Veil of Roses

by Laura Fitzgerald

  Haroun is still out of town; his business trip has stretched on and on. But I do not mind. We talk most evenings on the telephone and the situation is very friendly between us. When he tells me that he will try to stop traveling so much after we are married, I urge him not to change a thing about his career for me.

  If I am to marry Haroun, I would like for him to be a traveling husband. And in the meantime, I am well aware that I will, perhaps, never again be as free as I am right now. So yes, I am glad to see Ike waiting for me.

  “Hey there, Persian Girl,” Ike greets me. “Where’s your sidekick?”

  “Eva? I think perhaps she is growing tired of me.”

  “No one could ever grow tired of you.” Ike smiles at my blush and continues, “She’s trying to set us up, you know.”

  I pull back like I am startled at the idea, although in truth, I know this very well to be true. I hear the words Ike and eminently fuckable from Eva’s mouth about ten times each day. In response, I always tsk-tsk her and roll my eyes, and I fear this just encourages her. She remains committed to corrupting me.

  “Will you join me for a proper cup of tea?” Ike asks and offers me his arm.

  “Not that horrible mango tea?” I say this with a bit of a tease in my voice.

  “Today, we’re going to have real Middle Eastern tea like you’re used to.”

  “Really?” I link my arm through his and feel very daring.

  “Yep. Come right this way.” He leads me around the corner of the coffee shop. We walk past Starbucks, past the hair salon, and past a French bistro in the Geronimo Square plaza.

  “Are we going there?” I point ahead to a restaurant that has gaudy purple silk curtains framing the door. Sinbad’s, it is called.

  “Indeed we are.”

  He holds the door open for me. Now, this is not a Persian restaurant, but I think perhaps a Jordanian one. Yet I feel at home, with the music and the smells of familiar spices.

  We seat ourselves and in an instant, a Middle Eastern man brings us menus. He greets us first in English and then greets me a second time, in Arabic.

  “I’m sorry, I do not speak Arabic.”

  “Farsi?” he asks. I nod. He brightens. “I’ll send out Cyrus. He’s Persian. He’ll be right with you.”

  “What’s good here?” Ike asks.

  “I thought we were only having tea.”

  “I’m starving, actually. Let’s have an early dinner. Or a late lunch. Whichever.”

  But I cannot take a meal with him. That would make this a date.

  “Kebabs are always a good choice,” I advise. “But I am not hungry. I’ll have only tea, or perhaps a laban.”

  He scans the menu and reads the description of the yogurt drink. “Is it sweet?”

  “No, very tart.”

  “Like Eva.” He grins at my confused look. But before he can explain, Cyrus approaches our table.

  Salaam, we greet each other. He asks me, in Farsi, what I would like to eat. I order my laban. He asks if Ike speaks Farsi. At this I laugh and tell him no. He asks, “Does your boyfriend work at Starbucks? I think I’ve seen him there.” This is the closest a Persian man will get to being nosy, to ask his questions in a roundabout way. He does not care where Ike works. He only asks to see if I will correct him about Ike being my boyfriend. Which I do, of course.

  After Ike orders and Cyrus leaves, Ike leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Was he hitting on you?”

  “No, of course not. He didn’t raise a hand to me. You saw everything.”

  Ike chuckles at my mistake. “Hitting on you, not hitting you. Was he flirting with you? Asking you out?” He makes goo-goo eyes and a kissy face.

  “Don’t be silly,” I tell him, smiling. “Nobody’s hitting on me.”

  “Would you even know if they were?”

  He clears his throat and his face reddens. He is very cute when he is embarrassed.

  “I might not know,” I admit.

  Ike sits forward and unrolls the silverware from his white cloth napkin. He sets each utensil in its proper place on the wood table and flattens his napkin in his lap. I watch how he avoids my eyes as he does this. But then, abruptly, he leans toward me.

  “Would you want to know? If someone was flirting with you, I mean?”

