Darius the Great Is Not Okay(43)

“Happy Nowruz, Darioush,” Mom said, kissing me on the head while I washed my dishes from breakfast. She was back to using my Iranian name.

“Happy Nowruz, Mom.”

She had her hair in curlers, and she was wearing a long, puffy white robe. My stomach experienced a gravitic inversion.

“Uh. Are you dressing up for the party?” But I already knew the answer.

“Just a little bit.”

“Should I dress up too?”

“Whatever is fine. It’s just family. Wear something casual.”

I knew she was lying.

“Okay.”

“Where’s your sister?”

“Watching Iranian soap operas with her grandfather,” Dad said without looking up from his sketchpad. He had been refining his sketches of Persepolis ever since we got back. “He said it would improve her Farsi.”

I kind of wanted to go watch Iranian soap operas with my grandfather and improve my Farsi too.

“If we’re not careful, my father may try to kidnap her,” Mom said.

“Where was he when Laleh was two?”

Mom leaned down to kiss Dad on the temple, which I had noticed was her favorite place to kiss him when other people were around.

“The shower is all yours, honey,” she said.

Dad pulled Mom down for another kiss, this one at the corner of her mouth, which was how Dad liked to kiss Mom when they had an audience. “Thanks.”

As soon as Mom went into the living room, I turned to Dad.

“Persian Casual?”

Dad flipped his sketchpad closed.

“Persian Casual,” he agreed.



* * *





Persian Casual covers a wide gamut, from slightly more-formal-than-business-casual to just-shy-of-black-tie-or-full-military-dress. Button-up shirt and dress pants are the bare minimum; maybe a suit jacket, depending on the crowd. Back home, it meant a tie too, but no one wore ties in Iran. It was considered a “Western” fashion.

Dad ran out of room in his luggage for any of his suit jackets, and I didn’t fit in mine anymore, so that left us at a disadvantage as far as looking more impressive than everyone else.

That was the whole point and purpose of Persian Casual, as far as I could tell: to make sure you and your family looked more impressive than everyone else, usually by tricking people into thinking the occasion was more casual than it really was.

Dad had lots of practice with Persian Casual. He knew how to anticipate it. He made sure we were dressed up, though sometimes it backfired. The only thing worse than being perpetually underdressed was being garishly overdressed. Then everyone would whisper behind our backs (in Farsi, of course) about how ostentatious we were.

Mom insists the entire concept of Persian Casual is all in our heads.

She always says we look fine, even if we’re in shorts and T-shirts while everyone else is in button-ups and jackets.

She says we’re just being self-conscious.

Maybe it’s a Social Cue.



* * *





I waited for Dad to finish before I went to my own bathroom (with the squatting toilet, which honestly wasn’t that bad once I got used to it) to shower and get dressed. With a house full of people all trying to achieve Persian Casual, there wasn’t much hot water left. I wore my dark gray dress pants and a turquoise button-up with these subtle leaf patterns on it, the kind you could only see in a certain light.

It was kind of slimming. I liked the way it looked on me.

I almost felt handsome.

Almost.

Dayi Soheil arrived a little after noon, with his wife and two sons. Dayi Jamsheed wasn’t supposed to arrive until later.

Dayi Soheil looked exactly like Babou, a younger version from some parallel quantum reality where Babou was capable of smiling. Dayi Soheil and his wife, Zandayi Simin, took turns kissing me on both cheeks, hugging me, kissing me again, until Dayi Soheil stepped back and patted my stomach.

“Where did this come from, dayi? All those medicines?”

“Um.”

Even Stephen Kellner had never pointed my stomach out to me.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Darioush-jan,” Zandayi Simin said, “welcome to Iran!”

Zandayi means “mother’s brother’s wife.”

My zandayi’s voice was deep and smooth, like an Elven queen’s. Her accent was thicker than Dayi Soheil’s too: All her consonants were sharpened, and she said “welcome” as “velcome.”

“Thank you, Zandayi. Um. Eid-e shomaa mobarak.”

That is the traditional Nowruz greeting for someone older than you.

My aunt and uncle smiled at me. It was the kind of smile you give a toddler who has finally managed, after months of intensive training, to use the potty on his own for the first time.

Dayi Soheil took my face in his hands. “Eid-e toh mobarak, Darioush-jan!”

That is how you wish a happy Nowruz to someone younger than you.

Dayi Soheil kissed me on each cheek again, patted my belly once last time, and went inside.

I was so ashamed.



* * *





“Happy Nowruz, Darioush!” Sohrab announced when I answered the door.

He was dressed Persian Casual too, though his shirt was white with a sort of striped texture to it that caught the light down his sides. He’d done something to his hair, so it stood up in soft spikes that shone in the hallway light.