The Stationery Shop(47)
At a round table in a café on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, behind her stack of books, Roya wrote in her lab notebook, trying to make sense of the chemistry problems that plagued her, avoiding eye contact with others, wanting more than anything to head back to her room in Mrs. Kishpaugh’s house to sleep. It was late afternoon and the clamor and din in the café did little to calm her nerves even though she had specifically come here hoping the background noise would somehow help make studying less arduous. On Tuesday morning at 9 a.m.—in three short days—she would take her chemistry final. She felt completely behind and unprepared as she tried to make sense of the words and symbols and numbers in her textbook. She should have studied a lot earlier; she had left too much for these last few days. Now she was drowning in material and had to catch up. Baba often sent encouraging letters from Iran: he was so proud of his scientist daughters studying cutting-edge topics that would ensure their place in the world! And they both were mastering English so fast even though it was such a difficult language! Roya had never really wanted to be a scientist. But after the horror of the coup and Bahman’s betrayal and her heartsickness in Tehran, it had become clear that what she wanted mattered little. She needed to survive. What good had the poetry books and foreign novels done her? She ferociously pursued science at Mills College not just to please Baba but because a degree in chemistry could maybe inoculate her against at least some of the uncertainties in life.
But the elements and molecules in her textbook made her head spin. Her body was in knots at the thought of Tuesday morning, 9 a.m. How on earth would she be ready for that exam? She took a chug of her strong coffee, put the cup down, and stirred the liquid nervously with her teaspoon. She could not fail. She had to get good grades and attain that chemistry degree with honors. Baba and Maman had sacrificed so much for her to be here.
He walked in wearing a blue blazer and gray pants, his hair like a sand dune on top of his head: a blond version of Tintin from the French comic series. Gold buttons shone on his blazer, and he moved with ease in the line and placed an order.
She tried not to stare at him. She had loved those Tintin comics as a child, and Mr. Fakhri had even stocked the stationery shop with a few of them. But this young man was far more handsome than the comic book character. She was inexplicably transfixed by his good looks. So much so that her teaspoon fell out of her hand and onto the floor. Oh God. She bent over, picked it up, and walked to the counter to get a new one from the basket near the jugs of milk and cream and the sugar dispensers. When she reached for a spoon, her elbow knocked over a cup of coffee. The cup bounced on the floor, dark liquid spilling everywhere, soaking the tiles, landing in streaks all over. Roya’s squeal was high-pitched, so Persian, a “Vaaaaay” that came out of embarrassment and shock. She grabbed a few napkins and squatted on the floor, mopping up the mess she’d made, but it only made things worse. The napkins disintegrated as she tried to soak up her mistake.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”
She looked up and saw Tintin kneeling eye-level to her. His eyes were Sinatra blue. “Don’t worry about it,” he said gently.
His gray pants were wool, she saw now, as they knelt together in close proximity. Who wore wool in California? Roya hadn’t seen wool since she left Tehran.
“I am so sorry,” she mumbled. Oh, how she must look, squatting as if poised over an old-style Iranian toilet, mopping up her humiliating spill. Please let the café fully resume its clatter and noise. Please let the attention fall on anything but her.
“It’s really no big deal. You know what? I wanted a different coffee anyway.” The blue-eyed man smiled.
Roya was relieved when the din around them picked up again. Café staff who’d glanced their way went back to taking orders, leaving the mess to the two of them. They both wiped the spilled coffee with napkins. He smelled like shampoo, the kind they sold in American supermarkets that created gigantic foamy bubbles and frothed between your fingers.
“Tell you what. I’m going to get another cup of coffee. And you’re going to just stop feeling bad about this. Sound like a plan?”
It didn’t sound like a plan of any sort that Roya knew, but she was charmed by his simple way of putting things. She nodded and smiled and nodded again, aware that she was “nodding like a foreigner,” as Zari would have put it. She went back to her table and slid onto the chair and pressed her pen into the notebook again, drawing hexagonal shapes for molecules. UC Berkeley students dominated the café, but there were a fair number from Mills College as well. The air was sharp with caffeine and stress. Everyone was cramming for finals. Christmas vacation loomed like a mirage beyond torturous obstacles—so much work to get through before that much-needed break.
Suddenly the shapes in her notebook were darkened by a shadow. She looked up, and the man in the blue blazer was standing next to her table.
“If I may?” That smile again.
She wasn’t sure what to say.
“This coffee shop is more crowded than usual today, don’t you think?”
Coffee shop. The phrase seemed intensely American, as wholesome as small towns in the Midwest she had never been to but had seen in movies. Coffee shop. Who spoke that way? Café, café, café was all she and Zari ever said. Here was this blond Tintin with his coffee-shop smile, in a blazer that was out of a Robert Mitchum film, wearing flannel trousers that belonged in London, not Berkeley, California.