Together Tea

by Marjan Kamali

  “Mina,” Bita continued gently, “you should finish what you start. Don’t you know? You are there. You are free. Quit? Why on earth would you quit? Pick up your paintbrush and paint if you want. But please don’t waste the opportunities you’ve been given there.”

  “I just don’t want to waste any more time.”

  “I’ll tell you about waste, Mina Joon. I will become an old woman here. I won’t stop fighting in the tiny little ways that I can. I’ll do it for as long as it takes. I’ll die protesting on the streets one day if I have to. Who knows what it will take for this country to be free? Maybe you and I will live to see it, maybe we won’t. But, Mina, your life is there. And you should live it to the fullest.” Bita sat up then. “Who said it has to be either business or painting? Do both!”

  Bita got up then and walked over to the very edge of the roof. She leaned against the railing. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “Do it for me, then. Do it all. Be everything you can possibly be. Paint for me, Mina. Get your master’s. Do your work. I won’t lose touch with you this time, I promise. I’ll fight here. You live your life there.”

  Mina watched as Bita slid her hand along the railing of the roof.

  “Some nights I go up to our roof. I stand there and look up at the sky and I scream. I scream at the top of my lungs. I yell to God, to anyone, to the world out there. Please please hear us over here! I beg for the world to hear me.” She turned to Mina, and her eyes were filled with tears. “You think I don’t know how ridiculous my dual existence is? You think I’m not aware of the emptiness of those parties? If I had a smidgen of true freedom, I’d give up all those parties just to live. To walk down the street, to say what I want, to be myself. To be free.” Bita’s voice was quiet, but steady. “Sometimes I think God hears you better over there in the U.S. Don’t quit, Mina. Go back and paint and get your business degree and work and get married and have kids and live! Boro, keep going! We’re not the type to be suffocated. Right?”

  Mina walked up and joined Bita at the railing. They leaned out over the rooftop with the lights of Tehran shimmering around them. Mina knew she’d hear Bita’s screams all the way back in New York. She’d think of her friend, over here, standing on the rooftop, and screaming out for the world to hear.

  “Paint us if you don’t know what to paint,” Bita said. “Show them we exist.”

  IF SHE FELT TIRED, SHE forced herself to get up; if she was exhausted, she kept going. Some days when the alarm went off, Mina did not want to paint, but when she went to her computer and saw an e-mail from Bita, she was suddenly less tired. She stopped resenting her classes and started applying herself. She read and studied the assigned cases diligently. Professor Van Heusen called on her, and she actually knew what she was talking about. Day after day, her paintings took shape. She caught Bita’s dark, shining eyes. She drew the lights from a Tehran rooftop. She painted the cucumbers in Hussein Agha’s little shop and blue-domed buildings in Isfahan square. She smeared burgundy for the cushions at the teahouse. She drew a woman in purple, her face beaming. She painted pomegranates, and she even managed to capture Mamani’s face when she’d been young.

  She told Ramin on the phone that she’d started painting again, and he sounded genuinely happy for her. But it wasn’t the same. She could tell they were both working too hard to come up with things to say to each other. Mina began to see that she had been wrong all this time. The whole thing was nothing, and Mina had mistaken it for love. It saddened her to realize she had thought they had something when really all they had was a day in a park.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Spreadsheet Good-byes

  Sam leaned in after class. “I want to hear all about it. That trip of yours. You want to go to Starbucks?”

  Darya was silent. The two-week trip had taken a lot out of her. And put a lot back into her. Miranda Katilla had been puzzled at first to hear where she’d been. Slightly annoyed, it seemed, at all the Spreading Spreadsheet Specs work that Darya had missed. She’d given Darya piles of handouts to help her catch up.

  And seeing Sam again? Seeing him in that basement room, sitting on the tennis-balled chair? Yes, she still felt like a silly schoolgirl when he smiled. Even if she had just come back from a place that felt more like home than Queens ever would. Even if the clothes that had been in her suitcase still smelled of dried Persian limes and dust. Smelled of pain and loss and grief and pride.

  “I do not have time for coffee,” was all she could say. “I do not have time . . .”

  “I’d never waste your time with coffee.” He smiled sheepishly. “But I know you love your tea.”

  “I can’t.” She had to end this flirting. She had her Parviz.

  “You can. It’s really not that complicated.”

  Darya gave in because it was, after all, the last day of class, and she would never see this man again and she was fiftysomething and not a child or a teenager and there was nothing wrong with having tea/coffee/lemonade or even whiskey with your classmate from your Spreading Spreadsheet Specs adult education class. There wasn’t. Not one thing wrong at all.

  They went to the coffee shop that Sam knew, the good one, the one he’d wanted to take her to all along. It was crowded and warm inside, yet Darya wished that she’d brought a stole or a pashmina or a chador she could cover herself with so that no one she knew could see her sitting there with Sam.

  You couldn’t have two lives at once. You couldn’t be married to Parviz Rezayi, be mother of Hooman the doctor, Kayvon the lawyer, Mina the . . . Wait, what was she? Business school artist? Artist/student? Whatever. Mina would turn out to be whatever she wanted to be, this much Darya now knew. In any case, you couldn’t be all those things and flirt with Sam Collins and think about what might have been. You couldn’t reach over and touch his hair and pull him in and kiss him.

