The Authentics

by Abdi Nazemian

  “Maybe I will someday,” she said, though of course we all knew Sheila would never attend an event that included men in leather jockstraps.

  Above the crib was a mobile, pink-and-white fairies swinging away. “That was your mobile when you were a kid,” Lala said.

  “You kept it all these years?” I asked Sheila.

  “Well, Lala kept it,” Sheila said. “She’s far more sentimental than I am.”

  “I think it’s nice to pass things down from generation to generation,” Lala said. And then she pointed out all the things in the room that had once been mine, from ragged stuffed animals to crayon-marked board books to a tiny wooden chair. I barely had a memory of any of the objects, even though I must have spent years of my life playing with them. “This was your favorite,” Lala said, grabbing a stuffed dog and handing it to me.

  “It was?” I asked, searching its plastic eyes for some sign of recognition.

  “Oh, Woof went everywhere with you until you were four.”

  “Everywhere,” Sheila concurred. “That thing came to every doctor’s appointment, every trip to the park, every vacation. Woof was a part of the family.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Well, Woof, I’m sorry I’ve forgotten you. And thanks for being a friend to me in my early years.”

  “Come, Daria, help me get her milk ready,” Lala said. I followed Lala into the kitchen, where she picked up a box of formula, and handed it to me. “Use the scooper and mix some in the bottle with water.” I did as she instructed.

  “How is Roberto?” I asked. Lala’s son still lived in Mexico, and because she was undocumented, she never got to see him, which was so unfair. She talked about him all the time, though, and I had met him on Skype. Roberto was married, but his wife was having trouble having a baby, which broke Lala’s heart. She always said that when she had a grandchild, she would move back to Mexico for good.

  “He’s fine,” Lala said. “They’re moving to Mexico City. He says there’s more work there.”

  “Do you miss Mexico?” I asked.

  “Of course I do. But, luckily, I have a community here. When I go to my church, or to a friend’s daughter’s quinceañera, I feel like I’m in Mexico.”

  “I guess you’re right. It’s like how I feel like I’m in Iran when I go to the Emerald Tower.” She nodded, and then I said, “Sheila didn’t breastfeed me, did she?”

  “Your mother didn’t breastfeed either of her children, and many of her Persian friends didn’t either,” Lala said, eyeing me curiously.

  “Of course. I was just curious.”

  “How are you, Daria?”

  I could tell Lala knew something was up. She had some kind of sixth sense when it came to sniffing out any angst in me, which is maybe why I had avoided seeing her that week. “I’m fine,” I said, too strongly. “I miss you, though.”

  “I miss you more,” she said. “But now you can come see me and your niece together. And I’ll teach you everything about raising a child. Changing diapers and swaddling and soothing.”

  “You know I’m not gonna have a kid any time soon, right?”

  Lala laughed. “Yes, I know that. But trust me, the sooner you learn these things, the better. No matter how much or how early you prepare, you will never really be ready to be a parent. Parenting is life’s most beautiful and most difficult challenge.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE FIRST DAY BACK AT school was eventful, to say the least. The day started with me telling Kurt the story of the adoption, except I left out the part about Iglesias. I just didn’t want to risk hurting him.

  “My mom always says that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle,” Kurt said. “I hate when she says that, but I also think I believe it.”

  “I thought she wasn’t religious,” I said.

  “She’s spiritual,” he explained. “She believes in the universe, karma, reincarnation, and kundalini yoga. Anyway, my point is, you can handle this. And if you ever feel like you can’t, well, that’s what your friends are for, right?”

  I gave Kurt a big hug and whispered a thank-you in his ear.

  In English class, Mr. Farrell announced that every class would begin with one student presenting their genealogy assignment. This way, by the end of the month, we would know each other better, and appreciate the diversity of our peers. Mr. Farrell said he would pick a name out of a hat each day, and that person would present. He already had our names in a plastic cowboy hat—“my son’s Halloween costume,” he said—and he reached in and picked one. I silently prayed it wasn’t me. I hadn’t even thought about what I would present to the class when my time came. “Drumroll, please . . . ,” Mr. Farrell said. “The first person to tell us about their fascinating genealogy is none other than the talented, the brave, the one and only . . . ,” Mr. Farrell opened up the slip of paper and read the name. “Who’s ready for some Persian history?” he asked. Uh-oh, the field had been significantly narrowed, and I was still in contention. “Heidi Javadi, you’re it,” he said. The Nose Jobs all began to hoot and holler for Heidi, who stood up, annoyed to go first but lapping up the attention she was getting.

