Like a Love Story

by Abdi Nazemian

  Nobody hugs Art before we leave, and he doesn’t try. But before we go, my father stops Art by calling his name. “Judy has always been a great friend to you,” my dad says sternly. “What you did to her was beneath you.” I can feel the way those words sting Art. They’re so simple, so direct, so true. My dad, a man of few words, but a man of words that actually matter. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved him more than in this moment.

  As we walk down the interminable stairs to get outside, we say nothing. Art walks in front of me, his legs moving both quickly and hesitantly, like he wants to get out of here and wants to turn back at the same time. I used to love following behind Art. I felt like he knew where he was going. He seemed to have all the confidence and charisma I lacked, the aura of a natural leader. Now I want to push him down the stairs and lead the way myself.

  When we get outside, it starts to snow. The snow was timed for this exact moment. Gods and goddesses are crying frozen tears as they watch us. “Which direction should we go in?” Art says.

  “Who cares?” I snap back.

  He starts to walk north, and I stay alongside him. We walk in silence for a few steps, and then he says. “There’s nothing like first snow, right?”

  “Seriously, you wanna talk about the snow right now?” I ask, irritated.

  “I guess it’s like, I don’t know if this’ll make sense, but it’s like us in a way. Like at first the snow falls and it’s perfect, but inevitably it turns into slush, but then, maybe, the springtime comes and flowers bloom and things get better again and . . .”

  “Oh, just stop it,” I say.

  “I’m only trying to . . .”

  “Stop it!” I scream. I take a breath of cold air in and out, the steam escaping my mouth forming a little shield around me. “The seasons just happen, Art. This did not just happen. You didn’t just lie to me and hit on my boyfriend by accident. You did it on purpose. Don’t turn this into some natural thing between friends that will get better with time. It isn’t, and it won’t, and I guess we can just go home now, because there’s no point in talking. What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?” I yell. I don’t know why I keep repeating that. Maybe I wish he could answer it.

  “You’re right,” he says, defeated.

  “Great,” I say. I throw up my hands and realize I forgot gloves, and that my fingers are a little frozen. “What’s the cliché, I’d rather be happy than right?”

  “Something like that,” he says. “But I’m not happy, Judy. I can’t be happy without you. You’re my best friend, and I messed up.”

  “Royally,” I say.

  “I feel so awful, Judy,” he says, and I can feel the guilt and remorse in his voice. “I’ve been feeling bad about it since the moment I realized I had feelings for Reza. I’m wrong, and I’m an asshole, and I’m so, so sorry.”

  I don’t want his guilt or his remorse. I don’t want apologies. I want to understand how he could do this to me. “I just don’t get it,” I say, softening a little. “How could you like a guy and not tell me?”

  “Because you liked him too,” he says sadly. Then he stops walking. “No,” he says. “That’s not true. It’s so much more than that. You’ve had crushes before, Judy. But I never have. There’s never been a guy at our school that I could have a crush on without fearing he’d beat me up. I don’t know how to have a crush. I don’t know how to talk about it. Everything I was feeling was wrapped in fear and shame, and then this added layer of you, my best friend, liking him, and then dating him. I didn’t know what to do.”

  I start to walk again, and now it’s him who follows me. “You could’ve told me,” I say. “You could’ve been honest.”

  “You don’t understand,” he says, and now it’s his voice that’s laced with bitterness.

  “Then make me understand,” I say, challenging him.

  He looks over at me. He no longer looks apologetic. Now he looks angry. “We aren’t two girlfriends fighting over the guy they both like, Judy. I’m gay. I’m not like you. I can’t just have crushes. I can’t take a guy I like to school dances. I can’t even contemplate dating without thinking of death and being disowned by my parents. None of that applies to you. I know we’re best friends, and I know we’ve always done everything together, and been there for each other, and maybe when we were younger, it felt like there was no difference between us. But there’s a huge difference. All that time that we were growing up together, I was dealing with these feelings of being different, ashamed, thinking I was wrong and gross and . . .”

