I smiled. He was right. This was going to be a cinch.
■ ■ ■ INTRODUCTION TO VIDEO LATER
All throughout our lesson on commercials I’d been avoiding Emerson’s eye. Sir had even passed me a note from him. I didn’t read it, though. We just weren’t at the notes stage in our relationship yet. The bell rang, and I walked to his desk, ready to rip off the Band-Aid.
“Hey, Emerson,” I said quietly.
“Yo, P. What’s up? Did you read my note?”
I handed him back the letter. It felt like we were already breaking up. But had we even dated? God, high school was so confusing. I was too young to break a heart. Too young to become a woman made of unfeeling stone.
“How’s your nose?” he asked.
I winced. Time to cut to the chase. “Emerson, thank you so much for asking me out, but my answer is no.”
Emerson nodded. “I feel you.” He was wearing a T-shirt three times his size today, and I could barely see his cargo shorts underneath.
“I just think you should go out with someone who is more . . . um . . . adventurous.”
Emerson nodded again. He was taking this pretty well.
“Aight, well, dang. Thanks for keeping it one hundred with me, P.”
I gave him a sad smile, trying to be nice about the whole thing.
Emerson handed me the note. “Well, you might as well keep this,” he said. He chucked a peace sign at me. “Hasta la vista.”
I waved the somber kind of wave you give to people when they’re looking at you through the back of a car window, never to be seen again. In retrospect, it did feel like a weird thing to do when the person was two feet away from you.
When he left the classroom, I opened the note. It was a hangman game that had been half finished. There were five blanks, with the middle two filled in with the letter O.
“Parvin, do you know the answer?” Emerson had scrawled out at the bottom.
I squinted at the paper, then sighed.
Boobs.
The answer was boobs.
■ ■ ■ BLEACHERS 3:00 P.M.
Ruth asked me to come over after school to help her with her Creative Writing essay, but she forgot I had Farsi tutoring with Amir. When I reminded her, she just raised her eyebrows in that smug Ruth way.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she replied in a singsong voice. I swear, if she wasn’t my BFF, I would have probably strangled her by now.
• • •
Amir had a hot chocolate waiting for me when I got to the bleachers. That was really nice. I sat down next to him and flinched—the aluminum metal slats were chilly now that September was almost over. Being outside didn’t feel like swimming in swamp water anymore.
“Thanks,” I said, clutching the warm hot chocolate.
“No problem.” He smiled.
Amir looked different today. His wavy hair was combed to the side, and he wore a sweater instead of his normal soccer jersey. He already had his book open to our homework, but he didn’t seem in any rush to go through it.
“How’s your week been?” he asked.
I thought for a second, remembering Fabián’s dance showcase, Amanda’s face full of Cheeto dust, and the relief I felt when I turned Emerson down.
“Pretty good, actually,” I said. “How about yours?”
Amir frowned. “It’s okay. I tried to start a journal through the school, actually.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah . . . but they don’t have the budget for it this year.” Amir shrugged. I could tell it meant more to him than he was letting on, though.
“What do they need the money for?” I asked, taking a sip of hot chocolate. He had even put extra marshmallows into it. Amazing.
“For the paper, getting the layout software, that kind of stuff. I think schools usually get sponsors to pay for it, but we don’t have any.” Amir sighed.
“But why a physical journal?” I asked. I hadn’t even thought of the publication being printed when Amir first mentioned it. “It should be a digital one. Then you wouldn’t need a huge budget for paper or anything.”
Amir’s eyes widened. “Parvin! You’re a genius.”
“I know,” I replied modestly, though the truth was, our middle’s school’s journal had been digital, too. “Here, I asked my dad if you could borrow these.” I handed him some books about writing from my parents’ office. I figured Amir needed them more than Dad did, considering he rarely looked at them now.
“Whoa!” His eyes lit up as he read the titles. “Thank you.” He started flipping through the pages, already excited.
“Do you mind if we cut our study session short?” he asked, still looking through the books. “I want to go try out your idea. Mock up an online journal to share with Principal Saulk.”
I was about to say sure when I remembered Ruth’s date.
“Actually, before you go . . . um . . . would you want to go apple picking with me and some friends on Saturday?” I asked. “It’ll be really casual,” I added, making it clear I wasn’t asking him on a date or anything. Amir was a safe bet. We’d have a nice time, and I knew it wouldn’t be awkward. Plus, he was so easy to talk to, it might even be fun.
“Apple picking? Like . . . with real apples?” Amir asked, bewildered.
“You’ve never gone apple picking before?” It was my turn to look baffled. “It’s the best. You pick some apples, go on a hayride, carve pumpkins, and then they give you apple-cider doughnuts with fresh-pressed cider.”
“Wow. Is this from your white side?” he said, laughing.
I actually didn’t know if our family’s love of apple picking was from my mom’s side. I was flummoxed. Didn’t they pick apples in Iran? I stayed quiet, though it would have been nice to ask what he meant by that question. I’d never had someone ask about my white side before. Most days it felt like I wasn’t white enough, but when I hung out with Iranians, it was like I wasn’t Iranian enough, either. Sometimes, being with Amir and everyone in Farsi class made me feel like I’d never be enough in
