Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar (superbooks4u .TXT) 📕

proper than coming home with a girlfriend. They wouldn’t have approved. No one would’ve approved. And he told my parents not to throw a party, that it was too much distraction. And they are listening, though my mother finds this difficult.”

“They think we’re engaged.”

“Is it so unrealistic?” Though he’s the one who asked the question, he blushes as if the inquiry was turned to him. “Sorry. It’s not my place.”

Engaged. A ruse, but realizing his parents believe it heightens everything. Alters meetings. The way people have looked at her. What they must have said that she’d not understood. It explains all the pieces of jewelry his parents gave her. The regret his cousin expressed that he’d not brought her a gift. Through the kitchen window is Gaziza, who thinks Olivia is her future daughter. The thought makes her want to cry, to be her daughter.

“So you thought we were engaged when you met me. But you didn’t look happy. When you first saw me.”

“Not because of that, I promise you. It was the risk. I didn’t think it safe or a good time to come.”

“I guess it wasn’t safe. The verdict has been reached.” A smile. “So that’s what your fight with Delan was about?”

“He frustrates me.”

She laughs. “Me too. But why you?”

“He is blessed. You know this. Everything has fallen into place for him. The American Friends of the Middle East helped him. The I-20, the student visa. And then he is discovered for a big movie.”

A big movie but a little part, she wants to say but stays quiet.

“Paid enough money to buy a big house.”

Now she says something, in part because she wants him to feel better, to not feel small in his brother’s shadow. “A big house that’s falling apart in a not-so-amazing area. I live there too.”

“It is in Hollywood. He bought a big house in Hollywood.”

Olivia smiles, letting him keep his glittering streets of stars versus hers of stepped-on cigarettes and crowded bus stops.

“And citizenship went through,” Soran says. “He met someone who knew a senator. Those applications, usually they are lost. But not his. He gets work. A house with a yard, friends. Oranges. Even an empty lot behind the wall should he want to grow more. He said he wants to learn to ski and then meets the Norwegian trainer for the Olympics; did he tell you that? In London, when he visited me. Of course we did not ski—we were in London—but the man said, Anytime, you call me. That is how these things work for him.”

“You’re proud of him.”

“Of course. It took bravery for him to leave. But his luck has made him lazy. He believes that what he wants will happen, that fate will make it happen—so often he does not act. How long before he told you how he felt? He waits for things to fall into his lap.”

“Fate. I know. It’s his crutch.”

A quick glance at her. Guilt on his face from the sway of talk to something slightly negative.

“Yes. Fate. The lazy man’s religion. But what happens if one star is not in alignment? And does not go into alignment? And chance never comes and time is wasted? What if you wake up only to die that day?”

“Maybe that faith is good,” Olivia says. “Maybe it’s good to not be so worried.”

“Is that faith? Or an excuse? Perhaps that depends on the person. But Delan, he is a man so accustomed to life going the direction he wants that he becomes reckless. And his gambles, in his life, he has won. But you do not gamble with another person.”

In its cage, the pigeon beats its wings. Soran says nothing more, just turns back to the house and raises his hand, shielding his eyes against the sun.

CHAPTER 9

In the morning, she wakes to the sound of the front door closing, the rest of the house silent. Within seconds, she’s at the window, and Soran’s car is pulling down the street. A whip of orange as it turns the corner. Back in bed, she wants to lose herself in a dream. Sunrise shoves through curtains in darkened red.

Darkened red. The first time Delan went into the darkroom with her, the first time he saw her photographs and maybe even truly saw her, was only a year ago. A time that now feels ancient, a relic of an easier world. Upstairs at their house. In the bathroom with a tub that allows for three trays and late-night black-and-white printing, which is easier than color. Often she wakes in the middle of the night and tapes a sign on the door. DARKROOM. USE DOWNSTAIRS. SORRY!

One night, he told her he wanted to see the magic. Though she’d obliged, she was suddenly nervous. Towel under the door. Black paper taped to the window. She flipped the switch and the world went black until the film was loaded. Then a click of the safelight, and everything shot red. Keenly, she was aware of where he was. Felt him. Saw him in the dusky reflection of the mirror and spoke just to fill the silence. Talk of fitting film sprocket holes. Ridding air bubbles in the tank. Test prints and exposure. Her words went on until the image appeared, and she forgot him because there was Rebecca, slowly coming into existence. Pulling on a high-heeled shoe while holding on to the kitchen counter, late for work. A teakettle on the stove letting off steam and morning light landing in heavy chunks through the window. The timer clicked, and the lines of Rebecca’s short hair sharpened, and the expression on her face—hurry, irritation, acceptance—summed up everything. Because this was a woman who was told she could work the same job as a man as long as she didn’t forget her job at home. A woman whose right to take birth control pills was too often seen as a ticket to noncommitment from those who no longer lived