Chapter 16
“Nobody,” I repeat for the third time. “You’re telling me nobody is interested?”
Nadia is holding on to her patience, I can tell. I picture her in a canary-yellow suit at her giant old-world mahogany desk in the Verity offices, pinching the bridge of her nose as she deals with her distraught talent.
“It’s not that nobody is interested,” she says, impressively calm, “it’s that I don’t think it’s the right time to be booking you meetings.”
“You’re the freaking sun,” she coos. “It’s not about that, Ana. You don’t want the kind of interest you’d get right now, not given the first thing people will see if they look up your socials. It’s too fresh.”
I envision myself on the set of some frothy, gossipy reality TV show, all tarted up in low-cut necklines and tacky lashes. I look pretty hot, if I’m honest. But I get her point.
“I know you’re anxious,” Nadia says. “But trust me. Lay low for a few days, then we can put out feelers.”
Feelers doesn’t feel particularly encouraging. “Or maybe you can do a bit of in-person feeling—wait, that sounds—you know what I mean. When you’re in L.A. tomorrow? We can meet for lunch and discuss which of the producers you scouted on previous rounds seemed most promising.”
The line is silent. All I can hear is the airport announcement system above my head, the call for mispronounced passenger names to check in at gate B19.
“Did I lose you?” I ask, checking the screen of my phone.
“No,” she rushes to say. “Ana…I canceled my flight. I’m not coming to L.A.”
The muscles in my face, my shoulders, my whole body droop. She canceled her trip? She canceled her trip because there’s no point in coming out here, trying to sell something nobody wants.
“It’s all about timing,” she assures me. “We’ll regroup after the tour.”
“Right,” I say, my voice sounding faint, even to me.
Thankfully, Kissgate remains contained to socials, and comments have died down by the following day.
Still, after spending Friday morning carefully pretending nothing is amiss during my L.A.
media tour, and despite every interview serving dark roast coffee (silver linings), I’m so depleted by the afternoon that I beg Maral to go to Glendale without me.
I have zero appetite for the homemade pastries I’d normally be eager for my horkoor Sosi to force-feed me.
I just want to hole up in my hotel room until someone has to drag me to the airport.
But Mar insists that neither of us will be able to live down the intensity of her parents’ scorn if I am anywhere in their vicinity and don’t visit. As always, she is correct.
At least my horkoor and horyekhpayr seem to have no idea their niece has recently been defamed in the online world they are so staunchly unplugged from.
In fact, true to form, they seem completely oblivious to the fact that we’re in L.A.
for work at all, treating us to a delightful plethora of backhanded (and fronthanded) criticisms about the shortness of our visit.
“Vay, thank you for making time for us, janikner,” Sosi gripes as she gives us each a double-kiss in the entryway. Despite her passive-aggression, being gathered close in her maternal embrace, even if it’s somewhat infantilizing, feels so good in this moment.
She holds Mar at arm’s length to survey her. “You’re looking too thin,” she says in Armenian. “I’ll send you home with some basturma.”
“Mom, we’re traveling through the weekend,” Mar answers in Armenian. “I’m not taking basturma on the road with me.”
I suppress a laugh at the image of Maral carrying a bundle of cured meat among the delicates in her tiny carry-on.
“Soos,” Sosi shushes her. “You’re going home tomorrow”—like Mom, she refers to Boston as home, no matter that we haven’t lived there in years—“so you’ll take enough for Vartouhi too. She likes the one from Sevan’s shop.”
Maral turns to me, pleading wordlessly for backup, but I just nod. “It is her favorite.”
She doesn’t break her glare as she says to her mom, “I’m glad I can be your own personal FedEx.”
We remove our shoes and follow Sosi into the kitchen, from which mouthwatering scents of sour-creamy dough and spiced meats and herbs waft.
We could smell it from outside when we stepped out of our Uber.
The orange trees on the neighbors’ crunchy green lawns are no match for the aromatic food—though the aromas could be coming from any house in the all-Armenian neighborhood.
It smells like home in the best possible way.
Mar drapes an apron over her sundress to protect the silk from inevitable grease splatters.
Without being asked, she picks up the tongs from the red, blue, and orange–striped spoon rest beside the stove and starts turning the zhingalov hats sizzling on the stove.
The expectation to assume domestic duties the moment we cross our parents’ thresholds remains immovable, no matter how long it’s been since we lived with them.
Sosi never lets me help with the cooking, because let’s get real, but micromanages as I set out miniature cups and saucers for Armenian coffee.
Mar’s dad—my horyekhpayr, Hrag—sits at the table reading an actual honest-to-god newspaper. He greets us with a smile and double-kiss without ever getting out of his chair, while the three of us set the table around him like flittering birds.
