No, but well, you're right, of course, Bitsy said. Something still appeared to be troubling her, though.

I thought you would be glad, Ziba told her.

Oh, I am! Honestly I am. She recovered the wipes box, finally, and pried a wad of wipes out of Xiu-Mei's fist. But I would be a lot happier if you told me she was madly pursuing him, calling him at all hours and hanging around his neck.

Maryam is a dignified woman, Ziba said stiffly. She's a lady. In our country, ladies don't act that way.

It was probably the first time she had ever used that phrase, in our country. Always before she had been so eager to say that this was her country, and she wasn't sure why now should be any different. Bitsy must have noticed, because instantly she said, Oh, yes, she's a lovely woman, and I am so, so pleased that things seem to be moving ahead with them.

Then they both changed the subject. Wasn't Xiu-Mei the teeniest bit plumper? Ziba wanted to know, and Bitsy said she did seem plumper, now that Ziba mentioned it, and maybe they should weigh her. So they went upstairs to the bathroom, and Bitsy stepped on the scale with Xiu-Mei in her arms and then stepped off and handed Xiu-Mei to Ziba and stepped on the scale again, and they did the math. They were very perky and chattery.

On the wall above the toilet hung a framed black-and-white photo of a much younger Dave and Connie with Bitsy and her brother Abe, all of them in ragged wigs and hideous, hayseed clothes. Dave wore a Groucho Marx mustache-and-gla.s.ses set; Connie and Bitsy had enormous artificial buckteeth, and four of Abe's teeth were blacked out. That photo had been taken the summer Mac got engaged, Ziba knew. Connie had mailed a copy to Laura's parents with a note saying that the future in-laws would like to introduce themselves. A joke, of course, but Ziba hadn't laughed quite soon enough when it was explained to her. How could people view themselves so lightly? she had wondered.

And who on earth would hang a family photo above a toilet? Some things about Americans would forever ... flummox her.

Maybe being away for a week made Maryam appreciate what Dave meant to her. At any rate, after she got back from Vermont they were seen together more often, and they did appear to be together. They chimed in on each other's stories, and reminded each other cozily of shared experiences, and sat side by side and quite close on the couch. When Maryam was speaking, Dave smiled around the room as if inviting the others to join in his admiration. When it was Dave who was speaking, Maryam smiled too but directed her gaze discreetly toward her lap. They acted like teenagers, Sami told Ziba. He said he was glad to see his mother so happy, but it did make him feel sort of funny.

Bitsy said it made her feel old. She couldn't be more delighted, she said, but, Oh, Lord, how long has it been since you lit up like that when a certain person walked into the room? Be honest, Ziba.

This was at the Arrival Party, which did, after all, take place at the Yazdans' this year instead of at the Donaldsons'. Xiu-Mei had been hospitalized for three days the previous week some kind of intestinal blockage, now resolved, thank goodness and so at the very last minute Bitsy had given in. She brought over what she'd already made, a ca.s.serole and some home-baked bread, and Ziba and Maryam swung into action and prepared the rest in thirty-six hours.

As fate would have it, the guest list was longer this year than it had been in some time. There was even a rare representative from Maryam's branch of the family: her brother's wife, Roya, who was in the U. S. with her friend Zuzu to visit Zuzu's son in Delaware. Zuzu had been scared to travel alone, was the story. Apparently she could not be left alone at her son's place, either, or else Roya was also scared to travel alone, because Roya brought Zuzu with her when she came to Baltimore, and the two of them stayed at Maryam's. In one way this was helpful: they had been happy to pitch in with the emergency food preparations, and Zuzu, who hailed originally from a town on the Caspian Sea, made an impressive stuffed fish that was the centerpiece of the table. On the other hand, they were your traditional sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed Iranian women, and not ten minutes into the party they began to focus very closely on Dave d.i.c.kinson. They watched every move he made and were not above whispering to each other after his most inconsequential remark. Of course they might just have been working out a translation (neither of them spoke much English), but Ziba suspected they were gossiping. She was interested to see that they appeared to have no prior knowledge of him; they had been at Maryam's for three days but required an introduction when he arrived at the party, and from their first, dismissive reaction it was clear they didn't know that he had any special importance. Then he said, Aha! Salade olivieh! and rubbed his hands together. He started walking around the table surveying the dishes, which had already been laid out in two long rows. Fesenjun! he said, putting a u in the last syllable less formal and more intimate-sounding than fesenjan. Is it yours? he asked Maryam, and she nodded, smiling at him with her lips sweetly closed, and that was when the two women grew extremely, extremely alert.