  I draw back from him while my heart thunders in panic. I suspect that I know what he is asking. I open and close my mouth like a fish, unable to form a response.

  “You know what I think, Persian Girl?” he continues.

  Persian Girl. I am not sure I like this special name he has for me, for I have not felt like a girl since I was forced to wear a veil many, many years ago. But I do like that he has a nickname for me.

  “I couldn’t possibly know what you think, American Boy.”

  And I’m not sure I want to know.

  “I think you’re falling in love with me.”

  I scoff. “Persian girls don’t fall in love.”

  “Bullshit. Everyone falls in love.”

  “Tell me, American Boy, what does it mean to fall in love? How exactly does one go about it?”

  He laughs heartily, but then he sees I am not joking. He waits until Cyrus has delivered his plate of food and retreated. Ike picks up his knife and scrapes the lamb kebab off the stick and onto his rice. Then he looks at me.

  “All right, then. Well, I’d say you know you’re falling in love with a person when you think about them constantly. You can’t stand being apart from them. You feel the world is yours for the taking, as long as you have them in your life. Have you ever felt that?”

  I firmly shake my head. “Dating in Iran is like…I don’t know. There are so many restrictions that the focus, and the fun, it seems, is all centered around beating the system. You know? Like walking down the street together and not being stopped. That’s the thrill, the not getting caught. I think we fall in love with the feeling that we’re getting away with something, more than with an actual person.”

  “So, like, you’re looking for a partner in crime more than a boyfriend?”

  I laugh, but he’s not too far off.

  “Well, I’ve had boyfriends here and there, but you can’t date proper, like you see in American movies. You talk on the phone a lot. A lot. And you can meet up at parties, but…I don’t know, the parties are so crazy and it gets really tiresome. At least for me it did. Trying to date was more of a hassle than anything.”

  “So no one ever rocked your world, huh?”

  I chuckle as I work through that slang. “You know how you said when you fall in love it feels like the world is yours for the taking? Well, I can’t know what that feels like because the world isn’t mine for the taking. With or without a boyfriend. With or without a husband. Period. It’s mine for the bearing. And so, at least from my perspective, the best a girl can wish for is to find someone who makes things a little more bearable. Does that make sense?”

  “Whew.” He lets out his breath. “That sucks. You need to stay in America, then. Let somebody rock your world.”

  I am momentarily unable to answer, so great is my shock. Does he know what I have to do to stay? He is not, in any way, suggesting some way to help me…is he? I clear my throat.

  “Iranians are more focused on getting married, on having a partner in life, than…um…having their world rocked.”

  “That sounds like a huge generalization, Tami.” He shovels a huge amount of food into his mouth and then adds, matter-of-factly, “You should try it sometime.”

  “What, generalizing?”

  “Having your world rocked.”

  My face feels quite hot. Embarrassed, I take a long drink of my laban. I must get the focus off me. “How about you? Have you ever been in love?”

  “Sure, yeah.” He nods and then shifts his gaze away for a moment, to the couple at the next table over.

  “What happened? Why did it end?”

  Did it end? That is my real question.

  “We dated in college, our sen
ior year. It started out not very serious, because we both knew it couldn’t last. She and a girlfriend were planning an extended backpacking trip to Europe after graduation.”

  My eyes grow big. How brave she was.

  “It was the trip of a lifetime.” He shrugs. “And, you know, I was finishing up my business degree and planned to work in a coffee shop for a while before opening my own. I’d been planning it forever; it was all outlined in my Franklin Planner.”

  “What is this, Franklin Planner?”

  “Oh, right. A Franklin Planner is, like, this system of planning out your whole life, according to your values. You figure out your values and your dreams and then you set goals based on them. And then you make lists of all the little steps you’ve got to take along the way to get there. And then you take those steps and put them in your daily planner. So, basically, every task you do in your daily life is directed toward realizing your dreams.”

