Like a Love Story(44)

I can tell that after just ten minutes, Abbas already loves her. He smiles at her in a way he has never smiled at me, like he can’t wait to hear what she will say next.

“Saadi!” Abbas yells out. “Come meet your new sister.”

“Did you name him after the poet?” Tara asks.

Abbas beams. “Yes,” he says. “Are you a fan of our ancient poets?”

“Well, they were like the first rock stars,” Tara says. “Rumi. Hafez. Khayyam. Saadi. They said everything we need to know about love and wine way before John Lennon and Mick Jagger did.”

“And they said it better,” Abbas says, impressed.

My mom smiles in relief, and perhaps in pride, seeing her daughter through Abbas’s eyes now.

“And what about Forough Farrokhzad?” Tara asks. “People think Iranian women are all cloaked under chadors with no rights or ideas of their own, but we had our own bold feminist poet decades ago.”

“She was incredible,” Abbas agrees.

And then I hear Saadi’s door open, but it’s not just Saadi who emerges from the room.

Art.

I have successfully been avoiding him. Sitting far from him in class. Making excuses when Judy is spending time with him. Not showing up to those Sunday movie nights. Keeping my Discman and headphones handy, so that I can put them on when I see him in the distance, creating a buffer of sound between us.

Art, in black jeans that hug his legs, and a leather jacket, his camera swinging across his chest, hitting the zippers of the jacket. Like a pendulum, each swing one more heartbeat, each clink of the camera one more second further from that moment when I could have kissed him. Further and further from that possibility.

“Sorry, we were studying,” Saadi says, holding his hand out to Tara. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Tara says.

Art seems to be staring right through me. I look anywhere but at him, and in my search for a point of focus, I find Tara gazing at me curiously. She knows me too well.

“Hey, I’m Tara,” she says to Art, holding her hand out.

“Oh cool, you’re Reza’s sister?” Art asks. “I’ve heard about you.”

“And I can confirm that everything you have heard is true,” she says.

Everyone laughs. She can take a potentially tense situation and bring humor to it. I don’t have this skill. I don’t even know if I have a sense of humor. What I know how to do in tense situations is shut down and disappear.

“Come, let’s get you settled in, Tara,” Abbas says warmly. “I hope you don’t mind sharing a room with your brother.”

“We’re used to it,” she says, turning to me with a smile of solidarity.

Tara follows my mom and Abbas toward my room. I stand with Art and Saadi in the foyer, wishing I could break the tension with humor. Then Saadi punches me in the shoulder.

“Ow,” I say. “What was that for?”

“For not warning me that your sister is smoking hot,” he says.

“You realize she’s your sister too now,” Art points out.

“Yeah, thanks,” Saadi says. “Maybe don’t lecture me about appropriate sexual behavior when you like butt sex.”

Art responds with a middle finger in Saadi’s face.

“Later,” Saadi says. Then Saadi leaves, and I stand with Art. His camera has stopped swinging now. Nothing but stillness, and the heat of his body. I have a new fantasy. To go somewhere where no one knows my name, but to go with Art. To go somewhere where he can be the only person who knows me. He can rename me whatever he wants. He can call me Baby or Sweetie or Honey or just Reza if he wants. I can belong to nobody but him, exist only for him.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asks.

“Of course not,” I say. I almost say Why would I do that, but I stop myself, because he might just answer that question, and I don’t want him to.

“Okay, because I know Judy’s life would be easier if we were friends.”

“Oh,” I say. “But we are friends.”

For a moment, I had forgotten about Judy. I had imagined going to a place with Art, and leaving her behind. I hate myself for thinking that, and worse, for wanting it.

“Got it,” he says. “Just wanted to clear the air.”

“Okay,” I say. The air is anything but clear.

We stand across from each other for a few deep breaths. “Hey, did you see People named Madonna one of the best-dressed people of the year?”

“Yeah,” I say. I already have that issue in my room. I have every magazine Madonna is on the cover of, and every record, and more posters. I have amassed a collection, funded by my allowance and supplemented by the money I have made a habit of stealing from Abbas’s pocket when he showers.

“I kind of wish they said she was the worst-dressed, you know. Like, I kind of wish the mainstream world didn’t get her. That she could just be ours. Is that selfish?”

I don’t know who he means when he says “ours.”

“Are you doing anything fun for the holidays?” I ask. This is the question everybody at school seems to ask each other, and I pull it into the conversation now, hoping for an innocuous answer.

“In the ultimate statement of Christmas spirit, I’m joining this ACT UP protest of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Has Judy told you about it? It’s gonna be epic. EPIC.”