Dreaming in English (20 page)

Couldn’t you wait four months to open your coffee shop, Ike? Couldn’t you just see, on your own, that taking Jenna’s money is a very bad idea?

When men lose their dreams, it destroys them.
My mother’s words pound my mind all day long. They are incessant. Relentless.

I take Old Sport for a walk, hoping the scenery might distract me. We start out in the direction of Himmel Park, but once there, I decide to continue on to Trader Joe’s to pick up some ingredients for dinner—I’ll make lasagna, Ike’s favorite, or maybe spaghetti. He likes that, too, and it’s much easier to make. I tie Old Sport to a bike rack out front, make a quick circle through the store, and am back outside within a few minutes. On the way in, I carefully avoided looking at the available storefront that Ike so badly wants for his coffee shop, but on the way out, I forget and look right at it. I can’t help but notice the bright red convertible parked in front of it.

Oh, no. Is someone leasing it? This
would
solve my problem, at least temporarily. But then again, maybe not. Maybe Ike and Jenna would spend more time together looking for another place, driving around in . . .

Wait.

I don’t know what makes me think it. Women’s intuition, maybe, but my heart begins to pound.
What if the red convertible is Jenna’s, and what if she’s inside the coffee shop with Ike? What if they’re doing something they shouldn’t be doing?

I’m across the parking lot, too far to see inside with clarity, and the late-spring sun beats down on me and I really think I might throw up right here on the pavement. Should I go over there? What should I do? What if I’m right, and they see me? What if I’m wrong, and all my behavior proves is how incapable I am of surviving the addition of Jenna into our lives?

Old Sport is on his feet, waiting for me to untie him so we can continue on our way. And it would be so easy, wouldn’t it, to walk away and never know? It would be far easier than facing up to my fears. It’s probably not them; that would be too coincidental.

I could just stay here and wait and see who comes out. And if it were Ike and Jenna, I could wait and see if Ike tells me or not. But I don’t want to play tricks on him—no more than I’d want him to play tricks on me. And I’m just not brave enough to go over there. I’m too afraid of what I might find.

Instead, Old Sport and I go back the way we came, with me berating myself the entire way home.

 

 

 

I prepare spaghetti for dinner, adding fresh onion, garlic, and basil to a jar of Trader Joe’s marinara sauce. I set the table outside on the patio and chill a bottle of white wine. I shower for a second time that day because the smell of onion and garlic has seeped into my skin, and I put on a dress Ike always compliments. I’ll pretend I never saw that red convertible. I’ll pretend everything’s okay.

When I hear his scooter pull into the driveway, I hurry to greet him. “Hello, Ike!”

“Hey, you.” He watches me approach and then kisses me. “I like the way you move in that dress. It’s very sexy.”

This is not something a husband who’s just been with another woman would say. Is it?

“That’s me—very sexy.” My light laugh is totally fake.

“How was your day?” He climbs off the scooter and grabs his backpack from the floorboard.

“Well, our letter from Immigration came.”

“No way! Great news! And?”

“We have our interview in four months. It’s the first week in September.”

“That’s excellent.” His happiness seems genuine. “I thought we’d have to wait forever. At least a year.”

I smile. “A year’s not forever, Ike.”

“It is when you’re waiting for something,” he says. “The waiting place is a terrible place to be.”

“I’m making spaghetti,” I say.

“Ah, yum,” he says. “That sounds great.” He puts his arm around me and we go right to the patio. He opens the bottle of Chardonnay and pours us each a glass. “To September,” he says.

“To September,” I agree. We drink, and then he sits heavily in his chair, sighing as he does. “You look tired.”

“I hardly slept at all last night,” he says, and I know this is true, because I didn’t either. We held hands in the darkness for most of the night—him, deep in his thoughts; me, deep in my fears. He takes another swallow of his wine. “I went to the bank today and talked to them about getting a loan.”

My heart surges. “This is a good solution!”

