The Night Counter (8 page)

“Hi, sweet … I mean Zade,” Giselle said from Dubai. “I signed up twenty new clients at a mixer we cohosted with a local radio station at the Jumeirah Beach Club. I wish you could have seen the crowd. It rocked.”

“That’s great,” Zade said. “But check this out: Today a Qatari guy came in looking for an American second wife. He’s some business associate of my sister’s husband, so I had to listen to him talk about olives in Jordan.”

“Hey, we should get your sister to find him some American woman working in Qatar,” she screamed over the buzz on the line. It was not the outrage or laughter he had sought. “I’m flying to Qatar tomorrow, anyway. Your sister’s going to interview me about the business on TV Cool, huh?”

“Okay, then I should give the Qatari dude the five stages of love the next time I see him,” he said.

“Attraction, uncertainty, exclusivity, intimacy, and engagement,” she responded, quoting one of the dating tips she, with his help, had spent a day acquiring from the back covers of relationship books. Then she got quiet. “Oh, and guess what. I met the most amazing guy today.”

He had practiced various reactions to this inevitability many times. “Hey, cool,” he began, forgetting all the more sophisticated words he had planned for this moment.

“This guy is handsome, rich, and talented, and guess what?”

“What?” he answered, starting to sweat.

“He so wants to meet your gay actor cousin,” Giselle shouted from Dubai. “Maybe if your Tayta Fatima saw how handsome this guy was— and an Arab guy, no less—she’d accept the whole gay thing. Or at least your mom wouldn’t be so angry at me for going all global because I’m doing her mom a good one.”

“Huh,” he responded. It wasn’t his mom who was truly angry. But just as with the Qatari and his money, just when he was hoping he could learn to despise Giselle, she was reminding him of why he couldn’t help loving her.

“And I think I found someone for your Aunt Lena,” she went on. “He’s divorced, but I think divorced is better for her than never married.
At her age, it’s better to be with a guy who has some experience with the long run.”

It wasn’t easy to stop loving someone who still loved you, even if it wasn’t the way you’d like to be loved. Suddenly, he wanted to compliment her on how good she was with other people’s relationships, and that made him laugh uncontrollably. Nadia walked out of the back room just as Zade’s laughter climaxed.

“Giselle, I got to go,” he said. “My mom’s here.”

He hung up, and Nadia crossed her arms.

“You know what they say in Middle East negotiations when no happy solution can be found?” Nadia said. She pointed to the Aladdin and Jasmine, Inc., poster and pantomimed ripping it off the wall. “They say let’s tear down those old maps and look at the world anew.”

“Giselle found an Arab guy for Amir,” he announced, and waited while she thought up a diplomatic response to Giselle’s overture.

“What the hell is wrong with Giselle?” Nadia screamed instead. “We’re only pretending to look for someone. For my mother’s happiness, not his. And we’re pretending to look for a woman. If Giselle loved your family, she’d find someone for Lena, not Amir.”

“She did,” he said, glowering. “Without us even asking her to.”

But Nadia had no gratitude. “Then why don’t you let her help you? She has signed up at least thirty-eight new women you could date since she left. Perhaps, just perhaps, you could stop being so lazy and make an effort to date some of them.”

“Dating is a numbers game, Mom,” Zade said, quoting from Aladdin and Jasmine, Inc.’s, online dating tips. “Love is not.”

“Then why does your business—Giselle’s business—avow that there are infinite opportunities?” she said. “Take one of them.”

“Giselle’s going to see Lamya tomorrow,” he answered. “Lamya’s going to interview her on Al Jazeera.”

He wasn’t sure if Nadia’s sigh was out of longing for his twin sister or from disapproval of Giselle being in the same room with her other child.

She placed Aladdin and Jasmine, Inc.’s tax returns in front of him.
“I’m done. If I were a greedy corporate monster, I would say that Giselle’s expansion idea has made sense,” she admitted. “During her travels, she has increased membership 50 percent, and the costs of running the business in Europe and South America have not even come close to the contingency figure.”