  “I know all that,” I say. “But you always seemed so confident.”

  “Whatever confidence I had was my attempt to mask everything underneath it. God, Judy, how do you think it feels to have your dad tell you that gay men deserve to die, that AIDS killing us off is a good thing? Your parents love you, they encourage you, you get annoyed with them because they’re too nice to you sometimes. My parents want me dead.”

  “That’s not true,” I argue. But I know in a way it is. They don’t want Art dead, but they want him to be a different person than the one he is, and maybe that’s the same thing.

  “I never thought I’d have this, Judy,” he says sincerely. “I never thought I’d get to have a boyfriend. Maybe I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t prepared for it, because nowhere in my imagination did I practice the scene of talking about my crush, or of having a relationship, or of having sex even . . .”

  “Wait,” I say, realizing he just mentioned having sex. “Have you and Reza had . . .”

  “NO!” he screams. “God, nothing has even happened. Nothing physical. But I just, I guess, I don’t know, I’m so sorry, Judy, I really am, but I just want you to see it from my side, to try to understand how hard it’s been for me, and not just this situation, but everything that has to do with love and sex. Maybe I messed it all up, and maybe it’s too much to ask right now, but I want . . . I guess I just want you to be happy for me, because it all feels empty without that.”

  I always wanted this moment. For Art to find a guy. But why did it have to be the one guy I wanted? “Yeah, that’s definitely too much to ask,” I say, hating myself for rejecting him. But I have to. It just feels like the distance between us is too wide now.

  “I know,” he says, despondent. “I know.”

  “It’s not like I’ve had a boyfriend before. He was the first. Why him?” I look away from Art, avoiding his gaze.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I didn’t plan any of this, Judy.”

  We walk in silence again for a bit. For a moment, he almost had me sympathizing with him. But then I realize what he’s done. He apologized, but the apology was trumped by how sorry I am meant to feel for him because he’s gay. And that pisses me off even more, because no one in the world has given him more support and sympathy than me. Well, maybe Uncle Stephen, but Art wouldn’t even know Uncle Stephen if it weren’t for me. I am the victim here. I’m the one who’s been wronged.

  I must shake my head or something, because he says, “What? Just tell me what you feel, Judy.”

  “It’s always about you,” I say, exasperated.

  “I didn’t mean to make it about me,” he says. “I swear.”

  “No, but it’s what you did, and it’s what you always do,” I realize how much time I’ve spent catering to Art’s needs. “And I don’t care what else you have to say. Your actions have spoken for you. You’re self-centered, and you’ve always had the world served to you on a platter and you’re upset when that’s not the case. You want to talk about how we’re different?” I start to walk faster—the cold air doesn’t even feel cold anymore because my body feels like there’s a fire inside me that is raging. “How about we talk about how you’re filthy rich and my parents barely make ends meet? How about we talk about the fact that the nicest things we have are all presents from your parents? How about we talk about how I need a scholarship to get into college, but you can waltz into Yale? Yale! You can literally get arrested
and still get into an Ivy League with your money. And you’re a man, so gay or not, you’ve got that.”

  “What does this have to do with me and Reza?” he asks desperately.

  “This is not about you and Reza,” I say. “And it’s not about me and Reza.” That’s when it hits me how little I’ve thought about Reza today, and how much I’ve thought about Art. This is my real heartbreak. “Are you an idiot?” I ask. “This is about me and you.”

  He stops again. I don’t want to stop walking. I’m on a roll. I’m saying things I never even knew I felt.

  His lips tremble a little, and then, in a defensive whisper, he says, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to apologize for my parents’ wealth or my gender.”

  “And I don’t know how to apologize for my heterosexuality,” I snap back.

  We’re at an impasse now. We’ve both said what we never dared admit aloud before.

  I start walking again, but toward home this time.

  “Judy, please,” he begs as we walk. “I know we can make this right. I know we can figure it out.”

  “No.” I hold my hand up.

  “This will suck without you,” he says. “All of it. Our last few months of high school, me and Reza . . . what about Sunday movie nights?”

