To be clear, I was not considering marriage, to Landon or anyone else. But cooking skills are an absolute requirement in prospective partners as far as Iranian parents are concerned.
“Landon found your advieh,” I said.
“It’s Mamou’s recipe. My mother,” she said to Landon. “She used to mix it up in a big mortar and pestle.”
“I miss Mamou,” Laleh said between slurps of noodle. “I wish we could go see her again.”
The table got kind of quiet.
I think we all wished that.
The thing is, we only went to Iran last spring because Babou—my grandfather—had a brain tumor. He was dying. And Mom wanted us to meet him before it was too late.
“I wish we could go again too,” Mom said at last.
She turned back to me and ran her finger along the edge of my fade, where it met the long curls up top.
“I can’t believe you finally got a haircut.”
THE GRAND NAGUS
I was finishing up my homework when Dad knocked on my open door frame.
“You got a minute?”
“Sure.”
He closed the door behind him and sat on my bed.
“So.” He rubbed his palms on his knees. “I know we’ve talked some about dating. And sex. And consent. But I figured we had better revisit.”
My face burned.
“Dad.”
“I know it’s awkward. But it’s important, Darius.”
I spun my desk chair around and hunched over with my elbows on my knees.
“But, I mean.” I swallowed. “Nothing’s changed since the last time we talked.”
That was over the summer, right after Landon and I had our first onion-tinged kiss.
We’d had talks before that too. Like when I was eight, and about to have a baby sister, and asked where babies came from. And again, after Sex Ed in middle school.
The worst was when I was thirteen and woke up with sticky sheets.
It was the most painfully awkward conversation in me and Dad’s catalogue of painfully awkward conversations, and before our trip to Iran that was pretty much all our conversations.
To be honest, even after Iran—after there were no more walls between us—talking about sex was still awkward.
Dad cleared his throat. “Landon didn’t have his hand under your pants when I walked in?”
“No,” I said.
And then I said, “I mean, he hadn’t gotten very far.”
And then I said, “And I don’t really know if I want to do that kind of stuff yet.”