  That’s not how it worked.

  Sam returned with Darya’s tea. It came with a china cup and saucer and an iron Japanese kettle with real leaves inside.

  “Thank you,” Darya said.

  She poured the tea and watched the steam rise from the cup. She inhaled the vapors and tried to clear her head.

  “It was a great class,” he said.

  “It was,” she said. And now he would be gone. Gone from her life starting next week, no more sitting next to him in that basement, no more scooching her chair up to his, no more shared breaks under the starless city sky. None of that. Back to their own separate lives. Him with his young guitar students and her with her math camp, job at the bank, honeyed milk for Parviz, and her kids who were taller than she was.

  What is done cannot be undone, Darya thought. I have my life. She sipped her tea.

  “It was really nice to get to know you during these past six weeks,” Sam said. “I feel like . . . like I would have loved to get to know you better.”

  Darya choked on the hot tea, her eyes teared, her skin felt hot. A few other patrons turned to look at her. A large young man got up announcing, “Certified in the Heimlich!” and headed for her, but Darya waved her hand and smiled at everyone and sputtered, “I am fine, thank you. I am fine, thank you so much. It is nothing.”

  “Are you okay?” Sam had gotten up and was leaning over her. Bergamot, soap, Samishness. She inhaled it all. “Are you sure?”

  “It was nothing.” Darya looked up at him and smiled. “I’ll be okay.”

  They would sit here and she would have tea and he would have coffee and they would say good-bye. That’s how it worked. She would put an end to this flirtation once and for all. She could not do this to herself. Or to Parviz. Or to this kind Sam man in front of her. She had her Persian pride.

  Sam sat back down across from her. “Parviz, right? Your husband? We ran into each other. When you were away. At Starbucks. Anyway, he’s a great guy. We just chatted and he said . . .” Sam paused and smiled shyly. “His exact words to me were
, ‘Hey, Mister Sam, how’s your instrument?’ ”

  Darya made a mental note to kill Parviz when she got home.

  “I told him it’s in very good shape. We talked music for a while, and he told me he’s always loved the guitar. I said that I play here occasionally, at this coffee shop. They have local musicians’ night on Saturdays.” Sam paused. “So maybe you could come sometime? Both of you, of course. Performance times are posted on the bulletin board.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course,” Darya said.

  “I taught myself”—Sam looked down at his chord-strumming hands—“a Persian folk song. I think you’d like it.” He looked up at her shyly. “So drop in on Saturday night. Have a listen.”

  “I will . . . we will,” Darya said. She wanted to hold him. He had taught himself a Persian folk song. She was moved at his kindness. She had a favorite folk song that went well with guitar, and she used to sing it when she was young, back when anything seemed possible. She wanted Sam to have picked that song.

  They were quiet for a while. He leaned back in his seat and stared at her. Then he said, “Isn’t life just . . . something else?”

  “Something. Else,” Darya said. “Yes, it is.” Her eyes were filling with tears, and she felt dizzy and slightly nauseated from the tea. She was hot and sweating now. Kavita would’ve sounded the alarms of menopause. But she knew that wasn’t it.

  They sipped from their cups and looked out the window. “It was great to meet you,” he finally said.

  She pretended to fuss with the tea leaves in the kettle. He busied himself with the bill and his wallet. When they were ready to go, he got up and pulled out her chair. It scraped loudly on the floor. There were no tennis balls on this chair.

  “Good luck with everything,” she said.

  It’s just how it was.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Home

  On warmer days, Mina painted in Riverside Park. The open air and the sun and the sounds of the river were so welcome after all the cold days of winter. She staked out a spot on the grass by the river. She leaned against a huge oak tree there and did her work.

  She adjusted the canvas and tried to remember the People’s Park. She mixed the oil paints on a separate palette, trying to get just the right shade of green. It had been weeks since her final dismal conversation with Ramin. She needed to forget him, move on. What they had experienced on their trip did not remotely apply to their real-world lives. She struggled to push him out of her mind, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t forget the place. It helped to try and paint that scene, if nothing else to get the details of the sheer physical beauty of People’s Park. She’d worked for weeks at getting the tree on canvas.

  She had been painting for almost half an hour, lost in her work, when she heard rustling, and someone said, “You’ve managed to capture it perfectly. Amazing.”

  Mina’s hand froze. The voice from behind the tree had the deep timbre that had once warmed her, even as she stood in the cold against a rough tree. She whipped her head around but stopped herself from looking all the way around the tree. She just felt her heart pound and had to grip the paintbrush in order to keep it from falling to the ground.

  “I hope it’s okay that I came here.”

  “I never expected . . . how are you?” she said finally.

  “Oh, Mina. This shouldn’t have taken me so long. I finally just had to see you. To tell you in person.”

  “Tell me what?” she asked.

  “That—I am so sorry, Mina. I blew it on the phone, I know.”

