Page 51 of Like a Love Story
“Obviously, I made my way up to the DJ booth tomake a request,” Tara continues.
“She requested New Order,” he says. “Which made me realize not only was she beautiful, but she also has taste.”
“Then we basically made out for the rest of his set,” Tara says, with no hint of shame.
I force a smile. “Great,” I say, trying hard to act like I want to hear about my sister making out with a DJ all night.
And they don’t stop there. He reminisces about their first dates, their shared dreams, her promise that she would move to New York to be with him. She shows me a ring he gave her on their second date, metal with a small skull on it. He shows me a tattoo on his lower back, her name written in Farsi script. She says she was going to get a tattoo of his name but chickened out, too afraid of the needles. I feel grateful for that. I can only imagine how our mother would react if she discovered a tattoo on Tara’s skin. They make out again. I can taste their passion. It all seems so unbelievably fast. How can two people just look at each other through the glare of strobe lights and know they are in love? How can they be so sure? And if this is possible, is it possible for me?
“So?” Tara says, picking a blueberry out of her pancake and flinging it at my face.
“Ow,” I say, but I pick the blueberry off the table and eat it. I have barely touched my own omelet, my appetite a distant memory since I broke Judy’s heart.
“We need your advice, little brother,” she says. “You’rethe only person who knows all the players, and who isn’t predisposed to hate me. It’s time for me to tell the fam that I’m staying in New York and moving in with my man. How do we handle this delicately?”
Tara handles nothing delicately. Even if you gave her a feather, she would find a way to turn it into a weapon and stab you with it. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe go back to school first and...”
“No, that’s not an option,” Tara says curtly. “I’m staying in New York. I’m living with Massimo.” Hearing her use his real name somehow makes their relationship, and their plans, a lot more serious.
“Do you... do you have enough money to live... in case they... ,” I stammer, but I know they understand what I am saying. In college, Tara’s life is taken care of. If she chooses to quit school, there is no guarantee.
“I make okay money as a DJ,” Massimo says.
“But then you have to spend most of what you make on new records,” she says to him.
“I’m not quite at the level where labels give me free records,” he explains.
“But he will be,” Tara says, beaming with pride. “And I can wait tables, or bartend. We’ll be fine.”
I nod, taking this in, imagining the look on my mother’s face when she finds out my sister is going to quit school to become a bartender and live with a DJ.
“I’m trying to change, Zabber,” she says to me. “I’m trying to handle this differently than the old Tara. The old me would’ve just blurted this out, probably after afew drinks, had a huge fight with Mom, put you in the middle of it. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I just want to love who I want to love and be who I want to be.”
It’s all I want too. To love who I want to love. To be who I want to be.
“I know you understand,” she says.
I know she does, too. She asked me that first night if I thought Art was cute, and I nodded. I did not say anything else, just a nod. But it was enough. And she only said one thing to me after I nodded. She said, “I always knew and I think it’s great.” That was enough too.
“I think you should tell Mommy first,” I say, “and alone. Just you and her.”
Tara looks over at Massimo apologetically, and after kissing her twice on the hand, he says, “It’s okay. I don’t need to be there.”
“And then,” I continue, “I think you should ask Mommy how she would choose to tell Abbas. You should make her part of the plan and the decision.”
“Okay, that’s good,” Tara says pensively, like she’s taking mental notes. “Thanks.”
“Also, I think you should find a college in New York to transfer to before you—”
Tara bites her lip hard, then stops me. “I can’t transfer to college here.”
“Why?” I ask.
She bites her lip again. “I never showed up to class in Toronto,” she says casually. “I just... it’s not my thing.”
“But Mom was paying!” I say, a little too strongly,annoyed on behalf of my mother, who worked so hard to raise us before Abbas was in her life, who sacrificed the prime of her life for us.
“I didn’t waste the money,” she says. “I managed to get a refund...”