  “Of course it would be me,” she said. “I know you rigged this, Mr. Farrell. I bet every slip of paper says my name.” I didn’t know the textbook definition of narcissist, but I was pretty sure that Heidi was it. Heidi used the dry-erase board to spell her name in huge, pink block letters. “Okay, listen up, people, ’cause I don’t like to repeat myself. As most of you know, I’m Heidi Javadi, and I’m about to tell you the story of how I became me.” Heidi told us all about how her father was an oil tycoon. Then she went deeper into her background, and suddenly she went to her desk, pulled a crown out of her bag, and placed it on her head. I am not kidding. “So, friends, classmates, and subjects, it turns out I am not only the queen of the Persian Inversions.” Oh please, their name was the Nose Jobs. “That’s right, I am a direct descendant of Cyrus the Great, the original king of Persia. OG.”

  For the next ten minutes, Heidi went on and on about Cyrus the Great, and how her lineage could be traced back to him. She talked about how Cyrus founded the Persian Empire, and how he’d conquered nomadic tribes just like she’d conquered high school. Finally, Mr. Farrell cut her off and reminded her that the class still had to discuss other work. That’s when Heidi took her crown off and handed it to Mr. Farrell. “I’d like to donate this to the school,” she said, with not a trace of irony. Heidi handed her essay to Mr. Farrell and sat down.

  As expected, Heidi got a standing ovation from the Nose Jobs. It was an epic performance, maybe not worthy of an Oscar, but definitely a Persian People’s Choice Award.

  At lunch, as I carried my tray covered in that day’s mock-healthy food—organic mac and cheese, fruit yogurt, banana chips—Heidi stopped me dead in my tracks, carrying her own tray, with nothing but some cottage cheese on it. “Hey,” she said. “Why don’t we have lunch outside? It’s so nice out.”

  Heidi asking to have lunch with me was highly unusual, and I wondered if this was some kind of trap. “It’s LA,” I said as I debated whether engaging with her was a good idea. “It’s perpetually nice out, which makes it not so nice in the grand scheme of things, because there is no light without dark, no cold without hot, no—”

  “I got it,” Heidi said. “I guess you don’t want to lunch with a queen.” She gave me a crooked smile, and when I realized she was actually making fun of herself, I couldn’t help but consent.

  I gave a shrug to the Authentics, who were visibly perplexed that I was exiting the dining room with my former best friend.

  Heidi sat down underneath a big fig tree, and I joined her. Above our heads, a herd of giant squirrels chomped away on the figs. I was tempted to pull a piece of fruit from the tree, but was stopped by the squirrel poop that probably coated the figs. “So,” Heidi said. “How’s your man? He was cute, BTW. Well done.”

  “Thanks. He’s fine,” I said, wondering what she really wanted.

 
“Don’t sound too excited,” she said. “Look, make him take you out on nice dates before you put out, okay? Like make him take you to the pier, and ride the Ferris wheel, and stuff like that.”

  “Um, okay,” I said, shaking my head. The idea of me “putting out” was so absurd that I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Hey, did your parents tell you that using a tampon means you’re not a virgin?” she asked.

  “What?” I almost spit my mac and cheese back out onto my tray. “No!”

  “Okay, just making sure,” Heidi said. “Because that’s what Laleh’s mom said to her, but they’re super-Muslim.”

  “We’re not Muslim,” I said. “We’re agnostic.”

  “When a Persian says they’re agnostic, it just means they’re Muslim and ashamed of it.”

  “I’m not ashamed of anything,” I said, my tone a little heated.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Okay, thanks for the superstrange girl talk,” I said. “Are we done now?”

