Down and Across

by Arvin Ahmadi

  “Sound like terrific parents.”

  “Eh.” I shrugged. “I never really bought their ‘We worked hard so you wouldn’t have to wait tables’ excuse. They were overprotective.”

  Trent shook his head. “Man, shut up. It sounds like your parents wanted the best for you. Plain and simple.”

  The rag was getting too filthy to effectively clean anymore, so Trent went back to get another one. Except he didn’t give me the rag; he finished wiping down the bar himself.

  “Hey,” I said. “Why do you have to work anyway? I thought you said your dad did business with Fiora’s . . .” I assumed Trent came from a wealthy family.

  “My parents cut me off,” Trent said. He dug harder into the bar’s cherrywood surface.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Eh.” He shrugged. “Their loss.”

  “Why’d they cut you off?”

  “I’m gay,” Trent said. He said the words without wavering, as if he were just stating another fact, like the color of his eyes or what he had for dinner. From what I could tell, he was completely and proudly unashamed. “I came out to them after graduation last month. Haven’t spoken to ’em since.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I never would have guessed that Trent was gay, but to be fair, I didn’t know a lot of gay people back home. It wasn’t within my realm of possibilities. Of course I didn’t mind. Who was I to mind? Who was anyone? I was Iranian, and Jeanette was Christian, and Trent was gay. These were facts, and the world kept spinning.

  I leaned back against the sink, staring out the window into the dark night. Suddenly I felt a gust of homesickness. I pictured my bedroom window, overlooking the usual suburban yard fare: two-car garage, weedy lawn, our Leaning Mailbox of Pisa. I used to stare past the cul-de-sac, which connected to the rest of our quaint neighborhood, which connected to a small street that intersected our town’s main street. There was an ice-cream parlor at that intersection called Scoops, where I sometimes went with my mom.

  “What if I was gay?” I asked her once over a salted caramel cone. I was confident enough in my straightness as a twelve-year-old to test my mom by joking about it.

  “Astağ furullah.” Mom sighed. Don’t say such things.

  “No, really! What if?”

  I was always thinking too much, but it felt okay to overthink when I stared out my bedroom window, or other windows—like the ones in classrooms, buses, or bars.

  I poked my mom. “Would you still looooove me?”

  “Saaket bash,” she snapped. Stop talking.

  What if I only thought that way—through the literal medium of windows—because that was how society molded me to think? What if thousands of years ago, one man looked out a window and thought, so he wrote about his thoughts, and someone later thought to paint the thinking scene, and someone else thought to depict a dramatic window-gazing thinking scene in a movie, and it proliferated decades of movie scenes, sometimes serving as a pivotal plot moment, sometimes just filling time, and eventually this scene made its mark on me, and that was why I’d think the way I thought, or thunk. Fuck.

  “Maman,” I said softly.

  She shut her eyes painfully, holding her breath for two seconds before releasing the pain. “Yes,” she said, utterly exasperated. “Of course. Yes, I would still love you.”

  I snapped out of my daydream when I realized that Trent had finished wiping down the bar. He was standing by the front door.

  I walked up to him. “I don’t care that you’re gay.”

  Trent half smiled. “I don’t care, either,” he said. “And I don’t care if you care.”

  I stumbled home around midnight and fell into bed. My feet were sore, like I’d run the New York City Marathon and mixed drinks for all the spectators along the way. Equally dead was my phone. I plugged it into the wall charger and saw I had two missed texts:

  I had fun, too! Wish we were able to spend more time together outside the bar, but it was an enjoyable night nonetheless. Although my lips are kind of chapped now, ha!

  Jeanette. She was either making a kissing joke or a hangover joke, or her lips were actually chapped. I cringed at all these possibilities. The second text was from her, too:

  Want to do something today?

  It was time stamped 4:30—almost eight hours ago. In my defense, I was busy working when her text fluttered into my very dead phone. Working my shift at my job where I got paid in cash. I felt pretty legit.

