Farzan cleaned off his desk and tucked the spice grinder away as Maheen stepped in.
No one could look at Farzan and Maheen together and not see the resemblance. They had the exact same nose, though Farzan’s was a tiny bit larger, the same rich brown eyes, the same warm sepia skin, the same full eyebrows, though Maheen’s were a bit thinner from all the plucking she’d done when she was a teenager.
“Hey,” Farzan said, standing to pull his sister into a hug. She was a full head shorter than him, something she’d complained about when they were teens. She had dreamed of playing competitive volleyball, but no one in the Alavi family had ever surpassed six feet tall.
“Hey. It smells good in here.”
“Making advieh.”
“Mm.” Maheen eyed the jar hungrily. She was a decent enough cook, but not on Farzan’s level: partially from lack of interest and partially from lack of patience. Maheen would rather microwave something than wait for it to stew on the stove. “So how’s it going?”
Farzan swept his eyes across the office, and past the door, out into the kitchen, where everyone was quietly humming along, with Taylor Swift (Chase’s choice) as their prep music for the day. Once the restaurant actually opened, they’d switch to Iranian music. Googoosh was on heavy rotation at Shiraz Bistro.
“Going okay,” Farzan said, honestly. Thanks to David’s advice, the payroll had gone off without a hitch, and the kitchen was working smoothly, and he’d only freaked out a few times, never with any witnesses.
He’d even been able to take joy in the time spent at the grill, or over the stove, seasoning a khoresh until it was just right.
So yeah. Going okay.
“What’re you doing here?”
“I need an excuse to visit my favorite brother?”
Farzan snorted. That was patently false. Maheen and Navid were notorious for ganging up on him.
Maheen blushed. “Fine. I wanted to… I don’t know… see the place. It’s part of our family history, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you took it over. I wanted to, but me and Tomás just couldn’t.”
Farzan didn’t blame his sister. Maheen would rather cut off her arm than give up her work as an OB/GYN. It filled her soul, and Farzan was glad for it. Maheen loved helping people, and Farzan loved that about her.
“But the thought of this place being gone…” Maheen shook her head. “Well. I’m grateful. But not surprised. You always take care of everyone.”
“Nah…” Farzan scratched the back of his neck, where it was starting to heat up. He loved his little sister with all his heart, but the two of them didn’t do earnest very often.
“Oh, come on. Like I don’t remember what it was like growing up.”
With their mom and dad busy at the restaurant, Farzan had been the de facto babysitter most nights once he was old enough—that being twelve years old—to take care of ten-year-old Maheen and seven-year-old Navid.
“You’re always taking care of other people.”
Farzan just shrugged. Yeah, he did like taking care of people. That’s why he’d wanted to be a teacher. Watching his students grow, watching the little synapses firing behind their eyes as they made new connections, had filled his soul the way being a doctor filled Maheen’s.
Or at least it had, until one day he’d woken up and dreaded going into work. Had felt an ache deep inside, like someone had scraped him out and poked holes in his soul until everything in it had leaked out all over the parquet floors of his rent-controlled apartment.
And that’s why Farzan loved cooking so much, too. He lived for that look people got on their faces when they tasted something familiar,something that unlocked a memory. Like that scene inRatatouillewhere the guy literally flashed back to his childhood from one bite of vegetables.
But now, taking care of people didn’t just mean cooking. It meant taking care of the whole staff: managing schedules, and salaries, and benefits, and training. He did his best not to let that weigh on him every time he pondered an expense or signed a check.
“Besides,” Maheen said, studying the photos all around him. “It’s about time you finally found something stable to do. You can’t keep subbing forever.”
That stung. Maheen might’ve grown up in the United States, but she was a master of that Iranian classic: the backhanded compliment.
Maheen had known what career she wanted to pursue when she was sixteen years old. Had gotten straight A’s in high school and a partial scholarship to KU, and now she owned her own practice. Farzan had just bounced from job to job after burning out on teaching.
He sighed. It wasn’t Maheen’s fault he was such a fuckup, but given how grateful she claimed to be, maybe she could’ve laid off the passive-aggressive digs a bit.