“See?” Zade said.

“See what?” she asked. “Perhaps it would be advisable to not confuse her commitment to the business with—well, anything else. We all have different things we can commit to. Love isn’t one of them for her.”

“I’m the one that broke up with her,” Zade said.

“Then act like it,” his mother snapped. “I filled out the questionnaire for you and added your profile to the database. We’ll find a good match for you. I’m going home to call your dad and find out how his lecture on Middle East civil disobedience in the British and French colonial era went. And before I forget, there’s a girl waiting outside to see you.”

Nadia said the last part as if it were an afterthought, which it most certainly wasn’t.

“Remember who introduced me to Giselle,” he warned.

“I don’t know this girl,” Nadia said rather convincingly. “See you tomorrow.”

Zade was sure she would tell his father how she wanted to drown Giselle in the Qatari’s Jordanian olive oil. Elias would calm her down, as he always did. His mother and father certainly could be on a poster for Aladdin and Jasmine, Inc.

When the girl walked in, Zade didn’t recognize her from the database, but he didn’t pay as much attention to the photos as his mother did. She shook his hand. There was a slight awkwardness to her confidence, as if it had come with much practice rather than naturally. But his mother did have a good eye. “Cute with kick,” he might have written for her profile. The girl sat down on the ottoman. Her skin was very white and was framed by very black hair that fell down her back in thick, straight strands.

“Hi, I’m Mina Parstabar,” she said.

“I’m sorry to put you through this, but I’m not looking for anyone right now,” he apologized.

“How do you know that if you don’t know what I have to offer?” she replied. “Offer you exclusively.”

He sat up straighter, almost rising out of his lethargy. She was bold.

“So, Mina, what are you offering?” he said, and arched an eyebrow. “Exclusively.”

She returned his gesture with an eyebrow raise of her own. “What do you think?” she said. “A partnership.”

“Like I advise my clients, let’s start slow,” he said. “Partnership is a big word.”

“Do you think I’m going to let you run the show?” she said. “Fifty-fifty. I already get more marriage proposals than you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Zade said. He leaned in without meaning to. “What’s your secret?”

She leaned back and pulled out a photo album. “I can claim to have nearly 1001 marriages under my belt,” she announced, and handed him her card. Then she flipped through the brides and grooms, photo after photo. She was not the bride in any of them.

Zade looked at her card: “The First 1001 Nights to Forever. Iranian singles no more. Mina Parstabar, CEO.”

“Look, I know you already have a partner,” she continued, and pointed at the poster. “You guys got your little Arab-on-Arab business going, like I got my Iranian thing going. But I’m thinking bigger. Big Middle East and Muslim lovers plan. I’ve already been to see an Afghani matchmaker and another one well entrenched in the South Asian community in New York. I’ve also been in touch with the Black Muslim Alliance. I’m going to see a Turkish dating service based in New York tomorrow and a Bosnian one later this week. I got a lot of people that come to me that aren’t necessarily Iranian but are looking for a Muslim. I also got a lot of Armenians. Word has it you’ve got a few Lebanese and Syrian Armenians signed up. We combine databases and there will be no end to what we can do.”

He couldn’t help being a little turned on by her enthusiasm. Like
Giselle’s, it had the energy of the social revolutions of the 1960s his parents spoke of so often. Perhaps Giselle had set him up to be attracted to overambitious hotties. Maybe, like the clients in his database, he had a type; that meant that there was more than one girl in the world to fulfill his needs. That would be a relief. He cleared his throat, which he thought gave him a businessman’s demeanor. “We’re committed to expanding to include as many people as we can,” he confirmed. “Just today I added, ‘How do you feel about being a second wife?’ to our questionnaire. Put that in after a Qatari came in here describing women like ripe olives.”

“I already have that,” Mina said, and handed him a copy of her client questionnaire.