Doogh! he said. I adore doogh, he told the two women, and he said it with some pride, evidently knowing that most Americans were disgusted by the very notion of a carbonated yogurt drink. He p.r.o.nounced the gh sound with a conscious, laughable effort, practically gargling in his attempt to speak far enough back in his throat; and in fact the women did laugh or t.i.ttered, at least, each raising a hand to her mouth and exchanging a glance with the other. He laughed too. He must have thought he was connecting with them beautifully. And Maryam may have thought the same, for she went on smiling from the other side of the table. It was Ziba who moved forward, at last, and took him by the elbow. Wait till you see the baklava, she told him. My mother brought it over this morning.

But this only caused the women to exchange another glance. (See how Maryam's daughter-in-law treats him so familiarly!) Dave said, Your mother brought her baklava? I crave her baklava. He told the women, She makes her filo dough from scratch. You wouldn't believe how good it is.

They pursed their lips, as if a.s.sessing something. They looked thoughtfully toward Maryam.

The baklava was serving as the Arrival Cake, in fact. Ziba had spiked it all over with tiny American flags and set it on the sideboard at the end of the meal. She omitted the candles, and she didn't bother sending the girls out of the room. Instead she plunged straight into She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, and the others joined her even the girls themselves. If Bitsy was disappointed, she didn't show it. She might have been too tired to care. Xiu-Mei was asleep on her shoulder, head lolling and pacifier halfway out of her parted lips, and Bitsy swayed with her in time to the song. Toot, toot! the girls were shouting. Hi, babe! They sang louder than anyone else, as if they'd been waiting all these years just for the opportunity.

And later the videotape ran almost un.o.bserved; most people knew it so well. Jin-Ho went off in a corner to play Old Maid with two cousins. Linwood and his girlfriend grew all whispery and nuzzly. Several of the women started cleaning up while the other guests stood about in small groups, merely glancing toward the screen from time to time and remarking on how small the girls used to be, or how much more hair Brad used to have, before returning to their conversations. When Ziba crossed in front of the TV with a stack of dishes, she had to say Excuse me only to Susan and Bitsy. Susan was watching the video from her seat on the rug. Bitsy, in the rocker with Xiu-Mei, seemed on the verge of sleep. But then Bitsy asked, out of the blue, Remember how we used to tell each other we wouldn't want to go back to that day for anything on earth?

I remember, Ziba said.

But now I think that in some ways, I would want to go back. I hadn't made any mistakes yet. I was still the perfect mother and Jin-Ho was still the perfect daughter. Oh, not that I'm saying ... I don't mean to say I know what you're saying, Ziba told her, and she would have given Bitsy a hug if she hadn't had her hands full of cake plates.

What do you suppose their lives were like before they came to us? Bitsy asked, not for the first time. They've had all those months of experiences that we will never know about. I'm sure they must have been treated well, but, oh, it kills me, it just kills me that I wasn't there to hold Jin-Ho when she first opened her eyes on the day that she was born.

On the day that Susan was born, Ziba was on the other side of the world wondering if she'd be able to love a total stranger's baby. And she had cried for half of one night some weeks after Susan's arrival, not knowing what she was crying about till all at once she had thought, What happened to my own baby?

