So nice, so easy not to have to explain this part. All my friends, and Trevor, could never believe how my mom would keep tabs on me. One acquaintance actually didn’t believe me when we were out in a big group once and I had thirty missed calls, and he was a real dick about it. So I showed him my phone, which finally quieted him.
I’m huddling around my phone because it’s cold in the room, and I’m wearing almost nothing, puzzling over what to say to my mom, when I feel that Erebuni has stood up. She’s getting dressed.
“Where do you live?” she calls, slipping her bra over her shoulder. Her breasts are small and stately, a nice contrast to mine. Huge ass, though. Perfect shape in my opinion.
“The city. I know, so far. At this hour I always make sure the driver has enough stars and enough ratings.”
She’s put on a worn black T-shirt. “You don’t need to do that. I’m driving you.”
I wave that off. “No, no way. That’s like an hour drive round-trip, and it’s so late, I couldn’t ask that.”
“You think after what just happened I’m going to make you take a cab home? Absolutely not. I am a gentleman.” I laugh. It is very cute seeing her joke. But that’s still a lot to ask of her. She continues, “I don’t mind. I like going for night drives, and seeing you home safely is important to me.”
I sigh. It is the best option. Home tonight, in time for—hopefully—eight hours of sleep, and mom none the wiser, as long as she doesn’t peer out the window. And more time spent with Erebuni.
“All right. Let’s treasure hunt for our clothes.”
•••
We’re in thecar, and she does have a point: There’s something calm about this late drive at the end of such a long day. We’re on Interstate 280, which is flanked by foggy hills. At this hour there’s just black vastness on either side of us, no city or suburban lights.
A new song starts. It’s classical and familiar and—oh, I know it. “Is this Aram Khachaturian?” I ask.
She nods. “It is. TheGayaneballet.”
Right, it’s starting to take form. A memory of Nene in her old home, playing Khachaturian over the speakers and handing me the CD case to inspect, memorize. I make a sound of recognition.
“I watched the performance in Armenia,” she says.
“The actual ballet?” It somehow never occurred to me that there is choreography, dancers, a set, attached to the music. And that if you popped over to Armenia, you could watch it.
“At their opera theater, a beautiful building in the middle of Yerevan. I need to go back; I feel the ache of it. There’s always a part of me being pulled toward Armenia. Have you had the chance to go?”
I haven’t. I tell her as much and leave it at that. My father never wanted to visit, claimed it was overrun with a Soviet mentality—lazy people looking for handouts. Our ancestors aren’t from that region, anyway, he’d say. We’re from historic Armenia, now southeastern Turkey. Now that Dad’s gone, you’d thinkwe’d be more likely to go. But the mental hurdle for Mom to get herself on a plane with Nene and me on a, what, twenty-hour trip counting the layover? There’s no way. Mom doesn’t think it’s her place to change things up, travel, even have fun, in her widow status. So I don’t see it happening unless something drastically changes.
Erebuni begins to tell me about her trips to Armenia, the views of Mount Ararat, the swallows swooping over the skyline, stopping for kookoorooz at roadside vendors, sipping espresso at midnight along Sayat-Nova where even children stay awake till one a.m. Everything she’s telling me is making me yearn to go. A thought emerges—I’ll go with her one day. But it is too perfect and precious an idea, so I shut it down. I listen to her voice, layered on top of theGayaneballet, the swell of the orchestra taking deep breaths in and out, complementing our own.
A little while later, well into Millbrae, Erebuni asks, “You said you’re into smells. What are some of your favorites?”
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question, but I am so eager to dive into my memories and think about it. It’s like she knows; she finds exactly what I’m interested in. “That’s a tough question. I mean, besides my new favorite one, which is your trampled rose garden, I love clean smells. Smells you’d describe asblue.”
She nods, keeping her eyes on the road. She drives very comfortably, lounging back, with her left hand perching gently on the wheel. “I love that. I bet... white incense and saffron tea. You may have noticed back at the house, I sometimes tinker around with scent making.”
So that’s what they were, those stray petals and beads oflavender strewn over her table. She meant it; there are plenty of arts she dips her fingers into.
I make a sound of assent. Then it’s quiet for a moment, and in the darkness, in my exhaustion, I’m plunged into another memory. I say, “There’s another one. It’s weird. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to somewhere as pedestrian as Disney World, the one in Florida?”
She says she hasn’t, but she has been to Disneyland in Southern California. I’m not surprised. My family went to both the OG one and the Florida one a handful of times, nice all-American vacations. I continue, “Well, at night, when it’s time to go home, after hours and hours on your feet being zipped around on rides, you’re in this cool and quiet air-conditioned monorail. Everything’s dark but some neon streaks in the cabin and the fading lights of the park.”
“I remember that.”
“You’re leaning against the wall and everything smells faintly wet, almost mildewy. Like, who knows the depth of all the rot behind the scenes? You can’t contain Florida’s humidity. But it doesn’t matter. I love that smell.”
She speaks, her voice a wave disappearing at the shoreline. “You associate that with a day’s worth of fun. Family.”
“I think so. Anyway, the smell of sweat on us now, and saltiness and stickiness, riding in the dark. This reminds me of that, but I guess the adult version.”
“That’s beautiful,” she says. She reaches over, squeezes my hand lightly, sending prickles all along my spine.
