“What?” she asked, her apron covering the black-and-white sweater she wore. Mom loved wearing graphic prints, which looked even funnier against her frumpy apron. Her straight blond hair was more normal today, in that there were no pens or pencils stuck into it. I took another whiff, trying to decide if I wanted this food in my body.
“It’s green chicken chili,” she added defensively. I spooned a bit out of the soup pot, turned the spoon over, and watched it glop back into its chunky green depths. “It’s a family recipe,” Mom wailed, as if that explained it.
Mom’s family was a mix of Scottish, Irish, and English, so her heritage usually came out in random dishes she suddenly decided to feed us. Even though her ancestors weren’t born here, I noticed how nobody ever asked her where she was from or commented on her features. Mom looked like the Americans on TV and in magazines, with their long legs, blue eyes, and shiny blond hair. Next to her, I looked like a big question mark.
Just then, Dad walked in and sniffed the chili pot.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“Can’t you tell?” she cried. Dad and I looked at each other, as if silently agreeing that we should just eat and not ask questions.
“Yum,” Dad said unconvincingly.
“Mm-mm. Chili is the best,” I agreed. Mom’s eyes narrowed as she watched us, almost daring us to say her cooking sucked before we’d even tried it. Dad, American Hero that he was, took an experimental bite.
“Sooo good,” he assured her. Mom relaxed, her eyes crinkling into a smile as she turned away. Dad shook his head at me and mouthed, Don’t eat it.
“I saw that,” Mom said icily.
We were doomed.
■ ■ ■ BATHROOM 10:00 P.M.
It was almost bedtime.
“Mom?” I called out from my bathroom. Thank god I had my own, for situations exactly like this. I’d already tried video chatting Ameh Sara, but she didn’t pick up. I was down to my last resort—and by last resort, I mean asking my own mother for help.
Mom peeked her head in. “What’s up?”
I pointed to my leg. There, on my thigh, was a hair that looked like it was trapped in my skin. It was starting to hurt, like a pimple that you couldn’t see yet but knew was lurking below the surface.
“Huh,” Mom said, looking closer at the bump. “Is that an ingrown hair?”
I shrugged. How was I supposed to know? “You’re the expert,” I whined. Mom usually helped me wax in places I couldn’t reach, like the backs of my arms and legs.
Mom frowned and got out her phone. “I’ve heard about these, but I’ve never had one myself.”
I rolled my eyes. Mom didn’t even have to shave her thighs, that’s how light her hair was. Meanwhile, she still wouldn’t let me get laser hair removal, saying, “We don’t fully understand the technology yet.” Please. Every full Iranian girl got laser hair removal. That, or a nose job.
“Okay, it says here that you shouldn’t pick at it, and apply a topical solution like . . .” Mom trailed off. “Oh, it’s just an ad for a skincare cream.”
I sighed.
“Don’t worry, sweetie, I’m sure it will grow out,” she said cheerfully. Easy for her to say—she didn’t have a red pustule sprouting from her thigh like one of Zeus’s lesser children.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Thanks.”
Mom closed the door, as if she were saying to herself, Problem solved.
News flash: The problem was not solved. It was like when I wanted to get my eyebrows waxed and Mom insisted on doing them at home with an in-home wax strip kit. It took three months for my right eyebrow to grow back. This, too, seemed beyond her. How we shared the same genes I would never know.
I looked in the mirror, trying to find any bits of Mom in my face. I had Dad’s tan skin, although it looked like mine had been watered down. My brown hair looked messy next to Mom’s straight blond hair, and I could never get it to turn into the loose curls that girls like Teighan styled on Instagram. On top of everything else, my nose had this sharp hook that could only be described as a black-diamond ski bump. Mom’s nose, however, was a cute bunny slope. I looked nothing like her.
I pulled up a photo of Dad on my cell phone and stared hard in the mirror. If anything, I looked like a female clone of Dad. That would have been okay if there were more girls who looked like me on TV or in magazines, but all I had to compare myself to were people in my Farsi class and Ameh Sara, who were full Iranian, not half like me.
All of those girls were stunning, with moms who knew how to make the best of their daughter’s features because they looked like each other.
In the end, I stayed up all night watching YouTube videos of people pushing ingrown hairs out of their skin. It was fascinating, like popping a pimple. I was addicted.
Then I tried popping mine out like in the videos, but it wouldn’t budge. After that I tried shaving over it, using a tweezer, and straight-up using my fingernails to pry it out. Nothing.
The ingrown hair was really throbbing now. Was it supposed to hurt this badly?
Desperate, I got out my wax kit. Mom had finally let me buy my own wax melter that I kept under my bathroom sink. I plugged it into the wall, then put a couple chunks of solid blue wax into the melting bowl. Soon, the wax had heated enough to turn liquid, and I stirred it with a
