It didn’t bother me that much.
Not really.
I mean, D-Bag was a lot worse.
Terrorist was so ridiculous that I could shrug it off.
Mom always said those kinds of jokes didn’t bother her, because Persians couldn’t be terrorists. No Persian can get up early enough in the morning to bomb anything.
I knew she said it because it really did bother her. But it was easier if we could make fun of ourselves about it. That way, when boring Hobbits like Fatty Bolger said things, it didn’t matter. We had already made the joke ourselves.
I guess it actually did bother me.
Just a little bit.
INTERMIX RATIO
“Hey, son. What happened to your backpack?”
I stuck my homework in the Audi’s backseat and got in front. “Structural integrity field collapse.”
Dad laughed at my Star Trek reference, and also because he was finally getting his wish: He had been after me to get a new backpack all semester. “Better at school than in the airport.”
“Chip Cusumano wouldn’t have been at the airport to rip it open.” I explained how it all happened, and Dad started shaking his head about halfway through the story.
“All you have to do is stand up to him.”
“I did. He didn’t listen.”
“He’s only doing it because he can tell he’s getting to you.”
I wondered if that’s why Dad treated me the way he did. Because he could tell he was getting to me.
Ever since my bicycle had been removed from active service, I had been taking the bus to school in the morning, and Dad had picked me up in the afternoon to drop me off at Tea Haven. His work schedule was a lot more flexible than Mom’s.
I think Dad and I got along as well as we did—which wasn’t that well, but still—because I didn’t see him that often, with school and then work in the evenings. And when I did see him, it was usually for dinner, when Mom or Laleh were around to provide a buffer, or for Star Trek, which was sacrosanct.
The extra time in the car was throwing off our carefully calibrated intermix ratio.
I really did like riding in Dad’s Audi, though.
I just couldn’t tell him that.
Dad shrugged and waited for an opening to pull away from the curb. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ll get you a new one when we get back. And I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding with Chip.”
Stephen Kellner clearly didn’t understand my social standing at Chapel Hill High School. He’d never had to deal with the Fatty Bolgers and Cyprian Cusumanos of the world.
Stephen Kellner was a Paragon of Teutonic Masculinity.
“I made us appointments to get haircuts.” He turned right out of the parking lot, toward the Shoppes at Fairview Court.
I didn’t have to work that night—Mr. Apatan had given me the last week off, to get ready for our trip—but that’s where Dad usually got his hair cut.
“Um,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“You need a haircut.” Dad waved his hand up and down in my direction. “This is out of control.”
“I like it like this. It’s not even that long.”
“It’s nearly as long as your sister’s. What kind of example are you setting for her?”
“No it’s not.” I mean, maybe it was technically, because my head was larger than Laleh’s, but proportionally my hair was still shorter.
“You could at least get it trimmed.”
“It’s my hair, Dad,” I said. “Why is it such a big deal to you, anyway?”
“Because it’s ridiculous. Did you ever think that you wouldn’t get picked on so much if you weren’t so . . .”
Dad worked his jaw back and forth.
“So what, Dad?”
But he didn’t answer.
What could he possibly say?
* * *
I waited in the car while Dad stomped out and got his hair cut.
I couldn’t stand to be in the same place as him. I don’t think he could stand to be in the same place as me either.
When we got home, he stormed upstairs to his office without another word. I dropped my decommissioned backpack on the kitchen table and filled the kettle from the pitcher of filtered water I kept on the counter. I always used filtered water—it tasted way better than tap water—though Stephen Kellner liked to complain about the redundancy of keeping a pitcher of filtered water when the refrigerator already had a water filter built in.
Stephen Kellner complained about everything I liked.
In Russia, people use a samovar—a smaller version of Smaug the Voluminous—to heat a bunch of water, and then mix it with über-strong tea from a smaller pot. Persians have adopted that method too, except most Persians use a large kettle and a smaller pot you can stack on top, like a double boiler.
So, when the water boiled, I filled our teapot—a stainless steel one that came in a gift set with the kettle—with three scoops of our Persian tea blend and one sachet of Rose City Earl Grey tea. Mom called it her secret ingredient: It had enough bergamot in it to scent a teapot twice as large as ours, so whenever she had Persian guests they always complimented her on how fragrant her tea was.
I pulled down the cardamom jar, pulled out five pods, and stuck them beneath the jar.
Whack, whack, whack!
Maybe I was a little more enthusiastic about smashing hel than usual, after my fight with Dad.
Maybe I was.
I dropped the crushed pods into the pot, filled it with water, and waited for it to finish damming.
* * *
Mom picked up Laleh on her way home from work. She went upstairs to pack, while I had tea with Laleh, which was our tradition when I didn’t have to work after school.
Laleh always took her tea with three cubes of sugar and one cube of ice, and she always clanged the teaspoon against the sides of her glass teacup as she stirred. Somehow, no matter how hard or how vigorously Laleh stirred, she never slopped tea over the sides of her glass or spilled on herself. I didn’t know how she did it.
I still spilled tea on myself at least once a week.
Laleh took a tentative sip, holding her tea with both hands.
“Too hot?”
She smacked her lips. “Nope.”
I didn’t understand how Laleh could drink lukewarm tea.