Eighteen Arya #2
Arya pulled into the driveway and shoved down his nerves. The house looked the same as it always did: olive-green exterior with brown trim, like an overripe avocado.
From the outside, there was no sign his father was home. The house looked like it always did. Yet Arya could feel his dad’s presence in the preternatural quiet, the buzz of stress that permeated the air.
What a fucking mess.
It wasn’t that Arya hated his dad. He loved his dad, despite his flaws.
He just… didn’t really like his dad all that much.
He wished his dad was more like Farzan’s.
Or Ramin’s, before he had passed away. Or, hell, even Carley’s, who was on his third marriage now, and quite possibly had a few narcissistic tendencies, but he was around and he was present and he’d always ended one relationship before starting up another.
Why did Arya’s dad have to be such a…
Arya didn’t even know what.
“Pedar sag,” he told himself. Your father is a dog.
As Arya sat in his Subaru, glaring at the garage door and wishing a meteorite would hit his car so he didn’t have to go inside, his sister’s Lexus pulled into the driveway next to him.
Arya loved his sister, he really did, but he missed her real nose, and if she suggested he go get hair transplants in Turkey one more time, he might seriously contemplate ripping out her extensions.
Farah Sadeghi—née Nazeri—was a beautiful woman in her fifties, but thanks to the wonders of modern science (not to mention money), you’d never know it.
Her hair was bleached blond, not a single gray showing at the roots; her cheeks were firm, her lips were full, her forehead was smooth, and she had the Michael Jackson nose that all the Iranian girls were getting back in the early 2000s.
She could’ve stepped off a plane from Tehrangeles, not her house out in Leawood.
“Hey, Farah,” Arya said, pulling her into a hug. She smelled of roses and sunshine.
“Hi,” she said, sinking into his embrace. She was a couple inches shorter, but her heels made up for it. “You ready for this?”
“No. You?”
She laughed. “Please tell me you brought some whiskey.”
Arya winced and held up his bottle tote. “Only wine. Sorry.”
Farah sighed. Her eyebrows didn’t move at all.
“Where’s Badi?”
She pursed her lips. “Badi was conveniently on call tonight.”
Farah’s husband, Badi, was an ER doctor at KU Medical Center.
While Arya was morally, financially, and metaphysically opposed to all things Jayhawk, he made an exception for KU Med, which was, in fact, a good hospital.
Damn them.
“I should’ve thought of that,” Arya muttered.
Not that MME ever required anyone to be on call—they were doing live events, not open heart surgery—but still, he could’ve chosen to be on-site at any of the four events they had tonight.
(Two galas, one concert, and one charity auction.) “Damn. And the boys?”
“The boys are good. They send their love.”
The boys were Farah’s sons, Oliver and Forrest. Farah and Badi had decided on white people names for their sons.
Sometimes Arya envied them a little. No one asked them where they were from (well, unless someone heard their last names) or if they had changed their names after Game of Thrones came out.
Arya was a Persian name with thousands of years of history behind it, stretching back to before Persian was even a language. It wasn’t invented by George R. R. Martin, despite what a few fanboys who lived on the internet might think.
“Tell them I said hi,” Arya said. “How’s Oliver doing?”
“Stressed. Like usual.”
Oliver was in his last year of med school. Forrest had already graduated and was working at KU Med, too, in oncology.
Three doctors in the family. Arya imagined Badi’s parents were proud. He knew his own parents were. What Iranian parent wouldn’t be thrilled to have a doctor in the family—and the Sadeghis had three!
Arya’s parents were proud of him, sure, but in their weaker moments, both had admitted to being surprised Arya had become so successful at his career.
Event management was hardly on the top twenty list of suitable jobs for children of Iranian immigrants—much less in the holy trinity of doctor, lawyer, engineer.
Shit. Now he was just stalling. But Farah was, too.
She was thirteen years older than him, which meant she’d seen less shit, sure—she’d had a few years where his parents still acted married—but she’d also been old enough to understand when things took a turn. When the fights started getting more intense and less frequently forgiven.
Arya pulled her in for another quick hug, then hoisted his wine bag a little higher. “Shall we get this over with?”
He offered Farah his free arm; she looped her hand through it and let him lead her up the steps to ring the doorbell.
“Farah-joon! Arya-joon!” Arya’s mom nearly yanked them inside.
Her hair was up, in a loose, messy bun, but otherwise she was just as impeccably dressed and styled as she had been at Nowruz, even though it was just a little family dinner.
Her eyebrows were finally growing back after the microblading, but now they arched a bit too much, like she was slightly angry.
“Hi, Maman,” Arya said, pulling her into a hug. “How are you?”
She filled him and Farah in on her last week or so in rapid-fire Farsi.
She talked around her date nights with Parviz, but it was easy to figure out when she’d seen him from the shape of the holes in her schedule.
Shohreh never denied having a lover (any more than their father denied having mistresses back in Iran), but she didn’t talk about him much, especially not with their father around.