  Instead of responding to Jeanette, I couldn’t help wondering why Fiora hadn’t texted me back yet. I dialed Fiora’s number—no pickup. Maybe my phone was broken, so I found a pay phone a few blocks from the hostel and dialed it there. She still wouldn’t pick up. I became suspicious of the fact that pay phones still existed in the twenty-first century. Shouldn’t they be extinct? Clearly, I was too tired to think straight, so I went back to the hostel.

  I assumed Fiora had likely spent the entire day with Benji, having brunch and picking flowers and such, so I decided to text Jeanette back:

  Hey, sry was working all day today. How about tomorrow?

  She replied almost immediately:

  Georgetown makes you work on Sunday? How un-Catholic of them.

  Oh, shit. I forgot that Jeanette thought I was interning for Professor Mallard, which was only partially true. I replied:

  Lol no I was working from home

  And she said:

  Of course. Sounds like you’re a hard worker ;) I get off work at 5:50 tomorrow. There is a 6:35 movie at the Georgetown AMC, which is approximately in between the two of us. Interested?

  I groaned, shoving my head into my pillow. Did I really want to see Jeanette again? Monday was going to be my first day doing research for Professor Mallard.

  Fiora may have had a Benji, but did I really need a Jeanette?

  That’s when I realized something: Jeanette was gritty. Not closed-minded like Trent had cautioned, but confident. The girl knew what she wanted: She wanted a summer of new experiences away from her Christian college. I could benefit from being around someone like that, with clearly defined goals. Also, I couldn’t deny that I was a little attracted to Jeanette in, like, a rebellious Catholic school girl way. So I replied:

  Sure :)

  WEEK TWO

  WHEN I ENTERED Professor Mallard’s office on Monday, I felt a crisp sensation of freshness, like I had stepped out of the shower and put on a brand-new T-shirt.

  I felt clean.

  DC had given me a fresh start. It threw me into a cold washing machine, where I tumbled around a ruthless cylinder of rejection, but now I could feel the positive effects. All that insecurity and doubt were purged from the fabric of my future. Sure, I had no passion, but that didn’t mean I had to settle on a career I didn’t care for. I needed more time. I needed to keep experiencing life through new paths like crossword construction, pickup dares, nightlife, drinking, even identity theft. (Carlos Zambrano’s five o’clock shadow was literally starting to grow on me.) None of those paths qualified as a future career, and yet they helped me feel closer to the life I wanted.

  Something inside me was convinced I had the potential to change. I’d figure out my passion one day, but for now, I was living. And that was important.

  I couldn’t tell you how my work with Professor Mallard would translate into my future, but I knew this: grit was just one small piece. I was solving a much larger puzzle than I had originally anticipated.

  Professor Mallard led me into the office next to hers. It was a cramped and messy space . . . nay, it was a disaster zone. I figured the last occupant must have gotten swept up by the micro-tornado that had clearly passed through. I took a seat in the swivel chair as Professor Mallard logged me in to the computer. She noted that while I wasn’t technically a paid research assistant, I should aim to research one new historical figure each day and summarize those f
indings in an email to her.

  Before I knew it, it was just me and a blank Microsoft Word document. I stared at the glaring white screen for a full minute before realizing that my first historical figure was obvious: the poet Ferdowsi. I already knew the gist of his story; I just had to fill in the gaps.

  I’d been surfing Wikipedia for an hour and was ready to dive into the twenty-seven tabs I had opened from the citation links, when I heard a harsh sob from the other side of the wall. My ears perked up. Professor Mallard?

  I knew it was wrong of me, but I pressed my ear against the wall. I was never very good at resisting curiosity.

  “God, Bridgette, you wouldn’t believe how difficult these last few months have been. One day I’m fine and the next day I’m falling apart . . .

  “Is he? Is he really in a better place? He was one of the happiest men I knew. He existed in a state of pure happiness. Now he—he doesn’t exist . . .

  “No . . . Yes, Bridgette, I would say that . . . Yes, that is what I mean . . .