Two things she would never say aloud to anyone not Bitsy, not even Sami.

She told Bitsy, Oh, well, just look at her. She turned out fine anyhow, didn't she? For Jin-Ho was chortling gleefully while Deirdre, studying the card she'd just picked, was pantomiming despair.

In the kitchen, Ziba found her mother sc.r.a.ping plates. Roya and Zuzu were spooning leftovers into refrigerator containers, and Maryam was knotting the drawstring on a plastic bag of garbage.

Dave said, Oh, Maryam -june! Don't lift that! Let me! and he stepped forward to wrest the bag from her. Maryam straightened, brushing a strand of hair off her face. Roya set down a salad bowl and sent a long look toward Zuzu.

Susan started kindergarten that September. She'd been accepted at a private school out in Baltimore County. Every morning Sami drove her there, since he worked in that area anyway, and on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Ziba picked her up. But the kindergarten program ended at noon, which meant that on Tuesdays and Thursdays Maryam had to be the one who fetched her. Maryam brought Susan back home with her, gave her lunch, and kept her until Ziba arrived several hours later. Ziba told Maryam that she worried this was an imposition now that Maryam was leading such a busy social life; but Maryam said, What do you mean, busy? Ziba didn't answer that.

Often when Ziba got to Maryam's she would find Dave there before her. He would be sitting in the kitchen while Maryam prepared supper and Susan played with the cat. (Later, Ziba would ask Susan, Did Dave eat lunch with you? and most days Susan said, Mmhmm. No telling if he'd been around even longer. All morning? All the previous night?) Touchingly, Dave made a point of rising when Ziba walked in. Well, h.e.l.lo! Good to see you, he'd say, running a hand through his pelt of gray curls. A mug of coffee would be sitting on the table in front of him he drank coffee around the clock and a jumbled pile of newspapers. He liked to read aloud from the papers and make comments to Maryam. As soon as Ziba turned to greet Susan, he would sit back down and resume where he had left off. Listen to this, he told Maryam. Here's a man arrested for road rage as a jogger, for mercy's sake. Maryam smiled and topped off his coffee with the pot that she kept going for him. Oh, thank you! he said. He never failed to show his grat.i.tude another touching quality. Although Ziba thought the newspaper-reading could get a little tiresome. 'Area residents complained that the club's exotic dancers performed with denuded b.r.e.a.s.t.s,' he read from another page. 'Denuded'! Don't you love it? Maryam laughed gently as she rinsed out her Thousand Faces teapot. Where was her new electric contraption? Ah: shoved toward the back of a counter, half hidden by a package of pita.

Susan said a boy named Henry had called her a p.o.o.p-faced p.o.o.p-head. Oh, that's just boys, Maryam told her, and Dave announced, with some urgency, Now, here is a bunch of parents protesting the multiplication tables. Ziba was reminded of how a child will tug at his mother's sleeve when she is on the phone, requiring cookies, milk, juice, complaining of a stomachache, desperate to reclaim her attention. They feel that rote memorization dampens the students' love of learning, Dave said. And they don't see why anyone should have to diagram sentences. That's old-fashioned, they say. He lowered the paper to frown at Susan over his reading gla.s.ses. You need to diagram sentences, young lady. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Susan said, Okay.

If a certain TV anchorman could diagram a sentence, he would not have reported on the national news that as the father of two young children, chicken pox was sweeping the country.

Huh?

Maryam lit the flame beneath her kettle. Was today your day with the leopard-skin lady? she asked Ziba.

Yes, and you'll never guess now what. Now she wants tiger-striped curtains in the master bedroom. I said, 'But the wallpaper there is zebra-striped!' She said, 'Of course. It's a theme room.'

