Ani seemed distracted, like she was still a few seconds behind. She took a deep breath and turned on a smile. It was her business smile, though. “Yep, the soon-to-be Athanasious couple, I believe. That’s why this band is so special; the members are Greek Armenians, so they can do the American stuff and Armenian songs, too. Plus Greek ones, as we might see.”
A little bitter at having failed at kissing her, Raffi tried to shake it off and led Ani through the doors of the tent and into the world of the party. The music blared, playing animpressive cover of “Uptown Funk,” while guests chatted and laughed and hugged and danced. The tent glowed with hundreds of lights, creating a floating effect, and at the center of each table stood a massive flower arrangement. He realized they were surrounded by people who looked quite a bit like them, although somewhat different. Alternate versions of his parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends everywhere. He and Ani were more or less indistinguishable from the other party guests.
“If we get a drink, would that be unethical?” he asked Ani.
“The soon-to-be Athanasious apparently invited me to go ahead and have a glass on them. I think, in all this expense”—she gestured around—“it would be okay if we took two.”
He followed her to the bar, where she had a glass of champagne—so classy, of course she did—and he had an old-fashioned. They landed near some high-top tables where they could view the band, the guests, the whole spectacle, but not be in the way.
The engaged pair danced in the center of the floor, surrounded by friends and family, doing a call-and-response sing-along to “Call Me Maybe.” Everyone was pushed so tightly together, gyrating and smiling, as if a gale had swept them all together and they were tickled by the happy accident. He felt a tinge of loneliness then, but when he glanced down at Ani, at her long lashes studying the scene, the sadness receded. This was…interesting.
Once Raffi had stopped attending Armenian celebratory events with the sole purpose of finding a woman to sleep with, he found he was only crushingly lonely at them. So heleft behind the Armenian banquet scene all together, unless he was forced to attend a friend’s or cousin’s wedding.
What a different world this all would be with Ani by his side. He was seriously considering it, wasn’t he? Not just Ani as someone to get to know a little better, not as someone who was just a plus-one, someone he casually liked. But as someone to be with. Attending these events. Being in the center of the dance floor. Her in a long white dress. A jolt shot down his spine, but it was more thrill than fear. And that thought amped him up still more.
“The band has a great vibe,” Ani said, near shouting over the music.
“Agree,” Raffi said. “Dance floor’s packed, young and old. That’s how you know they’re good.”
Ani smirked. “You’re an expert in barahanteses, aren’t you?”
A reference to his attending many such dance-centered events, ones he was realizing he missed.
Raffi shrugged. “I’ve been to a fair few. Not lately, though. Haven’t been in the mood.”
“Really, why?”
How much could he tell her? “Felt hollow after a while. I’m not a big dancer anyway.”
No, he was. He used to be. But the truth died in his mouth.
Ani watched the dance floor, her fingers skimming the rim of her champagne glass. “Me neither. I got rejected in a really embarrassing way my sophomore year in high school and I just sort of stopped. God, that sounds stupid. You’d think I’d be over it.”
She said it like it was something small, but her voicedipped at the end. Raffi said, “It doesn’t sound stupid. What happened?”
Ani gave him a look. “You really want to know?”
He did. He honestly did. He’d stand here and listen to her tell the entire story of her past, from her very first memory until right now, if she offered it. “Yes, I really do,” he said.
Ani threw her head back and sighed. “Ugh. Well. I wasn’t unpopular in school but I wasn’t popular. But. Everyone knew I had a crush on this boy named Adrian, like a stupid, tell-everyone-about-it, write-his-name-in-your-notebook crush. I guess the hottest girl in school also liked him, and he rejected her. So at homecoming, I thought I looked cute, it was a sports theme and I had this tennis outfit on, really feeling myself—”
Raffi would like to see her in this outfit now, but part of his stomach was also in knots because he sensed danger looming for poor Ani. He almost didn’t know if he could take hearing it.
She continued, still casual, almost dismissive of her memory. “And all these girls started coming up to me telling me Adrian thought I looked super hot and wanted me to ask him to dance. That he was too shy or something. Which checked out because he was a boy of few words. They were like, all these girls I didn’t talk to that much, and they seemed excited for me. And then ‘You Belong with Me’ came on, and I loved that song, and it seemed like a sign because, you know, it’s about the shy girl with the popular guy—”
Raffi found he was holding his breath.
“So I went up to Adrian, who was standing with a group of his guy friends, and I was insanely nervous, near shaking. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around, along withthe five or six guys, and I asked him in this squeaky voice if he wanted to dance. Aaaand he stared at me for a second, assessing, this look in his eyes like he had no idea who I even was. So he sized me up and then just said, ‘Sorry, no,’ with a backdrop of his bros covering their mouths and going ‘Ohhh!!!’ and ‘Rejected!’ And I gave this fake smile and said, ‘That’s okay!’ all chipper like—”
Raffi’s heart squeezed hard, and he felt a little sick for fifteen-year-old Ani’s pain. It looked like real, living pain, too, by the look on her face. That son of a bitch Adrian didn’t know shit.
“And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I realized that the popular girl and her clique were all watching the rejection going down, and when I turned around, they were all pointing and laughing and giggling. I cried and called my parents to come pick me up early and—ugh. It’s so silly, though. It happened forever ago.”
His fingers flexed, and his jaw tightened. He knew high school was ruthless, that kids could be cruel, but hearing it now, knowing it had happened to her—it made something dark and protective stir inside him.
How dare anyone treat Ani that way? How dare they make her feel small?
Raffi shook his head. “Don’t minimize it. That is absolutely cruel. Give me this girl’s name, Adrian’s too. I have a couple revenge ideas. Tit for tat, nothing crazy. A little shaming, a little humiliation—”
