This is something he was never supposed to see.
Single Persian woman looking for a good man to marry.
Save me from current prospect, an obsessive-compulsive neat freak! Visa expires in April, but desperately want to stay in America! Marriage of convenience strictly okay. I’m young, sexy, will look great by your side. Save me, marry me!
No wonder he’s furious!
“Haroun, I’m
so sorry.
I—”
“What is it?” Eva grabs the paper. Her eyes widen as she reads the ad.
“I don’t forgive you,” Haroun says.
“What makes you think Tami wrote this?” Eva says. “Maybe some other chick was in a similar situation, and—”
“It was Tami,” Haroun says. “I know it for a fact.”
“Dude,
I
did this. This is
my
work of art.” Eva waves the singles ad in Haroun’s face. He grabs it from her. “Tami had nothing to do with it. She didn’t even know about it, so don’t get all boo-hoo about her making fun of you. She wasn’t. I was. Boo-hoo. Get over it, Mr. Victim. What do you even carry it around for? How pathetic is that?”
“Eva!”
“I carry this around so I never forget,” he says.
Eva rolls her eyes. “You’re such a drama queen.”
Tact, Eva, tact!
“You’re a good person, Haroun,” I say. “You deserve to be with someone who really, really loves you.”
“That’s all I was doing,” he says, clearing his throat. “Looking for love.” He carefully refolds the ad. “That’s why I was on that Web site. That’s how I came across the ad.” He looks at me, and the pain in his eyes breaks my heart. “I wasn’t going to let what happened with you be a setback for me. You know?”
I remember back to the day he got down on one knee and proposed, the day I told him I’d already married Ike.
The world is so beautiful, isn’t it?
he’d said.
The greens are so green and the blues are so blue and the reds are so red . . .
Poor Haroun.
Poor, poor Haroun.
He tries so hard.
“I know you’ll find your happiness, Haroun,” I say. “I promise you will.”
His eyes are dark and angry again. “No one will marry me now.”
“No one knows the ad’s about you,” Eva says. “Think about it, genius.”
“I was in love with you,” he says to me, ignoring her.
I shake my head, for what he says isn’t true. We never had that . . . what is the word? . . . that spark of attraction. That flame of love. He was in love with the idea that I would cure his loneliness. That by marrying me, he’d somehow become . . . normal. He wouldn’t have, but nonetheless, his affection for me was sincere. In the whole finding-Tami-a-husband project, Haroun was the only one whose motives were one hundred percent pure.
He’s also the only one whose heart was broken, and I’m sorry for that. I’m very, very sorry. But I can tell from the unforgiving look in his eyes that my being sorry is not enough.
I can tell it’s not nearly enough.
Immigration Interview:
EIGHT WEEKS AWAY
At Maryam and Ardishir’s first birthing class, Ardishir, who was helping Maryam practice her breathing, hyperventilated and nearly passed out.
At the second class, the instructor, who was quite large, got down on her hands and knees to demonstrate some exercises that could take away lower-back pain, and then she couldn’t get back up. Ardishir got the giggles and couldn’t get rid of them, so they had to leave the class, which both embarrassed and infuriated Maryam.
At their third class, after Ardishir fell asleep during the relaxation exercises, Maryam fired him from his birthing-room duties.
“He acts like this pregnancy is all about him!” she says one day when we’re out shopping—maternity clothes for her and summer skirts for me.
“Well, it’s half about him, yes?” I say.
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Whose womb is this baby in? I’m housing it! Growing it! Feeding it! Getting swollen feet and gaining weight because of it! It’s
more
my baby than his, at least at this point.”
I put out my lower lip into a sad pout on Ardishir’s behalf. “But he puts gas in your car for you. And gives you back rubs. And he reads to the baby—that’s so sweet!”
“Yeah, big old boring history books that put me to sleep!”
“He goes to the McDonald’s drive-thru for you to get your Big Macs,” I remind her. This is one of her cravings, along with nacho cheese sauce and Three Musketeers candy bars. “And he doesn’t make fun of you for having to use the bathroom all the time.”