“Yeah, well, they basically laughed me out the door.”

Laughed me out the door.
This must mean . . . ? I take my place across from him. “I’m sorry, Ike.”

He looks at me for a moment before speaking, then says, “I talked with Jenna today, too. Showed her the place.”

It
was
her, then. It was them, there. Of course she drives a red convertible; that is such a Jenna thing to do. She’s a girl from a Hollywood movie; she’s the girl everyone wants.
Did you put your arm around her like you put it around me when you showed me the place, Ike? Did you show her where my photographs will hang on the walls?

I swallow these horrible, jealous thoughts. “Did she like it?”

“She did,” he says. “And her offer still stands.”

“She really has that much money?”

“I guess so,” he says. “Money definitely does not seem to be an issue with her.”

He presses his lips together. I wonder if this means something
else
is an issue with her.

“Would she be a, how-do-you-say,
silent partner
?”

Ike grins. “I don’t think Jenna knows how to be silent.”

She’s my opposite, then, because I don’t know how to speak up.

“Ike . . .”

“Yeah?”

If only he could see that this partnership is doomed to fail. If only someone other than me in this horrible triangle would recognize how dangerously we are upsetting the balance of our relationship. Ike must see it. He must!

I have things to say, certainly—things I’ve been planning and practicing for the past several hours—but I’m in no hurry, because what I want to say and what I need to say are completely different. And so carefully, without either of us mentioning Jenna, we talk about a possible timeline for when—
if we move forward with this plan
—Ike would quit his job at Starbucks. The sooner he does, the more likely the shop could be open in time for the students coming back from summer vacation. In Tucson, few restaurants make a profit in summer, as the town empties of snowbirds and students.

“Now’s the perfect time to make a move,” he says. “We’ve got a window of opportunity that won’t be there in the fall. Don’t you think?”

I don’t think this, actually. No matter what Ike says, the timing
isn’t
perfect. It’s horrible. Six months from now, once I had my permanent residency, if Jenna showed up, I’d say no, this is not a good idea, that our marriage means so much more than a coffee shop—how can he not see this? Six months from now, I could be working full-time at a job and would happily give him every dollar from every paycheck until he had enough to open his business on his own. Six months from now, if he left me for Jenna, at least I’d be able to honor my mother’s hard-earned wisdom about not trading one’s freedom for a marriage. But six months is a long time to wait for someone so eager, so ready, to make his mark on the world.

“You really want this, don’t you?” I say. “You really want to go into business with Jenna?”

“I want my coffee shop open,” he says. “And I want that location.”

“Do you think your parents might change their minds about giving you the money you need? Maybe if you explain to them about this window of opportunity?”

“I, ah . . .” He coughs. “I stopped by to see my dad today, thinking the same thing. But it’s a no go. They feel—
you know
—that I’m not making such good decisions lately, and I might not be at the top of my game. Or, shall we say, that I’m not as mature as they thought I was.”

“Oh, Ike, I’m sorry.” I know this sentiment must have hurt as much as the refusal of the money. “Did you mention to him about Jenna?”

“I didn’t,” he says. “Because I’m pretty sure I know what he’d say.”

“He’d tell you to open the shop with her.”

“No, actually, I think he’d say not to.” He pauses. “Not if my marriage is really important to me.”

Ouch.

Ouch, ouch.

“But you want to, anyway.”

“I want that location,” he says. “It’s really ideal, and Tucson doesn’t have many really good ones. It’s not the easiest town to open a business in.”

“Maybe we could move somewhere, then! Like Phoenix or Denver or . . . anywhere, Ike! Just think of it—we could go anywhere we want!”

He shakes his head. “I love Tucson. I’d never leave it.”

Never? Really? This is yet another thing I didn’t know about him. “You don’t mind the heat?”

“I love the heat,” he says. “I’m a desert rat. Born, bred, and someday I’ll be buried here. I couldn’t leave. I
wouldn’t
leave. Tucson’s part of me. It’s part of who I am.”

