by Arvin Ahmadi
“I love you,” he said.
I nodded. “Meedoonam,” I said. I know.
Growing up in a strict house, I used to imagine running away all the time. I thought it would be scrappy—a raggedy sack over my shoulder, maybe a few bucks in my pocket. Hitchhiking along the highway until a trucker pulled over and picked me up and . . . I don’t know. My imagination never made it that far.
In reality, I got it good. Better than good. Most of the time in life, you expect things to be one way and they fall short. Not this. I felt like I cheated the systemless system of teenage rebellion—running away on a bogus whim and coming out of it with real experiences. Sure, I lost a few hundred bucks and a summer internship, but I felt richer than ever.
When I hung up the pay phone, I knew there was one more adult I needed to talk to before I could properly leave DC.
Cecily Mallard leaned back in her armchair, hoisting her legs over her desk. Her feet came crashing down on the keyboard. Asdjklffffffffffffff.
“I’m sorry if we put you in an awkward position last night,” I said.
Professor Mallard cracked up.
“That was the most fun I’ve had at one of those events in a long time,” she said, beaming. “Really. I should be thanking you. I was . . . I was such an intellectual goofball!”
I smiled meekly. “Well, at least it was fun, then. I’m just disappointed we weren’t able to do anything for Trent.”
“Why would you say that?”
Professor Mallard handed me a card.
CECILY MALLARD
Professor, Georgetown University
“I’m confused,” I said. “You already gave me your card.”
“This one’s not for you,” she said. “Senator Cohen has a reelection coming up, and he mentioned he’s hiring staffers for the campaign. I told him I might know someone for the job.” Professor Mallard gave the tiniest smile, out of the corner of her lips. The delicate motion was enough to fill the room with infinite warmth. “Ask your friend to email me his résumé, and I’ll see what I can do.”
I was dumbfounded. “What— I can’t believe— How?”
“After you and Fiora scrambled, I grew curious,” she said. “I was puzzled by the senator’s antisocial behavior. I felt there was something gnawing at his conscience. We spoke for a while, and I learned that his father had passed away just last week.”
“Wow.”
Professor Mallard took a deep breath. “My father passed away recently, too, Scott. He had a heart attack this spring. It’s been hard, these last few months.” She took a deep breath. “We never had the best relationship. I was too uptight; he wanted me to loosen up.”
I clenched my hands. I didn’t know what to say.
“Regardless,” she continued, “Renault Cohen and I connected. We had a deep discussion about dealing with loss. It was even therapeutic to some extent. We plan to keep in touch, but in the meantime, I hope this can be helpful to your friend . . .”
“Trent,” I said.
I looked down at my hands—fingers interlaced over and under each other. My thumbs pushed so hard into my knuckles, I could feel the nerves shooting up my arms and down my chest and all the way through my scrawny legs. I imagined those nerves reaching my feet, reinforcing my toes, helping me walk taller. More balanced.
I released the pressure and looked up, nodding.
“This is going to mean so much to Trent,” I said. “Thank you.”
Professor Mallard gave me one last Growing-Up Smile. Two steps forward, one back. Five forward, twelve back. Left, right, diagonal, down, across, and right back around the block. We’re all just trying to keep moving. Sometimes we know where we’re going and sometimes we get lost. But as long as we move, we grow.
I rushed over to Kramerbooks, praying that I hadn’t missed Fiora. Not only did I want to say goodbye, but I wanted to give her the good news about Trent. I waited impatiently by the nonfiction section, flipping through the same Steve Jobs biography I had started reading more than three weeks ago. I could hardly get through a page. Whenever the front door jingled, I shot my head around, hoping it would be Fiora. She never showed up.
But someone else did.
“Trent?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
He flinched. Trent was dressed nicely—a striped button-down shirt tucked into green khaki pants. “I’m supposed to meet Fiora. I’ve got a job interview at eleven, but she asked me to stop here for a second—”
We both realized at the same time what was happening.
“Classic Fiora,” he said, grinning.
Fiora must have set this up so I could apologize to Trent and leave DC guilt-free. She didn’t know I had something even better. I fumbled through my front pocket for the business card. It wasn’t there. Back right pocket. Right.
“Here,” I said, handing it to him.
“Cecily Mallard.” He read the card out loud, like he was reading from a phone book. “Professor, comma, Georgetown University. Thanks?”
“She said to email her your résumé,” I said. “She’s going to pass it along to Renault Cohen. He’s hiring for his reelection campaign and—”
Trent’s face made approximately seven different expressions: puzzled, concerned, shocked, elated, hesitant, more puzzled . . . and finally, the kind of happy that can only lead to a massive bear hug, which was exactly what happened.
“I honestly don’t know what to say,” he whispered.
It hit me during our drawn-out embrace that Trent and I had never hugged before. If you asked me, I would have assumed we had. Hugging symbolizes support—and by that logic, Trent had been squeezing the bejesus out of me since day one.
We broke the hug mutually. Trent noticed my backpack.
“So you’re leaving?”