  The enthusiasm in his voice builds as he talks, and I can see how exciting the idea is to him, that every single thing he does every day is, in some way, getting him closer to living his dreams. The thought dares to cross my mind: What is this, then? How do I fit into your dreams? I don’t ask these questions, of course.

  “This girl,” I ask instead, “she did not make it into your Franklin Planner dreams?”

  “She wanted to get married.”

  “Oh.”

  I can’t fathom how a girl would approach such a topic. How someone like me, for instance, would approach it with someone like Ike.

  That’s simple, you wouldn’t.

  Ike shrugs. “I said I’d wait for her, that she should go and I’d stay and get working on all this. But she said she knew that if she left, she wouldn’t come back. That she wouldn’t be the same person a year down the road and she had to be free to see where life took her.”

  He swallows hard. “I understand that. She was going to lose herself. Find herself. Whatever. So it was either marry her and she’d stay, or don’t and she’d leave forever.”

  “You preferred to lose her rather than marry her?” My voice feels far away.

  He pauses, considering his answer. “It was simply the worst timing possible. I’m living in my parents’ guesthouse. My job barely pays above minimum wage, and I’ve got a bunch of lean years ahead of me before I’ll turn a profit with my coffee shop.” His voice deflates. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

  “I get a postcard every now and then. She was right, she didn’t come back.” He smiles sadly. Bravely, I think.

  “It sounds like you really loved her,” I say quietly.

  He considers it, then nods. “But, you know, you’re right. She wasn’t in my Franklin Planner dreams.”

  I am happy to hear it.

  I have a question for you,” Ike says as we finish our meal.

  “Mmm-hmm?” I let my caution sound through, telling him to be careful with his questions.

  He sits back, crosses his arms. “Tiny acts of everyday rebellion. If you were in Iran right now, with your camera, what would you photograph?”

  I wouldn’t. That’s my first thought. I’d be afraid of drawing attention to myself. But his inquiry is an interesting one to consider.

  “I’d take a picture of a woman in hejab, sitting at a computer in an Internet café, telling the world about her life and dreams through her blog.”

  Ike bites his lower lip and nods, Go on.

  “Well, of course, I’d photograph a group of girls wearing bright headscarves pushed very far back on their heads. That’s a total sign of protest. The most obvious form of protest.”

  “What else?”

  “Men and women crammed into a taxi together. Satellite television dishes. Girls on cell phones talking to guys across the street.”

  Ike raises an eyebrow and smiles. I continue.

  “Nail polish. Beauty salons.”

  “I have an idea,” he says.

  “What’s that?”

  “When you go back, take pictures of all these things, and send them to me. I’ll get them framed really nicely and I’ll exhibit them in my coffee shop once it’s opened. I’ll call it Everyday Acts of Rebellion.”

  “That’s an interesting idea, Ike. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Ike walks me most of the way home. When we arrive in front of Rose’s house, it seems a good place to stop. I explain to him my elaborate shoe-hiding ritual, and he climbs onto the porch with me to wait while I switch back into my boots. My boots have now reached the point where they would probably be comfortable to walk so far in, but I have grown to like stopping for a moment at Rose’s house to sit in her rocking chair and change shoes. She often pops her head out the front door to say hello.

  And today, she does not disappoint.

  “Hello, you two,” she says. Ike nods to her. “Tami, I will see you for tea soon, yes?”

  “Yes,” I promise.

  Rose pulls her head back and closes the door. I suspect she will watch us from behind the curtain and try to hear our words through the glass window.

  “Here, let me.” Ike gets down on one knee to untie my shoes. I feel like Shirin, a fairy-tale Persian princess, to have a man at my feet like she had the adoring Farhad at hers.

  His bangs fall across his forehead and I am tempted to reach out and brush them back.

  He catches me looking at him and smiles as if he knows what I am thinking.

  “Will you go on a date with me sometime, Tami?” he bursts out.

  Panic stabs my heart.

  “I, ooh, ah…” I stumble badly over my response. In my sudden nervousness, I have forgotten my English.

