Raffi gripped the handle of the jezveh, remembering his medzmama’s words when he was twenty. “I’ll be leaving you soon, too, I feel it. So at least let me give you this gift. Always make sourj. Every morning. Always for guests.” He’d never known his mother’s mom, but he had known his father’s. Medzmama. A stern, hardworking, religious woman who was about zero parts nurturing but still meant a lot to him. He’d failed Medzmama by not serving Ani any sourj last time, but he was distracted after nearly losing her to drowning and then nearly kissing her on the couch.
He turned on the burner right as Ani strode in, wearing one of his plain white T-shirts. The outlines of her nipples were visible, and the bottom of the shirt barely skimmed her ass. Why did everything she wore have to look so sexy?
“I’ve got it,” she said, waving her phone, oblivious to how hot she was making him by just standing there.
Raffi curled her into him and rested his head on her shoulder as they watched.
Robert De Niro and Grace—Raffi still couldn’t believe he was seeing someone he knew chat with De Niro—were sitting in some kind of interview room, each on a plush chair across from each other. This seemed to be a clip from the longer interview. De Niro read from a card. “Your favorite food?”
Grace looked away thoughtfully. “I don’t love food.”
The camera cut to De Niro’s face. His eyebrows shot up, his mouth twisted slightly, the kind of expression that said, “Are you kidding me?”
“You don’t love food?” he finally repeated, his voice loaded with the kind of skepticism that could crush a man.
Not Grace, though. The camera cut back to her, where she appeared nonchalant, matter-of-fact. “Chewing is messy,” Grace said, wrinkling her nose. “I just wanna, like…swallow it.”
De Niro raised an eyebrow, intrigued now. “So we’re talking maybe smoothies?”
Grace smiled. “Mmm.”
De Niro asked, more animatedly, “Maybe oysters?”
Grace now pointed to him. “Mmmm!”
And that was the clip.
Ani set down her phone. “So Grace is a little bit of a weirdo and the internet goes wild?”
Raffi shrugged. “Guess so. Wait, look, scroll down, what’s that?”
Ani read, then tapped. “I guess there’s already a remix of it…”
They listened to an electronica version of the interview with Grace’s “I just wanna, like…swallow it” as the chorus.
“Catchy,” Raffi said, struggling not to laugh.
“I have a feeling this is just going to be contained to the internet,” Ani said. “But it’s still great her star is rising. Good for her.”
Raffi agreed, grabbed the jezveh off the stove before it bubbled over, then poured two small Armenian cups for them.
He handed Ani hers on a saucer. Ani sipped, closed her eyes, and let out a contented hum.
Raffi leaned in close to her. “Get used to that. Any time you’re over, it’s twenty-four seven bottomless sourj.”
Which he hoped would be very often.
She beamed at him, then ran her fingers along the edge of the carved copper cup holder. “I love this set.”
“Handmade in Armenia. Belonged to my medz.”
Ani turned the piece slightly, inspecting it like she was memorizing every detail. “It’s beautiful. It stands out here. All this modern design, then bam, we’re dropped into a nene’s house from the eighties.”
He let out a low chuckle. “I know. There’s barely anything Armenian in the house otherwise. Which…I don’t know. I think I did that on purpose.”
Ani looked up at him, curious but quiet.
“I love Armenian design,” he continued. “Warm tones, intricate, ancient patterns. But for a long time, ‘Armenian’ meant ‘family.’ And, well…you know how that’s gone for me.” He scratched his jaw, suddenly feeling a little exposed. “So I got the whitest, most impersonal place I could find.”