I nodded. “My dad’s gonna be here any minute.”
Trent put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll miss you, man. Fiora and me. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.” He smiled. “You learned a thing or two here, yeah?”
“Hah. Maybe.”
“Sure you did,” Trent said. “It’s like liquor. You can struggle and drink it straight, or you can make yourself a mixed drink. Life works better with other people around. Always go for the fruity cocktail.”
Those words defined Trent—his spirit—in so many ways.
I could try describing the next eighteen pages of the Steve Jobs biography, or the twelve more times I heard the front door jingle, or the conversation I had with an employee who asked if I was actually going to buy a book. I could try describing those events, but the only one that mattered was the thirteenth time I heard the door jingle. I knew it was my dad. My mind went numb like a foot afflicted by pins and needles. My body acted on autopilot.
I didn’t turn around for that last jingle. I kept my head buried in the biography, until before I knew it, I found my entire self buried in my dad’s tight embrace.
He hasn’t shaved in weeks, I noticed, his beard digging unapologetically into my cheek.
How could he already be tearing up? I thought.
Is my mom waiting in the car? I wondered.
I kept clinging on to my dad. We’d never hugged like this before—the kind of embrace that mended all that had been broken. I might have been biased, but if I could describe the hug in one word, it would be gritty.
He led me to the car without saying a word. I glanced over my shoulder and caught one last look at Dupont Circle. The fountain peeked out from behind the tall trees, gushing pristinely over the crowd of people—real people—with different wants and desires who had found themselves blissfully in the same place. Suddenly I felt absolved. I had turned the page on another chapter.
Ten minutes into the car ride, Dad spoke up:
“I’m trying to understand . . .” His voice trailed off.
I stared
at my hands in my lap, running my thumb back and forth across my palm like a windshield wiper.
“I didn’t want to do the internship with Dr. Mehta,” I said, almost toneless. “I came to DC to meet Professor Mallard instead, and—”
My dad braked the car abruptly at a red light, and I jumped in my seat. One of the cars behind us honked.
“The grit professor?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, carefully. “I’ve been doing research for her book. On important figures who . . . did gritty things. Against all odds.”
He didn’t say anything. I felt him chewing the bits of information I had fed him, contemplating his next question. His next reaction, whether it would be rage or confusion or some morsel of fatherly, growing-up wisdom. Whether he would dole out the appropriate punishment now or later.
“I wish you had told us you were going to do this,” he said, surrendering.
“What?”
My dad gripped the steering wheel tighter, his eyes bulging at the road. The words were stuck somewhere between his tongue and his lips. This was not our usual spar. We both knew I had messed up, but it felt different from all the other times I had messed up with mediocre grades or abandoned extracurriculars. There was no rubric for this one.
“I wish you hadn’t lied to us.” His eyes swept across the dashboard. I caught a twinkle at the end of their path, when he patted the side of my arm. “You’re young. You’re figuring your life out, and . . . I won’t always be there to push you. But even as you take control of your future, even as you become your own man—please, please, think about your parents.” He breathed slowly and said, “I’m glad you’re safe.”
That was it; he didn’t say anything more. I slid lower into the tattered cushion to get comfortable, and I smiled.
How could I begin to process the end?
I stared out past the dashboard at the endless highway: cars whizzing toward the same half-asphalt, half-sky view. There were sedans and minivans and large trucks with handlebar-mustached drivers. We even passed a Greyhound bus.
I’d never been good at finishing things. But adventures like this one stay with you; they’re never really done. It’s like the universe. I can’t guarantee humankind will go on forever, but it’s going somewhere. Baby steps, growth. Because completion isn’t a prerequisite for growth. Momentum is.
I stared out past the dashboard and reflected on the sum of my actions. We never reflect on sums, just pieces. Those pieces—an online grit quiz, the impulsive girl you sit next to on the bus—they add up to so much more than you could have expected.
Dad pulled into the garage, the car thump-thumping as we rolled up the driveway, just like I remembered. He stepped out of the car to get something from the trunk. I lingered in the passenger seat.
I didn’t come out of DC with a career plan. But I came out grittier. I had to embrace my shortcomings, because they were what landed me there in the first place. I had to embrace my upbringing, my constant stream of thoughts. The same shortcomings would lead to my next great adventure.
Failure is inevitable. Productive, even. But it doesn’t have to hijack my confidence.
I stepped out of the car feeling invincible. I could not imagine a circumstance where things didn’t work out.
At least, for now.
EXACTLY A YEAR has passed and I still can’t write about it. There’s a Microsoft Word file on our PC called “DC.docx” and the word count has stayed zero for 365 days.
I stare at the blank page, hypnotized by the blinking cursor on the first line. Without realizing it, I fire up a browser and type “f-a-” into the URL bar and—holy shit!—now I’m on Facebook. I scroll through a stream of statuses and photos. I click on a link for a list of “12 Adorably Frightened Puppies.” Then I click to YouTube, where I watch a corgi slipping around a perfectly greased floor. I discover more videos of awesome stunts, awful accidents, and awe-inspiring miracles. I tell myself it should be called AweTube.