“I see you don’t have anything on alcohol,” he read. “I got that and pork covered under numbers forty and forty-one.” Zade handed her his list.

“Do you eat pork or drink alcohol? (a) yes (b) no (c) no, except for pepperoni on pizza yes (d) yes, but don’t tell anyone,” Mina read. “Good, but I don’t see you’ve got any mention of in-laws. Check out my number six and number seven.”

“Would you be willing to take in your spouse’s mother, brother, and sisters should they decide to immigrate here? How about cousins?” Zade read.

He looked for something else on his questionnaire that she had missed. He couldn’t find anything.

“Talk it over with your partner and get back to me,” Mina offered.

“You don’t have a partner?” Zade asked.

“Nope,” she said.

“Then what inspired you to get into this business?”

“My grandmother was always telling me stories about how her grandmother was the greatest matchmaker in all of Abadan,” Mina said. “She always said matchmaking was an art, not a donkey race.”

“That’s how I got into it, too,” he lied. “My grandmother told me the same stories about her grandmother. Say, why don’t we discuss our grandmothers over dinner.”

“Don’t you want to talk to your partner first?” Mina said. “I don’t want to go into business with someone who doesn’t communicate well with his partner.”

“We communicate every day,” Zade said.

“Good.” Mina nodded. “Tell her this could be just the beginning. Maybe we’ll take on all of Asia America next.”

“Yeah, we could call it the International Dateline,” he said. “Sometimes these ideas just come to me. The entrepreneur in me, I guess.” Zade smiled, showing off his dimple.

Mina got up in her awkward yet confident way and shook his hand. He was willing to bet she had never used her database for herself, either. She was a lot like Giselle. Then she turned around and cracked a big smile. “How exactly did your Qatari say a woman is like a ripe olive?” she asked.

She had given him the reaction he had thought Giselle would. Mina and Giselle were not types. “Have a seat and I’ll tell you,” he said, and despite his exhaustion, he winked, something he’d never tried before. He’d gotten a lot done today: talked to a customer, contemplated growing the business, signed the tax returns his mother finally had completed, and, to top off the night, made the decision to explain to a girl who perhaps might offer infinite possibilities the connection between women and really good olive oil. He felt for the ring in his pocket. It was still there, still made his heart skip. But Mina also had a face that just possibly resembled the moon on its fourteenth day.

UPON RETURNING TO
Los Angeles, Scheherazade’s carpet landed among several dust-covered homeless men on Santa Monica Boulevard. It had been a smooth ride back from Washington. The West had embellished her with many qualities she did not like—including the half-naked way she was portrayed at Zade’s café—but every now and then it had endowed her with a good idea, such as the flying carpet.

Outside Amir’s house, Scheherazade saw that the new petrol caravan had not moved. She heard with little strain the two people in black talking inside.

“Check it out,” the man in black said. “This Amir Abdullah’s blogged about a cousin who runs an Arab dating service. You know what kind of information these folks could be exchanging on these so-called dates. The dude’s café is all over Google.”

“So are most of the photos we’ve taken, and for worse things than being a love doctor,” the woman in black replied.

“Do you know anyone trustworthy who could hack into this guy’s e-mail account?” the man in black suggested.

“No way,” she warned him. “My dad was with the bureau his whole life. He died bringing down a drug cartel. And you want me to hack into a two-bit actor’s e-mail?”

“Yeah, we shouldn’t be doing illegal stuff trying to get in good with the feds,” the man in black agreed.

“I should have taken that full-time job with the
Enquirer
,” the woman
in black lamented. “My dad was right. I’m not agent material. Busting eating and drug binges; that I get. Counterterrorism? Not so much.”

“Hey, admit it, we’re having fun.” He grinned. She turned red and dropped the camera lens she was cleaning.

Scheherazade shut her ears to the people in black and climbed up the eucalyptus tree that shaded the fig tree.

“Just one more minute, I’m sure,” Scheherazade heard Fatima croak from downstairs.