The Authentics

by Abdi Nazemian

  I froze for a moment, because she was so right. How had I gone from the girl who never dated to the one who got trashed in a hotel room with a guy she’d just met? “It’s complicated,” I said. That was seriously the best response I could think of.

  Meili laughed. She was about to jump in, but Fang placed a hand on her arm.

  “What is it?” Sheila asked Meili, almost daring her. “Is there something you need to say?”

  “No, of course not,” Meili said with a satisfied smile. “It’s not my business.”

  I closed my eyes and silently prayed that Meili stayed very much in my business. The more Meili attacked me, after all, the more Sheila defended me. There was nothing like a common enemy to shift my mother to my side.

  “Perhaps we should go to the coffee shop downstairs,” Fang said.

  Before he could finish, Meili said, “Thank you. I’ll have one of those blended green tea things.”

  Fang eyed Meili, clearly urging her to vacate the room with him. But Meili stayed put as her husband reluctantly left alone, afraid of what his wife might say or do in his absence.

  “So, let’s discuss what’s happened here,” Sheila said. “I just caught my daughter in bed with a . . .” She trailed off, then turned to me and asked, “Is he a Mexican?”

  “Sheila!” I said. “Seriously?”

  “What?” she responded. “I’m just asking a question. I’m not upset if he’s a Mexican!”

  “First of all,” Iglesias said, “I’m not a Mexican, I’m just Mexican. And you do sound kind of upset about that, which is kind of upsetting to me.”

  “Iglesias, don’t bother,” I said. “She always wins arguments like this. She’s a master debater.”

  “I’m upset my daughter lied to me,” Sheila said, ignoring me. “And I’m upset you have tattoos.”

  Iglesias turned to me, probably waiting for me to come to his defense. And I wanted to defend him. I wanted to tell Sheila that his tattoos were works of art, and that he didn’t deserve to be attacked, and that if anyone should be judged, it was her for withholding my entire identity from me, but instead I said, “There’s a difference between flat-out lying and what I did.” I was such a terrible debater.

  “I don’t trust people with tattoos. And neither does my husband.” Sheila glared at Baba, who just looked down, unable to verbalize his emotions. “People with tattoos don’t understand the difference between what should be temporary and what should be permanent, and this”—Sheila waved her arms across the hotel room—“will be temporary.”

  Meili stifled a laugh, and then opened the minibar and found a bag of mixed nuts. She sat down on the desk chair, happily snacking as she watched the show.

  “I bet you’d trust Angelina Jolie,” Iglesias said. “But then, she’s a white girl with tattoos. And I’m a scary Mexican man with tattoos.”

  I kicked Iglesias, and he glared at me, as if to say, You can’t possibly be on her side in all this.

  “I didn’t even know you were Mexican,” Sheila said, digging herself in further. “For all I knew when I walked in, you were Italian or Iranian or Colombian or Israeli. No one ever knows what I am either.”

  “Wow,” Iglesias said. “I’m gonna go home now, but this was a nice chat.”

  Baba put his hand on Iglesias’s chest and pushed him back down. It was the most aggressive I had ever seen Baba be. “Not so fast. We’re not done with you yet. And please speak to me and my wife with respect.”

  “Oh yeah,” Iglesias said. “Because racism should always be met with respect.”

  “Iglesias, please don’t,” I whispered, desperate for this argument not to get any worse than it already was. But he ignored me, and so did my parents. It was like I was invisible.

  “We are not racist,” Sheila said. “We are just realistic.”

  Meili, her mouth full of nuts, finally spoke. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but you are racist,” she said. “Our son told us everything when he met Amir. He told us how this woman right here”—finger pointed at Sheila—“felt she could hardly handle a gay son, let alone a gay Chinese son-in-law.”

  Sheila scoffed. “I was just worried about the cultural differences.”

  “Is that why you were so rude to us at their wedding?” Meili said. “Because of cultural differences?”

  Meili stood up and took a step toward Sheila. Sheila took a step toward her. Baba often talked about how World War III was inevitable in the Middle East, but now I thought World War III might start right here, in a Beverly Hills hotel room.

