“Is that your last name?”
There’s a calmness about her response that makes me think she’s had to answer questions like this before. “Minassian’s my last name. Erebuni’s what my mom named me. Unusual, I know.”
I’ve used the exact same word,unusual, to describe my name a hundred times, like over the phone—“I’ll spell it for you, it’s an unusual name”—or when someone is leaning in close, trying so hard to parse the word that came out of my mouth. Erebuni has to do that not only for all the Americans, but for Armenians, too. It gives my heart a little squeeze for her.
“No, I love it. Sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.”
We’ve reached the doors, and she pauses.
“It’s the ancient name for Yerevan. When it was an Urartian fortress.”
Okay, that’s some level-ten niche academic Armenianknowledge right there. I wonder who her parents are—her mother, as she said.
My shoulders make a twitchy shrug as I try to make a joke but end up sounding more genuine than intended. “Can’t believe I already met the coolest person at the party.”
I’m regretting coming off like a clingy stalker, but she laughs, sweet with a little buzz to it, hummingbirds flitting by.
“Should we go in?” she asks. “You can sit with me and my friends if you like. There aren’t table assignments, it’s casual.”
I tell her I’d like that, and I follow her lead.
5
Speech is silver, silence is golden.
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—Armenian Proverb
Inside is anotherworld. It’s the large hall I’ve been in a dozen times—when there’s only one Armenian school in all of NorCal, you attend most of your Armenian social events there. I’m instantly barraged with Armenian music, Euro-nineties style and heavy on this Armenian instrument, a zurna, that sounds like a buzzing electric clarinet. It instantly brings to mind a visual of a pleasantly red-faced man named something like Davo trilling his thick fingers on the instrument.
A ribbon of dancers, linked by pinkies, hop-skip to the music, twining themselves around the dance floor, growing and shrinking as they come and go. There’s heat from sweat and lights and breathy laughs and conversation all around.
There’s a bar right by the doors, and they’re stocking all the usuals, your vodkas and tequilas and Johnnie Walker. A vague memory floats into my mind from when I was young: my dad and our family friends laughing and joking about “Johnnie walking.”I was too little to understand the joke, and time faded the rest. That whisky blend was always a staple at our social gatherings. I’m starting to think it was some kind of signaling, like my dad wanted to show he’d really made it in America if he always served Red Label.
Erebuni must catch me staring, because she asks, “Want a drink?”
Hell to the yes I do. I’m not dancing and meeting a bunch of strangers sober. I mean, I can, but I’d rather not.
I set my voice in a tone of mild surprise, like I hadn’t considered the notion before she brought it up. “I guess so, yeah.”
We step up, and the bartender’s one of those people I vaguely recognize, whose name I should know. I’m flooded with how terrifying it is to be flying solo at an Armenian gathering. I’m usually under my mom’s wing as she says everyone’s name first or reminds me who people are, like, “This is Hera, your pre-K teacher’s mom.” Now all I can do is shyly say hello to the bartender. Erebuni’s all over it, though. “Parev, Antranig.”
Fresh on her heels I say, “Antranig.” I ask how he is, and the three of us make the smallest of small talk before he asks me what I’d like to drink.
“One shot of Johnnie, please.”
I’m going to drink to my dad’s memory. I wonder what he’d think of me being here tonight. Mom would drag him (and let’s be real, me) to the New Year’s party here or the yearly fundraiser banquet. He’d go, be gregarious Boghos, the perfect husband, show off a little, and come home and complain about how exhausting it all is. How much he prefers the club. Less tashkhallah.
No, I can’t imagine he would approve of this. If he were alive, I’d be with Trevor, celebrating our engagement. And even if I hadbroken it off with Trevor, he’d be setting me up with one of his club buddies’ sons—a blond man of gigantic Swedish stock, a father in finance. I get a rotten feeling inside, dueling anger at myself and at him, then guilt for feeling this way about my departed father.
But there was a time when neither of us had to be persuaded or bribed to be in this hall. Diana and I were on this very stage twenty-three years ago for the Christmas pageant (“Hantes” in Armenian, which is important to add since Armenians are big on Hanteses). Dad moved into the aisle with his boulder of a video camera strapped to his shoulder, waving at me. The memory of him crouched down, positioned so he wouldn’t miss a single second, tugs at my heart. I wasn’t even the star—that was Diana, the Virgin Mary, cradling the Baby Jesus doll in her arms. I was assigned “fourth angel,” wrapped in green satin with a tinsel halo on my head. I was deeply jealous of her leading role at the time, but Dad made me feel like my part was just as crucial. Plus, now look who’s in the spotlight every afternoon on Channel 8. Kidding, kidding.
Erebuni gets a glass of pinot (classy) and we clink glasses. “Genatsut,” she says, and it sends a thrill up my spine. There’s something about a woman who looks like her—hip, I guess—who also has a fluent Armenian accent and whose first instinct is to speak in Armenian.
We drink, and I strain to not grimace as the alcohol burns its way down my throat. I threw the whole thing back like I was a freshman at a dorm party. It’s embarrassing, but I feel like Erebuni gets my whole “I’m alone and feeling self-conscious about it” thing, so I’m not trying to hide it from her. Mostly.
Once the whisky passes, I feel my own breath for a moment, light and quick, wondering how I am standing here next to thiskind and stalwart woman. She motions for me to follow her toward the tables, arranged around the dance floor with simple floral centerpieces and pomegranates.
