Darius the Great Deserves Better

by Adib Khorram

  “Take care. Bye.”

  * * *

  We won our game against Hillsboro West that afternoon, 3–0. It felt kind of harsh to shut them out so badly, but after our loss against the Willow Bluffs High School Trojans, it did a lot to boost morale.

  By the time I got home, everyone had already eaten. Mom had brought carryout from the Thai place near her office.

  “I got your favorite.” She held up a foam clamshell.

  “Sweet and sour?”

  “Extra beef.”

  “Thanks.”

  I scooped the stir fry—it had beef and bell peppers and onions and pineapple—onto a dome of rice and stuck it in the microwave.

  “How was your game?”

  “We won.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Yeah.”

  The microwave beeped, so I grabbed a pair of chopsticks and took my plate to the table.

  Mom went to the stove, where the kettle was steaming, with a smaller pot set on top Persian-style. “Tea?”

  “Yes please.”

  Mom poured two cups, using the special glasses she only served Persian tea in, and kissed the crown of my head before she sat down.

  “Mmmm.” The tea was perfectly scented with cardamom. And something else: “Cinnamon?”

  “I like how you do it.”

  I always put a pinch of cinnamon in my Persian tea.

  I never knew Mom liked that.

  “Thanks.”

  Mom sipped her tea and watched me wolf down my food. I normally had a snack before a game, but I was so nervous I hadn’t been able to get anything down other than some purple Gatorade.

  “We heard back from Laleh’s school.”

  “Really?”

  “She starts the gifted program on Wednesday.”

  “Wow. You already told her?”

  “Thought some fried rice might help her nerves.”

  My sister loved fried rice.

  “Oma said you asked Landon to homecoming?”

  I coughed.

  “Oh. Yeah. I meant to tell you.”

  “It’s fine,” Mom said, but there was this thing in her voice.

  Like maybe it wasn’t fine.

  “Do you need to go shopping? I can take you.”

  “I need a suit. Mine doesn’t fit anymore.”

  Mom chewed her lip.

  “Don’t worry. I can pay. And there’s this consignment shop Landon knows.”

  Mom sighed. She reached up and twisted a lock of my hair around her finger.

  “We can pay too. It’s your first dance. It’s a big deal.”

  “It’s not that big a deal, Mom.”

  “It is to me. And your dad.” She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “We’re going to help. All right?”

  “All right.”

  * * *

  Laleh was curled up on her bed, in a cocoon of pillows and stuffed animals, when I went to check on her.

  “Hey, Laleh. What’re you reading?”

  She held up a worn copy of The Phantom Tollbooth.

  “That’s one of my favorites.”

  “I borrowed it,” she said. “Is that okay?”

  “Of course. Can I sit?”

  She moved her knees over, and I sat on her bed.

  “Mom told me the news.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is this what you want?”

  Laleh looked down at her hands. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s okay.” I wrapped my arm around Laleh and kissed the top of her head. “Are your classmates any better? Or Miss Hawn?”

  “No,” Laleh grumbled.

  “I’m sorry. I wish I knew how to fix it.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay, though. I want you to know that. It’s not okay when your classmates do it to you. And it’s not okay when Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy do it to me. Just because they do it doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

  “What’s a Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy?”

  “Oh. That’s what I call bullies.”

  Laleh scrunched up her nose.

  “Sorry. But you know what makes it easier, when I get picked on?”

  “What?”

  “I know when I go to soccer practice, there’s no one like that. That I’m with people who care about me. And it makes it easier to go through the day, knowing at the end I get to go somewhere like that. Where I don’t have to worry.”

  Laleh looked down at her hands again.

  I closed them in mine. They fit so perfectly I wanted to cry.

  “Will you try it out? Just for a little while?”

  “Okay.”

  * * *

  “No, wait.” Chip pointed to my mistake. “i³ is -i.”

  “Crap.”

  I scratched out my mistake and started over.

  I had a test in Algebra II on Monday, and Chip had agreed to help me study, as long as we did it at his place so he could babysit Evie.

  She sat on his lap, absolutely entranced by the orange plastic bowl of Cheerios in front of her. Her tiny fingers grasped a few at a time, let some fall like drops of water, and then stuffed whatever remained into her mouth.

  Every once in a while, Chip would lean down and kiss her head.

  I worked through my equation again, but I kept glancing at Chip and his niece.

  Somewhere along the way, Cyprian Cusumano had changed from Trent Bolger’s sidekick, to a guy on my soccer team, to a real friend. A friend who looked cute sitting at the table with his little niece on his lap.

  I snapped my eyes back to my paper and kept working.

  “Wait,” I said, after a few more minutes of scribbling. “So this whole thing just adds up to zero?”

  Chip leaned over to look. His lips moved silently as he read over my work.