  “Your first time should be special,” she said, in a wistful way that suddenly made me wonder if she’d had sex. She stared at the sky for a beat and then whipped her highlighted hair back toward me in her inimitably dramatic fashion. “Wait, you are a virgin, right?”

  “Um, yeah,” I said, shocked that it needed to be asked. “Aren’t you?”

  “You think just ’cause I’m hot, I’m a ho?” she asked with a smirk. I was totally spooked by Heidi just then. She was being a new person, who was real and didn’t take herself so seriously. “Daria, I’m a good Persian girl. I’m not gonna have sex until, like, the last year of college. After waiting years for Mr. Right, I’ll be drunk at some grad party and be like, ‘I am not leaving college a virgin,’ and then I’ll have meaningless sex with some gross frat guy, and a few weeks later I’ll meet Mr. Right.”

  “Wow, that’s quite a narrative.”

  “Well, we both like to tell stories,” she said. “Do you think it’s a Persian thing? Like are we predisposed to love stories because it’s in our blood? All those ancient poets and stuff.”

  “Or maybe we’re predisposed to love stories because our own past is so secret and fragmented that we need stories. Because stories are the only way to make sense of the chaos and randomness of our world.” Heidi was silent for a long time. “I’m sorry. Was that pretentious?” I asked.

  “No, not at all. It’s just sad, and totally true.” Whatever I said must really have gotten to her, because she reached into my bowl of banana chips, grabbed a handful, and stuffed them into her mouth.

  “So were you really descended from Cyrus?” I asked.

  She laughed with her mouth full. Then she swallowed and said, “Please. I made it all up. My parents would rather be water-boarded than talk about their past.”

  “Mine too!” I said. Although I hated to admit it, there was a part of me that the Authentics could never totally get, and that Heidi always would. We were connected by a country neither of us had ever even been to.

  She took another bite of chips from my tray, and then she launched into what she clearly wanted to say. “Listen, I just want to, um, thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For not telling anyone about seeing us buying a fake bag. I mean, you could’ve humiliated me. You should’ve humiliated me, given what a royal see-you-next-Tuesday I’ve been to you.”

  “So you are a royal after all!” I cracked.

  She laughed, and for a moment it was like we were old friends again. “Seriously, Daria,” she said. “When I realized you didn’t take your chance for revenge, I felt so bad. You’re like Hugh Jackman in that Les Misérables movie.” I loved that she considered it a movie rather than a book. That was classic Heidi. “Russell Crowe is so horrible to him for so long, and then Hugh has his chance to kill him, and he just lets him go. I don’t want to be like Russell Crowe.”

  “You are so not like Russell Crowe,” I said, which seemed like a really weird compliment.

  “Thanks,” she said. “And also, sorry about that picture of you in the slide show at my sweet sixteen. It was a bitch move on my part, and I own it.”

  I didn’t know what was happening, but Heidi was giving me the warm fuzzies all of a sudden. “It’s okay,” I said. A strange silence lingered, like neither of us knew what to say next. We just stared at each other, and then I noticed something different about Heidi.

  “What are you staring at?” she asked.

  And that’s when it hit me. Her nose looked different . . . again. Sometimes my mouth said things before my brain had time to intercept, and this was one of those times. “Did you have another nose job?” I blurted out.

  Heidi’s face hardened. I knew immediately that I had messed up our rekindled friendship.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. My palms started to sweat. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I wanted to remind Heidi of all the times she had been cruel to me. I wanted to remind her that, just months earlier, she had told me how unlucky I was to be “one of those hairy Persians,” sending me into weeks of experimentation with waxing, shaving, bleaching, and even a vintage Epilady machine I ordered from eBay. Of course, I couldn’t tell the Authentics about my sudden obsession with hair removal, so I kept it all a secret, though I’m sure they noticed my body’s disappearing mane. I wanted to remind her that she had bought me tweezers for my fifteenth birthday along with a link to a YouTube video on how to pluck a unibrow, and the fact that she’d suggested Frida Kahlo to me for doppelgänger day on Facebook, and that she reminded me countless times that I lived in Beverly Hills adjacent and not Beverly Hills. But I didn’t say any of that because it wouldn’t change the fact that I had said something totally stupid.

