by Sara Farizan
How are you feeling?
I feel anxious, a little scared, excited. Free, I write.
She takes in that last note for a moment and then smiles and scribbles. So I could have gone after Greg this whole time?
I snort but remember where I am and quiet down. Tess slides her notebook back in front of herself and pats my shoulder before writing down the lecture verbatim.
After class I try to catch up with Greg. He’s sitting in the computer lab and doesn’t look up at me when I hover next to him. I wish he would acknowledge my existence, so I could try to get some words out. Nothing comes. When the bell rings he logs out of his e-mail and walks to class, pretending I was never there.
In science class Mr. Harris tells me I can have extra time for the paper that was due Monday. He’s actually being really sweet; I guess he’s not such a bad guy after all. I still don’t understand anything in his class.
In Ms. Taylor’s class Lisa and I sit next to each other. I can feel everyone staring at us. I wonder what they think is going to happen? That we’re just going to make out on the desks and tongue wrestle through the lecture on Camus? Ms. Taylor notices all the stares.
“Guys? The Stranger? Any thoughts or are you all just going to keep staring at your classmates?”
Everyone gets embarrassed and goes back to the reading. Ms. Taylor gives me a wink. Lisa writes me a note. Are you okay? I write her back. I think so. I also draw a smiley face. When I get a note back, she’s drawn a heart.
At play rehearsal the kids are all excited to see me back and I’m excited to see them. They tell me Tomas was a terror while I was gone, but I can tell they still adore him. A few of the kids ask if Lisa will be at more rehearsals since we’re girlfriends. I don’t know if that’s what we really are, but it’s looking that way, and boy, word travels at light speed if it’s gotten to the middle school already.
We run through a few scenes and remind the kids that dress rehearsal is next week. After rehearsal Tomas and I walk out of the auditorium together.
“God, you and Lisa are so sickeningly cute, Tomas says. “I’m jealous.”
“Yeah we are.” I grin.
When I get into Lisa’s car at the end of the day I take her hand and hold it firmly all the way home.
Thirty-one
My mom and dad haven’t been talking to each other for a few days, and I know it’s because of me. They’re both trying to hide it, but dinner is a dead giveaway. Mom doesn’t say anything and just pretends that everything’s okay, even though she and Dad are not communicating. Dad is being sweet to me, but it looks like something’s on his mind, and it has to be because Mom told him about me.
Everything in the house feels very fragile. I’m certain I’m going to be the first thing to break, so I call the only person who knows them as well as I do.
I call her on my cell phone in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet with the lid down. “I think Mom told Dad about me,” I whisper. “They’re being really weird. They aren’t talking to each other, but are trying to be all friendly around me.”
“Really?” Nahal asks.
“Yeah. It’s weird. Dad especially. You’d think he wouldn’t be talking to me instead of shutting Mom out.”
“I guess he’s shooting the messenger. Or maybe he doesn’t believe her.”
“I feel awful. If they divorce because of me, you can totally hate me forever.”
“Stop being so dramatic, Leila. He’s probably just working it all out. It’s a lot for them, being from the old country,” Nahal says with sarcasm in her voice. “I think it’s a good sign he’s still talking to you, though. He’s not treating you any different. Besides, would he want to talk to you about boys, either? It weirds him out, talking to us like we may actually have love lives.” That’s true. I guess that’s why Nahal doesn’t bring around anyone she dates unless it’s serious.
“Can I come live with you if they kick me out?” I ask. I can’t tell if I’m joking or serious.
Nahal just sighs. “They both love you like crazy. Don’t worry.” I spot an ant walking across the tile floor of the bathroom and I think, You lucky so-and-so. I bet you don’t have these sorts of issues at your colony. “Leila?” Nahal asks. “You still there?”
Barely. “Yeah. I’m here.” We both don’t say anything for a while. We’ve never really done this sort of comforting each other before. It’s nice but it’s strange.
“You looking forward to Farzaneh’s wedding?” Nahal asks. It’s this weekend. I had completely forgotten about it.
“No. I’m not.” Since we’re in the spirit of honesty.
