Free Together Tea by Marjan Kamali Page A

movie. It’s just coffee. It’s just tea. It’s just time after class with a classmate. Parviz is picking me up soon.
    Sam asked her a lot of questions. About her children, about Iran, about how they left, and even about the Shah. He seemed to know a lot. He obviously read a lot. He said his favorite poet was Omar Khayyam and that he’d had Persian food many times. “So delicious, so real,” he said.
    â€œYes, real,” Darya said. That lumberjack shirt was growing on her. Part of her brain felt guilty for liking his shirt, another part was wondering when Parviz would show up (he tended to be early), another part wondered why she’d said she was with “friends” and not “a friend” to Parviz on the phone earlier, another wanted to know what Parviz would say when he noticed there were no “friends” other than Sam. A small part of her brain surprisingly thought the tea was hitting the spot.
    Was this what fun was? Sitting in a chain coffee shop with this man, listening to him tell her that Persian food was real? Why hadn’t she done this before? Why hadn’t she had a million coffees with Sams? A spreadsheet came to mind. She couldn’t hang out with the Sams of the world and be Parviz’s wife. It didn’t work that way. It just didn’t add up.
    When the door opened, a huge blast of wind swept through the room. Parviz stood there in his hand-knitted scarf and hat, both the color of turnips. Mamani had knitted them.
    â€œAllo, hello!” Parviz almost shouted. Darya saw him scouring the tables near her and Sam, obviously looking for the rest of her friends.
    Sam turned around and paused at the sight of the bundled-up figure in the doorway. Parviz looked as if he had stepped out of A Christmas Carol . Darya felt both embarrassed by and protective of him. Her Parviz, in the doorway, all lost.
    Parviz strode over to them and extended his hand in Sam’s direction.
    â€œParviz Rezayi,” he almost shouted. Darya wondered if he’d make his handshake extra firm, the way his self-improvement tape advised.
    â€œSam,” Sam said. After an awkward pause, he added, “Sam Collins.”
    Parviz looked at Sam, then at Darya, then at Sam again. “May I sit down?”
    â€œOf course.” Sam got up and brought a chair from a nearby table.
    Darya could not form words. Here was Parviz. Here was Sam. Here was a teabag in lukewarm water. There was the scarf her mother had knitted for the son-in-law she adored. He hardly ever wore that scarf. Why was he wearing it tonight?
    â€œI am early, I know,” Parviz said. He looked at Darya. “I just thought I’d give your other friends a ride too if they needed one.”
    She looked at her husband of over thirty years and felt ashamed. “It’s just me and Sam tonight,” she said finally.
    â€œI can see that.” Parviz forced a smile.
    It was only coffee. It was only tea. It was nothing, really.
    But it was, in that smelly, busy place, a moment when Darya felt chopped off from Parviz’s love for just long enough to make her wish she could turn back the clock and not come here at all.
    Persian politeness dictated the rest of the interaction. Parviz could not, would not, be small about this. He even went to the queue and ordered himself a whipped cream–laden cup of calories masquerading as “coffee.” Darya could no longer bear to swallow her tea. Sam, though initially caught off guard, soon regained his relaxed cool dudeness. How could someone not like Parviz? It was what made his patients adore him. It was what made even the postal workers smile at him. Parviz was a genuinely kind person who did not think ill of others and who treated all people with respect. His behavior toward Sam was no different. He asked Sam questions, a lot of questions. First about the spreadsheet class. Then about his work. Then about his instrument.
    It was as though Sam