  “He was my rock, you know, Bridge? . . . God, I’m such a mess. I’m always wired tight, one way or another. Tight as a bowstring, he always said. But he never accepted that as a permanent state. He made me more adventurous, spontaneous . . . I’m a fucking mess now.

  I ripped my ear away from the wall. I couldn’t believe it. Professor Cecily Mallard, the world’s leading adolescent psychologist, was having an emotional breakdown. And rightfully so. From what I could tell, her husband was dead. Gone.

  I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and refocused my eyes on the computer screen. Under my breath, I whispered a small prayer for Professor Mallard. One more breath, I thought to myself, and back to work.

  Dear Professor Mallard,

  Thank you again for letting me work on this project under your guidance. I want to emphasize that you are making a difference in my life.

  Today, I researched the renowned Persian poet Ferdowsi. His masterpiece, Shahnameh, is the national epic of Iran and took thirty years to write. He wrote tens of thousands of lines of poetry about kings and queens and the hardships they endured in the name of Iran. Ferdowsi was a brilliant, gritty man who created gritty characters for a country of gritty people. Technically his stories are myths, but when you’re caught up in fiction for that long, it becomes someone’s reality, right?

  My findings are attached.

  I have to admit, I was distracted by another important and gritty person today: you. I am not going to spend my time here researching you, of course, because that would feel creepy from five feet away, and I presume you already know everything about yourself. But I want to point out that you are one of the grittiest people I have ever met. You earned three degrees from Harvard and have dedicated your life to a noble field. I hope that in five hundred years, another runaway is writing his research-summary email about your poetry of grit.

  Sincerely,

  Scott Ferdowsi

  Jeanette and I met up after work to watch a movie. I got to the theater early, and she arrived exactly on time. It was a romantic comedy where the girl conspires to win over the hot guy’s attention, and the girl fails over and over until the very end, when the hot guy professes his love for her—but she picks her best friend instead.

  The entire time, Jeanette couldn’t keep her hands off me. She alternated between holding my hand tight and stroking my inner thigh, slowly and rhythmically. After the movie we went out for overpriced cupcakes. I paid for both of us, which took a hit on my wallet, but what was I going to say? “Can we split the check? I’m trying to budget better so I can make my runaway money last.” Then we went back to Jeanette’s place and made out tamely on her bed. Well, I kept it tame. I was thrown off guard by how far she wanted to go. Jeanette tried getting other body parts involved at least three times, but I respectfully declined.

  TUESDAY I WAS bogged down by a case of the Tuesdays.

  Texted with Jeanette in the morning. Told her I was researching Martin Luther that day. Won some major Christian Girl Points.

  Learned Martin Luther had dropped out of law school when he was twenty-one, against his parents’ wishes. His father hoped he would become a lawyer.

  Said hello to Professor Mallard. Asked how she was doing.

  “Excuse me?” Her eyes shot up.

  “I was wondering if everything was, um, all right in your life.”

  “As a matter of fact, Scott, I’ve been dealing with a major loss lately.”

  “Oh.” Pause. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” Smile. “It’s why I took you on for this project. After he died, I lost my focus. Your enthusiasm for my work . . . It revived me, unexpectedly.”

  Got shifty and changed subjects.

  Finished up my work a little early that afternoon. Found a bench at Georgetown; attempted to solve the Washington Post crossword puzzle. Kept getting stuck. Called Fiora each time I got stuck. No pickup again and again and again. Attempted to pick up where we left off on the puzzle we started constructing together. No luck there, either.

  Another date with Jeanette in the evening. Free show at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. Beautiful venue—adorned with the richest red curtains I’d ever seen—but subpar folk music performance. Bleh.

  Told Jeanette I had a headache, which was actually kind of true. Rushed back to the hostel. Called Fiora one more time. No pickup. Left a voice mail. “Hey . . .” My voice trailed off. “It’s Scott. Surprise me sometime.” Hung up. Thought about calling again, but maybe Fiora was sending me a message. I hoped she was okay.

