Together Tea (24 page)

“So,” she said, clearing her throat. “Are you a lover now?” She used the poets' words.
Eshgh/
love.
Ashegh
/one who's in love/lover.

“I beg your pardon?” Mina's arm holding the tea glass froze in midair.

“Oh please, I can tell when a girl's in love. And it's not fair that I barely know anything about him. I know he has nice teeth. As if that means anything!”

“You've met his brother,” Mina said. “Graphed him. You know of the family.”

“Your father and I don't know anything about
him,
” Darya said. Yes, she knew of the Dashti family because of the previous research for the older brother. But that did not feel like enough anymore. “I mean, who is he, even? What's he
like?”

“He's . . . well, in the few times that I've seen him, he's been quite thoughtful.”

“Is he kind?” Darya asked. “Because, Mina, there's a lot to be said for education. And a profession. And family history. And, well, looks. But if there's one thing that matters, it's character. That's the only thing that lasts. Degrees can lose significance, jobs can be lost, a family's past really shouldn't define a person, and as for looks . . .” Darya sighed. “Well, looks fade for the best of us. But character, Mina, is what lasts. Kindness will carry you through the ups and downs of life.”

“He is kind. Very.”

“Well, that's a start.”

“But really, ups and downs of life? It's not like we're going to get married or anything!”

“No, of course not. That's not what I'm saying at all.” Darya sipped her tea. “Wait, why not?”

“Because I barely know him! Plus, he's in Connecticut. Long distance never works.”

“It's only an hour away, Mina.”

“Who knows what will happen?”

“Everything works out if it's the right person.”

“Can you just please promise me that we're done with the spreadsheets and suitors? No matter what?”

Sitting in this teahouse near the bridge, with the sound of the water lapping overhead and the feel of the rug against her toes, Darya felt embarrassed by those spreadsheets. She had tried so hard to find the perfect formula for her daughter's happiness when really there was no way she could control her daughter's future. She'd always known that, even if she hadn't wanted to admit it. Those spreadsheets felt far away, like something she'd done in another life.

“You know what, Mina? I'm beginning to think there is no one right person. No predestined soul mate. There's no formula. Or if there is, a lot of different combinations can give you a right answer . . . or a right person.” Darya realized as she said this that she finally believed it. True, she'd spent her entire adult life with Parviz and been happy. What if Mamani had picked someone else? If Darya had married one of her other suitors, who was to say she wouldn't have been just as happy? There was no magic value for the formula to work. Different variables fit into the equation. For example, in another lifetime, under different circumstances, she and Sam could have maybe been a wonderful couple together.

Mina sighed. “I have something to tell you.”

“You're not going to get married, I know, Mina. Let's just see how it unfolds. No pressure. I'll stop . . .”

“No, it's not that. I'm quitting business school.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have to. I want to paint. I don't want to look back years from now and regret not giving it a shot.”

Darya was starting to feel dizzy. “Mina, remember your promise? That if we came on this trip, you'd actually go back and buckle down and focus on business school for a change, without constantly thinking you should be doing something else? Remember that?”

“I do. But I had no idea the power that this place would have over me. The problem is I've been doing the wrong thing. I need to be committed.”

“Yes, committed!”

“But committed to
my art,
not to Wall Street. I need to . . . devote the time. It won't happen by itself. I have to focus. Quitting business school is the only way.”

As her daughter talked, Darya leaned against the carpeted cushions, exhausted. This was the power her children held over her. They could walk into a room and just the sight of them would make her heart soar and then the next minute, they could open their mouths and say absurdities that rendered her helpless. What was she to say to Parviz now? This trip that Darya had championed against Parviz's better judgment was not supposed to make Mina quit business school. It was supposed to keep her more firmly in it.

Where was Parviz when she needed him? Where was he to just talk sense into this girl?

What had this trip done to her daughter?

Chapter Thirty-Six

Dual Existence

M
ost mornings in her Broadway apartment, Mina got up early. She dressed in workout clothes and went for a run in Riverside Park. Then she came home, showered, and gathered her materials. Paints. Brushes. Not computers. Not calculators. She'd finally ordered the brand of oil paint that the artist from Marblehead, Massachusetts, had recommended on the website she'd been surfing when Professor Van Heusen called on her in finance class.

Ramin had called. They'd spoken a few times on the phone. They kept saying, “We should get together.” But he had deadlines and she had exams and, well, they were busy. It wasn't like that moment under the tree. Mina wanted it to be, she wanted that magic again, but she felt as if she were just having conversations on the phone.

She painted. She used canvas, a rough, textured canvas that held the paint well. She had a routine. Every day. Every day except Fridays. She got up early and painted. The ritual helped free her mind from Ramin while at the same time reminding her of him, and she realized that she wanted to both forget and remember that moment in People's Park.

It was hard at first. The canvas remained blank. Her painting muscles were out of shape. She had no idea where to start. But then she'd remember the artisan in his shop in Isfahan, or the way the arches of the bridge fell into one another, or the columns of Persepolis, and the images moved her to action. She'd start with just one stroke. And on good days, before she knew it, her arm took over. Her hand moved. As if it already knew the shapes and colors she wanted to make.

While the rest of her building still slept, Mina painted. And then her watch beeped. That was part of the ritual. It beeped and it was time to pack it all up. She'd put the colors away. Then she'd take off her paint-splattered jeans and change into clean slacks and a crisp shirt. She'd comb her hair into place. Drink a cup of strong coffee.

And gather her finance notes.

And before long, she was in one of her business school classrooms, typing on her laptop, solving problems.

She had been sure that she would quit. They'd returned to Tehran from Isfahan, and Mina had vowed, over and over again, to quit business school and just paint full-time when she got back to New York.

But Bita had come over on her last night in Iran. Mina had just finished packing. Other guests were in Agha Jan's house, saying their last good-byes to Darya. Tea was being served.

“Let's go to the roof,” Bita said. “Come on, for just a few minutes. You have to see Tehran at night, from the rooftop. Remember?”

Countless summers Mina had spent on the rooftops of Tehran. Countless summer nights they'd slept up there to escape the heat. Before the bombs.

Once they were on the roof, Bita lay down on her back and looked up at the sky.

“You know, when we were younger, I always thought that you'd grow up to be an artist,” Bita said.

“Yeah, me too,” Mina said. It stung. She hated that she'd given up. That she'd disappointed friends like Bita. She couldn't wait to announce that she was no longer going to run away from what she loved. She would make Bita proud, and she would show everyone that she was ready to be serious about her art once and for all. Mina sat up. “You know what, Bita? I'm not going to put it off anymore. I'm going to actually be true to myself once and for all. And true to art. When I go back, I'm going to quit!”

“Quit what?”

“Business school. I'm just going to paint. I'm not a business person! I was just doing it for my mother. Plus, I'm tired of the dual existence. The dual life! An artist in business school.”

Bita was quiet for a while. She lay on her back and stared up at the sky. Then she said, “It's funny that you say dual existence, Mina. You know my party? You know the dances we have, my friends and I? We go wild. Inside my house I'm the crazy party girl. Outside, on the streets, I'm just another covered woman who can't open her mouth. Talk about dual existence! We have one life indoors, another outdoors. We say one thing with our friends, another thing out in public. Because we get arrested if we say what we really want to say. But Mina Joon. Business school? Painting? That's not a dual existence. That's just . . . life.”

Mina stared at the Tehran lights. She looked out at rooftop after rooftop after rooftop and thought of all the people in their homes—what they watched, listened to, said inside. What they could never admit to watching, listening to, and saying once they were in public under the watchful eyes of the guards.

“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.