Today we were working on a look that Sara had seen in an Instagram photo. In it, a model had gold eyeshadow with dark eyeliner. There was no way I could use the same mousey brown eyeshadow I’d worn every day since hatching my plan. I had to let myself have a little bit of gold sparkle for today’s party if I wanted to stand out from Yessenia and win over Matty.
“Blend the eyeshadow into the crease, like this,” Sara said, demonstrating for me.
Because of the sanctions, Sara couldn’t buy the exact same makeup as me for our makeovers, but her gold eyeshadow was close enough to mine to make it work. I focused on blending the eyeshadow in little circles like Sara, spreading it toward the edges of my eyelid. It was relaxing, getting ready with someone.
“Are you excited about the party?” she asked, still blending her eyeshadow.
“Yes!” I practically squealed. “Er, I mean, yes. Yes, I am.” I remembered that I would have to be Quiet Parvin today and couldn’t squeal.
“What’s wrong, ameh?” Sara said, frowning. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped putting my eyeshadow on.
“Oh, sorry, Ameh. It’s nothing.”
Sara switched eyes. “Tell me,” she ordered, dabbing her makeup brush into more gold eyeshadow.
“Well, that boy I like is going to the party . . .” I paused, waiting to see if she would say anything.
Sara tilted her head, remaining silent, still listening. That was one of my favorite things about her. She always had time to listen to the dumb things going on in my life while she was probably going to cool college parties in Tehran, a city that was almost twice as big as the whole DC metro area. My life was less exciting than hers, but she never made me feel that way. For that, I loved her.
“I wanted to try something new this time around with Matty at the party. So that this time . . . this time I don’t get hurt, you know?” I finished.
Sara tapped her brush against her makeup palette, thinking. “So, what do you want to do that’s different?” she asked.
“Well, instead of being the one who makes jokes all the time, what if I laugh at whatever he says? That way he’ll like me more because it shows I think he’s funny.” That was a key observation from the films I saw: Only the dudes cracked jokes while the women laughed.
Ameh nodded, chewing her lip. When she didn’t say anything, my heart sank. Was she going to be like Ruth and tell me I was crazy?
“Azizam, do you think making jokes makes people not like you?”
I fiddled with my eyelash curler. “I mean . . . I don’t know. You never see movies where the funny girl gets the guy, do you? They always laugh at whatever the man says . . .” I trailed off. “It doesn’t seem to work for women who are trying to get boyfriends.”
“Sometimes boys are intimidated by girls who are funny and smart,” Ameh Sara replied, speaking slowly, like she was looking for the right words. “But that just means they’re not sure what to do, not that it’s bad.”
“Exactly!” I pointed with my lip gloss. Finally, someone who understood. “So my plan is to not intimidate Matty. I’m gonna give him twenty-five percent of the Parvin Experience, and not the whole thing.”
Sara’s face fell. “No, khanoum, that’s not what I meant. I meant that you should be a hundred percent Parvin.”
I barely heard what she said. It all made sense now. Of course I’d intimidated Wesley. He probably felt small when standing in my “passionate” shadow. No wonder he was dating someone like Teighan now. She must make him feel like a regular old chatterbox. Even the captions on her photos were maybe three emojis. She was also not the funniest person, and as a result, Wesley probably felt like the life of the party.
“Parvin? Parvin joonam?” Sara waved at the screen. “Did you hear what I said? About how you just need to be your own person and wait for the right guy to appreciate you for who you are?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I lied, still thinking about this new realization.
Sara looked unconvinced. “Hmm. I think we’re ready for eyeliner now.”
Oh god. Mom said eyeliner was like parallel parking—that if you messed up, you had to start all over again. And I didn’t even have my learner’s permit yet.
“Just hold your eyeliner pen like this, see?” I copied her hand position.
“Now bring it closer . . . ,” she continued, her voice even, like she was trying to calm a skittish animal. I brought the pen nearer, its black tip looming toward my face like a missile.
“Now press onto the outside.” Ameh Sara expertly applied the pen to her lash line. I brought my face toward the laptop to see, but I forgot I was holding my eyeliner pen and knocked my cheek into it.
“OW,” I yelled. There was now a huge black line on my cheek. Ameh Sara’s eyes went wide.
“Are you okay, azizam? What happened?”
I showed her the smudge.
She laughed. “It’s okay, Parvin. That’s why we have makeup remover.”
■ ■ ■ IN THE CAR 2:00 P.M.
A little later, Mom drove me, Ruth, and Fabián to Yessenia’s party. I started to fill them in on what had happened in Intro to Video on Thursday, swiveling around to face them from the passenger seat.
“Wait, Emerson Cheng asked you out?” Fabián cried in shock.
I crossed my arms. If Fabián had answered my 911 text, then he wouldn’t have been so surprised. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” Ruth and Fabián chorused.
I sighed. “Well, he told me to think about it,” I said, looking out the window. Yessenia lived in a neighborhood full of mansions with gates that opened to long driveways. This was a way fancier zip code.
“Who’s Emerson Cheng?” Mom asked.
“He’s in our year, Mrs. Mohammadi,” Ruth piped up. “He’s super popular. He was voted Most Flammable in middle school.”
Mom nodded, as if that was completely normal. “So,