  But just as the two women came perilously close to starting another global conflict, Fang arrived, holding iced blended green teas for everyone in the room. “What’s happening?” he asked Meili as he handed each of us a frothy drink. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing,” Meili said, grabbing her drink and taking a big sip. “I have been perfectly well behaved.”

  But Fang clearly didn’t believe her, because he took her arm and announced, “We’ll wait for you outside. This is a family matter.”

  “But we are their family,” Meili protested.

  And to everyone’s surprise, Fang took her hand and just led her out of the room.

  For some reason, the tension in the room got even worse when Meili left. I felt awful. My night in the hotel room was supposed to be like Eloise, but there was no part of that book where Eloise disappointed everyone around her. That’s what I felt like in that moment, like I was ground zero of disappointment. I sucked up my entire iced blended, grateful for the brain freeze that made me momentarily forget where I was.

  “Okay,” Baba said. “Now we are alone with Daria and her boy—” He stopped himself. I knew he was going to say boyfriend, but instead he asked, “Who are you, anyway?”

  Iglesias was sweating, a few beads resting above his upper lip. “My name’s Enrique Iglesias, sir.” I pinched him again. “I mean, sorry, sir, she just calls me Iglesias.”

  “Do you go to school together?” Baba asked.

  “No, sir,” Enrique said.

  “You don’t have to call me sir,” Baba said.

  “Oh,” Iglesias responded. “I was just trying to address you with the proper respect.”

  I kicked Iglesias again. “Please,” I whispered. “Don’t make it worse than it already is.” Iglesias glared at me.

  “If you don’t go to school together, then how did you meet?” Baba asked.

  Iglesias looked at me, silently begging me to take over. This was my moment to finally tell my parents the truth, to confess that my lie was so much bigger than hiding a boy. But I wasn’t ready to tell the truth. So I let Iglesias struggle through it. “We just met recently,” he said.

  “It can’t be that recent if she has a nickname for you,” Baba responded.

  “Well, she gave me the nickname the day we met.” Iglesias and I both smiled at that, perhaps transported back to that first day I knocked on his door, a day that seemed so much better than this one. I wished I could go back in time to that moment, restart everything, and make different decisions, starting with never swabbing my cheek and sending it in for DNA testing. I craved ignorance. I wanted a return to the innocent person I had been only a few weeks ago, a person who would never have raided a minibar or lied to her parents.

  I remembered telling Baba once that it seemed like nothing ever really changes. Baba said life was like a spiral. You don’t think you ever move forward because you’re going in circles, but if you look back, you see that each spin around the circle has led you one small notch forward. I always thought of that when I held one of my spiral notebooks. Baba was right. We do move forward slowly, almost imperceptibly, but what if we want to move backward? What if we want to spin slowly back down the spiral of our lives and get a second chance at our last loop? That was what I wanted.

  Then Baba said something to Iglesias that stopped me cold. “I assume it was you who visited my mother with Daria.”

  So he knew?

  “Yeah,”
Iglesias said. “She’s a cool lady.”

  “You’re a smart girl, Daria,” Baba said. “You must have known the staff would call me and let me know you’d visited with a boy. I’m just shocked they didn’t call me immediately. You would never have been in this hotel room had we known.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. The truth was, I’d never thought the staff would say anything. I’d figured they would assume he was a friend. But maybe, on some subconscious level, I’d wanted them to tell my parents. Maybe I’d wanted my parents to find out, to know everything. If I had, why couldn’t I just tell them?

  “I’m sorry is not enough, Daria.” This was my mother. “We need answers. Who is this boy? How did you meet him? How long have you known him?”

  I was about to launch into the truth, but I stopped myself. I knew Sheila wouldn’t want to play that scene in front of a stranger.

  “I really think I should go,” Iglesias said, disappointed in me. I suddenly imagined myself through his eyes: weak and pathetic.

  Once again, Baba said, “Not yet. And not until we call your mother. She has a right to know what you’re up to.”

