“Hey, Zabber, thanks for all the support. Much appreciated.” Hearing my nickname snaps me back to attention. We are pulling into the garage now, my mom having accepted that she must eventually turn the car in the right direction and go home.
“Reza, my love,” my mom says, agitated, “what have I done to deserve your sister’s awful treatment of me? Tell me.”
“I’m still in the car!” my sister yells. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. Can you tell her how annoying that is, Zabber?”
This is what they do. They make me a referee of their eternal competition.
My life could change again very soon. Tara is about to meet Abbas and Saadi for the first time, and given her propensity for destruction, we could all be on our way back to Toronto by tomorrow. But to my surprise, Tara is on her best behavior when Abbas greets her at the door. When she turns on the charm, she is irresistible, and she turns it on now, all smiles, compliments, and questions. She says things like “Wow, what a beautiful painting,” and “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a younger Marlon Brando?” and “Seriously, it is so nice to finally meet you after hearing so many amazing things from my mom and brother.” The closest she comes to mentioning money is when she says, “I feel like Annie when she sings ‘I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here,’” which is a charmingly appropriate way to acknowledge that these new surroundings are opulent and that our new stepfather is Daddy Warbucks.
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.”
“Oh,” I say. Judy hasn’t mentioned it. She doesn’t talk about Art a lot when she’s with me. And then, repeating the response everybody at school says to any question, I say, “Cool.”
“Then my parents are taking me skiing in Aspen, which’ll suck, but whatever. My real holiday is going to be that protest. What about you?”
“We are going to Miami,” I say, wishing Miami was closer to Aspen.
“Miami!” Art repeats with excitement. “There’s a nightclub there that Madonna goes to all the time. I’ll get the name of it. You have to go look for her.”
Art thinks I’m the kind of person who goes to nightclubs, the kind of person who looks for Madonna at places other than newsstands and record stores and MTV.
“Um, yeah, we’re totally going to that nightclub,” Tara says. She’s standing a few feet away from us now. She approaches me and puts an arm around me. “I love our room. Who knew my little brother was a Madonna fanatic?”
“I like her,” I say, trying to sound casual.
“Like her?” Tara parrots. “You have her plastered all over your room. You have every record she’s ever released in there, including some European and Japanese editions of singles.”
>
A moment passes between Tara and Art, a glance, a wordless conversation.
“I should go,” Art says. “But it was nice to meet you, Tara. And in case you don’t already sense it, your new stepbrother wants to bone you, so be careful.”
“No shit,” Tara says. “But thanks for the warning.”
“I’m brutally honest,” Art says.
“Oh my God, me too,” Tara says.
They hug each other goodbye, and I can hear Tara whisper something in Art’s ear before he leaves, but I don’t know what. I wish I knew, but I’m too afraid to ask.
When Art is gone, I can feel his absence. I am at once deflated and relieved. Tara pulls me in close and leads me toward our room. We collapse on the bed together, lie next to each other just like we used to when we were little. She would talk, I would listen. “Hey, I want to tell you something,” she says.
“Okay.” I look away from her, at my wall, at that poster of Madonna and the HEALTHY shirt.
“I wasn’t on that flight today. I’ve actually been in New York for a few days already. I drove here with my new boyfriend. He’s a DJ. He spins house music at this club in Toronto, and he wants to make it in New York. There’s no music scene there.”
“Tara, what are you talking about?” I ask. “Aren’t you going back for college in January?”
“Hell, no!” she says. “Are you kidding? When you meet Starburst, you’ll understand.”
“His name is Starburst?” I ask. I’m trying not to sound like my mom would.
“It’s a DJ name. His real name is Massimo, which is the hottest name ever. He’s Sicilian and unbelievably sexy. And he got himself a one-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen that I plan on moving into as soon as I tell Mom about him. So you won’t have me as a roommate for long.” She takes a breath. “I really want you to meet him.”
“Tara, are you sure . . .” I don’t finish the question.
She turns me so we are facing each other. “Listen to me, baby brother. When you’re in love, you’ll do anything for it. You’ll see. That’s why people write songs about how mountains aren’t high enough and rivers aren’t deep enough to keep them from the person they love. It’s so powerful.”
“I know. I have a girlfriend,” I say.
“Mom told me,” she says. “Are you in love with her?”
The way she asks the question, I know that she knows the answer. Tara sees me, and maybe she always did. I let the question linger in the air. I lie next to my sister, thinking that I don’t love Art either. If I did, I would do anything to be with him. I would climb mountains, swim rivers, risk disappointing my mother, jeopardize her new marriage, accept the possibility of catching a deadly disease. Maybe I’m not brave enough for love.
When I open my eyes, my sister sits cross-legged next to me, staring down at me. “So,” she says, “the art in this house was cute.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“There’s one piece of art in particular that I thought was adorable,” she says. She looks at me with bulging eyes, her neck craning toward me like a chicken.
“Oh, I get it,” I say. “We’re speaking in code.”
“Are we?” she asks. “Did you think the Art was cute? I think maybe you did.”
I don’t say yes. I don’t say no. I just nod and stare at the ceiling, thinking there’s room for more Madonna posters up there, then imagining that Art will crash through the ceiling like an angel, a messenger from a place where only he knows my name.