After coffee, accompanied by numerous varieties of dried fruits and nuts, fresh pomegranate, nazook, and gata, Sosi serves a meal fit for a dozen guests. I wish I had the appetite to tuck in as I otherwise would, and my inadequate portion doesn’t escape her notice.
“You haven’t eaten anything!” Sosi cries, even though I’ve forced down a lahmejoun and some sjookh and zhingalov hats.
“Don’t worry, I’ll eat some of the basturma Maral transports across the country.” I wink at my cousin, trying for a levity I don’t feel. She is not amused.
The conversation, if you can call it that, is mostly Sosi telling us which of their friends’ kids have recently had or are expecting children, watching us for our reactions and casting pointed looks at an oblivious Hrag when we give her nothing.
Her “subtlety” wears off quick, and soon she’s moved on to full-on grumbles.
“Not that it would matter if I were so lucky to have grandchildren. They’d live across the country and I would only see them on the FaceLook!” she says. It’s unclear whether she’s butchering FaceTime or Facebook.
“Hamperoutioun,” Mar says, imploring her to have patience. “I’m only thirty-one.”
“How are you going to become a mother before your uterus dries out if you only date these unserious man-children? I told you I would set you up with Vachik’s son. He is almost finished at the seminary. He will have a good job while you raise the babies.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re really selling this imagined future.”
“He lives in Queens!” she cries, as if that’s an argument clincher.
“Any eligible bachelors here in L.A.?” I ask, and Mar glares at me. I’m not so wrapped up in my own drama that I’ve forgotten how she’s been sneaking her phone around this past week. She may already be seeing someone, but this is what she gets for keeping it secret from me.
“Plenty. But what’s the point when you live so far away?
” Sosi bemoans. Something about the way her brow gathers—the shape it gives her dark eyes—resembles my father so uncannily in that moment that the hair on my arms stands straight up.
He was her brother, so it stands to reason, but the effect is jarring.
Suddenly my throat feels full of something thick, solid. I try to swallow it down.
“We may not for very long,” I manage to say.
Disbelief and frustration intertwine like a caduceus on Maral’s face.
She hates when I jump the gun, impulsively spilling the beans before something is set in stone.
And, yeah, we’ve had a major setback in the plan to move here anytime soon.
But hell, if I can salvage anything right now, our parents’ happiness might as well be it.
The look of elation on Sosi’s face—a smile so bright and beautiful and familiar and beloved—goes down like cold lemonade in a heat wave, and is worth Mar’s temporary ire.
Because it is temporary. Mar will come around well before our move to L.A. is fail-safe—which it will be. I’ll make sure of it.
When I explain that I’m working on something that may bring us here permanently in the near future, their first question is whether I’ve gotten a job at a nearby hospital.
Sosi and Hrag speak over each other—“Adventist is excellent”; “Armen’s daughter works at Dignity Health, you’ll have friends there!
”—and I have to remind them that I’m not a practicing doctor.
They tsk and ask more questions, which I try to circumvent as much as I can.
Without going into detail, I tide them over with the promise of good news to come.
They cheer and hug us, and Hrag breaks out the Ararat brandy for a toast. Though premature, the celebration feels vitalizing.
A foreshadowing of what’s to come—happy, easy camaraderie with parents who no longer view us with disappointment, but with pride.
This is how it can be. This is how it will be.
Maral is silent and reserved, not willing to corroborate my insinuations. When Sosi turns the conversation to which of their local friends’ sons are still single, Mar twirls her wrap-it-up finger and I know it’s time to go.
In the Uber back to our downtown hotel, I nudge her. She doesn’t respond, staring resolutely out the car window at the lit-up billboards along the freeway.
“Don’t be mad,” I cajole. “Did you see how happy they were?”
She shakes her head, still not over it. “I don’t care about that,” she says.
I jiggle her knee. “They’re your parents.”
“So what?” she says, her voice clipped. “Should our lives revolve around pleasing our families?”
Whoa. She’s really pissed—I haven’t seen her like this in a long time. Mar is the chill one, eternally unflappable even in the face of crises.
“Where is this coming from?” I ask. “We’ve been planning to move here for the show all along. Why are you freaking out?”
She’s silent for a long beat, worrying her fingers. “Things have changed.” I wait for her to elaborate, but she doesn’t.
My sigh is weary. “I know, I fucked up. I’m sorry.” I bite the inside of my cheek, the smell of the leftovers Sosi packed in yogurt containers too strong in the small back seat. My stomach churns. “I’m going to figure something out,” I assure her. “We’ll still move here. Don’t worry.”
I reach for her hand, which remains tense in mine. She keeps her eyes trained out the car window, watching the freeway lights zip by in a blur.
I vow to fix this. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll put a smile back on Mar’s face. I’ll make sure she’s happy, and that our parents are happy. I’ll take care of them—I always do.