  Iglesias laughed nervously. “Sure, let’s call my mother. Good idea, Daria?” He was practically daring me now, probably exhausted by my cowardice.

  “Let’s just go home,” I said. “Trust me, you don’t want to have this conversation here. And I’m not ready to have it. Not here. Not—”

  Before I could finish, Sheila snapped. “Enough, Daria,” she shouted. “I demand to know who this person is. I demand for you to stop acting like a child, and begin acting like my child.”

  “What does that even mean?” I spat back.

  “My child,” she said, “does not get drunk in hotel rooms with strange boys. My child does not sneak around behind her parents’ backs.”

  “Well,” I said, my throat tightening up so much that it was hard to speak, “maybe I’m not your child.”

  It was a vague statement, and I could tell Baba didn’t read much into it. But my mom froze like a deer in headlights when I said it. “What are you saying, Daria?” she whispered.

  I could tell she knew exactly what I was saying. I took a deep breath. I looked to Iglesias for strength. He gave my hand a squeeze. That was all I needed to go on. “I’m saying that Iglesias is the stepson of my . . .” I stopped for a moment before I whispered the words. “. . . biological mother.”

  Now my mother’s eyes welled with tears. Baba’s too. “You’re right,” Sheila said. “We’ll discuss this later. Privately.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “It’s too late for that, Sheila. I found out, okay? And I went searching for my biological mother, and I met Iglesias. And she was out of town, so I spent some time with him because I wanted to get to know her, which is what anyone else would have done—”

  “Wait, so you just hung out with me to get closer to my mother?” Iglesias asked, pulling his hand away from mine.

  “No,” I said. “Of course not. But it’s just . . . I mean . . . I wouldn’t have hung out with you if you weren’t her son—”

  “Why? ’Cause I’m below you? ’Cause I have too many tattoos?”

  “No!” I protested. “I’m not my mother.”

  “I thought you were being real,” he said.

  “I was being real. I am being real,” I said. And then, I added desperately, “I’m trying to be real, okay? Isn’t that enough?”

  Iglesias stood up. Upright, he was so much taller than my parents. He suddenly seemed like the most powerful, imposing person in the room. “I get it now. It all makes sense. I was such a dumbass to think someone like you would ever like someone like me.”

  I stood up to face Iglesias, trying to take his hand in mine, but he kept pulling away. I wanted to hold his hand so badly. I wanted to feel like I did the first time he gripped my hand in his. “What does that even mean, Iglesias? Someone like you?”

  “Oh, come on, Daria,” he spat back. “Admit that you were using me. This whole thing was always about you. I was just a stepping-stone.”

  “No,” I said. “You were just a surprise.” That was the truth. He was a beautiful surprise, and now he was slipping away from me.

  “You know what you are, Daria?” he said, his face flushed. “A cultural tourist. Well, you’ve had your little vacation, okay?”

  “Iglesias, please don’t be mad,” I whispered. “I don’t think I can handle one more person being mad at me.”

  “There you go. Once again, it’s all about you,” he said. I hated myself a little just then, because he was right.

  Baba stepped forward, gently, and said, “Please don’t talk to my daughter that way.”

  “How about I don’t talk to her at all?” Iglesias asked, and headed to the door. “I’m done being caught in this cross fire. Good-bye to you and your whole fucked-up family. This Mexican is off to get more tattoos.”

  “Wait!” I yelled as I ran toward the door.

  “Daria, let him go,” Baba demanded.

  “Iglesias! Wait! Please!” I begged, clutching onto Iglesias’s arm.

  Baba approached me from behind and placed a hand gently on my shoulder. “Let him go,” Baba said.

  “I don’t want to let him go,” I said, still clutching his arm. Then, looking into Iglesias’s eyes, I said, “I don’t want to let you go.”

  Iglesias didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. He was angry and disappointed and had every right to be. I knew there was nothing else I could say. I let go of his arm and watched him leave, the door slowly closing behind him.

