Veil of Roses (19 page)

M
aryam brings me a pink cowboy hat, a pair of Tony Lama boots, and tight blue jeans with a boot-cut leg. She also brings me a fitted white blouse and a bolo tie and a belt with a turquoise buckle. Tonight I am finally going to the country-western bar, and she wants me to have fun. She also wants me to look cute, because the owner is Persian and, you never know, maybe he wants to get married before my
crazy
fiancé gets back. I know this because I overheard her talking to Ardishir.

“Well?” I come to the living room and spin around. I have done my hair in braids and tied pink ribbons around each end.

Maryam claps. “You look
adorable
.”

“You do,” Ardishir agrees with a laugh. He reaches for his wallet and pulls out fifty dollars. “Buy a round of drinks for your friends.”

“Thank you.”

“And don’t drink more than two drinks,” Maryam tells me for the third time.

“I won’t.”

“And don’t lose the camera. Americans steal, you know.”

I burst out laughing. Her generalizations sometimes are quite amusing.

Ardishir holds out his hand for my camera, and I pose for several photos.

“Take a photo of my boots,” I tell him. “Only my boots.”

He does. I take off my cowboy hat.

“And now a close-up of me and my braids.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he jokes. Then I put the hat on Maryam and throw my arm around her shoulder. “Take one of me and my sister.” As he is doing so, Edgard pulls up in a battered old station wagon and honks the horn.

“They’re here!”

Maryam frowns. “Can’t they come in? It would be good for us to meet your friends.”

“Let her go.” Ardishir hands the camera back to me and opens the door. “Have fun.”

“Thanks.” We have made our peace. I know he only wants the best for me.

The Rustler is big, loud, and packed. But Agata and Josef came early for happy hour and got a table for us right near the dance floor, so we have a place to sit. Eva leads me to the bar and she orders a pitcher of beer and I see right away who the Persian owner is. He looks like he is sixty years old and he wears a wedding ring and so I do not even bother to introduce myself.

Haroun it is.

This bar mesmerizes me. Music, alcohol, and couples dancing. Three big no-no’s where I come from, where having fun is against the law. People go around in a big circle on the dance floor. Promenading, Edgard informs me, pointing out the lanes on the dance floor that are only for couples. Other times, line dancers take over and all the people do the same dance moves at the same time. Men on the sidelines stand with their thumbs in their belt loops, and the women have the biggest hair I’ve ever seen.

Eva drinks a beer very quickly and then hitches on to the group of line dancers.

“Want me to teach you how?” Carrie offers. She is Edgard’s wife and we have just met and I like her very much because she treats Edgard with such respect, and she brought him back with her from Peru and gave him a chance at a new and better life.

“Come on.” Agata pulls me up and leads me to an open spot at the edge of the dance floor. She and Carrie teach me the grapevine and the hot turn monterey and the sailor left and sailor right and the kickball change. It is very fun, but by the time I learn the steps, the song is over. So we go and drink a little bit of our beer and practice some more, and by the time “Boot Scoot’n Boogie” comes on, I feel confident enough to let them drag me out with all the others.

All I can say is, thank goodness for the beer! I make many mistakes, but I don’t care. My cowboy hat has fallen off my head and hangs down my back, and my braids bounce with each step I take. But it is so fun! We continue into “Friends in Low Places” and then “Electric Slide” and by the end of “Electric Slide,” I am dipping low like Eva and pushing my chest out when I land on my heel.

And I am laughing, laughing, laughing with all my friends. This is the most fun I have had since arriving in America.

“Someone’s got his eyes on you,” Eva yells to me. With her arm around my shoulder, she continues to dip low and drags me down with her, so low I can see my own cleavage. I feel like a
badjen,
and I like the feeling. But when I look up to the edge of the dance floor, I stop dancing. I freeze, and Eva yanks me back up with her. But I can barely go through the motions of this electric slide.

For, standing at the edge of the dance floor, looking more handsome than I’ve ever seen him before—in his light-brown, well-worn leather cowboy boots, faded blue jeans with a hole in the knee, and a crisp white T-shirt—is Ike. I don’t need to take a picture with my camera. I know I will remember this image of him forever. Of Ike, standing there, watching me. Beautiful, wounded Ike.

“How did he know we would be here?” I yell at her over the sound of the music.

“I have no idea,” she says with that devilish grin of hers.