  I hoped she was okay with me.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING, I heard my phone vibrating from my bed when I got out of the shower. I groaned—it had to be Jeanette, following up on my pretend headache. I took my time drying off and putting clothes on before I climbed up my bunk for my phone.

  Two missed calls: Fiora.

  I dialed back immediately. She picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” she croaked. Fiora sounded surprised that I had called her back. Almost frightened. There was something feeble about her voice.

  “Hey,” I replied quickly. I heard heavy breathing from the other end.

  “Hey,” she said, warming up.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Not really,” Fiora said. “I had an accident. I’m . . . at GW Hospital.”

  I jumped out of my bunk bed, grabbed my wallet and keys, and stormed out the door. “I’m on my way,” I said before hanging up. I didn’t miss a beat. I just missed Fiora.

  A stranger at the corner gave me directions to GW Hospital. I sprinted toward Washington Circle, which was on the other end of New Hampshire Ave.—a straight shot from Dupont Circle. Fiora always made me run in DC.

  A million possible scenarios played out in my mind. I wondered if Benji had abused her. He was being an asshole Saturday night, and I hadn’t heard from Fiora since then. It seemed unlikely, though, if she had just made it to the hospital. Did Fiora do drugs? Perhaps she’d overdosed. Or maybe it was a regular old accident, like a broken arm or fractured wrist. Maybe she was crosswording too hard. No, stop. How could I be so flippant about this emergency? Fiora was in a real-life hospital. I was lucky she was alive.

  Holy fuck, I finally thought. What could she have done?

  I stumbled through the hospital doors and slipped on the floor. A nurse came over to help me up, and I immediately told her I was there to see Fiora.

  “Let me check with the front desk,” the nurse said calmly.

  I followed her to the receptionist, emphasizing that I needed to see Fiora right away. They looked up Fiora’s file and said she was okay. I processed those words. “Okay.” So it wasn’t a freak accident. “Okay” was better than “She’s not okay” or “We think she’s going to make it.” They asked me to take a seat for a few minutes. Okay, I replied.

 
There wasn’t a single comfortable couch in the waiting area. I tried all of them. Every couch was too firm. I adjusted my butt, tried sitting crisscross, wedged my hands under my quads—nothing worked. I didn’t know whether to attribute it to the couches or nerves. Instead, I stood up and tapped my foot incessantly to unwind the tenseness. Maybe I was building it up. Or both. It was like a yo-yo: Wind, unwind. Wind, unwind.

  I wondered briefly if Dad was doing the same thing in Iran. Squirming in an unforgiving hospital chair. Waiting for news on Baba Bozorg’s health.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  Pretty soon they let me into Fiora’s hospital room.

  I never would have described Fiora as pristine and angelic. Fiora herself would scoff at those adjectives. Sure, she had cheeks like a cherub, but the second she opened her mouth it was all edge. In the hospital bed, though, lying there . . . she looked nothing but innocent. Any impulse I had to scream “What happened?” or “What the fuck?” or “Are you all right?!” vanished, and for a long moment, all we did was rest in each other’s silence. In each other’s confused, exhausted, what-are-we-doing-in-this-room eyes. It was my first time making eye contact with Fiora since she disappeared from Saint-Ex, and I had nothing to say.

  She spoke first.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Fiora muttered, her eyes dropping.

  “What?”

  “I know how you’re looking at me. Like it’s your fault I’m here.” She breathed heavily. Carefully. “It’s not.”

  I inhaled, then exhaled with my words: “I tried calling the past few days . . .”

  “I know.”

  “And if—”

  “I know.”

  I couldn’t reason with Fiora. That wasn’t what she needed right now, anyway. She was putting up a guard, and I could tell it wasn’t a stable one. Fiora needed me as a friend. She needed some of my momentary stability to rub off on her. So instead of asking questions—like why Fiora didn’t pick up my calls, or how she wound up at a hospital, or what inspired her to call me instead of someone she knew better—instead of saying anything, I sat gently by Fiora’s side and held her hand.