  “Yup. That’s—”

  But before he could finish, Evie smacked the rim of her bowl and sent Cheerios flying everywhere.

  “Evie! Sorry about that.” He set her on the floor, and she squealed and ran into the living room, her little legs pumping up and down like her quads were burned out from a superset of heavy back squats.

  “It’s okay.”

  I shook the Cheerios off my laptop onto my scratch paper and got on the floor to help Chip scoop up the ones that had fallen.

  “Thanks.” He glanced up at me and giggled.

  “What?”

  He reached into my hair and pulled out a Cheerio. I shivered as his fingers grazed my scalp.

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  Chip grinned that funny grin of his.

  He didn’t say anything, just looked at me.

  I swallowed.

  My whole body was warm, like I’d been dropped into a plasma conduit.

  “Um,” I said.

  And then I tried to stand, but I hit the top of my head on the table.

  “Ow.”

  Chip busted out laughing at that.

  “Sorry. Sorry. It’s not funny.”

  “Yeah. Well. If I get a brain injury, maybe I can get out of taking this test.”

  “Hey.” Chip furrowed his eyebrows. “You got this. Really.”

  From the living room, Evie let out a squeal of joy. Or maybe mischief.

  There was the sound of something plastic hitting the floor.

  Chip exhaled out the side of his mouth.

  “Gimme a second,” he said.

  Once he’d gotten Evie under control—which required bribing her with some watered-down apple juice in a sippy cup—he sat back down and leaned over to look at the rest of the practice problems.

  “You’re getting the hang of it. But here.”

  He showed me where I’d missed a step and then sat back a
s I worked.

  “Ah, wait. You’ve got to factor it first.” He scooted his chair closer to me, so our knees were touching. Evie took the opportunity to wiggle her way from his lap to mine.

  “Evie . . .” Chip began.

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  Evie rested her head against the crook of my elbow as she drank her juice and I fought with imaginary numbers.

  I didn’t really get the point and purpose of imaginary numbers.

  “Okay. Better.” Chip looked over everything and nodded. “I think you’ve got it.”

  I sighed. “Now I’ve got to do it on the test.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll do great.”

  “Maybe.”

  The thing about Chip was, he just got things. And he didn’t know what it was like to not get things.

  To try and try and still not succeed.

  Evie squirmed in my lap.

  “You want down?” I asked.

  She nodded. I held her as I scooted away from the table, then set her down. She tossed her juice onto the floor and ran off again.

  Chip shook his head and scooped the sippy cup off the floor. He looked at me and did this kind of half smile.

  I blinked and then looked down at my hands.

  “I guess I better get home.”

  “No rush.” He patted my knee. “Hey. What’re you doing for homecoming?”

  “I. Uh.” My cheeks started to warm. “I asked Landon to go with me.”

  “Cool.”

  “How about you?”

  “I think I missed my window.” He shrugged. “Should’ve spoken up sooner.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Yeah. Kind of sucks when you like someone but they don’t like you back.”

  “As a gay guy I definitely have no idea what that feels like. Definitely never crushed on any straight guys ever.”

  Chip snorted.

  “Trent doesn’t have a date either, so we’re just getting a big group together. Why don’t you and Landon join us?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I think we’re good.”

  Chip’s eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

  “What what?”

  “You made a face.”

  “No I didn’t.”

  “You did!”

  To be fair, the statistical likelihood of me making a face at the mention of Trent Bolger was definitely non-zero.

  “You’re doing it again!”

  “Doing what?”

  “That face!” Chip poked me in the little crease between my eyebrows.

  I leaned back.

  “Don’t.”

  “Sorry. But what is it?”

  I sighed.

  And then I said, “Why do you keep trying to get me to hang out with him? You know he hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you.”

  “Well, he’s never been nice. Why are you friends with a guy like that anyway?”

  As soon as I said it I wished I could take it back.

  You couldn’t just say things like that to someone. Try to control who someone was friends with.

  But then I said, “I get you have to deal with him because of Evie and stuff, but . . .”

  Chip shook his head. “It’s not like that. I mean, we’ve been friends ever since preschool. You remember?”

  “I remember you and Trent calling me Doofius.”

  Chip lowered his eyes.

  “Sorry.”

  “Whatever. We were kids. But now, you’re . . .”

  “What?”

  “You’re nice.” I swallowed. “I mean, the last couple months, you’ve been nice to me. Ever since I got back from Iran. And Trent is still . . . kind of mean.”

  “You just don’t know him very well. That’s all. It’s his sense of humor. He’s just teasing.”

  “It doesn’t feel like teasing,” I said. “It never has.”

  Chip blinked at me.