  “What about them?” I say, being intentionally cruel.

  “Stephen loves them as much as we do.” He’s desperate now, grasping at straws.

  “Don’t use my dying uncle to get forgiveness that you don’t deserve,” I say. “Stephen has lost over a hundred friends. I think he can handle the grief of not having us both at Sunday movie nights.”

  “You’re still going to go?” he asks, incredulous.

  “He’s my uncle,” I spit out. “I’ll do whatever he wants me to do, and he’ll do what I ask him to.”

  Stop now, Judy.

  “Please don’t . . . please don’t make him stop seeing me,” he says. I can see tears forming in his eyes. They fall down his cheeks. It’s like the thought of losing Uncle Stephen is more devastating to him than the thought of losing me, and this reminds me of all those times I wondered whether Art would’ve liked me as much as he did if I didn’t have a gay uncle he looked up to. These tears give me my answer. I guess I always knew it, though. I just looked the other way, like I did with so many things when it came to Art.

  We reach my apartment building. We face each other. His tears stop. His cheeks are moist, and his eyes are gauzy.

  “Goodbye, Art,” I say. It sounds final.

  “You’ll still see me, you know,” he says. “In the hallways. In class. Let’s be civil, at least.”

  “Goodbye, Art,” I say again.

  He fixes his stare on me and tries one final plea. “I know there’s a version of this where I say I’ll give him up, but I can’t do that. I care about him too much. If you were a real friend, you would understand.”

  “Guess we’re not real friends then,” I say. Just saying those words brings tears to my eyes. I don’t want him to see me cry, so I turn away from him.

  “Guess not,” he says, his voice full of sorrow.

  “Goodbye, Art,” I say for the final time.

  I can hear his voice breaking as he says, “I love you and I always will.”

  They’re all gathered in the living room when I get home. I sit next to Uncle Stephen, who asks how it went.

  “Can we not talk about it?” I ask. I suddenly feel exhausted.

  I can tell my mom is disappointed, that she very much wants to talk about it, but Uncle Stephen quickly says, “Of course. We can never talk about it if that’s what you want.”

  My mother gives me a look that at once tells me she supports and loves me. Then she says, “Sweetie, we were talking . . .”

  Uh-oh, a sweetie sentence.

  “Let’s let Stephen share the news,” my dad says.

  News? I’ve been gone for like thirty minutes, and already there’s news that needs to be shared. I brace myself.

  Stephen turns to face me. “Christmas is coming up,” he says. “You know how José loved the holiday season. He was such a goofball when it came to stockings and Christmas carols and all that stuff, and I loved it of course, and your mother doesn’t want me to be alone for the holidays, and this could be my last Christmas . . .”

  “Oh God,” I say, and it’s like all the sadness that was hiding under the anger comes out in a rush. Tears, so many of them, flowing down my face.

  “No, no, this is good news!” my mom says, hugging me. “It’s happy news.”

  “The nice thing about dying is that you can spend whatever you have,” Stephen says. “And of course I was always planning on leaving the little I have left to you and to ACT UP, but before I go, I thought I could take us all on a holiday, a proper vacation. I think, maybe, that’s the best possible way to spend the money.”

  “And we decided,” my mom says with a big smile, “that you should pick the destination, Judy. It’s your last holiday as a child, and we want you to choose.”

  “Anywhere in the world,” Stephen says.

  I don’t know what to say. I’m processing all this. This isn’t who we are. We are not the Grants, who jet off to foreign lands like they’re just another borough of New York. And Stephen is sick. “Is it safe, I mean, for you to be away from your doctors?”

  “I don’t care anymore,” Stephen says. “I want to do something special with the people I love most. The only thing you need to concern yourself with is where we go. Be creative. Japan. Hawaii. London. Italy. We could do a cruise!”

  Where do we go? I’m not there yet. They’re asking me to accept that Stephen is dying. I know he’s not. I know something is going to change. A new medicine. A cure. And then I have a thought that I hate, a feeling of guilt, because I know that if I say yes, I’ll be taking Stephen away from Art when he needs him most.

