If You Could Be Mine (10 page)

9

THIS IS THE LAST
thing I want to do. The last place I want to be. I have to be here because it would look suspicious otherwise, but I wish I could have taken some of those drugs that Ali has around beforehand.

I hate shopping for myself. It’s tiring, I can never afford anything I would actually want, and the clothes I prefer are not entirely fashionable or ladylike. Shopping with Nasrin is both agony and pleasure. I love seeing her in glamorous clothes. I love the high she gets from a new pair of shoes or a dress. I love that we can be in a store full of only women and she can twirl in front of a mirror freely while other women stare at her in envy of their younger years. I love that she always asks for my opinion.

At the moment Nasrin is trying on wedding dresses. “What do we think of this one?” the genial shopgirl asks. She’s skinny, in tight black jeans, black high heels, and a white silk blouse. Mrs. Mehdi and Nasrin look at the latest wedding dress on display and begin arguing. This dress is traditional, white with lace sleeves and a lace bodice with a long train in the back. I sit in the corner, watching the two of them bicker while other clerks and customers mill about with their own wedding dress dilemmas and triumphs. The hell I will go to because of my girl-loving heart will look a great deal like this store.

When we arrived at the dress shop, we had to use an intercom to be buzzed in. The store has no windows, so all the women are allowed to remove their head scarves if they so choose, which is all of us in the store. For once, though, I wish I’d continued wearing my manteau and head scarf, because I feel underdressed.

All the other women wear so much makeup. Some have shaved their eyebrows and tattooed on thicker, more luxurious ones, while others have dunked their lashes in so much mascara, I can’t imagine how they will ever be able to wash it off.

Mrs. Mehdi is again telling Nasrin why this dress is “perfect,” and Nasrin of course has her eye on another one. They have been arguing over every dress, and I am not brave enough to try to play referee. Mrs. Mehdi looks like she is ready to strangle her daughter, and Nasrin is practically frothing at the mouth.

I haven’t told Nasrin about my plans yet. It’s not that I want to catch her off guard, I just don’t need to put more pressure on her yet, and I don’t want her to talk me out of the only thing I can think of to keep us together. It doesn’t sound so bad. Parveen and Jamshid have full lives, and Jamshid has more rights as a man than I do as a woman. He can wear short sleeves; he can have two wives or more if he can provide for them. I can’t even get one. It seems ideal, if I don’t think about Maryam and her distorted and furious face.

Nasrin rolls her eyes at her mother and turns to give me a pout. She knows how much I hate this. She texted me late last night about how sorry she was to make me go through dress fittings. I didn’t text back. I don’t think she’s having much fun, either.

“Try it on, Nasrin. What can it hurt?” Mrs. Mehdi says with irritation. The attendant picks up the dress, leading Nasrin to the changing rooms in back. This leaves Mrs. Mehdi and me alone. Most of the time we get along fine. She tells me stories about my mother and the baby chicks they used to play with when they were little kids. Lately, though, she’s been quieter, and I find it unnerving. Everything is very polite between us. No frosty overtones or snide remarks, but she’s steely eyed now. I am not sure when that changed. Sometimes I wonder if she knows . . . No. Nasrin and I are always careful.

As if to chase away these thoughts, Mrs. Mehdi sits next to me and pats my leg in good spirits. “I’m exhausted,” she says. “Nasrin is just as stubborn as her father.”

“She will decide on a dress eventually,” I say. “She’s pretty good about making decisions.” Good at making the right decisions about the right kind of person who can give her the right kind of life. This marriage is her playing it safe. The only time she’s decided to do that. Mrs. Mehdi drinks from the tea a clerk freshened up for her a few moments ago. The staff fawn over Nasrin and her mother, and I know both of the Mehdi women love it. I wonder if my mother, growing up with all her wealth, relished the attention while it came to her. I try not to think about that.

“My own wedding seems like ages ago,” Mrs. Mehdi says. Nasrin and I used to love to look at all the photographs of her parents’ special day, with my parents in the background as special guests. My mother was gorgeous. Nasrin even admitted that she was making the bride look bad in comparison. That always made me very proud. “Your mother was such a good friend,” Mrs. Mehdi recalls. “I was so nervous.”