  I looked down at my hands again. My cuticles were looking rough, probably because I’d taken to chewing them every time I thought about the square root of negative one.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Chip said. His voice was quiet and small. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I did hurt you, didn’t I?”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  Chip let out a slow breath.

  “Well.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sat like that, in a Level Twelve Painful Silence.

  I’d made it weird between us.

  But then Evie ran back into the room with a pair of safety scissors she’d found somewhere.

  Chip sprang out of his seat. “Evie! That’s not a toy.” He chased after her.

  And the moment had passed.

  VERTICALLY GIFTED PEOPLE

  Wednesday morning I popped a pair of cherry Toaster Strudels into the toaster oven to surprise Laleh for her first day at the district’s Innovation Center.

  (We didn’t have a regular toaster at home, just the toaster oven. Persians tend to toast big pieces of flatbread, so regular toasters are insufficient.)

  Grandma was at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and doing her latest sudoku.

  “That’s what you’re having for breakfast?”

  “It’s for Laleh,” I said. “For her first day.”

  Grandma chuckled. “That’s hardly a treat. Here.”

  Before I knew what was happening, Grandma had grabbed the flour out of the pantry, a bowl from beneath the counter, and a couple eggs.

  “Pancakes are a real treat,” she said.

  The toaster oven dinged.

  I would have left the strudels in there—the sight of Melanie Kellner making pancakes had me transfixed, like a meteor shower—but when I started smelling burned pastry, I had to turn away and get the strudels out.

  We heard Laleh stomping down the stairs before she emerged into the kitchen, still in her pajamas.

  “Hey, Laleh,” I said.

  “Morning,” Grandma said. “There’s pancakes.”

  Laleh perked up at that. Grandma set her plate on the table, along with a bottle of maple syrup.

  I watched Laleh eat her pancakes, and Grandma work on her sudoku with a little smile on her face.

  What just happened?

  It was like, for a brief moment, the moon had shifted in its orbit, and this happy Melanie Kellner had eclipsed the Melanie Kellner I thought I knew.

  But then, just like an eclipse, it was over.

  I didn’t understand.

  I got my stuff together and kissed Laleh and Grandma goodbye.

  “Have a good day, Laleh.”

  She looked up from her plate and gave me a toothy smile.

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  I ran into Chip at the bike rack.

  “Hey,” he said, but he didn’t grin his usual grin.

  Things had been weird between us ever since Sunday.

  I wished I could take back what I said.

  Well. Not really. I was telling the truth.

  But I never realized the truth would be so dangerous.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Did Ms. Albertson post your grade yet?”

  “Last night.”

  I almost smiled.

  Almost.

  “I got a B!”

  That got a grin out of Chip.

  “That’s great.”

  “Thanks again. For helping me.”

  “Sure.” Chip kept grinning at me, but after a minute it slipped away.

  And then things were weird again.

  “See you at practice?”

  I swallowed.

  “Yeah.”

  * * *
>
  When I got home from practice, I felt like I had stepped onto a holodeck.

  The scene before me was too surreal for normal existence.

  Laleh, Grandma, and Oma were sitting around the kitchen table with bowls of warm water in front of them. A pile of towels lay between them with nail files and clippers on top, and next to that, a little basket of fingernail polish.

  “We’re doing manicures!” Laleh announced when I came in. She held her pruny hands up to show me.

  “That’s great.”

  I leaned down to kiss her head, then Grandma and Oma on the cheeks.

  “How was school?”

  “Good. Miss Shah is so cool. You know her family is from India?”

  “That’s great.”

  “She said my name right and everything.”

  My sister was practically effervescent.

  “Are you hungry?” Oma asked. “We can clear out.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  Laleh looked up at me. “Want to do manicures too?”

  “Um,” I said.

  Grandma and Oma looked at me.

  I looked down at my hands, and my shredded cuticles. I’d never had a manicure before.

  “That sounds really nice.”

  Oma pulled out a chair for me. “Have a seat. I’ll get you a bowl.” She added a few drops of tea tree oil, the most deceptively named oil I’d ever heard of, since it didn’t actually come from camelia sinensis.

  I soaked my hands while Laleh told us all about her day: the reading they did, and Bloom’s Taxonomy, and “doing algebras.”

  I smiled at that.

  I hoped algebras would be easier for Laleh than they were for me.

  Oma took my right hand and started pushing my cuticles up.

  “You’ve got to stop chewing on them,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  “You get nervous. Like Stephen.”

  I nodded.

  “You like this?”

  “Yeah. It’s nice.”

  “When I was your age, guys could never do this.”

  “Some guys still won’t.”

  Grandma snorted and said, “The patriarchy at work.” And then she went back to painting Laleh’s middle finger a violent and excellent shade of pink.

  When my nails were shaped, Oma said, “You want to paint yours like Laleh?”