Darius the Great Deserves Better - Adib Khorram Page 0,60

Iranians. They’ll just mutter to each other.”

“Okay.”

Mom grabbed my arm.

She looked at me for a moment.

“Make sure Landon gets enough to eat. It was sweet of him to come.”

* * *

Once the line had died down, I helped Landon make a plate. It was his first true chelo kabob experience, so I showed him how to make the most of it: layering his plate with bread to soak up the juices, explaining the different philosophies for rice (butter or no butter, mixed with chopped-up grilled tomato or not), introducing him to sumac as a seasoning.

“I think you gave me too much,” Landon said when he beheld the heaping pile of rice and meat and vegetables I had squeezed onto his paper plate.

“That’s Persian tradition too.”

He snorted and smiled.

“Thank you for being here. Really.”

“Of course.” He set his plate down and brushed my hands with his. “I’m glad to do it.”

I made a plate for myself and then we sat next to Laleh, who was already shoveling up her rice with a serving spoon wider than her mouth.

After dinner, while everyone drank tea and ate zoolbia—essentially a syrup-soaked, starchy Persian funnel cake—Mom and Laleh and I told stories about Babou.

“The first time I met Babou he was on the roof of his house,” I said. “He wanted to water his fig trees.”

“He loved his fig trees!” Mom shouted. “I think he loved them more than he loved his children!”

That made everyone laugh, especially because there was a non-zero probability that it was true.

“He was all dressed up too, in dress pants and his nice shoes.”

Mom nodded and laughed, but her eyes were sparkling. I wasn’t sure if it was from laughing too hard, or because it was finally getting to her.

Maybe it was both.

“He kept shouting at Sohrab to help him. Sohrab’s his neighbor. My best friend. Anyway, Sohrab was trying to untangle the hose, and I was there watching the whole thing, and Babou was like, ‘I’ll be down in a minute, I don’t care you just flew across the globe to meet me, I need to finish watering my figs.’”

“You didn’t tell me that part!” Mom shouted.

After that, Laleh told everyone—through occasional hiccups and tears—about watching Iranian soap operas with Babou, who knew every character and every plot line going back twenty years.

There was a lull after that, and I refreshed Landon’s tea for him.

“Thanks,” he said. I squeezed his hand under the table, and he looked at me kind of funny.

“Hey Mom,” I said. “Have you told everyone about Babou and the aftabeh?”

Mom’s eyes got huge as the crowd around us tittered.

“Who told you about that?”

“Zandayi Simin.”

“I am going to kill Simin-khanum!” Mom said. She sighed, and then started talking in Farsi.

Behind me, Grandma asked, “What’s an aftabeh?”

“It’s kind of like a watering can. You use it sort of like a bidet.”

Oma snorted, and Grandma covered her mouth, but then I couldn’t say anything else over everyone cracking up.

MIKE PROGRESSIONS

Eventually the last guests trickled out. Landon helped Mom fold up the tables and stack the chairs while Laleh picked up paper cups and plates for the trash. In the kitchen, I helped Oma and Grandma manage the mountain of leftovers.

“You doing okay?” Grandma asked.

“I guess.”

I held open a gallon-sized ziplock bag for Oma to load with kabobs.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Oma said. “Something bothering you?”

“I never told Babou I was gay.”

Oma took the bag from me and zipped it closed. She looked at Grandma and then back to me.

“Do you think . . .” I started to say, but Oma cut me off.

“You know, I knew your parents had trans friends in college. But it was still hard coming out to them.”

“Why? Did they take it bad?”

Oma shook her head. “No. And they were so busy with you I don’t think they processed it all that much. You were just a baby.”

I nodded.

“I remember your mom, she kept asking what she was supposed to do with all her photos. From their wedding, from when you were born. But then she got used to it. She and Stephen both did. I think they adjusted quicker than Melanie.”

Grandma cleared her throat, and Oma shook her head and started shoveling rice into another plastic bag.

I had never heard my grandmothers talk about Oma’s coming out.

I wanted them to keep talking.

“What do you mean?”

Grandma gave me this long look. She glanced at Oma, who had emerged from the refrigerator with two bags of sabzi.

“Just that people can surprise you,” Oma said. She set