A few feet away a girl emerges from the dressing room, squealing in delight over the dress she has put on. Seeing her daughter, the mother starts crying. My mother and I wouldn’t make such a scene. She would probably realize that I wouldn’t feel comfortable in an elaborate, frilly wedding dress and suggest a plain white dress instead. We would get ice cream afterward and talk about my classes. We might have.

“I needed my best friend there that day,” Mrs. Mehdi says sadly. “It’s important, deciding to spend your life with someone even if you think he isn’t the perfect choice.” This surprises me a little. True, I don’t see Mr. and Mrs. Mehdi look at each other the way Maman and Baba did, but my parents were rare. Nasrin would sometimes sleep over at my house when she was younger, usually because her parents had gotten into some big fight. These fights were occasional but lasted a few days. Mrs. Mehdi would criticize something small about her husband, like the way he chewed at dinner or that he smelled of body odor, and Mr. Mehdi would yell and scream. Neither would talk to the other for a few days, but they got over it. Nasrin was now unfazed by their quarrels, but when we were eight years old, she would cry in my arms and I’d smooth her hair. Sometimes my
maman
would come in the room and cheer us up.

“I am glad you are going to be at the wedding for Nasrin. She will need you,” Mrs. Mehdi says.

“She will be fine,” I say. “It should be a lot of fun.” Really, I want to knock over all of the stupid mannequins with ridiculous neon-colored wigs on their heads.

Mrs. Mehdi takes another sip of tea and eyes me coolly. “It won’t be long before it’s your special day, I’m sure.”

I bring out one of my many rehearsed lines. “Oh, I’m not ready for anything like that yet. I still have so much work ahead of me.”

“Well, someday you may want to start a family of your own, just like Nasrin does. I can’t wait to be a grandmother! Though I don’t look old enough to be a grandmother, do I?” Nasrin does not get her vanity from her father.

“You look very young. I’m sure Nasrin will wait until you grow older to give you grandchildren.” I don’t know if she really possesses maternal instincts. I never imagined her as a mother, and we’ve never talked about having children. Is that why she is doing this?

“Nasrin loves kids,” Mrs. Mehdi says. “You’ve seen the way she looks after the younger children at parties.” She’s right, but that’s because Nasrin is a kid herself. I never thought her fondness for children came from a deep desire to have her own, but maybe I didn’t want to see it.

“Yes. Yes she’s good with children.”

“If they have Reza’s eyes and Nasrin’s smile, I think we will have some little heartbreakers on our hands, won’t we?” Another happy family. Not like mine. The store clerk comes back into the room, leading Nasrin, who looks gorgeous in the white dress her mother insisted she try on. I sit on my hands.

“Oh, Nasrin, you look beautiful!” Mrs. Mehdi exclaims. “This is the one! This is the one for you!” She’s already picked out Nasrin’s life, why not the dress? Nasrin admires herself in the mirror and inspects the same problem areas she has had through all of high school. First she looks at her chest and wishes it were a little bigger. Then she looks at her backside and wishes it were a little smaller.

“What do you think, Sahar?”

“I think you look perfect.” I think this whole thing has gotten out of hand and I want to take you away from it. “Do
you
like it?” Nasrin looks at me with so much affection, I think I might burst. People don’t often ask Nasrin her opinion.

“I like the other one better,” she admits, and before her mother can protest I butt in.

“Then go try it on. You will look beautiful in that one, too.”

Nasrin smiles at me and steps down from the little makeshift stage with mirrors surrounding her. The attendant follows her with the dress Nasrin selected, leaving me with Mrs. Mehdi again.

“I thought it was a lovely dress,” Mrs. Mehdi grumbles.

“It was. But it’s her special day.” Mrs. Mehdi raises an eyebrow. It’s the look she used to give my mother when they would disagree. Maman always took it in stride. Funny how daughters mimic their mothers.

