Like a Love Story(34)

“I hope you like it,” Judy says. “And obviously, if you don’t, then you don’t have to wear it.” We are in her room now, and she sits at her sewing machine, a pint of cookies-and-cream ice cream by her side.

“I’m sure I’ll like it,” I say.

“Don’t do your polite Persian thing with me, okay? I want you to feel free to be rude with me. To be yourself.”

“But I am not rude,” I say.

“Right, of course,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s like sometimes I think that deep down, everyone is an asshole, and nice people are just hiding their true selves. Does that make me horrible?”

I shrug and spoon a bite of ice cream into my mouth.

“Maybe it just makes me a New Yorker,” she says. “Honestly, whoever decided children should be raised in this city is the horrible one.”

If only she knew what being raised in Tehran was like.

“Obviously I’m happy about it, though. Nobody raised in Peoria would design this fabulous shirt for you.”

Now I take a spoon of ice cream and feed it to her. She accepts it as she continues to sew. “This is the life,” she says. “When I’m a famous designer, I’m going to make sure I have a gorgeous man feeding me ice cream while I work. He’ll have one of those ice cream trucks, but instead of some dumb jingle, it’ll play ‘I Love Rocky Road’ by Weird Al on a loop.”

I look around her room, at the posters on her wall. David Bowie in pants that look inflated. Debbie Harry in a gold leotard. Pages ripped from fashion magazines and taped to the walls with abandon. Models I don’t recognize, wearing dresses with zippers down the sides, men’s shirts way too big for them with belts cinched around them, gowns with sequins on them, clothes so shiny that some of them look like they were made for another planet.

She looks over at me and smiles. “You okay?”

I look away. She asks me this question a lot, and I never like it. We don’t ask this question in my family. We know that the answer will always be yes, but that the truth will always be no, so what’s the point in asking the question? “Of course,” I say. Does she ask me this all the time because she senses that something is not okay, or does she ask this question because this is what Americans do?

“I’m sorry about my mom,” she says. “I hope she didn’t upset you.”

“Not at all,” I say. I mean it, too. I have much more monumental things to be upset about than the assumption that I know a lot about tea, which is true anyway.

“Okay,” she says. “She’s just not that culturally sensitive, I know, but she means well, which I guess is worth something.”

“I like her,” I say. “And I like your father too.”

“Cool,” she says, her head down, assessing her work. After a few more seconds, she pulls the fabric out of the machine and reveals it to me. “Ta-da,” she says.

I could see pieces of the shirt as she was working on it, but I was not prepared for the explosion of colors, deep orange and royal blue and gold. The sleeves are blue, and there is the illusion of an orange vest laid atop the shirt. On the back are two thick stripes, outlined in gold, and inside the gold stripes are tiny figures of plants and goats and flowers. The level of detail is so intricate that I find myself studying the shirt like a piece of art. “Wow,” I say.

“Does wow mean you like it?” she asks. “Or does wow mean it’s too much and you would never wear it and you think I’m a freak for making it for you?”

“No, it’s just . . .” I search for the right words. “It belongs on David Bowie, not on me. I am not worthy of it.”

“At least try it on before saying that.”

She hands me the shirt. The fabric is softer than I imagined. It feels luxurious. It’s not until I’m holding it in my hand that I realize the colors are reminiscent of ancient Persian clothing, and that the tiny figures running down those stripes look like miniatures. It hits me how much time and care Judy has put into this one shirt, for me. I am not unworthy of the shirt. I’m unworthy of her.

“Is it . . . Persian?” I ask her.

She smiles. “I didn’t want it to be too obvious,” she says. “I went down a total rabbit hole of research at the library about Persian style. Oh my God, Reza, honestly, it’s beyond. The robes. The shawls. The vibrant colors and the vests and the level of detail. I mean, you guys come from the epicenter of everything gorgeous.”

“Wow,” I say.

“I wanted it to be a surprise.” She claps her hands together. “Come on, try it on. I want to see how it fits.”

I unbutton the black cardigan I’m wearing. The fish pin Judy and I bought together is on it. We have worn those pins every day since we bought them on Saint Mark’s Place. When I place the cardigan down on Judy’s bed, the eyeball of the fish seems to be staring at me, judging me. Then I put my hands at the base of my favorite T-shirt and pull it off. When I lay it down on the bed, Madonna’s eyes seem to be judging me as well. I love Madonna so much, but I know she would hate me. All she tells me to do is express myself, and here I am hiding. I don’t like having my shirt off. I hate how thin I am, and I hate the thick hairs growing on my chest, and I hate the birthmark on the bottom of my back. It’s the first time I have taken my shirt off in front of Judy. Even when she took my measurements, I kept a T-shirt on. I can feel her looking at me, then looking away, then looking back at me. Is she thinking I look better with clothes on? I think about Art taking his shirt off in front of me, of how beautiful he was.