Page 46 of Sapphire Spring

“It got moved. Wait. Did you think I wouldn’t be here?What’s going on, Mom?”

She drew him into a firm embrace. “No, no. I came to checkon you. I was worried. How did the checkup go? Badly, I amafraid,becauseyou are not telling me.” She placed her hands against his cheeksto gauge his temperature.

“It was for my car, Mom. Why are you here?”

“I just told you. I was worried because I thought it was adoctor’s appointment.”

“Here you go, Ms. Kazemi,” a bright voice announced next tothem. It was Julie, the chipper new hire from reception, and she was holding abranded hotel bag with several items inside he couldn’t make out through theopaque white plastic. “It was under the bed, just like you thought. Sorry.We’re upgrading all the beds so there’s no gap between the floor and the boxspring, but you had one of the rooms we hadn’t gotten to yet. Hi,Nas.” Julie waved and departed, leaving the two of them inawkward silence.

His mother gazed into the bag as if she wanted to disappearinto it.

“Is that Pari’s stuff?” he asked.

“No, your sister has no taste in makeup. She wouldn’t knowwhat half of this is.”

“Oh my God. Were you at the party on Friday?”

Mahin shushed him, took his arm, and steered him toward thelobby doors. Lowering her voice, she said, “I was, and I wasn’t.”

“Explain, please.”

“I got a room over the pool. I watched from there. If Ididn’t like it, I didn’t want her to see the look on my face.”

He thought the chances were much higher his mother didn’twant Pari to see the look on her face if shedidlike it, but thatwasn’t for him to say. “Did you…like it?”

Mahin shrugged, the same shrug she gave when she thoughtadmitting an affection for something would make her look silly or weak. “Oh,what do I know? I have no style, apparently. Your sister, she goes, and shestarts this whole business that’s about Persian culture, and I try to tell herthings and make suggestions and she dismisses me. She says, ‘You just wanteverything to look like Farah Pahlavi, and all she did was dress like JackieO.’ She treats me like I’m this buffoon with no culture and no class, andmeanwhile, everything she does is the whirling dervishes and the nonsense.She’s making us look like clowns.”

“She’s talented, Mom, and she was devastated you weren’t here.”

“Your sister is devastated when her phone freezes up forfive seconds. I was here. I just didn’t tell her I was here so she wouldn’texpect me to say something nice.”

“Oh, Mom. Don’t worry. I don’t think she ever expects you tosay something nice.”

At the lobby doors, they stopped, and she turned to him.“Naser, please, my son. Don’t lecture me about your sister. The last time Ispent the day with her, I put together a little party. In Beverly Hills. Youwere busy. But I got all my richest Persian lady friends in one place so Paricould meet them and talk to them and get money from them. And what does she do?What does my beautiful daughter do? She brings amicrophoneand she lectures them for forty-five minutes about how they all wear blackbecause America has pressured them into hiding their true Persian femininity.The diaspora must embrace color again, she yells as if it is asongand we are all protesting. I wanted to die, Naser-joon.I wanted to die right there wheremy daughter and all my friends could see. In the garden of my friend ShirinFarhani, who drives a Maybach and owns a lake.”

“There’s some truth to what she’s saying, Mom.”

“Bah. Who cares? Persian women in their sixties don’t wantto hear it from a girl who has never seen Tehran.”

When they reached the entrance to the motor court, he sawher BMW was idling outside. She’d probably slipped the valet a twenty to keepit close.

She placed a hand to his cheek again. “You are doing okay,Naser-joon? You are not dying and nottelling me?”

“Not that I’m aware of. But I’m an anxious enough personthat if you put me alone in a room long enough, I’ll probably decide otherwise.”

“You are not anxious. You are very detailed and persistent.And you use these things to make money, which is the best thing we can do withour crazy. This is a good thing, Naser-joon.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you, Maman.”

“Your sister’s crazy? It makes her no money, and she isalways crying. Not a good thing. Tell me about the drunk man.”

Naser’s heart skipped a beat, and he coiled every muscle inhis body to try to keep his reaction stuffed down. Had she witnessed the entireincident from the shadows of her balcony, swaddled in some heavy, hooded robelike a character out ofGame of Thrones?

“What drunk man?”

“The one who put his arms around you and fell in the pool onFriday.”

“Oh, him. He was no one. Some guy Fareena was breaking upwith.”

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