in my life.
“Oh,” Mom said. “What’ve you got there?”
I held it up. “I like it.”
“You do?” There was this thing in her voice. “You sure it’s okay for homecoming?”
“Yeah.” It was bright, and colorful, but I knew it would be okay.
Mom grabbed the wrist to look at the price.
“You sure you want to spend this much?”
“Yeah.” It would eat up most of my final paycheck, but still. “I can wear it again.”
Mom held the sleeve up to the light and watched it shine. “Can you, though?”
“Why?” I asked. “Is it too gay?”
Mom blinked at me.
“No.” She blinked again and let the sleeve fall. “No.”
I wondered what Shirin Kellner considered “too gay.”
I wondered why I thought that.
It was an ugly thought.
“You’ll look very handsome in it,” she said. “Come on. Let’s try it on and see if you need it altered.”
* * *
“Hey,” Chip said as we walked to our bikes after practice Wednesday. “What’re you doing now?”
“Headed home.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Landon’s busy. Plus I quit my job.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You were right. I need to find something that makes me happy. Hopefully soon.”
“Oh. Cool.” Chip ran a hand through his hair. “You wanna come over and study, then? My mom’s making empanadas.”
“Oh. Thanks. But I can’t. I’m watching Laleh.”
Chip let his hand fall. “Oh.”
I felt kind of bad, letting him down.
Especially since he hadn’t even mentioned Trent.
“Want to come to mine instead?”
He grinned.
“Yeah.”
We biked to my house as the crisp fall sun finally peeked out from behind the heavy clouds. The wet streets shone, and Chip laughed as he rode through a puddle.
I don’t know why, but it made me laugh too.
Cyprian Cusumano looked really beautiful in the golden light.
I did my best not to notice.
* * *
Laleh already had the kettle on the stove when we got home. She scooped some tea into the teapot.
“Hey, Laleh,” I said. “You remember Chip?”
“Hey,” said Chip.
Laleh glanced at Chip and blushed.
“Hi,” she murmured. Then she turned back to the counter. “Want to help me smash some hel?”
Chip looked at me.
“Cardamom. For the tea.”
“Oh. Sure.”
Laleh’s blush was spreading from her cheeks to her ears. But she arranged five cardamom pods on a paper towel and folded it over. “It’s easier if you use the bottom of the pot.”
“What do I do?”
“Smash them until they pop open. But you can do it as much as you want.”
Chip grinned, and Laleh gave him a gap-toothed smile.
“Hey.” I knelt and looked at Laleh’s smile. “Did you finally lose that tooth?”
“Yeah. At lunch.” She stuck her tongue through the gap where her canine used to be.
On Laleh’s other side, Chip rolled the bottom of the teapot over the cardamom.
“You have to hit them hard,” Laleh said. “Here.”
Chip handed her the pot. She banged it five times against the counter, whack whack whack whack whack! I winced at the sound.
I usually just pinched them open myself. But Laleh loved smashing hel.
Chip looked at me, his eyes wide.
I chuckled. “Want me to pour the hot water?”
“Sure,” Laleh said.
* * *
When our tea was made, we all sat at the table with our homework spread in front of us.
“What’re you working on?” I asked Laleh, who was frowning at her half-finished drawing.
“We’re doing a space unit.”
“Oh. Cool.”
We never did a space unit in regular classes.
I might’ve actually done okay at that, with all the Star Trek I watched.
“I loved that,” Chip said. He leaned over the table to look at her paper. “Where you make your own constellations?”
Laleh nodded.
Sure enough, the paper was covered with connect-the-dots figures of Laleh’s devising.
“These look great,” I said.
“We have to come up with a story for them.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It has to be about our family.”
“What about our trip to Iran?”
“I don’t know,” Laleh said. “What if they make fun of me?”
“For what?” Chip asked.
“For being Iranian,” I said, but then I turned to Laleh. “I bet Miss Shah won’t let them. Didn’t you say some of your classmates were Fractional Kids too?”
“I guess.”
Chip said, “Would people really make fun of her?”
“I mean . . . people made fun of me.”
I didn’t say it out loud. That Chip and Trent had been the ones making fun of me, the way Micah and Emily and other Proto-Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy had been making fun of Laleh.
But I think Chip understood what I was saying anyway.
He got this serious look on his face and nodded.
And then he turned to Laleh and said, “Your brother’s right. You should talk about Iran. So your classmates will understand you.”