  “Just a yes or no will do,” he says with a smile. “A yes would be the preferred response.”

  I cannot say yes, yet I do not want to say no. So I decide to stall, instead. I reach for my boots from the wicker basket and zip them onto my feet. I stand from the rocking chair and then I ask, “What do people in America do on dates?” I do not look at him as I ask. Instead, I focus on putting my walking shoes in Rose’s basket.

  Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. This is what Eva has told me Americans do on dates. But by now, I know better than to listen to everything she tells me.

  “We could do anything you want,” he says gently. “We could go to dinner, or to a movie. Or we could really live it up and go to dinner and a movie.”

  His voice is so eager that I must look at him. And my heart breaks when I do. Poor Ike, his eyes are full of hope. Part of me thinks I should trade a potential marriage to Haroun for one date with this lovely American man, who has shown me nothing but kindness. But I could not justify to my parents my willingness to trade an evening of enjoyment for a lifetime of repression, and he has made it very clear to me that he is not ready to be married.

  “I just can’t,” I tell him over the lump in my throat.

  He licks his lips, nods once, and shifts his gaze toward the street. I have hurt his feelings, and I feel awful.

  “Ike?”

  He gives no response. I step toward him and put my hand on his arm. He visibly calms from my touch and turns back to me.

  “I don’t get it. Am I reading something wrong here? Do you just not like me?”

  I shake my head. My heart feels so swollen I fear it may burst.

  “I like you,” I whisper.

  “Then what? Is it your sister?”

  My breathing is labored. I raise my shoulders in a shrug. He leans closer to me, and his eyes turn soft. “You do know that you’re killing me here, Tami, don’t you? I mean, you know how I feel about you, right?”

  When he sees my panicked expression, he reaches out and strokes my cheek. I want to melt into his touch.

  “You just met me,” I whisper.

  “I think you’ve been in my heart my whole life, Tami.” His voice is husky. “You feel like home to me.”

  I cannot look at him anymore, at his ocean eyes. It would be too easy to drown in t
hem. I look away quickly, and see Rose yank her head back behind a curtain. This jolts me out of the moment.

  “I need to go.”

  “Don’t go,” he says. But now his tone is light, playful. And so I smile and repeat myself.

  “I need to go.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “I do.”

  And with that, I turn and descend the steps on Rose’s porch. Ike follows. When we reach the sidewalk, he stops. I must cross in front of him to head in the right direction, and when I walk past him, he reaches for my wrist. I want to cry and he must see this because he shakes it gently and then lets me go.

  “Bye, sweet Persian Girl.”

  “Bye,” I whisper, and try to smile. I walk away as fast as I can and stop only when I am safely inside my house, and then I lean against the door after closing it behind me and bend over to gasp for air. Breathe, breathe, I tell myself. Do not drown in this man.

  “Tami?”

  I straighten up and see Maryam walking into the living room. She does not notice my affliction.

  “Haroun called. He’ll be back in town soon and wants to take you to dinner next Wednesday. I think he might ask you!”

  She beams with excitement.

  “Great,” I manage to reply.

  After Maryam disappears into the kitchen, I rush to my room, collapse on my bed, and sob for fifteen minutes straight. Maman Joon once told me that sometimes there is nothing like a good cry to make a woman feel better. This is not one of those times. My American Boy has stirred feelings inside of me that I have never had before, and they have shaken me to my very core.

  For my dinner date with Haroun, I wear stark red nail polish and the same low-cut dress I wore my first night in Tucson. I will dare him to disapprove of me. When the doorbell rings exactly on time, I answer the door myself and brace for his reaction to my appearance. Startled, he just stares at me for a moment.

  “You look amazing, Tamila,” he finally says.

  “Oh! Well, thank you!” I am pleased by his reaction. His eyes are not covetous, but rather proud. This is good, I think. I need to remind myself that Haroun is not the bad guy. He is a good guy. He might be the one who saves me.