“I’m gonna show you how to be a badass Persian bitch,” Hanna said, slamming the makeup cases on the kitchen counter.
“Hanna!” Mom scolded again.
“Er, I mean, zan,” Hanna said, using the word for woman.
“Really?” I asked. Hanna was the coolest Iranian American I knew. Her eyeliner was like a master class in application. I couldn’t believe she was going to teach me that stuff.
“Really, dustam.”
Hanna just called me her friend.
I had a friend date.
“Why don’t you girls head upstairs, and I’ll bring up dinner when it’s ready, okay?” Mom said, winking at me.
“What is that? Deep-dish pizza?” Hanna asked, looking suspiciously at dinner.
“It’s lasagna!” Mom sighed, exasperated.
Hanna nodded, following me up the stairs to my room.
“I don’t trust any dinner that doesn’t involve polow,” she whispered to me.
“You eat rice with every meal?” I asked, shocked. What kind of parent had time to cook Iranian rice every night?
She put her arm around me. “Oh, Parvin jaan, I have so much to teach you.”
■ ■ ■ MY ROOM LATER
Hanna put her makeup cases on my desk and pivoted toward me, her eyes narrowing as she inspected my face. I inched back a little farther on my bed. Hanna was not messing around.
“Okay, we don’t have a lot of time since it’s a school night, but your ameh said it was an emergency. Let’s start with the basics. What’s your skincare regimen?”
“Um, I have face wash?” I shrugged. “And I put on moisturizer?”
I handed Hanna the moisturizer I used. She inspected it.
“Where’s the SPF? Do you not wear sunscreen?” She looked horrified.
I shrugged. “I’ve never gotten sunburned. Mom says I don’t need it.”
“What?” Hanna cried. “Just because you’re brown doesn’t mean you can’t get skin cancer!”
She looked distraught. We were only five minutes into this impromptu womanhood lesson and I’d already failed it.
“My mom thinks I’m fine. She burns way more easily.”
Hanna sat down next to me on the bed. “Parvin, your mom’s skin tone is literally marshmallow. It’s different for her, okay? But you still need to wear SPF.”
I never knew SPF was so important. Dad just slathered olive oil onto himself whenever he was worried about getting crispy at the beach, saying, “That’s what we did in the Caspian.”
Hanna got up and started riffling through her kit. “Here’s some sunscreen you can use until we can go to the store,” she said, tossing me a small jar. “Now show me the box your ameh gave you.”
I got the box out from under my bed and handed it to Hanna for inspection. While she went through it, I took the opportunity to stare at her. Her dark brown skin was so clear, her curls shiny and defined without any frizz. Would I ever look that flawless?
Hanna got out a clear bottle.
“Oooh, this is an Iranian brand. I haven’t seen this before!” she said, opening up the package. Instantly, my room smelled of rosewater, and I wondered what Amir was doing right now. Probably writing some incredible article for the school journal.
“What is it?” I asked, looking at the golden-tipped bottle.
“It’s for ingrown hairs,” Hanna said, handing it to me. “Sara said you had a pretty big one. Let’s see it.”
I sighed and edged up my tie-dyed skirt to my thigh. There was the ingrown hair, so big it almost looked like a cyst at this point. It didn’t hurt if I didn’t mess with it, but it was still purple and pus-filled.
“Oof, that looks intense”—Hanna winced—“I’m gonna get it out, okay?”
I nodded. Hanna washed her hands, then pinched her thumbs around the bump and began to squeeze. The pain shot up my leg. It hurt so much my eyes began to water.
“Breathe,” she ordered. I took a deep breath, and it hurt a little less. I felt something give in my thigh, and Hanna held up the ingrown hair triumphantly: a kernel of hard skin with a thread of hair inside. It was absolutely disgusting, and also so, so satisfying to have it taken out of my body.
“See? The hair had folded in on itself. You need to exfoliate more often to prevent them.”
She took the bottle Sara had mailed and dabbed some of the liquid onto a cotton ball, placing it where the ingrown hair had been.
She pressed down. “This kills the bad bacteria and prevents it from happening in the same spot again,” Hanna explained. I nodded, flinching at the stinging sensation. I wished I’d remembered to write all this down. She began looking at my arms for some reason, and then my face.
“Parvin, what have you been doing to yourself? You have razor burns all over your arms. And some bruising on your eyebrows. Have you been overplucking?”
“Huh?” I asked. Hanna led me to my bathroom and pointed in the mirror.
“See? Those little purple and red flecks you get on your eyebrows are bruises. You’ve been messing with them too much.”
I leaned toward the mirror and saw what Hanna was talking about—there were small pinpricks of bruised skin where I’d been shoving my tweezers every day, back when I was trying to copy hairless leading ladies.
“And these red marks on your arms mean you’ve been shaving too much. See how dry and irritated your skin is?”
She pointed to the little red bumps on my arms. Even though I’d stopped shaving my arms after my confrontation with Wesley, I could still see the razor burn. I looked away, not sure what to say.
“You know body hair isn’t gross, right?” Hanna said, turning me from the mirror so that I faced her. “You don’t have to do this stuff if you don’t want to, or if it doesn’t feel good.”
“I know, I know.” I sighed. “It’s just . . . easier,” I finished softly.
What would people say if I rolled up to school with my hairy arms? Or a full unibrow? Never mind how horrified people like Wesley and Teighan would be. The whole school would probably be weirded out.
Hanna nodded, her curls bouncing. “I used to think that, too. But body hair is normal in
