Darius the Great Deserves Better - Adib Khorram Page 0,54
started smelling burned pastry, I had to turn away and get the strudels out.
We heard Laleh stomping down the stairs before she emerged into the kitchen, still in her pajamas.
“Hey, Laleh,” I said.
“Morning,” Grandma said. “There’s pancakes.”
Laleh perked up at that. Grandma set her plate on the table, along with a bottle of maple syrup.
I watched Laleh eat her pancakes, and Grandma work on her sudoku with a little smile on her face.
What just happened?
It was like, for a brief moment, the moon had shifted in its orbit, and this happy Melanie Kellner had eclipsed the Melanie Kellner I thought I knew.
But then, just like an eclipse, it was over.
I didn’t understand.
I got my stuff together and kissed Laleh and Grandma goodbye.
“Have a good day, Laleh.”
She looked up from her plate and gave me a toothy smile.
“Thanks.”
* * *
I ran into Chip at the bike rack.
“Hey,” he said, but he didn’t grin his usual grin.
Things had been weird between us ever since Sunday.
I wished I could take back what I said.
Well. Not really. I was telling the truth.
But I never realized the truth would be so dangerous.
“Hey,” I said.
“Did Ms. Albertson post your grade yet?”
“Last night.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
“I got a B!”
That got a grin out of Chip.
“That’s great.”
“Thanks again. For helping me.”
“Sure.” Chip kept grinning at me, but after a minute it slipped away.
And then things were weird again.
“See you at practice?”
I swallowed.
“Yeah.”
* * *
When I got home from practice, I felt like I had stepped onto a holodeck.
The scene before me was too surreal for normal existence.
Laleh, Grandma, and Oma were sitting around the kitchen table with bowls of warm water in front of them. A pile of towels lay between them with nail files and clippers on top, and next to that, a little basket of fingernail polish.
“We’re doing manicures!” Laleh announced when I came in. She held her pruny hands up to show me.
“That’s great.”
I leaned down to kiss her head, then Grandma and Oma on the cheeks.
“How was school?”
“Good. Miss Shah is so cool. You know her family is from India?”
“That’s great.”
“She said my name right and everything.”
My sister was practically effervescent.
“Are you hungry?” Oma asked. “We can clear out.”
“No, it’s okay.”
Laleh looked up at me. “Want to do manicures too?”
“Um,” I said.
Grandma and Oma looked at me.
I looked down at my hands, and my shredded cuticles. I’d never had a manicure before.
“That sounds really nice.”
Oma pulled out a chair for me. “Have a seat. I’ll get you a bowl.” She added a few drops of tea tree oil, the most deceptively named oil I’d ever heard of, since it didn’t actually come from camelia sinensis.
I soaked my hands while Laleh told us all about her day: the reading they did, and Bloom’s Taxonomy, and “doing algebras.”
I smiled at that.
I hoped algebras would be easier for Laleh than they were for me.
Oma took my right hand and started pushing my cuticles up.
“You’ve got to stop chewing on them,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“You get nervous. Like Stephen.”
I nodded.
“You like this?”
“Yeah. It’s nice.”
“When I was your age, guys could never do this.”
“Some guys still won’t.”
Grandma snorted and said, “The patriarchy at work.” And then she went back to painting Laleh’s middle finger a violent and excellent shade of pink.
When my nails were shaped, Oma said, “You want to paint yours like Laleh?”
“Not really,” I said.
But then I said, “Do you have a blue?”
Oma’s eyes lit up.
And Grandma said “Here,” and handed over a bottle of this really pretty turquoise.
“Have you ever painted your nails before?”
* * *
When they were dried, my nails were this perfect color. It made me think of Yazd. Of the turquoise minarets of the Jameh Mosque shining out in the sun.
Of sitting with Sohrab on the roof of this bathroom in the park where we used to play soccer/Iranian football.
Of drinking tea in companionable silence with Mamou and Babou.
Grandma insisted on doing the dishes, so Laleh and I sat in the living room and helped Oma with a puzzle.
“Hello?” Mom called from the kitchen.
I hadn’t even heard the garage door open.
“Oh. Hi.”
Mom was laden with Target bags. I set them on the counter and grabbed the rest from her trunk.
When everything was unloaded, I hugged Mom and let her kiss my forehead.
“Wait.”
She grabbed my hands and turned them over.
My ears burned.
“Do you like it?” I whispered. “Oma did it. We all did our nails this afternoon.”
“It’s nice,” she said.
But her voice was pinched when she said it, and there was this look in her eyes.