  “I can’t . . . ,” I say.

  “You can and you will,” Stephen says. “And if not, I’ll choose for you.”

  My mom gets up and sits on the other side of me. She holds my hand. “You’ve always wanted to go to Paris, haven’t you?” she asks. “You used to talk about it as a little girl. Remember how I used to read you Eloise in Paris. That was your favorite.”

  An image comes to me, of myself as a young girl, my mother reading that book to me. God, I want to be small again. I want things to be uncomplicated. “Of course,” I say. “I mean, the fashion . . .”

  “I know a few queens who work in fashion,” Stephen says. “Maybe we could get tours of the couture houses.”

  “But is this what you guys want?” I ask. “Maybe we should just go to a beach, and you guys can relax and read or something.”

  “Sweetie,” my mom says, “this is about what you want. The only thing we care about is being together and making you happy. We are the people who love you most.” God, that hurts, because before today, Art would be among those people, and now he’s not. He’s so not.

  I think of Paris. Black-and-white pictures of stylish people on the banks of the Seine. The sound of Edith Piaf’s voice coming from Stephen’s stereo. Runway shows. Gaultier. Coco Chanel. Givenchy. “Okay, oui,” I say, finally smiling. “Let’s go to Paris.”

  Reza

  The last words Art said to me were “just be yourself,” as if that were something I knew how to do. I was telling him the truth when I said today was the closest I felt to being myself, but as I take the elevator up to a home that still doesn’t feel like mine, I’m overtaken by panic.

  I don’t know who I am, and I can’t pretend to. I like men, but that doesn’t mean I’m like all other men who like men, does it? I watch as the elevator floors light up, one after another, until I reach our floor. I’m sweating now, between my nerves and the heat pumping through the building’s vents—I’m turning into a fountain. I pause outside the door. I consider turning back. Fleeing. Maybe Art and I should escape like he suggested. San Francisco. It’s not somewhere I’ve ever thought about g
oing, but maybe it’s where I belong.

  I take a breath, put my key in the lock, and slowly open the door. I tiptoe into the foyer. I can hear them in the living room. All of them. My mom. Abbas. Tara. Saadi. They’re arguing loudly. I steel myself for what they must be saying about me. But as I creep closer, I realize they’re not talking about me at all.

  “Well, I’m sorry, I think it’s messed up that no one knows she’s Armenian,” Tara says.

  “Why does it matter where she’s from?” my mother asks.

  “It just does,” Tara says.

  “She doesn’t hide it,” Abbas says. “In fact, I met her at a charity event once, and we discussed how some Iranians have names that end with -ian just like Armenians.”

  “I’m not saying she hides it,” Tara says. “I’m just saying most people don’t know. I mean, her name is Cher Sarkisian. Imagine if all the little Armenian girls knew that, if all the little Iranian girls knew that. She’s brown.”

  “We’re not brown,” Saadi speaks up. “We’re Caucasian.”

  “Right—keep believing that,” Tara snorts.

  “Officially, it’s true,” Saadi says. “Check the census.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re not treated like white people,” Tara says passionately. “Look around, guys, people hate us. We’re enemy number one these days. The revolution. The hostage crisis. The whole Western world hates us so much that it let Saddam Hussein use chemical weapons on us and did nothing.”

  “That wasn’t on us,” Saadi says. “That was on the people who are still in Iran. We left.”

  “Wow,” Tara says. “Wow.”

  “Tara, please,” my mom says. I can’t see her, but I can feel my mom begging Tara’s silence with a pleading gaze.

  “It’s okay, Mina,” Abbas says. “This is great. These are issues our kids should learn to debate intelligently.”

  “I just . . . I’m worried about Reza,” my mom says, and her voice suddenly chokes up. “Where is he?”

  Hearing her sound so fragile makes me want to go immediately to her. I walk into the living room, and they all turn to look at me. There is still so much I don’t know. Have they seen the news? Do they know what I am? Has Tara told them she’s moving in with Massimo? “Hi,” I say cautiously.