“It’s perfect.” I glanced over at him.
Sohrab’s mom held up the camera. Sohrab threw his arm over my shoulder and smiled into his mom’s telescoping lens.
“Yek. Doh. Seh.”
I tried to smile, but I probably just looked surprised. Or constipated.
No one ever threw their arm over my shoulder the way Sohrab did. Like it was perfectly fine to do that sort of thing to another guy. Like that was a thing friends did to each other.
Sohrab had no walls inside.
I loved that about him.
Khanum Rezaei snapped a photo and checked it. She leaned her head way back and looked over the top of her glasses. “It’s good!”
“Thank you,” I said again. “So much.”
“Sohrab knew you would like it.” She squinted at me and slipped out into the hallway.
Sohrab was still leaning against me, patting my shoulder.
“This is the nicest gift anyone has ever given me.”
Sohrab squeezed my shoulder again and rubbed the back of my head.
“I’m glad you like it, Darioush.”
We ate at sunset.
Our family did not have to fast, but Mamou wanted to make sure Sohrab and his mom were not left out. Mahvash Rezaei—that’s what Mom called her, Mahvash-khanum—was so complimentary about everything, I thought Mamou was going to throw the rice server at her to get her to stop talking.
There weren’t enough tables and chairs for all the Bahramis (plus two Rezaeis) gathered, so we stood around, holding our plates and eating one-handed as best we could. Laleh ignored all the stews and rice and went straight for the bowl of cucumbers, which she ate whole, like candy bars.
“Darioush-jan,” Dayi Jamsheed said. “You don’t like khiar?”
“Um. Not really.” I didn’t understand the point and purpose of cucumbers. The taste wasn’t bad, but they had this weird slimy texture that I couldn’t get over.
“You are not very Persian,” he said. “Not like Laleh.”
I looked down at my Team Melli jersey, which I still had on over my button-up.
This was the most Persian I had ever been in my entire life, and it still wasn’t enough.
“You are more like your dad. He doesn’t like them either,” he said. And then he grabbed a cucumber for himself and wandered off.
Dad was in the kitchen, funneling dishes into the dishwasher as fast as they came.
I rinsed off my plate and then started helping with the rest, piled up in the sink.
“Good dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to help. I got it.”
“I don’t mind,” I said. “Mamou said how much you help with the dishes. She said you’re sweet.”
Dad almost blushed at that.