“Sometimes the best things for us aren’t necessarily the things we want,” she says, and it’s such a loaded statement I’m not sure how to answer. If she does know about me, the way I am, I wish she’d let me know. Just tell me what to do—and I don’t mean just marry some man and have babies. But she has nothing to say at the moment. I continue to sit on my hands and wait for Nasrin to come out. When she reappears, she looks even more stunning than the last time. I can’t help but stand and approach her when she steps up on the platform. Other women in the shop stop to compliment Mrs. Mehdi on her beautiful daughter.

Nasrin meets my gaze and smiles softly. “How do I look?” Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Nasrin and I haven’t discussed what happens to us once she is married. I can’t just come over all the time and kiss her in her bedroom. Homosexuality is dangerous, but adulterers can be stoned to death. We can’t continue if she goes through with marrying him. Both of us are afraid to bring it up. I can’t think this way; everyone will notice. I do my best to shake off my gloom.

“I like the other dress better, but you look beautiful,” Mrs. Mehdi says.

“I think this is the one!” Nasrin exclaims, and the store attendant looks so happy, she may cry. The rest of the women who have stopped to watch give a bloodcurdling shriek in unison to commemorate the joyous occasion.

“You made the right decision,” I say sadly. Nasrin looks at her mother and her mother shrugs. I sit next to Mrs. Mehdi while the women of the store crowd around Nasrin.

“I guess we can’t always get what we want,” Mrs. Mehdi whispers to me. She is talking about the dress. But now I know she knows about me. I can’t tell which of us is the bigger coward. I sit on my hands again, watching Nasrin twirl in front of the mirror. I wish she would be so confident in all her decisions.

10

MY GRADES HAVE BEEN
slipping a little. We have three tests a day. It’s been that way since middle school, and I’ve always been near the top of my class, but lately the only math I can do is counting the days until Sahar’s wedding, and the only questions I can concentrate on are the ones I have about surgery. Time is running out if I want to go through with my transformation. I want to end up like Jamshid. He knows who he is, he goes to school, and he goes about his life as an actual man. But Shahab and Behrooz look like sad little boys who got in way over their head. What if I end up like them?

Baba isn’t home yet, and I should be studying physics, but my mind won’t settle on the pages in front of me. This evening it’s whirling with possibilities of what I will look like after I change. I don’t think I’ll ever be a muscleman or anything, and I’ll probably have a baby face. At least I won’t have to bleach my mustache anymore. I get up and go into Baba’s bedroom. The room is tidy because Baba is hardly ever in here. He usually sleeps on the sofa or in a kitchen chair, and then only when weariness overtakes him.

Maman’s side of the room is completely intact. Her perfume bottles, designer brands from Europe, are still on the dresser. Expensive perfume was one of the few luxuries she allowed herself. All the photos of the three of us on her bedside table are collecting dust.

I go to Baba’s closet and open the heavy door, revealing a wardrobe fit for a mortuary. The black suit coat will do. That and a button-up shirt, though it’s a shame Baba isn’t my size. I strip to my underwear, looking in the full-length mirror to the right of the bed. Nasrin is the one who inspects herself, pinching her hips and looking at everything that could be wrong. Now I am the one. My chest is too big and my hips are wide. Can that be fixed? Jamshid is flat chested, but he also has small hips. It’s like he was meant to be a boy. The mirror seems pretty convinced that I was meant to be a girl.

Maybe if I just flatten my breasts a little. Flatten them a lot. I put on one of Baba’s white button-up shirts, and it’s so big that I look swallowed up. I roll up the sleeves at the cuff. Next are his slacks, black and too long for me, but I put them on. Tucking in my shirt, I imagine Nasrin in the background, getting out of the shower and complaining about how she has nothing to wear for a party we have to go to. Women are insufferable. I can think that as a man.

She will tell me to wear the black sport coat and say she’s glad I don’t have too much facial hair. It’s a fantasy, but I relish it as I pull my hair back and put it under a fedora I know my
baba
hasn’t worn since his school days. I look at myself again. It doesn’t work. I’m a girl. I close my eyes, wishing I could transform into a tall, handsome man with strong wrists and shoulders. There’s Nasrin behind me in a dress, picking lint off my shoulders and telling me that we are going to be late for whatever stupid social occasion her mother has roped us into. I open my eyes.