“Are you kidding?” she says. “He teases me
all the time
. I’ve asked him to stop, but he won’t. I can’t count on him for anything!”
This must be her hormones talking again. “Ardishir’s completely reliable.”
“Well, just in case, will you be my backup, if he can’t handle his responsibilities in the labor and delivery room?”
“Oh, Maryam!” I throw my arms around her. I’ve been hoping she’d ask. “Nothing would make me happier, nothing at all!”
And this is almost true. The only thing that would make me happier is having our parents there, too.
Immigration Interview:
SEVEN WEEKS AWAY
All summer long, Ike, Rose, and I have had movie nights at her house. Ike, the expert movie-picker, has chosen the movies, while Rose has made popcorn and I’ve brought big movie-theater boxes of candy, purchased for one dollar each at Walgreen’s. I like all the candy I’ve tried, but my very favorites are Junior Mints and Milk Duds.
So far, we’ve watched conspiracy-theory movies such as
The Manchurian Candidate
; bringing-down-the-government movies such as
All the President’s Men
; love-between-men movies such as
Brokeback Mountain
—none of which would ever be permitted to play in a theater in Iran. I’ve enjoyed them all, but my favorite movie so far has been one that was made nearly thirty years ago called
The Jazz Singer
, about a Jewish man, a cantor, who loves his father and wants to respect him, and he loves his wife, too, but he longs to be a singer of more than just religious music. Unfortunately, neither his wife nor his father supports him in this endeavor. While I watch the movie, my insides are clenched for him—I so want him to succeed! His story reminds me of Maryam, who told me recently that one of her biggest memories from when we went back to Iran is how one time she was in our bedroom playing Olivia Newton-John on her stereo and very loudly singing along, practicing her performance in the mirror, when Baba burst into the room and made her stop. He didn’t want the neighbors to hear our family play Western music; you never knew where anyone’s loyalties lie, and someone might report us. Maryam told me she never sang again and put aside all her dreams of being a famous singer.
That’s why I want this Neil Diamond character to succeed.
In all cultures, people have dreams, and in all cultures people are fully alive only when they’re striving for them. This is why people come to America from all around the world—we come here to flourish. We come believing that nobody will tell us to stop singing, or to stop taking pictures, or to stop doing whatever it is that gives our souls joy. In America, people say
yes.
They say
go for it.
Having the opportunity to be true to yourself—that’s the American dream.
After the movie, I download the Neil Diamond song “America” onto the iPod that Ike gave me for our one-month-of-being-married anniversary. He thinks this is very funny, since the movie and the song are so old and somewhat silly to him, but I feel like they’ve been written just for me.
Everywhere around the world, they’re coming to America. Every time that flag’s unfurled, they’re coming to America. Today!
Oh, how I cried when he sang that at the end of the movie!
This song becomes a sound track to my life. I listen to it constantly and take many more pictures than I had been, because, who knows? Maybe that’s where my true talent lies, and if does, then I owe it to myself to develop it. Tucson has a neighborhood called Barrio Viejo, which is one of the oldest neighborhoods in town. One morning when Ike goes for his run, I bike there and take pictures in the dawn light of cats in windowsills, of colorful doors on old adobe buildings, of tin watering cans used for vases—even shattered glass beer bottles sparkling in the street take on an artistic quality. Wearing my iPod on my way to English class, I play the song “America” over and over, shouting the chorus in my head. I’m a character in a movie. I’m living the American dream. Anything is possible.
It’s in this Hollywood-inspired spirit that I call my father. “Baba, hello!”
My father says, “You sound happy, Tami Joon!”
“I am happy!” In my head, I sing,
dun, dun, dun—Freedom’s light burning warm. Freedom’s light burning warm.
“I’m in America, who wouldn’t be happy here?”
“How is your sister? Is she doing okay?”
“She’s fine, Baba. Do you have any good news for me? Have you received your visa paperwork yet?”
There’s a pause, and then my father says, “Not yet, Tami Joon. I’m afraid we might have a long wait ahead of us.”
But today, I think maybe not.
They’re coming to America. Today!
“Who knows?” I say. “You might get your paperwork today, Baba!”
“It didn’t come in today’s mail, Tami Joon.”