I duck out of the line and my friends continue the dance without me. I have to sidestep and pause and dash my way around the other dancers as I make my way to Ike. I stop a few feet in front of him. I will try for humor.

“Howdy, pardner.” I put my cowboy hat back on my head and latch my thumbs through my belt loops and pose like I have seen the men do. I give him my best smile. He remains serious.

“Howdy, Persian Girl.”

Tears fill my eyes.

“Are you very angry with me?”

“For how you blew me off?”

I look at him quizzically.

He asks again, without slang. “Am I mad that you stopped coming to see me?”

I nod.

“No.” After a pause, he adds, “I just miss you, is all.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” I tell him quietly.

He watches my friends dance for a moment. “You look good out there on the dance floor.”

I laugh. “No I don’t.”

“You look happy.”

“Do I?” I can hardly contain my surprise.

“Definitely.”

“Really?”

He looks at me quizzically. Our eyes lock, and his turn serious. “We’re wasting time, Tami. We should be spending every minute together.”

I look to the ground. He reaches for my hands and squeezes them. In response I step forward onto the toes of his cowboy boots.

“Hey!” He feigns offense, but I just give him an evil-Eva grin.

“I like you far too much to spend time with you, Ike.”

“That makes no sense at all,” he chortles.

I pull on him. “Come have a beer with me. Tonight is for fun. I don’t want to be sad.”

“Sometimes I don’t think Persian girls even know
how
to be happy,” Ike grumbles as I lead him to our table. I feel very daring, to be holding his hand like this in public. And I also feel desired. What a nice feeling this is, to be wanted. I am sure Ike is not going to pull out an antiseptic wipe and scour my germs out of his skin.

When we get to the table, I introduce him to Edgard and Josef and point out Carrie and Agata on the dance floor. Then I pour him a beer and hand it to him.

“Just how many Persian girls do you know,” I ask him, in a teasing voice, “to be able to judge that they do not know how to be happy?”

He gulps a few sips. “One,” he admits, chagrined.

“Meaning me?”

“Meaning you, Persian Girl.”

I pull down the brim of my hat so it sits low on my forehead. “I’m not a Persian girl,” I inform him. “I’m a cowgirl.”

The skin around Ike’s eyes crinkles when he bursts out laughing. As I watch him, a sudden recognition comes over me: Tonight, I can be anyone I want. Tonight, I am with Ike and my friends, and they enjoy me and maybe being happy only means living in the moment, appreciating the exact moment you’re in and not thinking about the worries of the future. And I think,
I can do this.
Tomorrow, once again, I can be the girl who settles. Tomorrow, I can be the girl with a fiancé who likes but doesn’t love her. Tomorrow, I can be the girl who might perhaps never have laugh lines of her own.

But tonight, I can be a cowgirl.

E
va, Agata, and Carrie make their way back to our table after a while to have a drink. When the music turns slow, the dance floor shifts from line dancing to something akin to a slow promenade around the perimeter of the huge dance floor. Couples hold each other and effortlessly move in rhythm, turning and stepping and gliding as if they were one. I stare openmouthed. They are so beautiful, these couples.

Ike stretches out his hand to me. “Dance with me,” he requests.

I shake my head. “I don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll dance with you,” Eva offers. But Ike ignores her.

“Come on,” he urges me, gesturing with his head in the direction of the dance floor. “I dare you, Cowgirl.”

Well, that just does it. Faking a confidence I definitely do not feel, I walk ahead of Ike to the dance floor. I hold my hands up like I have seen the couples do and wait for Ike’s direction. He takes my hands and keeps a proper two-foot distance between us. Still, my heart pounds.

“Okay, this is a waltz,” he tells me.

“A waltz,” I repeat, and nod to let him know I am ready.

“We step forward on the left,” he instructs, and steps to the side. I follow him. “Then step right beside the left.” This, I also do. But it soon becomes too complicated, all this stepping left in place and then stepping forward on the right and stepping left beside the right and backward on the left and then cross left over the right. I become flustered and fall several steps behind and Ike smiles gently at me and acts as if he doesn’t care, but every mistake I make only confirms that this world of slow dancing with a man is beyond me.

I stop trying halfway through the first waltz. I simply halt. Ike stops, too. I try to pull my hands back, but he keeps holding on.

