“Bah bah, come in, come on in!” Jahangir hugged Roya and Bahman when they arrived. “Look!” he shouted to the other guests. “It’s the Perfect Couple! Do we know two more good-looking people? Just look at them! Tabrik! Congrats!”
Roya and Bahman’s engagement was shiny and fresh, their couplehood something to be celebrated. And based on the expressions of a few women in the crowd, something definitely to be envied.
“What’s on the menu for tonight?” Bahman asked.
“Tango, my friend!”
Roya couldn’t even make it to the table laid with goblets of crushed melon and ice. She and Bahman were surrounded. Bahman glowed with his usual charm as everyone jostled around him. Though Jahangir owned the gramophone and the music and the dance know-how, it was Bahman everyone wanted. With him, they practiced their first steps. For him, they flirted. Bahman had memorized the lyrics, in a language he did not speak, of Sinatra songs and Rosemary Clooney ballads. From being with him at other get-togethers since their engagement, Roya knew that if a part of the room grew quiet, if for a minute the conversation went stale, Bahman’s presence lit everything up again. It was hard not to be glued to his movements as he danced. Roya was well aware that she wasn’t alone in being enchanted by him. The girls laughed in high staccato near him, swooned when he told jokes.
“Come with me.” Bahman took Roya’s arm and pushed past everyone. He led her to the middle of the living room. A song for a waltz had just started. This she could do—it was one of the first dances Bahman had taught her, and she’d practiced with Zari for weeks. Zari had pulled Roya back and forth in their bedroom, scolding her when she made a mistake. Roya, remember. This isn’t our twirling hands/swaying hips Persian dance. This is serious. Concentrate! With Bahman’s instruction week after week and Zari’s forced practice, Roya’s confidence grew. Now she glided with Bahman across the room, inhaling his familiar scent.
“I need a drink,” she said when they finished.
He let her go.
At the refreshments table, Roya picked up a goblet of crushed melon-ice and a spoon. The sweet melon-ice filled her parched mouth. Suddenly there was a sharp tap on her shoulder.
She expected to see Bahman, but instead a tall, wavy-haired woman with olive skin and a movie-star mole above her lip (real or drawn on? If Zari were here, she would know) stared down at her. Shahla, the girl from the café.
“Thirsty?” she asked. Her voice was husky, coarse.
“Yes,” was all Roya could think to say. No hello, no introduction, no niceties.
“Well, you cast your net and caught him. Hoorah! He’s always been a slippery one. But somehow”—the girl studied Roya’s hair, her green dress—“somehow you did it. It’s mind-boggling.”
The melon and ice stayed in Roya’s cheek, frozen.
“To think, Jahangir didn’t want me to come tonight because he was worried it would upset Bahman or . . . you. Jahangir and I have been friends almost all our lives. Why should I not show up to his party? Besides, I had to see for myself up close what made Bahman such a lover boy. And now”—she looked Roya up and down again—“I get to see what the fuss is about.” Shahla looked down at Roya’s shoes. They weren’t the baby-doll shoes of her high school uniform. They were mules that had belonged to Maman: green suede with a small brass buckle on the side. “Please God, look!” Shahla shook her head, snorted, and then walked away.
“Everything good?” Bahman came over, face flushed from dancing. Roya hadn’t even noticed who he’d danced with after their waltz. She couldn’t stop people from being lured to his side. Men and women would always flock to him.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.
Roya cracked down hard with her teeth on the ice. “Nothing.”
Bahman glanced in the direction of the wavy-haired movie star look-alike, who had slinked to the other side of the room. “Please. Don’t worry about her. I saw her talk to you. I can’t believe she had the audacity to show up tonight. What did she say?”
Roya couldn’t speak.
He took the goblet from her hand and rested it on the table. He pulled her close and touched her neck. “Hey, Roya, come on. She’s nothing to me.” He kissed her forehead, right where Maman would claim her destiny was written in invisible ink. Shahla, wavy-haired and pouting from across the room, could not have missed this kiss either.
“She can see you. Stop. Everyone can see you.”
“Good. Let them. I want”—he kissed her again—“to kiss you in front of the whole damn world.”
“Basseh, enough,” Roya said. But after the fourth kiss, after he was so close that she could feel the perspiration on his shirt, she had almost forgotten about Shahla.
The soirees and the dancing, the music and the women mixed with men, the songs from America and the dances, the crushed melon in ice-cold goblets sometimes spritzed with what she was sure must have been alcohol—all of this was an unexpected secret scene for her. Who knew that the boy who would change the world even knew how to dance? That he had this group of friends? That he was so close to the ever-popular wealthy playboy Jahangir?
“I hope they all writhe with jealousy,” Bahman said, and nuzzled his face into her neck.
“I think you just want to writhe.” Roya giggled.
“With you? Always. How much longer till we get married?” He gently kissed her throat.
“Now, you behave, mister. I am a virtuous girl,” she teased. But she let him feel the contours of her neck with his mouth.
He looked up then with his dark eyes twinkling—the eyes that had struck her as filled with joy that first day at the Stationery Shop. “I’m counting down the days till we can be together. Roya, I love you so much.”
They stood like that, face-to-face. His breath was warm. Her heart pounded against his chest.
“Well, you’re stuck with me!” she finally said.
“I want to be stuck so badly,” he groaned, and laughed.
She picked a piece of lint from his collar. “Now then. As the boy who would change the world, can you please be a role model in front of all these people?”
“Bacheha! Kids!” Jahangir lifted his arms into the air and wiggled his waist. “The time has come to taaaango!”
He put on a new record, and sultry guitar chords filled the room. “Bahman, get over here!” Jahangir motioned from across the room. “I’d like to demonstrate with you.”
Bahman walked over and they stood face-to-face, cheek-to-cheek, Jahangir’s arm around Bahman’s waist, his other arm extended with his hand clasping Bahman’s. Jahangir drew Bahman in tight and slowly they moved. The song was sensual, almost alarming. It made Roya long for something she couldn’t even define, something forbidden and inviting. Watching Jahangir and Bahman dance felt like watching two strangers. Like watching what she’d never known she yearned for.
After the tutorial, after giggles and titters from the girls and the end of the song, Bahman dropped Jahangir’s hand and took Roya to the center of the room. They were joined by a few brave couples game enough to give it a go. When Jahangir started the song again, Bahman and Roya clasped each other. At first they got it wrong; they wobbled, and she almost fell over. The stubble on Bahman’s chin dug into her cheek. Being so close to him filled her with a desire so strong she had to force herself to focus on the steps. Her movements were wrong, but it just didn’t matter. Her body was flush against Bahman’s, her arm extended as one with his, her hand in his. Bahman stayed in character, imitating Jahangir’s serious and sexy look from the tutorial. It made Roya smile, and he frowned as if to chide her, so she quickly imitated his mock-serious expression. They tried and tried again until they were able to get across the room without looking like they’d collapse.