  I felt so alone when he was gone, but of course I wasn’t. I had four eyes glued to me. I couldn’t look at my parents. I could only look at the floor, trying to lose myself in the geometric design of the hotel carpet, holding back tears.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything else?” Sheila asked.

  I shook my head, unable to face her.

  “I’m so disappointed in you, Daria,” she said.

  Without thinking, I said, “Well, I’m disappointed in you, Sheila.” And then I finally looked up.

  We faced each other for what seemed an interminable amount of time, each daring the other to speak first, blink first, or, most important, apologize first.

  Finally, Sheila said, “I had my reasons.” Her voice shook a little.

  “We had our reasons,” Baba corrected, taking Sheila’s hand in his.

  “You had your reasons? Seriously, that’s your answer?” My rage surprised even me.

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Sheila said, hardening. “I made the decision I thought was best for you. I have always made the decisions I thought would be best for you.”

  “We made the decisions,” Baba said sharply, clearly feeling left out.

  “Oh, that’s bullshit!” I yelled at Sheila.

  “Daria, watch your mouth,” Baba said.

  “You did what was best for you. You did what was most comfortable for you. That’s all you care about. Your own comfort!”

  “Comfort?” Sheila echoed, with a sharp laugh that hit me like a dagger. “You, my beautiful, complicated daughter, know nothing about the discomfort I have experienced in my life. You know nothing of losing a brother, losing a father, losing a country. You know nothing of losing one child after another, asking a God you don’t even believe in why you are defective.”

  I swallowed hard. It was easy to judge Sheila when she was hiding behind her shell of perfection. But when she was unleashing honesty, it was much more difficult.

  “I know how horrible discomfort is,” she continued. “I know how terrible pain can feel. And so I have tried to give you a comfortable life. I have tried to give you not just nice things, but also the stability I never had.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “But it was all a lie.”

  “It wasn’t a lie,” she said. “Because even I believed it. I always believed you were my daughter. And I didn’t see anything wrong with letting you believe it too. You lo
oked like us!”

  “I don’t look anything like you,” I said. “We’re just both dark.”

  “Well,” Sheila huffed. “I don’t know what to say. I just wish you had never betrayed our trust.”

  “Don’t blame me for how I handled your lie,” I said. “It was your lie, not mine.”

  And then I burst into tears. And Baba took me in his arms and shushed me like I was an infant. “Don’t cry, aziz,” he said.

  “You named me after the ocean,” I sobbed. “Well, I’m an ocean.”

  “We named you after the ocean because oceans are beautiful and inspiring,” he said. “And because no matter how bad the waves can be, the ocean always comes back to its natural, peaceful state.”

  Baba led me out of the hotel room and into the dimly lit hallway, where Meili and Fang, their iced blended green teas almost empty, awaited us. My mother followed behind us, and she briefly faced off with Meili. “Don’t worry,” Meili said. “I couldn’t hear everything.” After a beat, she added, “Just enough.”

  But Sheila had no fight left in her. She simply hung her head low and led the way to the elevator. With a manicured nail, she pressed the down button. We all entered the elevator together and before we reached the lobby, a French couple entered. They were clearly discomfited by the scene they were caught in, if only for a brief instant. Sheila realized we were the source of their discomfort, and so she forced a smile their way, and in her perfect French, she said, “Welcome to Los Angeles.” I was crying too hard to roll my eyes, but I wanted to. Somehow, despite the level of emotion contained in this small elevator, she had found it in her to save face for two European strangers. When we reached the lobby, my mother let the French couple out first, and said, “Enjoy your stay.”

  And then our broken family shuffled out into the lobby.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, I was back in my bedroom at home. I had a vague memory of coming back home, of Sheila telling Meili and Fang they were moving to a hotel whether they liked it or not, and of Meili saying she would rather stay in a hotel than spend another second in this lunatic asylum. All things considered, I couldn’t argue with Meili. And I didn’t. In fact, I hadn’t said another word since we left the hotel. Perhaps I was in shock. Or perhaps I was afraid of the words that might come out of me if I spoke, afraid of my anger, and of my sadness.