Together Tea Read Free

“His mother was quite pretty.”
    Mina stared at the wallpaper. She realized she really hated wallpaper.
    â€œLook at this, Mina!” Darya pointed to another sheet of paper titled “Family Background and Health Issues.” “This took me hours to research. No history of disease in his family. Everybody healthy. One sister got divorced a few years ago, but I’m told it was for the best. You have to behave next Sunday at tea, Mina. You must. I talked to your father’s aunt and to her friend in Atlanta and everyone agrees: he’s the one!” Darya handed Mina the folder. “Spreadsheets don’t lie!”
    Mina plopped onto the bed. The sound of Kavita and Yung-Ja discussing integrals floated up from the dining room. Baba’s drilling had stopped. Darya loved to calculate the statistics of available Persian bachelors, factoring in their attributes, family histories, education, the probability for divorce. She had her very own system of assigning numbers to certain qualities. Five for good teeth. Minus 10 for having only a bachelor’s and no graduate degree. Plus 20 if it could be proved that they were kind to their mothers. Plus 7 if they didn’t hold their forks like shovels. Darya was so proud of her knowledge of Excel, fond of making graphs. Where was the mother Mina used to know in Iran? A magician had made that mother disappear over the years and replaced her with this chubby, red-haired meddling matchmaker. The mother she knew back then would never have done this. Find someone who knew someone who knew a well-educated man. Do the research. Make the calls. Send a photograph of Mina, if requested. And then, bound by some ridiculous obligation to their own meddling matchmakers, these men would board trains or planes or get in their cars and come to tea.
    â€œDarya, I don’t want to have tea with Mr. Dashti next Sunday. I don’t want to meet him. I don’t want to get married. You know that.”
    Darya opened her mouth to say something, but her lips froze in the shape of a perfect zero. Then she turned and talked to the bedspread.
    â€œMy daughter says she doesn’t want to get married. Interesting, no? What makes her say this? Youth. Youth and complete lack of knowledge!” Her hazel eyes shone when she turned to Mina. “Mina, I want you to meet Mr. Dashti. Do you know the percentage of divorce in this country? The probability of women over thirty getting married? Mr. Dashti’s spreadsheet is very hopeful. Forget Jahanfard. Forget Bidar. Forget all those oafs who came over and made you bored and who you conveniently avoided any eye contact with and spilled tea on. I’m forgiving that, forgetting it. Whoosh! Gone. Who cares? But this time, Mina! This time, I’ve computed statistics .”
    â€œYou don’t even know him!”
    â€œI’m your mother, Mina. I know you !”
    â€œDid it ever occur to you that I’m a lesbian?”
    â€œLesbian?!” Darya snorted. “Don’t think I don’t know about lesbians! We had lesbians in Iran. You know how we knew they were lesbians? From their lovers! You don’t even have a girlfriend, Mina! You’re no lesbian.”
    Mina sighed. She wasn’t a lesbian but she also didn’t want to marry someone just because his GPA had been graphed by her mom in Excel. She stared at the wall, at the paintings from India that Kavita had given Darya after visiting her soon-to-be sons-in-law there. Kavita raised her daughters in Queens, then received a phone call from her father in New Delhi and went over to meet her daughters’ suitors. The new husbands moved to New York to be with their Indian-American wives. Darya had told Mina they were sweet, charming men who listened well. She told her that these new husbands had adjusted remarkably well to the culture shock of moving to America.
    â€œDarya, I’m still trying to get through grad school. Why would I even