“You’re doing great, Tami,” he assures me.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, my beautiful Ike with the laugh lines. “I just don’t know how to do this.”

“You’ll get the hang of it.”

But I know I will never get it right, and all of a sudden, it is about so much more than the dance. Tears spill over before I can even try to fight them back.

“Hey,” Ike says softly, and pulls me toward him. “Come here.”

I step into his hug and he wraps his arms around me and holds me close. “You fit right in,” he murmurs.

I smile into his shoulder. It is how I feel, too, like he is a part of me.
You’re not a Persian girl tonight.
I remember this and tighten my embrace. I take in Ike’s clean-soap smell, the smoothness of his freshly shaven cheek. And then, without thinking, I do something I would not have thought myself capable of doing.

I kiss his neck.

It is warm and so very soft and I feel him smile when I kiss it and he smells so good that I kiss his neck again in the exact same spot. And then I realize what I have done and step back.

“Sorry.” I smile sheepishly.

“No need to be sorry.” He leans forward and I shake my head to warn him that I lost myself for a moment but now I remember who I am and I cannot kiss him anymore. As we look at each other, happy and miserable at the same time, the overhead lights flicker on and off and on and off.

“What is this?” I ask, looking around me. The place looks not so special in the harshness of the light.

“Closing time.” He swallows hard. “Can I give you a ride home? Please?”

I take a deep breath and hold it for as long as I can before exhaling. Ike watches me, and I can tell he already knows my answer from how I am breathing. I don’t even have to say it.

I am back to being a Persian girl, and there is no way I can agree to what he has proposed.

M
aryam picks me up after class on Monday and drives me to see Haroun’s physician, Dr. Saeid Haji. I have never been to a male doctor before. I sit looking out the window, rubbing and twisting my hands.

“You’re in America. Don’t be scared,
Tami Joon,
” Maryam reassures me. “There’s nothing wrong with a male physician examining a female patient.”

“I know this, logically,” I tell her. “But it’s hard nonetheless, when you’re told your whole life by the government that it is wrong.”

Maryam reaches over and pats my knee. “I know. I still get nervous myself.”

Based on how Dr. Haji has decorated his office, I think he must see mostly Middle Eastern patients. There are photographs of geographical sights in the Middle East. There are health pamphlets written in Arabic and Farsi. And there is a stack of prayer rugs in a basket. This makes me swallow hard.
Great, he’s religious.
I should have worn
hejab
.

Maryam gives me one last smile of reassurance, but remains in the waiting room when a Middle Eastern nurse wearing a headscarf comes for me. She takes me to a small examining room and points me to a chair.

“Dr. Haji will be with you in just a moment.”

My voice sounds frightened when I speak. “Should I lie on the examining table? Should I change out of my clothes?”

“You’re here at the request of Haroun Mehdi, is this correct?”

I nod.

“You are to marry him?” She shows no expression, so I don’t know how to take this question.

I nod again.

“The doctor will be in shortly.”

I am so nervous that when Dr. Haji knocks gently on the door to the examining room, I cannot even tell him it is okay to enter. I am bent over, clutching my stomach, tensing all my muscles.

He enters on his own after a moment and looks concerned to see my posture. He is about my father’s age, bald with very pale skin.

“My dear, are you in pain?” He takes a seat on a rolling stool and slides close to me.

“Just nervous,” I whisper.

“Is this your first visit to a male doctor?”

I nod.

“You’re new to America?”

I nod again.

“Well, I think you’ll find this to be quite painless.” He pats my knee and smiles. I watch the skin around his eyes crinkle. Laugh lines. I take them as a good sign.

I breathe deeply and make myself sit tall. He nods encouragingly.

“So, you’re marrying Haroun Mehdi?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Haji pulls out a penlight from his breast pocket and peers into my ears. He shines the light in each of my eyes, and has me open my mouth so he can examine my throat. His hands are smooth and soft and kind as he presses against the glands in my neck. His gentle manner relaxes me, as do his questions about my parents and the neighborhood I am from in north Tehran. He is from north Tehran as well.

Dr. Haji scribbles a few notes in my file. With his eyes averted, he asks, “How well do you know Haroun?”

“I met him a couple of months ago.”

He looks up. “You are here on a tourist visa?” It is more a confirmation than a question.

I nod. He studies my eyes, and after a long moment nods back. I can tell he knows exactly what my purpose is in marrying Haroun.

