Together Tea Read Free Page B

years even, resenting the marriage.”
    â€œSo? What happened?”
    â€œWhat happened is I grew up. What happened is your father. He gave to me. Consistently and unselfishly worked to make me happy. One day I woke up and looked at him and my house and my swollen stomach and realized I was happy and didn’t even know it. I heard about a woman receiving a prize in mathematics and I laughed. I didn’t care. When my mother died, I couldn’t have survived it without your father. No professorship in math would have saved me then.”
    Darya absently picked up her hairbrush and twirled it in her hand.
    â€œBesides,” she continued. “Remember when you were eighteen and we went to the mall and I bought you that denim shirt? Remember how you didn’t want to get it? How you hated it then? Now, you wear it almost every day.”
    â€œMr. Dashti is not a shirt!”
    â€œHe wears nice shirts!”
    â€œDarya!!!”
    Mina felt a tiny tickle in her stomach. A quiver worked its way down to her toenails and her mouth burst open. She couldn’t stop laughing. The insanity of their conversation! Mr. Dashti wears nice shirts. Her father as a gift—Mina imagined a huge red bow tied around Baba’s bald head. She snorted like a pig as tears soaked her cheeks. She thought of the graphs, Mr. Jahanfard, Mr. Bidar, Mr. Dashti, the slopes of the lines Darya calculated. Her sides began to hurt.
    She thought of the gift, her poor dead grandmother’s gift.
    Mina couldn’t speak anymore. She was doubled over on the bed. Her cheeks hurt and her stomach was tight. Through her tears, she caught sight of her mother. Darya stood in her pink and white housedress, her pudgy feet pointing out, the Dashti folder in one hand, her hairbrush in another. Her roots showed, the fiery red dye was in need of a touch-up. When they left Iran, Darya had vowed to dye her hair red if she could ever reach a country where she didn’t have to wear a veil. On one of those first mornings in New York, Darya had disappeared into the hotel bathroom for thirty minutes. When she emerged from the bathroom with her hair in a towel, Baba had clapped loudly for her, whistling and cheering, urging Mina and her brothers to join in. Mina could see Baba now, the pride on his face as Darya shyly removed the towel from her wet hair, how he went to the bathroom and cleaned the walls that had been stained crimson, just as he had cleaned her grandmother’s body after it had been stained crimson from the bomb at the grocer’s those years ago.
    Silence replaced Mina’s laughter. Her body hiccuped slowly a few times as she got up. Darya was quiet, her eyes confused.
    â€œOh, Maman,” Mina said as she took the hairbrush from Darya’s hand and sat her down on the bed. “Do you think I should wear the lavender dress with a cardigan or just by itself when I meet Mr. Dashti?” She placed the hairbrush at the gray roots on Darya’s head, and slowly brushed her mother’s hair.

Chapter Two

    The Man in the Beige Suit
    T he following Sunday, Mina took the subway to her parents’ house because her car needed repair. She rang the doorbell as though she were a guest. Baba opened the door, freshly showered and dressed in his best three-piece suit. He had on his Metropolitan Museum of Art turtle tie. His Old Spice was overpowering. Darya ran to the door in the tailored bright skirt-suit that made her hazel eyes look green. Her hair was in a perfect bun, her lips glossy. She frowned at the sight of Mina’s jeans and white shirt with the lavender cardigan tied around her waist, but she didn’t say a word. Mina registered the scent of steaming basmati rice and fragrant ghormeh sabzi herb stew coming from the kitchen. Tea with Mr. Dashti had changed to lunch.
    At exactly 1:15 p.m., the doorbell rang again, and Darya dropped her ladle into the sink and rushed to the door. She took a few deep breaths and