“Darya,” Grandfather said. “You look...”
“Better than usual. I know.” I was dressed like this at the sofreh aghd, the wedding ceremony, but I guess my being gussied up was still a shock to my family. What did I normally look like, to warrant this kind of enthusiasm? I mean, I usually wore jeans and a T-shirt, but it wasn’t like I dressed only in burlap sacks or anything.
“No. You don’t look happy,” he said. “You don’t have to wear that if you don’t want to.”
I loved him so much I thought my heart might burst.
“She can’t show up to the reception in a T-shirt. What would everyone say?” Mom was fussing with a blow-dried piece of my hair that was out of place. She’d spent most of the morning tugging at my hair with a flat iron to make sure I was as presentable as possible. My hair was thick and curly, which might look good on other people, but I always forgot to use the fancy leave-in conditioner Mom bought me. My hair without conditioner gave me a Cousin Itt from the Addams family quality. It was yet another way I managed to disappoint her.
“Yes, we wouldn’t want the Iowans and Iranians we’ll probably hardly ever see again to start talking about Darya’s fashion choices,” Tara muttered. “How will we sleep at night?”
“Don’t be fresh,” Mom said to Tara. She let go of my hair and looked at me like I was a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich when she had ordered coq au vin from a fancy French restaurant. Not what she’d had in mind, but satisfactory. “Shall we go?”
Tara, Mom, and Dad walked ahead to find the ballroom. I trailed behind with Grandfather and held his hand.
“When did you grow up?” Grandfather asked me.
“I didn’t. It’s these shoes,” I replied.
“It’s not the shoes,” he said. “Your older sister always talks back to your mother. But you don’t. You’re sophisticated.”
I laughed a little. Sophisticated wasn’t a word I would associate with myself, considering Cap’n Crunch Berries was my breakfast of choice and I still wore Batgirl pajama bottoms to bed. “Are you excited?”
He nodded. “I want to make sure my brother and I have time together,” he said. “He wasn’t at the ceremony. I’ve talked to him on the phone, but the last time I went to visit him in Iran was so long ago. Maybe this is the last time we’ll see each other. I don’t know.” That was the reason the bride and groom were having their wedding in Canada—so that my great-uncle and his wife could attend. Travel bans really put a damper on festive occasions. It was why I wasn’t putting up a stink about what I was wearing. I squeezed his hand.
I wanted him to have all the time in the world.
A crowd of well-dressed wedding guests were mingling in front of a table outside the ballroom. I saw Dad hugging his sister, my aunt Mahnaz, who was wearing a maybe-not-super-age-appropriate red dress. I thought she wanted to make a big splash this weekend. She’d been waiting for her only daughter, Shayla, to get married for a long time. Aunt Mahnaz would complain to my dad on the phone about how worried she was that Shayla might be single forever, which to me hadn’t sounded bad at all. Now that Shayla had finally found a husband, Aunt Mahnaz was going all the way with an extravagant wedding, no matter what country it had to be held in.
“Hello, Baba,” Aunt Mahnaz said with absolute joy as she hugged my grandfather. When she let go of him, she noticed me, and her mouth opened in shock. When we’d visited each other on Thanksgivings over the years, I had always worn my typical attire of ill-fitting, punk rock wear. “Darya, you’re so dressed up! I love it!”
I sensed a theme. Everyone preferred this fake version of me. Actual me wasn’t enough. Lately I felt that way about everything that I was. I wasn’t Persian enough (on Dad’s side), I wasn’t Turkish enough (on Mom’s side), I wasn’t feminine enough, I wasn’t straight enough, I wasn’t gay enough, and these days, I got the impression that my government was telling me I wasn’t American enough. I was born and raised in the States, but I still got asked where I was from. I knew people didn’t mean Massachusetts.
“Hi, Aunt Mahnaz,” I said as I hugged her, letting go of whatever annoyance I felt at everyone who liked this hyper-feminized version of me. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you, Darya joon. I am so happy this day has come,” she said. I’d never seen so many of Aunt Mahnaz’s teeth at one time before.
“Is Majid here?” Grandfather asked with a slight crack in his voice. He looked around.
I’d met my great-uncle and his wife, Narges, once. They’d visited us five years ago in Boston after my grandmother passed away. I hated everything about that time, especially how ripped apart my grandfather had been. It was like he’d aged ten years overnight. But it would have been even worse if my great-uncle hadn’t been able to come see my grandfather in his time of need. I didn’t know much about the law, but I hoped someone who did would make sure the travel ban was temporary.
“They called from the airport,” Aunt Mahnaz assured him while rubbing his shoulder. “Customs took a little longer than expected, but they will be here. Paul sent a driver to pick them up.” Paul, Shayla’s groom, hailed from Iowa. The two of them met in Washington, DC, where Shayla was a human rights attorney and Paul worked for a nonprofit focused on saving the environment. I thought they’d met through a dodgeball league for do-gooders or something.
“Good, good,” Grandfather said before taking a deep breath. The only other time I’d seen him