  “There’s no need to apologize—” she began, but he interrupted.

  “Mina, please . . .” He came around the trunk then and stood in front of her. If a moment ago she had despaired over their stilted phone calls and his not coming sooner, she was now rooted to where she sat in the grass. Because one look at him standing there, his feet apart and the way he crossed his arms across his chest like a teenage boy, made her melt again. She did not want to come undone. Then she looked into his eyes and saw the sadness.

  “What’s wrong, Ramin?”

  “My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago.”

  His face was raw with pain. Mina knew the look of grief all too well, could recognize it in a person’s eyes. She felt again that sinking, sick-to-the-stomach feeling of loss. It was something that was accessible to her within a second, a taste that came back as if it had never left. “I am so sorry,” was all she could say.

  Mina looked up at the branches of the tree, at the leaves that looked like a canopy. She remembered the other tree they’d stood under, in that other world—the flame-colored leaves and the cold air on her cheek. The guards that stood by, waiting. “It’s good you got to see her, at least. It was worth all the risks.”

  “Let’s just . . . let’s sit, Mina.”

  He came to her side and slid down the trunk till he was sitting right by her. He smelled of mint and she wondered if she smelled like paint and turpentine. She tightened her ponytail in an attempt to look less scruffy. He leaned against the tree, his knees drawn up to his chest. He smiled at her. “You’re painting.”

  “What about my painting?”

  “No, you’re painting. I know you told me you were, but it’s different to actually see your work. You’re so talented. Quite frankly, I love that you are painting our tree.”

  She felt her face burn a little. “Yes, the tree.” She wanted to say “our” but couldn’t just yet. She sat straight up. “How did you even know to find me here?”

  “I called your parents’ house. I spoke to your dad, by the way. We had a nice chat about my brother and how he’s doing . . .”

  Mina cringed. “Oh no.”

  “No, it was fine,” Ramin said. “And then your dad gave the phone to your mom, who told me where you go every morning. Took me a while to find you, though. Lots of trees here.”

  Mina smiled. “My mom likes to know my routine. Even if it involves art.”

  “Oh, she sounded very proud of you.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes.”

  Mina looked out at the park in front of them. An older couple walked their dog. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and jasmine. Spring with all its renewal and new possibilities hung in every tree, from every leaf. She wanted to hug him. To tell him again that she was sorry about his grandmother and that it would get easier with time. She wanted to hold his hand again.

  “It is just so great to see you again,” he said quietly.

  The bark dug into her back and the sleeve of his shirt almost touched her arm. “It’s great to see you too,” she said. She pulled her knees in and cocked her head and looked at him. “I don’t like the phone,” she suddenly blurted out.

  He laughed. “I’m not a huge fan either.”

  “You never know if it’s a good time to call, if the other person is in the middle of something . . .”

  “If they really want to talk . . .”

  “If they’re busy . . .”

  “And we’re both so busy, right?” He looked at her sideways with a grin.

  They both laughed then. Mina leaned her head back against the tree and felt the rough bark through her hair.

  “Mina, I’ve missed you. Look, I know we saw each other, what, three times? On a trip halfway across the world. But I can’t stop thinking about any of it. I know it sounds strange, but every time I was with you in Tehran, it was just so comfortable . . .”

  “Comfortable? Like an old sofa?”

  “Yes. No. I mean comfortable in a really good way.” He bit his lip, a little flustered. “You know, Mina,” he said, his voice quiet. “People always say I’m so lucky because I can fit in anywhere. I’ve lived in such different places. In California, in Tehran, in Connecticut. But the truth is, to this day, I feel like an outsider in America. Then when I went to Iran, even though it
was great to be back, I was an outsider, a foreigner there now. Sometimes I think to belong everywhere is to really belong nowhere. Which is maybe why, so far”—he sighed—“I’ve been reluctant to put down real roots. But then I met you.” He looked at her, and his face was no longer sad.

  Mina stretched her legs over the bulky, bumpy roots of the tree. How long had she floated precariously on that hyphen that separated the place where she had her childhood and the place where she now lived? How long had she hovered, never feeling at home on either side of that hyphen? Now she remembered what Ramin had given her. What had made that day under the tree in the People’s Park feel so timeless, so otherworldly. With him, she finally belonged. “I know,” she said.

  “How about we start again? In person? Do you think maybe we could pick up where we left off at the park?”

  “We are in person . . . now.” Mina looked at him.

  He inched a little closer. His arm felt solid and strong next to hers.

  “I missed you too,” she said. She slowly rested her head on his shoulder. “It feels so . . .” She looked up at him and winked. “Comfortable.”

  He just smiled, looking relieved.

  They sat like that under the tree. After a few minutes, he found her hand and held it. It felt as if she’d come home.

  “Let’s try again,” he said.

  The leaves in the branches trembled in the breeze. Her canvas teetered on the easel. Oil paints lay strewn around their feet.

  “Let’s . . .” she started to say.

  But before she could finish her sentence, he drew her in and held her face in both his hands. Then he kissed her—a long, slow kiss in the park, under the tree, for all the world to see.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Local Talent at the Coffee Shop