“Well, there’s still time for you to be here before Maryam’s baby is born. I’m not giving up hope.”
“For that to happen, everything has to go perfectly. Since when does anything work perfectly in Iran?” he says.
“This is a good point,” I say. “But still. Let’s choose hope.”
Immigration Interview:
SIX WEEKS AWAY
One morning, I’m alone in the guesthouse hiding from the heat when there’s a tap on the door. I open it to find sweet Paige, Ike’s fourteen-year-old sister.
“Hello!” Ike’s sisters all love to do the kiss-on-the-cheek greeting—they think it’s so cosmopolitan—and so this is how I greet her. “Ike’s not here, sweetie, I’m sorry.”
Paige blushes. “That’s okay. I was out on my bike . . . I’m looking for a birthday present for my mom, and I thought, you know, maybe you’d want to come with me? To Fourth Avenue, maybe? I’m really bad at picking out gifts.”
I’m so touched she thought of me. Ike’s sisters stop over a lot to visit Old Sport (and us, too, I hope!), although never alone like Paige is today, and Ike and I have been going to his parents’ house for dinner most Sundays. And even though Mrs. Hanson still barely says a word to me, I know his sisters are on my side—they don’t even try to hide it from their mom—and I think little by little, we are all starting to wear her down. Rose is right about killing someone with kindness: It’s hard to be mean to someone when all they are is nice to you, and so I like to think that Mrs. Hanson is starting to feel a little silly. She does listen when I talk to Mr. Hanson, Ike, or the girls, and every so often, I catch her smiling at something I’ve said. I hope that maybe once I have my residency and I’m still with Ike and he hasn’t gotten in trouble for being married to me, things might be better between Mrs. Hanson and me.
I invite Paige inside and offer her some iced tea, which she gratefully accepts. She sits on the couch, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her knees together and her feet separated. She’s very cute in her long braids and Converse sneakers, although her limbs are gangly and it’s clear she’s awkward in her body, not yet used to her feminine curves. She has no idea how beautiful she is.
I sit next to her and place my cool hand on her sun-hot back, marveling that I’ve always wanted a little sister, and now I have four! “What are you thinking of getting your mother for her birthday?”
“I don’t know.” She says this like she wants to cry. “Camille will make her something cute, and Kat and Izzy will get her something cool that costs a lot of money, and I have hardly any money, and anything I do won’t be cute, it’ll just be
stupid
!”
I rub her back a little bit. “I have some money. I have as much as you need.” She looks at me gratefully, like this is the nicest thing anyone has said to her in a long time. And then her eyes moisten. “Paige, sweetie! It’s all right, we’ll think of something!”
“It’s not that.” She sniffles. “I’m just so stupid!”
“You’re not stupid. You’re a smart girl.” She studies me closely to see if I really think this or if I’m just trying to make her feel better. “You are, Paige.”
She sniffles again. “Can I braid your hair?”
“Of course.” Camille loves to play with my hair, too. Almost every Sunday, she sits me down on the floor, with her on the couch, and brushes it before putting it in goofy pigtails that stick up all over the place. I don’t even care that I look silly—it feels so good to have a little kid’s hands touching me. Paige’s request to braid my hair reminds me that while her body is changing, she is, in so many ways—good ways—still a child, still an innocent.
I get a comb, barrettes, and elastic bands from the bathroom and come back to our little living room. “Should I sit on the floor?”
She nods, and so I stretch out at her feet and relax my back against the couch.
“I like your nail polish,” she says as she starts combing my hair.
“Thank you.” I wiggle my hot-pink toes at her.
“Did you do them yourself, or did you get a pedicure?”
“It’s a pedicure,” I say. “My sister always wants me to come along when she has anything done, which is pretty often since she quit her job!” We’ve begun calling Fridays our beauty days. Depending on our needs or desires, we get massages or mani/pedis or various waxings (and sometimes all three!), finished off with a round of shopping, for which Maryam inevitably pays, saying she’s making up for all the years she couldn’t do this with me in Iran. Being the sister of someone who’s married to an independently wealthy and also successful orthopedic surgeon has its perks.