We sat down at the dining room table (something we never did). Mom had me set the table (ditto), and it felt like we were actually one of those normal families in the frozen pizza commercials. I passed Mom salad (!) and Dad loaded my plate up with potato casserole (??!). Who were these people? And could they stay forever?
“So, when exactly does Ameh Sara come?” I asked, eating an actual vegetable.
“We’re going to buy her ticket tomorrow for the last weekend in September,” Mom replied. “She’ll stay through Christmas. Her university’s letting her take a leave of absence after midterms, and then she’ll finish the courses next spring.”
“Really?” That meant Sara would be here in three weeks. Which meant she’d be here for Homecoming, which was the Saturday after she got here. And she could help me with my makeup.
“Really.” Mom smiled. I smiled back.
Since we ate dinner so early, Mom and Dad insisted we watch TV together. I picked The Great British Baking Show, the episode where one of the contestants uses barberries, which is a berry used a lot in Iran.
Mom passed me the fluffy blanket and wrapped it around me. It was so nice being cozy in the living room with my parents for once. I remember when they first started their company how we would have random movie nights and they’d even pick me up from class before the school day ended to go into DC. But now they were so busy they didn’t finish until 7:00 p.m., and I watched movies in my room by myself.
I didn’t realize how much I’d missed those days.
“Wait,” Dad said to the TV. “What is this kid doing? That’s not how you use barberries!”
“It’s too late, Dad. Paul Hollywood, the judge, already said it tasted good.”
He harrumphed, then said, “The British ruin everything.”
Thursday INTRODUCTION TO VIDEO 10:00 A.M.
All week Mr. Clarke taught us how to edit videos on the school computers, and now we were screening them in class. I’d even learned a cool lighting trick that I was going to show Fabián after school today when we were supposed to film another dance video.
The classroom lights dimmed. We started with a video that Emerson Chang had made. It faded in with him walking down a street in slow motion, nodding at the camera. Then the rap music began.
“Emerson,” Mr. Clarke barked. “What did I say about explicit language?”
Emerson just grinned from his desk. “My bad, Teach.”
Mr. Clarke shook his head and moved to the next video, which was Sir’s.
“Hello.” Sir’s video started in front of a small house, with him sweating in his trench coat. “My name is Sir Thompson, and this is my home.”
The scene changed to Sir standing in front of a bed. “And this is my bed.”
“This is my mom”—the camera cut to him pointing at a woman who looked confused as to why she was being filmed—“and this is my cat.” Sir lifted a cat.
“Thank you,” Sir said to the camera.
We all clapped politely. It felt more like a scavenger hunt than an introduction video, but Sir was grinning so wide I was almost happy for him.
“Good job,” I whispered, trying to be nice to him after the whole where-are-you-from? debacle.
“Thanks,” he said, then licked his right pinkie and index finger and used them to smooth both his eyebrows. Never mind.
I heard the music from my video play and put my head in my hands. I thought wearing a bathing suit to a birthday pool party was the most uncomfortable feeling in the world, but no, it was watching a video of yourself in front of your entire class.
“Hi, my name is Parvin Mohammadi,” I said into the computer screen. I’d been too intimidated to use one of the school’s cameras, so I used my laptop camera. At least I was using natural light from my bedroom window in a way that illuminated my face, just like Mr. Clarke had taught us.
“My hobbies include—” Just then, while filming, Mom had walked into my room.
“Mom! I’m busy,” I shouted at her.
“Sorry,” she said, looking at the laptop. “But do you have any dirty laundry? I’m doing a load.”
I sighed into the screen. “I do,” I replied.
The classroom laughed. I removed my hands from my eyes, relieved. I hadn’t figured out how to splice my mom out of the scene, so I had to leave her in. Thank god Wesley or Matty weren’t in this class.
The camera cut again, but only because that was when I stopped recording. I hadn’t learned how to actually stitch clips together from Mr. Clarke’s labs, not that he didn’t try to teach us. I just hated looking at my face every time we were learning about the splice tool. This time my laptop camera showed a room with a lot less dirty laundry on the floor.
“As I was saying, my hobbies include watching beauty tutorials on YouTube”—more chuckles—“eating Hot Cheetos”—some guffaws—“and playing the bassoon.” Then I brought my instrument into frame, which I’d been sitting on the whole time. The classroom exploded into laughter. Hmm, that part wasn’t supposed to be funny.
“Thanks for watching,” I said into the camera. Then I stared at the camera for an awkwardly long time until I re-membered I needed to turn it off, which made even Mr. Clarke giggle.
I nervously chewed my nails.
“Okay, class, what makes this video effective at learning who Parvin is?” Mr. Clarke asked the room. Effective? Did this mean I’d done a good job? A couple students raised their hands.
“She listed her hobbies,” Eben Hollins said from the back row, twirling his lacrosse lanyard.
“And she kept it real,” Emerson added. “Not faking it.”
Mr. Clarke nodded. “The authenticity. That’s what made it easy for us to get to know Parvin.”
He looked at me and smiled. “Well done.”
I stared back, still in shock. I hadn’t