“Can you believe the bridesmaid dresses are beige? Gross. Sepideh is going to look so bad. I can’t wait!” Nahal makes a barfing noise, and I’m really glad she’s my sister, something I never thought I’d feel in a million years.
Some days our ride to school is the only real time Lisa and I have together. Ms. Taylor is running a tight ship lately, and until things stop being so weird at home, it seems best if Lisa doesn’t come to the house. This weekend I have the wedding and she has a squash tournament.
“Greg’s still avoiding me, I say on Friday as she pulls away from the curb in front of my house.
“I’m sorry.”
“I just don’t get it. He’s my friend. Or I thought he was.” I look out the window as we drive down the side streets. There’s fresh snow on the trees. Lisa reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. I turn and look at Lisa, who still pays attention to the road and drives slower than your average teenager.
“Does your mom know?” I ask. She continues to focus on the road, not even batting an eye, but she nods. “So how is she treating you?”
“She said men are pigs and my father is a great example of that, so she understands why I am experimenting.” Lisa shakes her head and I flash back to moments when Lisa’s parents would argue when driving us to soccer camp. They never yelled, but each criticized almost everything the other person did. I slowly take my hand away.
“Are you ‘experimenting’?” I ask. Lisa doesn’t answer but instead turns on her blinker and pulls over to the side of the road. The cars behind us honk as they pass, which makes her flinch. She puts the car in park and turns to look at me.
“That girl really messed with your head, didn’t she?” I’m so happy Lisa doesn’t utter her name. Thinking about Saskia makes me sick. Lisa pushes a strand of my hair behind my ear and holds my cheek with her palm. “You’re not a phase, Leila. If anything, you’re the only thing in my life that makes sense these days.” I feel all the breath escape my chest. “I don’t tell you that because I don’t want to pressure you or scare you off. You make me happy, but I don’t want to rely on you solely for that happiness. Hence, I save the feelings and sharing for my oh-so-invasive therapist.” She kisses me lightly on my cheek and lingers there as if to say, Believe me. Trust me. When she lets go, she raises her eyebrows and looks me in the eye.
“I’m not a phase,” I whisper, and Lisa nods.
“If you need me to be gushy, I can be. It’s just not what I’m used to. But if you need me to reassure you that you’re my love nugget, or whatever the hell it is people say these days, I can try.” Lisa’s brown eyes don’t waver at all, and my heart is pounding so hard it might burst out of my chest.
“Love nugget, huh?” I say as I watch Lisa concentrate on the road again and put the car into drive.
“As long as we never serenade one another and scare off people with our horrible singing, I think we’ll be okay,” my girlfriend says as she looks over her shoulder to merge onto the road. Of course we haven’t had the official “girlfriend” talk, but after that little display, I think it’s safe to say the girl is mine.
“Want to make out after school in your car?” I ask, finally taking some kind of ownership of my desires, and Lisa beams at me.
“Duh.”
“He just needs time,” Tess says of her new chum when I complain to her about the distance betwee
n Greg and me. Tess used to be the one asking me about Greg. I can’t believe the tables have turned like this. “He’s, I don’t know, angry you didn’t tell him.” What am I supposed to do? Apologize for being outted by his ex? Tess and I walk down a crowded hallway, dodging the students calling out to their friends and rushing to their next classes. I have a free period now and Tess doesn’t.
“Yeah, well, when you do speak to him, can you tell him none of this is about him and his ego. I need my friend back.” Tess splits off to get to class, and I walk to a place where I know I won’t be judged.
In the tech loft, Simone is knitting what I think is a tea cozy while Taryn lounges on a couch. Christina, sketching in her notebook, looks up at me as I enter. “Hey,” she says. She shows me what she’s been drawing. It’s the castle for the middle school play. “It’s going to be a giant backdrop painting behind your kids.” I gawk at the design. I had no idea Christina was so talented. She grins happily and pretends to dust her shoulder off.
I drop next to Taryn on the couch. She puts her arm around my shoulders and I lean my head on her shoulder in return.
“Would you be interested in signing up for the Day of Silence?” Simone asks, eyes still focused on her tea cozy.
