Like a Love Story(10)

Reza


Our dining room is extravagant and ridiculous. Just sitting in it makes me feel uncomfortable. It looks like it was designed for an ancient royal shah. Anything that can be gold is gold, and anything not made of gold is crystal, glass, or emerald green. The paintings on the walls are mostly old Persian portraits from the Qajar dynasty, but then there’s a portrait of Abbas, done in the same style, as if to imply that he is one of those royals. I’m surprised there’s no painting of Saadi done in the old Qajar style, except instead of wearing an ornate robe and headdress, he would be wearing boxer shorts and holding a lacrosse stick.

“There is no doubt we are headed toward a recession. And if others have doubt, they are wrong. I know we are. Just look at real estate prices. They’re starting to dip and it’s only going to get worse. We were living in a bubble, and it’s popping as I speak. Nobody is spending on luxuries like real estate and expensive furniture anymore.”

That’s Abbas talking. My stepfather. He’s bald and very tall, one of the lankiest Iranians I have ever seen. And he speaks with so much authority. If there’s one thing I have learned since my mom married this man, it is that when he talks, you listen. If I could interject, here is what I might say: First of all, you are still living in a bubble. Just look around this home. And second of all, stop subtly suggesting my mother shouldn’t start working again. Because that is what is really happening right now. My mom was an interior designer in Toronto. She did okay. Well enough to support me and my sister, although we certainly did not live in a gold-leafed wonderland, and we certainly did not go to a fancy private school with starched uniforms, children of famous people, and lacrosse teams. I don’t even know how Abbas and my mom met. Probably ages ago, since Persians all know each other anyway. All I know is one day, my mom sat me and my sister down and told us she was getting married again. She said she and I would be moving to New York, while my sister stayed in Canada for college. And that was that.

“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.