Great. Is your family here?
I nod, widen my eyes, and spread my hands, hoping to convey,Oh yes, all seventy of them.She smiles, then types again.
Am I... going to meet them? As your friend of course. Hope that’s not too forward to ask.
Oh God, yeah, we never talked about that part. I mentioned my family was coming but didn’t offer up “And you should totally meet them!” and I hate that it has to be like this. I feel like that shady guy I dated back in college who didn’t want me to tell anyone we were dating because we were in the same econ discussion section. With the benefit of hindsight and, like, growing up as a person, I realized he just didn’t like me that much. Even though she knows I’m not out, I can’t help but feel I’m doing the same thing to Erebuni.
I give her a thumbs-up and a smile that doesn’t hide my nervousness, because even if it weren’t for the whole closeted queer thing, I’d still be a little heart-poundy about a new partner meeting my family. That seems to thrill Erebuni, whose face lights up vividly at my response.
Throughout the next few speeches, we text and mime chat every time Erebuni walks off the stage after introducing eachspeaker, and before I know it, Erebuni has given her closing remarks. They kept the speeches to twenty minutes total, which is a relief because these heels are murdering the balls of my feet. Plus it keeps the whole banquet in more of a celebratory mood than the usual “You’ve unwittingly been held captive in an academic lecture–slash–timeshare presentation.”
As I’m detaching my phone from the tripod, Erebuni rushes from the stage toward me.
“That went perfectly,” I tell her, and she wraps me in a surprise hug. Her work for the night and for all of Explore Armenia is basically over, and she wants to share it with me. For the briefest moment I take in her perfume and revel in the tickle of her curls. The urgent press of her body lights me up, and I wish we could continue this hug (and then some). But I pull away, thinking that I don’t want Mom to see. And I feel like a real asshole for doing it.
“Such a relief,” she breathes. “How about you? You said the interview went well?”
I nod. “Fantastic, actually. Thank you so much for setting the stage. It feels like everything is going so perfectly.”
She touches my hand, drips her fingertips over mine for one shivering moment. “I know. I’ve got this giddiness coming over me. I feel like this bill has a real chance of passing. Or maybe it’s you being here, getting to share it with me.”
In any other moment I’d be taking full advantage of her mood, like hopping on that rainbow wave and riding it along with her. But I feel myself trying to dampen it instead. My posture, my energy, is saying,That’s great, but we need to be careful. I actually say, “Probably a combination of the two. What’re you going to do next? Climb Mount Ararat and plant an Armenian flag at the top?”
She smirks. “Not a bad idea. No, I’m thinking short-term. Need to eat some of that dinner I missed out on. Meet you afterward?”
We agree on that since I missed dinner, too. She heads to her table with the planning committee. The second she leaves I wish we were together again, especially since I have to sit back down and pretend to be into some guy. The only thing working in my favor is that he seems wholly uninterested in me.
As I head back to my table, I see that Nene has taken my seat and is waving her arms in discussion with Garen and his sister. I meander by and hear her voice, flinty, saying in Armenian, “You cannot believe thatEroicadid not transform the meaning of the wordsymphony.”
In her quiet fury she still carries herself like royalty. I slide into the empty seat by my mom, who has been watching this exchange and seems to be on the edge of her seat, like she’s wondering whether or not to get up and stop it.
“Those two have many opinions on music,” she whispers to me.
Nene’s untouched plate of food sits in front of me—saffron chicken kebab with rice. Normally I’d be all over it, but my hunger seems to have dropped off completely; there’s a trembling in my stomach. It’s not good. I never feel human when I’m not hungry. It’s a clear sign that something is off with me, and what will I do? Ignore it. “I can tell,” I say to my mom.
She watches them closely. “I don’t like the way he’s not polite to an old woman. The way he dismisses her ideas. It reminds me of when your dad was at his worst, when he had been drinking. I want to pull Nene away, but tell me what you think. She seems to be enjoying the argument, no?”
Yikes, that mention of Dad is still reverberating through me. Iknow exactly the Dad she means. When we’d come home after a party and he would complain about my mom not sticking up for his side of some argument with his buddies, or would tell her next time they needed to bring a nicer wine to the party, didn’t she know that? It was her job to know these things. I would run upstairs and pretend the conversation wasn’t happening. Or much worse, I’m ashamed to admit, when I was mad about my mom for something unrelated, I’d sit around during the argument and feel like she was getting her just deserts. You didn’t let me wear jeans to the party? Well, now someone’s yelling at you. I regret ever feeling that way, and sometimes the ugliness of my past feelings consumes me. And Dad’s not here; I’ll never get a chance to defend Mom against him.
As to my mom’s question, Nene doesn’t seem to be fazed by Garen’s mansplaining rudeness, and somehow she feels more alive now than usual. I say, “Let’s keep an eye out. You’re right, she has plenty to say and wants this schmuck to hear it.”
I glance at Mom and catch her eye. I whisper, “So we can definitively say that Garen is out of the picture?”
She sighs. “Such a shame. He’s world-renowned. You two could have been traveling from country to country.” Then she shifts back to being probing. “You know the emcee? What was her name?”
My entire body tightens like I’m in an iron maiden and if I make one wrong move I’ll be impaled. So she spotted us together. “Erebuni. I mentioned her before. Remember, she’s friends with Janette, Vache, and Arek?”
Oh, that was a good one. Redirection for the win.
My mom glances behind her to where the guys are sitting. Hervoice stays low, thankfully. “That Arek is a very cute one. I am so glad to finally meet him. Shnorkov dgha.”
That means “proper boy,” with all the implications that he works hard and respects his elders. Probably true, but I don’t have time to recalibrate her hope about Arek and me shacking up, because I spot Erebuni crossing the hall, and I feel like I should intercept her so she doesn’t feel like she needs to walk up here alone.
“Speaking of, I need to talk to Erebuni and, uh, Arek, about the segment,” I say, hoping she won’t ask questions about what exactly Arek has to do with the news.
In my haste, my ankle bends, and I nearly topple over, but I catch myself. God, I have to be more careful. I am starting to lose it. Weaving through the tables, Erebuni gives me a private smile.
Remember,I tell myself,she knows she’s being introduced as your friend.Still, as I approach her, my body feels like it’s been plugged into an outlet, nerves on fire.