  “You make me so sad, Daria,” she said. “You act all proud, but you’re so insecure. It’s painful how insecure you are.”

  “I should go find the Authentics,” I said. I remember Baba telling me once that the key to being a gambler is knowing when to leave the table. That was also the key to a conversation with Heidi.

  “You do realize it’s totally absurd that you call yourselves the Authentics,” she said before I could leave. “What makes you so authentic? The fact that you don’t wash your hair?”

  “I wash my hair,” I protested, my hand finding its way to my scalp. Embarrassingly, I smelled my fingers, and I was pleased by their fruity scent. “Just because it’s not highlighted and blow-dried, doesn’t mean it’s not clean and doesn’t smell like citrus.”

  “Whatever, is Kurt authentic because he wears a weird hat all the time? Is Joy authentic because she dresses like she’s auditioning for Saturday Night Fever? Is Caroline authentic because she’s butch? Do you have to be weird, and different from everyone else, to be authentic?”

  “We are not weird,” I snapped. “We’re just real. Being authentic is about being yourself, and having empathy for other people. And . . . that’s it.” I finally looked at Heidi again, defiantly, as if daring her to argue that last point.

  “Well, the rest of the school calls you the Island of Misfit Toys,” she snapped.

  “And we call you the Nose Jobs,” I snapped back.

  “Fine,” Heidi said, trying to calm herself down. “Fine. Well, if being authentic is all about empathy, then I have empathy for you. I’d be insecure if I were you too.”

  “Oh please,” I said. “I’m the one who has empathy for you.”

  “No, you don’t,” she shot back. “I have empathy for you.”

  For what seemed like an eternity, we both kept repeating the phrase I have empathy for you until it lost all of its meaning.

  “Do you know why I stopped hanging out with you?” Heidi asked.

  “Because you think you’re better than me,” I said.

  “Wow, that’s major projection,” Heidi said, with a certainty that shook me a little. “No, Daria, it’s because you were so hung up on my nose job. You just couldn’t stop asking me why I did it. I did it because I didn’t like
how I looked. How I looked didn’t reflect how I felt inside. And maybe it made me more real because it made me look more like the person I feel like I am inside.”

  “Why don’t you just own it?” I asked. “Just say you did it ’cause you wanted to look prettier.”

  “See, you’re doing it again. You’re making me feel horrible about myself. This is why we can’t be friends. You’re so judgmental. Why do you want to make me feel bad about myself?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that. I wanted to fight back, but I couldn’t help but feel that maybe she was right. Maybe there was a totally different version of history where I had been really judgmental about her nose job before she’d started being cruel to me. I mean, she had already gotten the nose job because she felt bad about herself, and maybe I had made her feel worse about herself all over again.

  Heidi looked away from me for a moment, like she was formulating her next thought very carefully. When she looked at me again, she seemed calmer, more resolved. “Look,” she said. “Maybe we should just stop trying to pretend we’re friends or even frenemies. Maybe we just need to ignore each other from now on. We don’t need to wave at each other, or smile at each other, or show up to each other’s parties, or pretend to be nice. I’ll just pretend you don’t exist, and you do the same.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  And with that, Heidi walked away. Of course, her last words were supereloquent and my last word was Oh.

  Standing there, all by myself, I felt every inch the misfit toy. I realized that maybe I was the insecure one, and Heidi was the confident one. I wanted some of that confidence, and that’s when I decided to take her suggestion for a date with Iglesias. I texted him and asked if he wanted to go to the Santa Monica Pier with me Friday night.

  I told my parents I was staying late at school to go to the library, but that wasn’t true. Iglesias had accepted my invitation, and met me at my favorite ice cream place in Santa Monica, blocks away from the pier. When I walked in, I found him staring at the day’s selection of flavors: strawberry thyme, honey rosemary, black cherry molasses, coconut curry. The first thing he said when he saw me was, “I think I need to be stoned to eat ice cream with curry in it.”