Darius the Great Is Not Okay(32)

Dad rubbed the dense black shrub of my hair and tugged on the ends.

I was certain he was going to start on me about how long it was again. But then— “Stephen!” Mamou called from the kitchen. “The tea is ready!”

Dad exhaled through his lips.

I blinked.

We were supposed to get along now.

“Babou said you went and played soccer. He said you made a friend.”

“Um.”

“I’m so proud of you, Darius.”

Dad pushed the hair off my forehead and kissed it.

“Go ahead and put some clothes on. Let’s have some tea. It’ll be dinnertime soon.”

“Okay.”





THE DESSERT CAPITAL OF THE ANCIENT WORLD



Dad closed the door behind him, and the Dancing Fan chose that moment to fall over.

I dug some clean clothes out of my suitcase and set the Dancing Fan back on its rubber feet.

I also grabbed the tin of FTGFOP1 First Flush Darjeeling out of my Kellner & Newton Messenger Bag. It had gotten dented on its journey through time and space, but the lid was still snug and sealed.

Dad and Laleh were in the living room, sipping cups of Persian tea. “Where’s Mom?”

“Shower,” Dad said. “Tea’s in the kitchen.”

Mamou was rinsing rice at the sink. It was a huge, double-basined one, and the windows above it faced out into Babou’s garden. It made me all prickly and nervous.

I wondered if Sohrab was supposed to come help Babou again.

I wondered how I was going to avoid him.

“You’re up, Darioush-jan.”

“Yeah. Um.” I realized I had not wrapped the tin of FTGFOP1 First Flush Darjeeling or anything. “I brought you something. I meant to give it to you yesterday, but . . .”

“You were too tired yesterday, Darioush-jan. It’s okay.”

Mamou dried off her hands and took the tin.

“It’s tea?”

“From Portland. Well, I mean, it’s from a place called Namring, in India. But it’s from a store in Portland. My favorite.”

Mamou popped the lid and unsealed the tea. “It looks good, maman. Thank you. You are so sweet. Just like your dad.” She pulled me close and kissed me on both cheeks.

If I had been drinking tea at that moment, I would have imitated Javaneh Esfahani and shot it out of my nose.

No one had ever called Stephen Kellner sweet.

Not ever.

I said, “I hope you like it.”

“You have to make it for me sometime.” She set the tin on the counter and led me to the table, where she had arranged the tea tray with sweets. “Darioush-jan, do you like qottab?”



* * *





Qottab are these little pastries filled with crushed almonds and sugar and cardamom, then deep-fried and coated with powdered sugar.

They are my favorite sweet.

According to Mom, Yazd is pretty much the dessert capital of Iran, and had been for thousands of years. All the best desserts originated there: qottab, and noon-e panjereh (these crispy rosette things dusted in powdered sugar), and lavoshak (the Iranian version of Fruit Roll-Ups, but made with fruits popular in Iran, like pomegranate or kiwi). Yazdis had even invented cotton candy, which was called pashmak.

I was fairly certain that, if you traced the lineage of all the desserts in the world, each and every one originated in Yazd.

With one side of my family coming from the dessert capital of the ancient world, I was doomed to have a sweet tooth.

It wasn’t like I ate sweets all the time or anything. I couldn’t, not with Stephen Kellner constantly monitoring me for dietary indiscretions. But even when I only ate dessert once a month, I never lost any weight.

Dr. Howell said it was a side effect of my medications, and that a little weight gain was a small price to pay for emotional stability.

I knew Dad thought it was a lack of discipline. That if I ate better (and hadn’t given up soccer), I could have counteracted the effects of my medication.

Stephen Kellner never struggled with his weight.

übermensches never do.



* * *





Someone knocked on the door. A familiar knock.

My stomach squirmed. I thought about how I had accidentally kept Sohrab’s cleats.

“Darioush, can you get the door please?”

“Um.” I swallowed. “Okay.” I licked a bit of powdered sugar from my fingers, but Dad was watching me, so I grabbed a napkin and wiped the rest off. I had only eaten one qottab, which I thought showed excellent discipline on my part.

Sohrab was standing there, holding my Vans in his right hand, looking at something on his iPhone with his left.

I didn’t expect Sohrab to have an iPhone.

I don’t know why.

“Oh,” he said, and tucked the phone in his pocket. He shuffled back and forth on his feet. “Darioush. You left these.”

“Thank you. Um. Yours are in the kitchen.”

I stood back to let Sohrab in. He slipped off his shoes and padded toward the kitchen in his black socks.

I always wore white socks, the kind that didn’t show when I wore my Vans. I did not like high-rise socks. And I did not like black socks, regardless of length, because they made my feet smell like Cool Ranch Doritos, which is not a normal smell for feet to have.