I almost gulp. Like me. I try to read how she feels about it, and I’m sensing non-judgment. (I mean, why would she judge? But you never know; I’m still figuring her out.)
“In that case I won’t tell my mom. She has a gossip posse.”
Erebuni snickers. “Same with my mom, though she’d never admit it.”
“Same!” I almost scream in delight. I do my mom-clutching-her-pearls impression. “Me? I do not gossip. Other people gossip and I hear things.”
She laughs, then asks, “Who else do we have to size up?”
I reach back into my conversation with mom before I left tonight—she pulled up the spreadsheet again—and I try to visualize the rows. The engineer guy, no, he’s out. Raffi’s out. Arek’s out. The Sargavak is out. And now Sako. Damn, so who...? Oh yeah. “Only two more.”
At this event, anyway. There’s one final guy who’s only going to be at the banquet. I continue, “This entrepreneur guy, maybe Ara? Berjian? And then Kevork from Vartanian Jewelers?”
She looks like she’s holding her breath. I ask, “What, do you know them?”
“We’ve crossed paths a couple times. Why don’t we meet them, for your mom’s sake?”
“Sure,” I say. I’m almost warm enough to take the jacket off now, but I want to keep this part of Erebuni on me. It spurs meto say, “But let’s not spend too long on that. I’d rather get back to hanging out with you.”
She buries her smile in her glass.
•••
I follow Erebunilike she’s my compass. She suggests that we meet Ara first, and as we approach, I begin to recognize him from his photo. His head is shaved bald, and he’s slim but fit looking. He wears a pressed white oxford shirt unbuttoned one (or three) buttons too low, exposing dark chest hair, and cuffed sleeves with a monster of a watch adorning his wrist. He’s chatting with the brandy expert guy, who looks wildly uncomfortable. No,chattingis not the right word. Evangelizing. Ara’s raising both hands like he’s preaching the good word.
“And that’s why I’m saying there needs to be a bigger distributor to the US. This is liquid gold right here, and you only find it in specialty shops or the couple Persian and Arabic marts selling it to the same old customers who already know about it.”
Erebuni moves into his line of sight, and when Ara takes a breath, she interjects, “Hi, Ara.”
After a moment’s surprise, he glows with a smile. “Erebuuunes. Parev. How’s life treating you?”
He seems normal so far, a tad on the excitable side, but that’s not bad. The brandy expert literally backs away slowly. I’m taking notes in case I need a similar exit.
“We were headed to get one of Kiki’s valuable coupons and I thought I’d say hi.” The way she speaks is so even, like she’s sailing over a body of water without disturbing it at all. She turns toward me. “This is Nareh, by the way.”
He shakes my hand, a real bone grinder. “Nareh, pleasure’s mine.” Then he looks at me quizzically. “Hey, you look familiar. Where’ve I seen you?” I open my mouth to speak but he blurts, “No, don’t tell me, it’ll come to me.”
We wait there at his request, and I dare to glance at Erebuni and catch a little twitch of a smile.
He makes a guttural sound of annoyance. “Okay, I give up, where do I know you from?”
I’m not going to tell him howIknowhim, from seeing his face and stats on my mom’s spreadsheet. And to answer his question, I have no idea. Though. “We haven’t met, but I am on the news. I—”
“That’s it. I saw you reporting on the cooking class. That was bombastic.”
Did he meanbombtasticbut try to make it fancy? He throws back a sip of the brandy and makes a shortahsound. “Knew it’d come to me. Reporter, huh? That’s different. Sometimes feels like everyone you meet works in tech nowadays.” And he huffs so hard I feel it on my face. Brandy breath.
It’s true. I’ve been to parties with Trevor, and it’s tech, tech, tech, tech. Thank goodness for my work, where my interviews generally are with non-techies. “Yep, we’re the city of—”
He interjects, “What’s a reporter make these days, anyway? You San Francisco or some smaller town?”
All right, here we go. Now I see why Erebuni didn’t tell me anything. I feel like she wanted me to unwrap this egomaniacal present myself.
I ignore his question about my income and focus only on the second half of his question. “Redwood City.”
He looks away a second, disappointed. “Damn, that’s toobad. I have a tip for you about the head of SF’s planning department and how they’re deciding on the random”—he air-quotesrandom—“lottery system for condo conversions. Not so random, turns out.”
Really? That could be a story I could sell to Richard, if he’d ever let me tell it. Erebuni shifts next to me. I wonder if she sniffs BS or if she is starting to feel bad that she didn’t just give me background on him first and let me decide for myself whether or not I wanted to meet him.
