Chapter 4 Farshid
FARSHID
The vacuum you’re using is older than you.
It’s loud, and you have to push it hard, and one of the little lights on the front is burnt out.
You imagine it winking at all the dust bunnies in the threadbare carpet of the Bahá’í Center’s basement before devouring them like some scene from a horror movie.
Nour’s obsessed with horror movies. Every time you hang out she’s talking about some new one she’s seen, trying to get you to watch it with her (even though she’s already seen it twice), but that’s a mistake you don’t intend to make again.
One, it turns out you hate horror movies. You don’t like blood, and you don’t like gore, and you don’t like jump scares, and you don’t like music that makes you anxious, and you don’t like the nightmares after, even though you don’t admit to having them.
Two, even though Nour is quickly becoming an S-tier friend, she is a horrible person to watch a movie with, because she keeps a running commentary going whether you’ve seen the movie or not.
Which is, if not fine, at least tolerable when it’s just the two of you, because then her talking can distract you from being scared.
But if you try to watch a movie with anyone else, they’re usually less forgiving than you are.
There’s no movies—horror or otherwise—for you this weekend.
For the past ten years (maybe longer, you honestly can’t remember), your mom has been part of a group that helps clean the Bahá’í Center every Saturday, so they don’t have to spend money on a cleaning service that doesn’t always get the corners anyway.
And somehow, your mom being part of that group means you’ve been roped into it, too, you and your sister, Jina (and your brother, Nadeem, before he left for college), but you’re the youngest so you got stuck vacuuming the basement while Maman and Jina are upstairs helping dust the furniture or cleaning the windows with a big squeegee, and both jobs are way better than dealing with this monstrosity of a vacuum with electrical tape wrapped around the cord in three different places.
Maybe if you get electrocuted you can get out of cleaning for a few weeks. You don’t want to wind up in the hospital, but a little sympathy never hurt anyone.
The vacuum makes a weird crispy sound, and you turn it off to figure out if you just ran over something you shouldn’t have, but the ringing silence lets you hear your mom’s throaty voice calling you in Farsi.
“Farshid, are you almost done, maman?”
“Almost!” you yell back in English, but she comes down the stairs anyway, her pink tennis shoes squeaking softly against the hardwood stairs.
You have dim memories of her always wearing high heels everywhere when you first came here from Iran.
Or maybe they’re not your memories; maybe they’re Nadeem’s and Jina’s memories and you’ve just heard them often enough they feel like yours.
You were three years old when you moved, and you don’t remember much from that time, but you think you remember a few things.
Your first time playing in the snow, chasing your siblings around the tiny stretch of grass between the parking lot and the doors of your first apartment.
It was in North Kansas City, just off the highway, and Maman and Baba still point it out every time you drive into downtown, even though you can’t see the complex from the highway because of all the trees in the way.
You keep the vacuum off as Maman comes up and pinches at the shoulder seam of your Magic: The Gathering T-shirt.
“We need to get you more shirts,” she says. “You keep growing.”
You shrug. You’re taller than Nadeem now, even though he’s three years older than you, a fact that annoys him greatly, but at least he stopped picking fights with you. The moment he realized you’d gotten as big as him—that you could hit back as strong as he could—you both kind of just stopped.
You’re glad for that, at least.
“Are you doing okay?” Maman asks you, brown eyes crinkling with concern, though her forehead doesn’t wrinkle up.
She got her monthly Botox last week, so her forehead is always worry-free, no matter what’s going on in your life, or hers for that matter.
Including the email from your principal, which she called a family meeting over last night, to make sure you all still felt safe in your school.
But safety’s all relative, at least here in America, where strangers can come and shoot you in class. As opposed to back in Iran, where the police could come and kidnap you from class, and then kill you later in secret.
“I’m fine, Maman,” you remind her. “I’ve just got one more corner to do.”
“I meant with school,” she said. “You’re not getting bullied?”
She can’t know about what people are saying behind your back, can she? The principal didn’t go into details about the incident, and you’re not 100 percent certain your mom knows that word in English anyway.
“I’m good. Really.”
She purses her lips. Those, at least, are still natural, you’re pretty sure, because they have little lines in the corners that show when she smiles or frowns or sips her tea. They’re painted a dark red that pops against her sienna skin.
“You know you can talk to me anytime, right? About anything?”
“I know,” you lie, because you remember last year when Jina announced she had a boyfriend, and your mom removed Jina’s door from the frame. She put it back thirty minutes later, but still. Overprotective doesn’t begin to describe it.
“Okay.” She pulls your head down to kiss your forehead. “There’s lunch upstairs when you’re finished. Khanum Kermani brought dolmeh.”
You do love Khanum Kermani’s dolmeh, steamed grape leaves stuffed with meat and rice and golden raisins. You could probably eat an entire batch by yourself.
“I’ll be right up,” you promise.
Your mom retreats up the stairs, her shoes squeak-squeak-squeaking again, the wooden steps creak-creak-creaking, and you finally breathe, because no, you’re not going to talk to your mom about it.
Telling Maman what your classmates are saying in the halls—maybe even what they’re calling you, you can’t be sure—means telling her what it means, and telling her what it means would lead to questions you really don’t want to have to answer.
Not yet. In fact, not ever.