He clicks his pen closed and puts it in his breast pocket. He crosses his arms and clears his throat.

“Haroun has been my patient for many years, so I know him well,” he says. “From a medical standpoint, anyway.”

“He speaks very highly of you,” I tell him.

At this, Dr. Haji’s mouth breaks into an involuntary smile. “I’m sure he does.”

I think back to my restaurant meal with Haroun, how the staff placed bets on his behavior. I can only imagine the crazy things Dr. Haji has heard from Haroun’s mouth over the years.

“I am restricted in what I can say to you, due to doctor-patient confidentiality laws,” he says.

“I understand.”

“But I have to wonder if you know what you’re getting into with him.”

My voice is shaky as I reply, “I know he is quite concerned about his health and germs in the environment.”

Another involuntary laugh from Dr. Haji. “Yes, this is true. You put it very kindly.”

He stops for a moment as if measuring his words, and when he speaks again, his voice is quiet, like he is breaking bad news to a family with a member in the hospital. “I want to tell you something about America, Tamila.”

“Please,” I encourage him. I can use all the advice I can get.

He keeps his eyes locked on mine as he speaks. “Divorce laws are very different here than in Iran. It is nothing, to get a divorce here. It is so easy and common, you can do it by mail. You don’t need to prove your husband is unfit, and you don’t have to go before a judge.”

My heart pounds as I listen to him. I look at him questioningly.
What do you know about Haroun that I don’t know?

Dr. Haji reads the question in my eyes and shakes his head. He cannot tell me. He leans closer.

“You can file papers without the other person even knowing. You don’t need your husband’s permission, is what I am telling you. Do you understand?”

I let his words sink in, and then I nod at him. I am sure my eyes are now very big and scared.

He again pats my knee like a father. “I will give Haroun a clean bill of health on you. And I will tell him that I want to see you every month for the next year for a quick checkup.” He grins at me. “He will like that.”

Now I am the one who laughs without intending to.

“And when you come in, we will have honest communications about your marriage.” Dr. Haji’s eyes turn stern. “I will ask you every time how you are doing. And I want you to tell me the truth. Do you agree to this?”

I nod and feel the tears forming.

“I will ask,
Are you okay? Are you safe? Are you ready to file some papers?
I will have papers right here in my office. Do you understand what I am saying?”

You are saying Haroun is mentally unstable. You are saying I must be careful. You are saying that maybe what I am doing is not so smart.

“Is he dangerous, Dr. Haji? Do you think he might hurt me?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But he’s never shared living space with anyone since developing his…his health concerns. I am not sure how it will affect him. It may be a huge stressor. I want to watch the situation closely.”

“Thank you.”

“And make sure he takes his medication.”

“All right.”

“Do you have family here in town?” he asks.

I tell him about my sister and Ardishir. He recognizes Ardishir’s name, has met him at various gatherings over the years. Dr. Haji is so pleasant, so nice, I am tempted to ask him if he has any sons just sitting around waiting to get married. But I am sure this is not the case. I am sure if he has sons, they are off living exciting lives of freedom, dating and marrying anyone they wish.

“Do you have any daughters?” I ask instead.

He beams. “I do. My youngest is a girl. She lives in Colorado.” He pulls out his wallet and shows me a picture of a ravishingly beautiful woman whom I’m sure has had a nose job, based on how perfect her profile is. She is posed with an American man and two beautiful children.

“She’s beautiful,” I tell him. “So are your grandchildren.”

He thanks me.

“Your daughter looks very happy.”

He gives me another smile, and again I am struck by his laugh lines.
I want laugh lines.
He pats me one last time on the knee before standing and walking me to the door.

“You’ll be happy, too, one day,” he says. “Life is very long, and you just have to get past the bumpy parts as quickly as you can.”

“Thank you so much,” I tell him. And it is all I can do not to throw my arms around him and hug him like I would if he were my own father.

“I’ll see you soon, Tami,” he says by way of good-bye.

“I’ll stay in touch,” I promise.

M
aryam and Ardishir are celebrating their wedding anniversary tonight with a dinner at Anthony’s in the Catalinas, so when we arrive home from seeing Dr. Haji, she heads to her side of the house to soak in a bath and make herself even more beautiful than usual for her husband.

