“Noosh-e joon,” he said.
Laleh finally looked up. “Merci,” she whispered.
She bypassed her spoon and started licking her bastani straight out of its little paper bowl.
I reached out to shake Mr. Rezaei’s hand. “Khaylee mamnoon, Agha Rezaei.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, swallowing my hand with both of his. I noticed the backs of his hands were very hairy, like his chest. “Come back soon, Agha Darioush.”
Laleh’s tongue was turning yellow, and it had clearly gone numb from the cold, but that didn’t stop her from carrying on a full conversation with Sohrab in Farsi as we walked home.
I didn’t know why she had decided to make the switch, but it made me angry.
I didn’t have to bring her along for ice cream.
I didn’t have to include her. I didn’t have to spend time with her.
The singularity swirled inside me, a black hole threatening to pull me in.
First Laleh had takenStar Trek,and now she was threatening to take Sohrab too.
“How’s your ice cream?” I asked, to try and gain a foothold in the conversation.
“Good,” Laleh said. And then she turned back to Sohrab and started up in Farsi again.
Sohrab glanced at me and turned back to Laleh. “Laleh,” he said. “It’s not polite to do that. Darioush can’t understand you.”
I blinked.
No one had ever made people speak in English around me before.
Not even Mom.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“No,” Sohrab said. “It’s not polite.”
“Sorry, Darius,” Laleh said.
“It’s fine.”
I looked at Sohrab. He squinted at me with his spoon in his mouth.
“Thanks.”
“Darioush,” Sohrab said. “Can you stay out?”
“Oh. I think so.”
I deposited Laleh in the kitchen with Mamou, who tried to feed Sohrab more Nowruz leftovers—it seemed they were self-replicating, and we might never run out—before we left again.
I could tell, from the turns we took, that Sohrab was leading us back to the park near the Jameh Mosque.
It was becoming our spot.
“Darioush,” he said, once we had settled onto the roof of the bathroom. He crumpled up a newspaper that had somehow found its way onto the rooftop. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
