Dreaming in English Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ike’s right, of course), while Izzy and Kat and their friends sit toward the other end. Paige sits next to her father, across from me. For the first few minutes, we pass dishes around and fill our plates. When his father asks if I’d like a glass of wine, Ike correctly senses my uncertainty as to whether I should accept and announces that he’d like a glass, so I say I’ll have one, too. I haven’t had much wine in my life. In the teetotaling country of Iran, I hardly drank alcohol at all, and here, the few times I have, it’s been margaritas or beer or champagne. I do like the smooth taste of the wine Ike’s father serves, although I take only a few polite sips. I have what my friend Eva calls low tolerance , and I certainly don’t want to get drunk in front of my new in-laws!
    Mr. Hanson, with the watchful eyes of a poet, listens far more than he speaks. I feel that the least of my gestures has significance to him, as he takes in how I cut my lasagna and lettuce into small bites, at how I smile at what everyone says, at how I pause to form in my head the answers to Mrs. Hanson’s many questions before I say them out loud. It makes me nervous to be studied so closely, and so I keep my eye contact mostly away from Mr. Hanson, but when I do meet his eyes, they reflect back a decency that’s similar to his son’s.
    Mrs. Hanson asks mostly the same questions everyone asks me: How am I finding America? Do I miss my parents? What’s the most surprising thing about the U.S.? What’s it like to live in Iran? Isn’t it awful how women there have to wear headscarves? My standard answers come out easily and coherently, as I tell her that I love America; that I miss my parents tremendously; that the most surprising (and refreshing!) thing about America is how everyone mostly just leaves everyone else alone. I tell them living in Iran is in some ways wonderful, but that unemployment is very high and Tehran is crowded and polluted and yes, it’s too bad women have to wear hejab , but we don’t walk around obsessing about it as much as Americans seem to.
    It’s only when she asks how much longer I’ll be visiting that I trip over my words.
    “Oh, um . . .” I look to Ike.
    He puts his hand on my thigh. “We’re working on that.”
    I freeze. He shouldn’t have said that! The plan is to tell his parents after dinner—he needs to stick to the plan! Sensing Mr. Hanson’s eyes on me, I make myself unfreeze.
    “This lasagna is delicious,” I say to Mrs. Hanson. “Please, how is it made?”
    Camille’s mouth drops open. “You don’t know how to make lasagna? Even I know how to make lasagna!”
    “Camille’s favorite TV show is Top Chef ,” Mrs. Hanson says, and goes on with a funny story about how Camille made breakfast in bed for the whole family recently and left the kitchen a disaster area. I almost feel safe again until from the other end of the table, Kat calls down to Ike, “Hey, did you win any money in Las Vegas?”
    He shakes his head. “You know I don’t gamble.”
    “Hello,” she says. “You go to poker night every month.”
    Ike grins. “Besides that.”
    “What did you do?” Izzy says. “You were only there for, like, a day, and none of us knew you were going.”
    “It was a last-minute trip.” Ike gives me a quick glance and then reaches for the bottle of wine and pours himself some more. “This is good wine, Dad. Is it the Sonoita wine you were telling me about?”
    “So why’d you go?” Izzy persists. “All anyone does there is quickie weddings and gambling. You didn’t get married, did you?”
    She says this in a joking tone, but while the younger people laugh, I freeze again and Ike gives her a look. Half the look tells her it’s a ridiculous idea and the other half tells her to be quiet.
    It is the second part of his look that makes his mother suspicious. “Ike?”
    “There are lots of shows there. Did you see any shows?” Paige nods at me encouragingly. Sensitive girl