Art
I put flyers all over the school but not a single person shows up. They have the pink triangle on them, advertising the first lunchtime meeting of a new school club, our very own ACT UP affinity group. I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t expect crowds of lacrosse players to swarm through the doors, but a stray theater geek would’ve been nice, or a fashionista or two, or maybe even a supportive teacher. At least a few freshmen, sophomores, and juniors looking for something on their college applications that would make them appear more compassionate than they are. For our class, college applications are already in, so there’s no reason for anyone to take on a new extracurricular activity unless they actually care about it, and I guess no one in the senior class other than me and Judy, who should be here by now, cares about the countless people dying in our very own city. But they’re all just strolling down the hallway, acting all carefree and happy like there isn’t a war raging outside these halls.
Jimmy once told me that AIDS is like war. Governments and powerful people don’t give a shit because it’s not their kids being sent to the war. It’s not their kids dying. But I’m their kid, and I’m in this war. My classmates, however, are definitely not. They’ve all applied to colleges, and now they can relax, throw parties, experiment with drugs and alcohol, make out with random classmates they likely won’t see again for the rest of their lives. They’ve probably all applied to a handful of top schools, a handful of mid-tier schools, and one or two safety schools. I didn’t. I applied to two schools, Yale and Berkeley. One because I wanted to get my dad off my back. The other because it’s in the city I dream of living in: San Francisco.
“I’m so sorry I’m late. I got caught in a conversation with Mr. Horney about my Jane Austen paper,” Judy says, rushing in. She’s wearing a metallic silver trench coat she designed herself over her uniform, with that stupid dead fish pin on it. Judy and Reza have worn those ridiculous pins ever since their first date, like some weird symbol of their union. As if they want to remind me that I’m not a part of their private little heterosexual world, in which they’re blessed with Debbie Harry sightings and hand-holding and good-night kisses. “Is it over?” she asks.
“It never began,” I say bitterly. “No one showed up.”
“Seriously? I told Reza to show up.” She looks disappointed, but I can’t tell if it’s because nobody gives a shit about AIDS activism or because her boyfriend doesn’t give a shit. Her BOYFRIEND. She’s started calling him that.
“Well, he didn’t,” I say. “You don’t need to turn him into one of us, you know. He can, like, not care about the things we care about.”
Judy sits next to me. She places a hand on my knee and squeezes. “Do you think the school thought twice before hiring a teacher named Mr. Horney?”
I laugh. We’ve made fun of his name before, but it never stops being funny.
“Speaking of horniness,” I say, “are you getting some?”
Judy blushes a little but doesn’t take the bait. She tells me close to nothing about her and Reza. I don’t know if he’s a good kisser. Or if he’s felt her up. Has she seen him naked? Because if she has, I want a description. “Okay, we’re changing the subject,” she says. “Tell me what you’re taking pictures of lately.”
I tell Judy about my photo project, how I want to photograph activists but make them look like old movie stars.
“I love it,” Judy says, clapping her hands together in excitement. “Can I design clothes for them?”
“Obviously. Maybe it can be the first project of our school’s ACT UP affinity group, which, as you can see, is a group of two.”
“I’m in,” Judy says, and we start planning the shoots. For a moment it’s just me and Judy against the world again, and it feels great.
Then Darryl Lorde peeks his head into our room as he’s walking by with some friends, including Saadi. Every single one of them wears a white baseball hat and a sneer, but Darryl’s sneer seems extra cruel today. He’s a sadistic asshole and he’ll run the world someday, unless the rules of the world change. “Is this the fag meeting?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “But don’t worry, closeted fags are welcome too.”
“Oh, cool,” he says. “I’ll let your dad know if he hasn’t moved to San Francisco yet.”
“Wow,” Judy says. “So much wit.”
“You guys should be quarantined,” Darryl says.
“Move along, Darryl,” Judy says. “We’re having an official meeting.”
“Yo
u know you can’t start an official school group without a faculty sponsor and at least five students,” he says. “So stop plastering your propaganda all over the hallways, or the Young Republicans Club will have something to say about it. We have twelve members, you know.”
“Ooh,” I say. “You’re bigger than a football team and just as dumb.”
“We’re not the ones who’ll be dead next year.”
He says this so coolly, so matter-of-fact, that it feels like I’ve been punched in the gut. The fact that I could be dead next year doesn’t even register as shocking to him in any way. It’s just another insult to throw my way. If I were dying on the street, he’d make some popcorn, kick his feet up, and enjoy the show.
His friends all chuckle their deep-throated straight-dude chuckles. Like my death is a sitcom and they’re its laugh track. Like the death of my mentors and fathers is funny. Saadi’s laughter makes me feel sick, knowing that Reza has to share a home with him.
“Hey, here’s an idea,” Darryl says. “Maybe you should just kill yourself now, save your parents the hell of watching you grow lesions all over your face.”
My blood boils. My fingers tense into a fist. Before I know it, I leap out of my seat and tackle Darryl to the ground, taking him down like I’m one of the gorgeous ladies of wrestling. “Go to hell, you fucking ASSHOLE!” I scream as he writhes below me, his scared, beefy body stronger than mine but unable to overpower the force of my rage.
“Get off me, fag!” he yells.
“Not until I give you AIDS,” I say, and I spit on his face. I don’t know why I say or do that. I know I don’t have AIDS. I know that if I did, I couldn’t give it to him by spitting on him. But right now, I want nothing more than to be able to give this prick and every homophobe out there this disease. They deserve it. THEY should be quarantined. Judy screams for me to stop, but I ignore her. I scream that I’ll give him AIDS at least five more times.
“You’re sick,” he says as he finally finds the strength to push me off him.
My body rolls toward the wall, but I’m not done.
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