Ike from Tucson.
If I’m married to Ike, then I’m married to Tucson.

“Well, okay.” I had no idea he felt so strongly about his hometown. “Tucson it is.”

“And I’ve got to make my move, Tami. It’s time. I don’t want to be working at Starbucks the rest of my life, or get some other job just to get a job. I’m antsy. I’m ready. I thought I was about to do it, and then . . .” He looks at me apologetically and doesn’t say what I know he’s thinking,
And then you came along.
“I’m afraid if I don’t do it now, I never will. I’ll get sucked into something else, some decent-paying job that’ll never make sense to quit for something as risky as my own business, or we’ll decide to use the money as a down payment on a house. Right now’s the perfect time. We’re in a perfect position. We have nothing to lose.”

“I want you to do what makes you happy,” I say.

“Having my coffee shop would make me happy.”

“Then you should do it.” My throat aches to say it.

“All right, then, I will,” he says, although the look in his eyes tells me he suspects there’s a caveat. Which there is, of course. There are a few, actually.

“But do you think . . . do you think maybe I could be part of it, too? Part of this coffee shop adventure?”

He brightens, surprised. “You’d want to work in the coffee shop?”

“Why not? I like coffee shops. I met my husband in one, you know.”

His smile is broad. “I do know that, as a matter of fact, and I’d love for us to do this together, Tami. That’s an excellent idea.”

“Do you think Jenna will agree?”

He shrugs. “It’s part of the deal. A nonnegotiable part of the deal. She can take it or leave it.” He peers at me. “Are you sure you’re okay with that, though? You didn’t seem very comfortable around her at Starbucks.”

“I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“She’s super nice,” Ike says. “She’s got this philosophy that you can make a complete stranger’s whole day better just by the way you interact with them. Just by making them laugh, or looking them in the eye and making a real connection . . . whatever. She’d just find a way—” He laughs at some private memory. “She could come across the most bored gas station attendant in the world in some Podunk town, and she’d stand there and charm the pants off him until she made him laugh. It’s like a personal challenge. She always gives you that extra minute. She always leaves you feeling . . .” He shrugs, perhaps realizing he’s said too much. “She’s also flightier than hell. You can’t make plans with her for anything.”

Is this someone you should go into business with?
I want to ask.
Is this a good business decision, Ike? Or is this a decision of the heart?

“Ike, why didn’t you marry her?” I try to ask this as a friend, not a wife.

My husband’s eyes have never been bluer as he says, simply, with a one-shoulder shrug, “She’s not you.”

“Would it bother
you
to be around Jenna all the time, Ike?”

He leans forward. “I’m a married man, Tami. I wouldn’t betray you. I never would.”

This is good to hear, but it wasn’t my question.

I take a deep breath. “I want you to know—” When I stop, he raises his eyebrows, urging me on. “I mean, I know nothing for us has been . . . normal. How we’ve done things, I mean—how we got married like we did, fast, and without knowing each other very well. I know it’s not typical for how an American would like to get married—and it’s good. I think the American way is better. And I know that if I were a different person—from a different place, I mean, if I wasn’t from Iran . . . If I was from
here
, I mean. If I were an
American
, we’d only just be dating right now. You’d be . . . you’d be my new boyfriend, not my new husband.”

“Yes? And?” His face tells me he’s not too impressed with what I’ve said so far.

“Well, then this would be a more balanced choice for you.”

“What choice are we talking about?”

He knows. He’s just making me say it. His expression dares me to. My chest rises and falls double time as I work up my courage.

“If you want to be with Jenna,” I say.

“Instead of... ?”

I cringe.
Instead of being with me.

“You’re okay with me choosing Jenna over you. Is that what you’re saying?”

His voice is icy, and I look at him imploringly. “I want you to be with the person you want to be with. I don’t want you to suffer for having married me.”