Some links demand to be clicked, and some stories demand to be told. Not mine. Not yet. It’s still going—still indefinitely incomplete.
I rip myself away from the PC and move to the window. I can see Dad pulling into the driveway. He steps out of the car, carefully balancing a cluster of balloons, grocery bags, and two wrapped boxes. I knock on the window and he jumps, almost losing the balloons. He looks up and smiles, shouting: “Tavaloooodet mobarak!” Happy birthday.
I am eighteen now. I press my forehead against the glass and close my eyes, remembering my seventeenth birthday. It was the day I came home from DC. Mom greeted me in the kitchen with a hurricane of emotions: crying, hugging, screaming, but most of all, demanding answers. My dad helped calm her down. He asked me to go up to my room so they could talk. An hour later, they called me back into the kitchen. The lights were off, and Mom brought out a glowing Iranian cake, the kind decorated with glazed fruit.
“Tavalodet mobarak,” they cheered softly.
I had completely forgotten about my birthday. We sang in both Farsi and English. I blew out the candles and opened gifts from their trip: sour-cherry lavashak, a backgammon set, and a camel-bone box from Esfahan. Then I opened up to them about my journey. I told Mom and Dad how I quit my internship and left home in search of grit. Mom shook her head and tsked repeatedly. She was angrier than I’d ever seen her. Dad, however, couldn’t help but grin as I described my persistence with Cecily Mallard. I found out later he had another reason to smile—Baba Bozorg’s health was finally improving.
My parents grounded me for the rest of that summer, and I spent most of my time cranking out research for Professor Mallard. I wrote at least a hundred new reports on entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, scientists—important figures from every conceivable field. Even when Professor Mallard told me that her editor didn’t think my reports added anything to her book, I kept at it. These were the stories I wanted to write.
Professor Mallard published her book in the spring: True Grit. It became an instant bestseller. She didn’t use any of my research, but there was a familiar anecdote among the pages about a “teenage boy who barged into my office one summer, desperate to get gritty.” Apparently, he had it in him all along.
Jack and I both got into Georgetown. We’re going to be roommates in the fall. I like to think my stories from DC influenced his decision, but it’s also the best program for aspiring diplomats, so who knows. Kevin’s staying behind in Philly, but don’t feel bad, because the lucky bastard got a full ride to Penn. We already have plans to visit him over fall break.
I’m thinking of studying history or psychology at Georgetown. It’s not what my parents had in mind, but Dad says there’s a career called “management consulting,” and it could set me up well for that. We’re compromising.
Trent is on the campaign trail for Renault Cohen’s reelection. We keep in touch on Facebook. He’s pulling long hours and knocking on thousands of doors, but it seems to be paying off. He was already promoted to assistant director of field strategy. If all goes well in November, he should end up with his dream job on Capitol Hill.
Fiora and I lost touch. After DC we became Facebook friends and were messaging for a few weeks until she deleted her profile. Trent says she practically fell off the face of the planet. She took off for Europe and never came back for the school year. I imagine she must have found her own adventure.
I solve a crossword puzzle a day now. There’s an app called Daily Crossword Challenge, and the puzzles are perfect for beginners like me. They take five, maybe seven minutes to solve. It’s one of the only times in my day when I’m 100 percent focused.
My parents call me downstairs, and we celebrate my eighteenth birthday together. They give me two presents: a laptop and a set of notebooks, both for college. After we finish, I run up to my room. I crack open one of the notebooks to the first page, hoping I might have better luck writing about my time in DC by hand.
Then I draw.
I draw out a grid, fifteen squares down by fifteen across.
Across
1. Ace or queen, e.g.
5. Annual sports honors
10. Addams Family cousin
13. “In a galaxy far, far ____”
14. Steal
16. Slangy eating sound, when repeated
17. Sweaty basement that’s home to BYHG and WWJB
19. “Just so you know . . .”
20. Prefix for cycle and athlete
21. It’s mostly made of nitrogen
22. Scott and Saaket
24. “No idea,” in slang
25. Hold on tight
28. Happiness
30. Word in brackets calling attention to a typo
32. Longest lasting of China’s dynasties
34. Luxury brand Christian ____
35. Actress who played Arwen in Lord of the Rings films
38. Modern place to buy games from Apple
40. DC bar with “Angry Hour”
43. Big sale
44. Neither here ___ there
45. Type of bed in Hanover Hostel
46. First letter of the Hebrew alphabet
48. Doctors: Abbr.
51. They carry lightsabers
53. Adjust to new settings
56. Baseball ref
58. Step on the accelerator
60. Mowgli’s slithery friend in The Jungle Book
61. Topic of the internship I quit last summer, slang
62. Nonprofit URL ending
63. DC store with Steve Jobs biography
67. Animated 2011 film set in Brazil
68. They say “aloha” here
69. Leg joint
70. When a plane is scheduled to take off, for short
71. Geeks and dorks, but smart
72. Don’t catch these in bed