The Stationery Shop(23)

“Come with me.” Bahman took Roya’s arm and pushed past everyone. He led her to the middle of the living room. A song for a waltz had just started. This she could do—it was one of the first dances Bahman had taught her, and she’d practiced with Zari for weeks. Zari had pulled Roya back and forth in their bedroom, scolding her when she made a mistake. Roya, remember. This isn’t our twirling hands/swaying hips Persian dance. This is serious. Concentrate! With Bahman’s instruction week after week and Zari’s forced practice, Roya’s confidence grew. Now she glided with Bahman across the room, inhaling his familiar scent.

“I need a drink,” she said when they finished.

He let her go.

At the refreshments table, Roya picked up a goblet of crushed melon-ice and a spoon. The sweet melon-ice filled her parched mouth. Suddenly there was a sharp tap on her shoulder.

She expected to see Bahman, but instead a tall, wavy-haired woman with olive skin and a movie-star mole above her lip (real or drawn on? If Zari were here, she would know) stared down at her. Shahla, the girl from the café.

“Thirsty?” she asked. Her voice was husky, coarse.

“Yes,” was all Roya could think to say. No hello, no introduction, no niceties.

“Well, you cast your net and caught him. Hoorah! He’s always been a slippery one. But somehow”—the girl studied Roya’s hair, her green dress—“somehow you did it. It’s mind-boggling.”

The melon and ice stayed in Roya’s cheek, frozen.

“To think, Jahangir didn’t want me to come tonight because he was worried it would upset Bahman or . . . you. Jahangir and I have been friends almost all our lives. Why should I not show up to his party? Besides, I had to see for myself up close what made Bahman such a lover boy. And now”—she looked Roya up and down again—“I get to see what the fuss is about.” Shahla looked down at Roya’s shoes. They weren’t the baby-doll shoes of her high school uniform. They were mules that had belonged to Maman: green suede with a small brass buckle on the side. “Please God, look!” Shahla shook her head, snorted, and then walked away.

“Everything good?” Bahman came over, face flushed from dancing. Roya hadn’t even noticed who he’d danced with after their waltz. She couldn’t stop people from being lured to his side. Men and women would always flock to him.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Roya cracked down hard with her teeth on the ice. “Nothing.”

Bahman glanced in the direction of the wavy-haired movie star look-alike, who had slinked to the other side of the room. “Please. Don’t worry about her. I saw her talk to you. I can’t believe she had the audacity to show up tonight. What did she say?”

Roya couldn’t speak.

He took the goblet from her hand and rested it on the table. He pulled her close and touched her neck. “Hey, Roya, come on. She’s nothing to me.” He kissed her forehead, right where Maman would claim her destiny was written in invisible ink. Shahla, wavy-haired and pouting from across the room, could not have missed this kiss either.

“She can see you. Stop. Everyone can see you.”

“Good. Let them. I want”—he kissed her again—“to kiss you in front of the whole damn world.”

“Basseh, enough,” Roya said. But after the fourth kiss, after he was so close that she could feel the perspiration on his shirt, she had almost forgotten about Shahla.

The soirees and the dancing, the music and the women mixed with men, the songs from America and the dances, the crushed melon in ice-cold goblets sometimes spritzed with what she was sure must have been alcohol—all of this was an unexpected secret scene for her. Who knew that the boy who would change the world even knew how to dance? That he had this group of friends? That he was so close to the ever-popular wealthy playboy Jahangir?

“I hope they all writhe with jealousy,” Bahman said, and nuzzled his face into her neck.

“I think you just want to writhe.” Roya giggled.

“With you? Always. How much longer till we get married?” He gently kissed her throat.

“Now, you behave, mister. I am a virtuous girl,” she teased. But she let him feel the contours of her neck with his mouth.

He looked up then with his dark eyes twinkling—the eyes that had struck her as filled with joy that first day at the Stationery Shop. “I’m counting down the days till we can be together. Roya, I love you so much.”

They stood like that, face-to-face. His breath was warm. Her heart pounded against his chest.

“Well, you’re stuck with me!” she finally said.

“I want to be stuck so badly,” he groaned, and laughed.

She picked a piece of lint from his collar. “Now then. As the boy who would change the world, can you please be a role model in front of all these people?”

“Bacheha! Kids!” Jahangir lifted his arms into the air and wiggled his waist. “The time has come to taaaango!”

He put on a new record, and sultry guitar chords filled the room. “Bahman, get over here!” Jahangir motioned from across the room. “I’d like to demonstrate with you.”

Bahman walked over and they stood face-to-face, cheek-to-cheek, Jahangir’s arm around Bahman’s waist, his other arm extended with his hand clasping Bahman’s. Jahangir drew Bahman in tight and slowly they moved. The song was sensual, almost alarming. It made Roya long for something she couldn’t even define, something forbidden and inviting. Watching Jahangir and Bahman dance felt like watching two strangers. Like watching what she’d never known she yearned for.