“What is that?” I ask. Taryn takes her phone from her pocket and looks up the website. She hands me her phone, where I read that it’s a day for students to protest the harassment of LGBT people and their allies.
“I’m trying to get a bunch of signatures for support before we ask the headmaster if we can do it,” Simone explains. “I think it will be kind of cool.”
“Sign me up,” I say, exhausted. Taryn squeezes my shoulders and gives me a noogie.
Thirty-two
“There is no LeBron James without Dwyane Wade. Without Wade, he would never have won a championship.”
I can’t believe I have to be at this table with the basketball brothers. There is no bigger or brighter function among Persians than a wedding, and Farzaneh’s is turning out to be so opulent it borders on ostentatious. The hotel ballroom is packed with at least thirty tables, filled with mostly Persian people. There are a couple of tables filled with khareeji, or foreign, friends.
My parents are sitting at a table on the other side of the ballroom, close to the bride and groom. Farzaneh smiles when people start clinking their glasses for the couple to kiss. She kisses her husband at the long table in the front of the ballroom. The female guests let out a series of high-pitched yells. Us young’uns are in the back, waiting for this whole thing to be over. I stare at the large centerpiece made of white roses and white lilies, wondering if I should buy Lisa flowers. Would she think that’s too cheesy? Is it too soon for that kind of thing? I wish there were a teenage lesbian dating manual.
“She’s coming over here,” Nahal whispers to me as Sepideh drags her boyfriend, Shahram, by the hand, beelining it for Nahal. Sepideh is wearing a beige asymmetrical bridesmaid dress that accentuates her figure but makes her look older.
“Aren’t weddings the best?” Sepideh asks. Her boyfriend, however, looks like he’d rather be having a colonoscopy.
“It’s such a beautiful wedding, Sepideh,” Nahal says sincerely. It is. Fancy chandeliers, excellent mood lighting, and open-bar beautiful.
“I can’t wait for my wedding someday,” Sepideh says, batting her eyes at her sheepish boyfriend. “There are some guys here, Nahal, if you want me to introduce you,” she offers in faux friendliness.
“Actually I’m seeing someone,” Nahal says, and I stare at her wide-eyed. She’s must be lying to one-up Sepideh.
“Oh? Did you meet him at Harvard?” Sepideh asks, tucking all this information into her big hair to save for later gossip with her mother.
“No, at a party in Cambridge,” Nahal says. “He’s sweet.” Maybe she isn’t lying!
“What does he do?” Sepideh asks, and her boyfriend winces and tries to twist his hand away as she squeezes it even tighter.
“He’s a puppeteer. He works at kids’ birthday parties, schools—that kind of thing.” Dad would have a heart attack. I think Sepideh is having one right now, because this is really not their dynamic. She has no idea how to respond to this curveball.
“That’s so . . . nice,” she manages.
Nahal fishes her phone out of her purse and finds a photo to show Sepideh. “His name’s Jeff.” Sepideh takes in the pixels and her fake smile falters. She passes the phone back to Nahal.
“Can I see?” I ask, and Nahal hands me her phone. Jeff looks like he’s around Nahal’s age, disheveled in a T-shirt with paint splattered on it. He’s rugged and a little pudgy but cute, and he’s carrying a laughing Nahal in his arms. It’s weird, but they look really good together, like they fit.
“Your parents must be so thrilled,” Sepideh drawls out in a syrupy voice that seems to put Shahram on high alert.
“I haven’t introduced him to Dad yet, since he doesn’t have his PhD in puppetry,” Nahal jokes. “But Mom’s met him and thinks he’s a doll.” Huh. You think you know a person. I feel my face contort into what I’m pretty sure is a smile.
Thankfully, the band starts playing Persian music, and all the guests rush the dance floor, Sepideh included, dragging Shahram behind her. The men outstretch their arms while quickly moving their feet, as though they are about to be met with a hug. The women sway their hips back and forth in time with the percussion and shimmy their shoulders flirtatiously.
“So, Jeff?” I ask Nahal, cocking an eyebrow.
Nahal shrugs. “I figured you had enough going on at home. But if you ever want to double-date?”