My plan for the evening is to be as scruffy as possible. As soon as they leave, I will change into sweatpants and a T-shirt and flop on the couch to watch movies in the dark.

On the way home from the doctor, Maryam and I stopped at Casa Video, where I rented the movie documentary
Divorce Iranian Style
by Ziba Mir-Hosseini. It shows actual divorce cases in Iranian court and it is clear how badly women are considered in Iranian divorces. Maryam has already seen it, and she insisted I rent it, especially in light of Dr. Haji’s comments. I also rented
Bend It Like Beckham,
since Ike has mentioned this movie to me more than once.

I am in the kitchen making for myself a cheese sandwich on wheat bread with mustard and lettuce when the doorbell rings. I hurry to answer it and find a skinny man dwarfed by a gloriously fat bouquet of flowers.
From Ardishir for Maryam,
I think as I accept the flowers and thank the deliveryman, but then I notice it is my name and not Maryam’s on the card.

My heart pounds from the fear of getting caught by Maryam with this card in my hand, for I know Haroun well enough to know these are not from him. I would expect to receive flowers from him on special occasions, but not as everyday demonstrations of affection. He is too measured, too organized, to be spontaneous in such a manner.

I set the bouquet on the coffee table in the living room and hurry upstairs to my bedroom, thankful Maryam has not called out to see who was at the door. I close and lock my door and sit on my bed and stare at the handwriting on the envelope.
For Tamila Joon.

My breathing slows and my fear dissipates as I determine perhaps I was wrong about my soon-to-be fiancé. These flowers must be from Haroun. Ike does not know my full name, and he certainly doesn’t know the term of affection favored by my family.
Joon,
or loved one. Or does he? The moments we’ve shared are already blending into memory.

I slide open the envelope and pull out the card. My hands start shaking almost immediately. The flowers are indeed from Ike.

Please, Tami, don’t stay away. It’s too soon to say good-bye. I need to see your smile. If I don’t see you tomorrow after class, I will come to your house and pound on your door until you let me in. Love, Ike.

Love, Ike.

Love, Ike.

Love, Ike.

These are the words I read over and over. Somewhere along the way, I lose the comma between them.

Love Ike.

I hear the front door open. Ardishir is home.

“Where’s my beautiful bride?” I hear him call out.

“What lovely flowers!” I hear Maryam say.

The flowers. I sigh. Why can nothing be easy for me?

I force myself up from the bed, when all I really want to do is bury myself under the covers and hide. I tuck the card from Ike along the edge of the mirror. My
hejab
cloaks it from sight. I stick my tongue out at myself in the mirror before heading back to the living room.

I walk in and find Ardishir and Maryam kissing passionately in the foyer. Ardishir clasps his hands around the small of her back, under the depths of her long black curls. She is on her tiptoes kissing him back, with one hand resting on his buttocks and the other clutching a grocery-store bouquet of flowers. They press each other close, so close there is no space between them. I should leave, but I cannot move. The thought strikes me:
I will never have this sort of romance. I will marry Haroun and we will peck each other on the cheek as brother and sister.

I grab the remote control and turn on the television at full volume. They jerk back from each other and look to find the source of the interruption.

That would be me.

“You don’t mind, do you?” I ask with raised eyebrows.

Ardishir looks amused, as if he knows I am looking for a fight and he isn’t going to humor me.

He squeezes Maryam’s arm. “I’ll go get ready.”

Maryam smiles at him and pointedly ignores me.

“Nice flowers,” I say.

“Not as nice as yours.” Her bouquet is less than half the size of mine.

“But you’ve got the nicer marriage.”

Her eyes soften and she comes over to me. She reaches out to stroke my cheek. “I’m sorry,
Tami Joon.
I wish it were a better arrangement. We needed more time, didn’t we?”

I let my cheek rest in her soft hands. “You’ve never looked more beautiful, Maryam.”

She gives me a smile of thanks, but her eyes look sad, even on such a special night. In her sadness I see the sorrow of every Persian woman I know.

Why must we all be so sad in our hearts?

“You’re the best sister a girl could ever hope to have.” I kiss Maryam on both cheeks and reach for her anniversary flowers. “Here, let me put these in a vase for you.”

When Haroun calls later that night, I am watching the end of
Bend It Like Beckham,
at the part where Joe shows up at Jesminder’s door demanding to see her. His is the last voice I want to hear just then, so I let the machine get it.