatically.
“So, Reza jan, how was your first week of school?” Abbas reaches over to me and tries to playfully punch my shoulder.
“School is okay,” I say.
This is a lie. School is terrible. I’m the new, dark kid who has no idea how to make friends. They make Iranian hostage crisis and ayatollah jokes about me. And I’m scared of the other kids, none more so than Art, who attracts and repels me, sometimes in the same moment. There’s one good thing about school, and that’s Judy. She is kind, and funny, and she seems to like me, seems to see something in me that I wish I could see in myself.
“Tell us a little more,” my mom says. “What is your favorite class?”
“Um, I don’t know,” I say. “English, I guess. We’re reading The Odyssey and I think it’s good.”
Saadi nods his head. “Awesome book,” he says. I saw him yesterday in his room, reading the CliffsNotes.
“I wish you would read the Shahnameh as well,” Abbas says. “We have our own history and literature.”
“We could all read it together,” my mom says. “Like a family book club.”
I can see the wheels in Saadi’s head turning, trying to figure out the chances that someone has written CliffsNotes for the Shahnameh. When he figures out that the chances are zero, he says, “Right, like we have time to read two epics in one semester.”
Abbas doesn’t admonish his son. Instead, we sit in silence, nothing filling the space but the sound of four mouths chewing. There’s a point during all our family dinners so far when everybody’s attempts at conversation fail. We sit and say nothing, chewing as quietly as we can. In Iran and in Toronto, we never had a quiet family dinner. My dad and my sister didn’t know how to be quiet.
And then the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it,” my mom says.
“It’s for me,” Saadi says, getting up. “It’s my project partner for biology. Don’t be shocked by how he looks. He’s a queen.”
Saadi moves toward the front door and opens it. I don’t see Art, but I can hear him. “Hey, what’s up?” he asks Saadi.
“Nothing,” Saadi says. “Let’s get this over with.”
Saadi and Art enter the dining room. It’s the first time I have seen Art out of the school uniform, and now the rest of him matches his lavender hair. His jeans are ripped at both knees and splattered with paint. He wears a sleeveless black T-shirt, with zippers at both sides and a decal of a woman with big hair on it. And his combat boots have thick heels on them, so when he walks in, it sounds like my mom sounds when she enters a room. He has a camera around his neck, a fancy one with a big lens.
“Family, this is Art,” Saadi says. “We have to work on a science project.”
“Hey, family,” Art says, waving his right hand, revealing a single fingernail painted black.
“Hello,” Abbas says. He stands up and shakes Art’s hand politely. “I’m Abbas, Saadi’s father. You are a classmate of his?”
“Oh yeah, we’re real close,” Art says, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“This is my wife, Mina,” Abbas says, and my mom dutifully stands and shakes Art’s hand. “And you must know my other son, Reza.”
I freeze for a moment. I do every time Abbas refers to me as his son, which I am clearly not. Nothing about me says that I belong in his world of high finance and high-rises.
But I know it’s my turn to stand dutifully, and I do. “Hello, Art,” I say, and I approach him to shake his hand.
“Hey, Reza,” Art says. When he shakes my hand, he holds it a little too tightly, and I catch a hint of the smell of his armpits. His sleeveless shirt has sweat stains on it, inevitable if you are outside for more than a few seconds. Smelling him makes me uncomfortable, and I pull my hand aggressively away from his. He looks at me funny when I do, but I have no idea what he’s thinking.
“Are you hungry, Art?” my mom asks. “We have stew and rice. Have you ever had Persian food?”
“We’re going to study,” Saadi says.
“It’s okay,” Art says. “I don’t eat meat anyway. I don’t believe in killing living things. Except Jesse Helms.”
My mom and Abbas flinch at that, more than a little offended, as if his clothes and hair were not enough.
“And yeah, I’ve had Persian food. My parents have lots of Persian friends. Kind of inevitable when you live on the Upper East Side post-1979.”
“Who are your parents?” Abbas asks. “Do I know them?”
“Dad, I want to be done studying before Quantum Leap is on,” Saadi says. “Can you let us go, please? And he’s Bartholomew Emerson Grant VI, so he passes whatever test you’re giving him.”
I stare at Art, wondering what the significance of his name is, what special lineage he comes from. I zone out as the conversation speeds up—Abbas is excited by this newfound piece of information. The sounds become hazy. All I see is Art, like I can hear his heartbeat through the fabric of his tank top, underscoring the conversation.
Oh of course I know your father. We’ve never done a deal together, but we’ve tried.
Probably for the best.
Tell him I say hello. And your beautiful mother.
What a lovely coincidence. We’d love to have your family over for dinner.
And I’m so sorry about the loss of your grandfather. What a man!
The expression on Art’s face seems to question whether the death of his grandfather was a loss at all. I know that ambivalence. I felt it when my mom told us about my dad. By that point, I hadn’t seen him in four years, not since we left Tehran. And I felt a hollow sadness, a sharp pain, but also relief. We could start over.
“He was a great man,” Abbas continues, perhaps hoping for some response from Art.
Art does respond now, but not about his grandfather’s greatness. “This is the raddest dining room I’ve ever seen,” he says. “Could I take a picture of it?”
My mother stands up. “Oh, of course,” she says, exceedingly polite. “We will just get out of the way.”