The bride and groom are now dancing in the center of the floor, and the clapping guests surround them. Mom and Dad are among them. I don’t know if it’s the beat of the music, or that Dad is with his people, speaking Farsi and reminiscing about the old days, but he’s always happiest at these things.
Mom and Dad have begun speaking again, but Dad has been retreating to the guest room after dinner. I don’t know if he’s tired or if he just doesn’t want to confront the giant, hairy Mr. Snuffleupagus in the room.
When the song finishes, Dad walks over to our table. “Girls, come dance!”
Nahal rolls her eyes but doesn’t have the patience to argue and moseys over to Mom on the dance floor. Dad takes Nahal’s seat next to me.
“Isn’t this great, Leila?” he asks, and I nod. Together we watch the bride and groom dancing as the MC on stage says, “Khanoum ha raghs, Agayoon dast,” or “Ladies dance, gentlemen applaud.” The men clap alone while the women continue to move their arms in fluid waves. “Don’t you want this, too, Leila? A nice big wedding? A nice husband?” Now he stares at me with his hopeful, wide eyes. My shoulders crumple, and I can’t look at him.
He knows.
Dad looks at Parsa and Arsalan, who are so bored they might fall asleep at the table. “What’s wrong with you guys? Why don’t you ask my beautiful daughter to dance?” Dad asks jovially, and the boys laugh politely. I slump lower in my seat and want to slide under the table and hide.
I want to believe my dad thinks I am beautiful, but I know my having a girlfriend must make me ugly in his eyes.
“I don’t feel much like dancing,” I say. Dad looks at me with a sad pout, and I feel like a failure.
“Are you sure?” he asks nervously. He’s not talking about dancing any longer. It really pains me to see him on the brink of heartbreak like this. I could lie and maybe spare his feelings. I could tell him the truth and try to prove to him that I’m just as good a person as I was before he found out I was gay. And I’m happier. And I’m doing better at science.
But I don’t say anything. I don’t answer him, and he quietly walks away from the table, leaving me with the basketball brothers, who resume debating LeBron’s defensive skills while I do my best not to cry.
I wake up to the sound of Cat Power’s “Silver Stallion,” which is my ringtone for Saskia. It is 3:20 a.m., and we only got home from the weddin
g around 1:00 a.m. I hit “ignore.”
She calls again. I hit ignore.
She calls me once more and I turn off my phone.
When I wake up for real in the morning, I turn on my phone again. I have fifty-six text messages and thirty-two missed calls from Saskia.
At first the text messages are sweet. Sickeningly so.
Hey gorgeous! Don’t be mad at me, I just got jealous. Forgive me? Xo
I miss you!
I wish you were here with me.
Then she talks about her life, like I care.
My family is moving again. I thought you would want to know.
I came, I saw, I got bored, and it’s time to move on.
For what it’s worth, you made the year interesting. So thank you.
Then the messages are about sex.
Robert is a terrible lover.
I know I’m a better kisser than your sad sack girlfriend.
I bet you haven’t slept with her yet. You know I’d be better.
And then the messages just get vicious.
Why aren’t you answering, you stupid dyke?
I never even liked you. I just liked how pathetic you were and that you followed me around.
I was being charitable letting your disgusting tongue in my mouth.
Your ugly girlfriend is going to grow tired of you just like I did.
I don’t read any more of them. I drop the phone to the floor and rush to the toilet, crouch above it, and dry heave.
I let Lisa talk about the squash tournament on our drive to school because I don’t want to talk about my own weekend of disappointing my dad and being abused by text.
I observe Lisa as she speaks, studying how long her eyelashes are, how her mouth naturally curves downward, making her look like she’s always about to frown.
“How do you do it?” I ask, and Lisa briefly glances at me, not wanting to lose sight of the road. “How are you so . . . brave?” And why is she with someone who is so afraid of everything?
“Xanax,” she says, and I almost believe her until she sticks her tongue out. “I don’t know. Being alone and smoking wasn’t really helping much.” I think of my Sunday spent cowering in a bathroom, trying to expel thoughts of a horrible girl by vomiting her away. “And I’m not that brave. I haven’t visited Steve’s grave since the funeral a year and a half ago.”