“Not sorry,” I whispered back. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, eyes bright for a moment. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s hectic, though. Fair warning. I’ll introduce you to everyone, come on.…”
Crap. People. Family. Why did we dothathere? I was so happy to see him, achy with it. But I was so nervous and unsure about being here today, which was basically like ringing a dinner bell for my word-pixie. Best thing I could do was try to say as little as possible and hope for the best. Did his mother know about us? I mean, I was pretty sure she had an inkling before, but that was… a million years and two lifetimes ago. This was now. Post–heart attack. It was different now.
I didn’t want Jasmine to hate me.
I definitely didn’t want to talk to Eddie.
Fen took me around the house and introduced me to every Sarafian and Kasabian alive on planet Earth. Three cousins. Serj’s half sister. Some great-aunts, and Aunt Pari, who I’d seen but never formally met.
I also briefly met Serj’s parents and spent some time with theKasabian grandparents, who used to manage Victory Vinyl but now lived in Southern California.
“We’re practically neighbors,” said Fen’s grandmother, Mina Kasabian, a woman almost as tall as Jasmine, only stouter and with short gray hair. “We’re almost in Burbank. There’s a bakery down the street from our house that makes pastry worth the drive on the 101.” She gave me an exhaustive description of what they carried. “You must come see us.”
Thiswas the “terror of Glendale”? Could’ve fooled me. “I heard you like Carole King,” I told her.
She gasped. “You heard right. Stereo is right there. Should we play the goddess?”
“Serj hates Carole King,” Jasmine informed her mother, collapsing on the couch with Ani. “And she’s too sad. Play something cheerful, in honor of Serj coming home tomorrow. Fen, my shining star? You are the DJ.”
“Tom Waits it is, then,” he deadpanned.
A spirited argument broke out, not too serious, most of it involving people who had no idea who Tom Waits was, some of them confusing him with Tom Jones. But after much fuss, when Ella Fitzgerald ended up on the stereo, no one complained.
Fen and I got separated, and I hung out with Ani and Ari for a bit. Then, maybe it was out of habit, or maybe I was unconsciously trying to avoid both Eddie and any anxiety-triggered aphasia issues, but I ended up in the kitchen helping Ms. Makruhi shuttle food out onto a buffet table. I filled drinks. Picked up garbage. Washed dishes. She was very efficient and a straight shooter, and we workedwell together, once I got used to the way she wanted things.
“You are a very bright girl,” she finally said after dusk fell, and I hadn’t seen Fen for an hour or more because a couple of his friends showed up. “Don’t do this.”
“Pardon?”
She gestured around the kitchen. “This. Washing dishes.”
“You wash dishes.”
“I am not young, and I didn’t have options. I was alone in a foreign country. The Sarafians took me in. But you don’t need to be taken in, so take care of yourself.”
“Okay…?”
“Fen tells me things,” she said.
I felt the heat wash over my cheeks and neck. My ears were on fire. The way she said this, I had no doubt that Fen had told her too much. That made me nervous. I wasn’t going to admit anything about Fen to her, so I just said, “My mother was a housekeeper before she died.”
“So?” She shrugged. “If she were alive, she would be telling you to go to college. I think of these kids like my own. Ani is smart like you. There is nothing wrong with washing dishes. I take pride in my work. But if you are smart, do something that fills you with pride. Be strong.”
“I’m strong.”
“You’re weak,” she argued. “Go to college. Why has your father not pushed you?”
I didn’t know how much she knew about my brain issues. “I’ve been ill.”
“Then go to a special school.” She shrugged again.
Good lord, she was frustrating. And outspoken. I didn’t want to sit there and explain my life’s story to this woman. And there weren’t special schools for people with aphasia. If anything, I’d been through so much speech therapy, I could probably teach other people by now. Why was this woman getting into my business?
“Fen needs to go to school too,” she said. “I’ve told Jasmine this. I didn’t have the same opportunities you have. If you were my children, I would shove you out the door. No more moping. Life is too short. Just do it.”
There was no arguing with her, and she was getting a little emotional. People forget about domestics. I imagined that she was upset about what had happened to Serj too—that she felt as if this family were her own family—but she was expected to keep working. So I just said, “I’ll consider it. Thank you for the advice.”