Maryam leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. She was wearing a long white ap.r.o.n over her black slacks; she looked crisp and almost too thin. Last night I had the most upsetting dream, she said. You've just reminded me. The zebra stripes reminded me. I was driving in a strange city, trying to get to the zoo, and I couldn't find a parking s.p.a.ce. So finally I parked on a side street. And then I told the ticket lady, 'Oh! I forgot where I parked!' I said, 'Wait a minute; I just need to make sure I can get back to my car.' So I turned and I went down this street, went down that street ... but I couldn't find my car again. All the streets looked the same.

Maryam, sweetheart? Dave said, lowering his newspaper. Are you feeling particularly anxious these days?

Why, no, not that I Because I would call that an anxiety dream. Don't you think so, Ziba?

Ziba said, Well...

I do have to drive to Danielle's tomorrow night, Maryam said. And you know how far out of town she lives.

Aha, that's it, Dave told her. You hate driving at night! You don't have any night vision. You always end up getting lost.

Not always.

I will drive you.

No, no. . .

I will drive! I will be at your beck and call! I will drive you there and come back for you at some appointed time.

That's just silly, Maryam told him.

Oh, let him, Mari -june, Ziba said.

Yes, let me, Mari -june. Besides, Dave said. He winked at Ziba. This way I might finally get to meet the famous Danielle.

You haven't met Danielle? Ziba asked.

I haven't met any of her friends.

Why, Maryam! You ought to introduce him, Ziba said. Invite him in when he comes to bring you home.

Ordinarily she would not have been so forward, but all at once she felt a kind of impatience that amounted almost to anger. Wouldn't you think Maryam could show a little more warmth? Clearly she loved the man; why was she so stiff-necked, so obstinate, so frustrating?

But Maryam said, I will drive my own self, thank you, and turned back to her kettle.

Then Susan complained that Moosh had snagged her hair, and Ziba said what did she expect if she swung her braids in his face, and Dave said, Look at this! Now churches are projecting the words to hymns on overhead screens with little bouncing b.a.l.l.s like Lawrence Welk. They say it's too much trouble for people to read down the staves in the hymnbooks. For G.o.d's sake! Too much trouble!

Maryam clicked her tongue. Ziba told Susan to collect her things because they had to be going.

When the Donaldsons gave their leaf-raking party in October, Maryam attended. She hadn't in the past, not after the very first one. (I have my own leaves to rake, she always said, although her own leaves were oak and barely beginning to turn by then.) But here she came, emerging from the pa.s.senger side of Dave's car and waving to the others. She went into the house first to drop off her purse and a bottle of wine, and then she joined Dave, who'd already started raking a section near the front. The girls were helping too this year, each wielding a child-sized rake and competing to see who could make a bigger pile. Xiu-Mei was sitting on a tarpaulin that Brad had spread nearby, reaching for the shiny bra.s.s grom--mets. You could tell she had not had much practice operating her hands. They moved as waveringly and unpredictably as those scooping-claw games on boardwalks.

It was a perfect day for this a breezy, bright Sat.u.r.day afternoon, warm enough so that bit by bit, people shucked their sweaters off. Brad's mother, who as usual was just standing about decoratively, gathered the sweaters and put them in a heap beside Xiu-Mei. Bitsy stopped work for a minute to go inside and check on dinner. Brad's father started a boring real-estate discussion with Sami, and Dave dropped his rake in order to walk over and confer with the girls about something. Ziba couldn't hear what he was saying. All she heard was Sami telling Lou how difficult the insurance companies were making home-buying these days.

Bitsy came back out of the house with a pitcher and a stack of tumblers. Who's for lemonade? she called, and the girls said, I am! I am! Ziba laid aside her rake and went to help, but the men continued working. So did Maryam, till Dave said, Maryam? Want to stop for lemonade?

Oh, she said, maybe later. She was raking alongside the driveway with languid, leisurely strokes. She didn't like sweet drinks, Ziba knew not that she would ever be so rude as to say so.

Dave went over to Bitsy and accepted a gla.s.s of lemonade from her. Then he bent and whispered to the girls. Jin-Ho said, Oh, and handed her tumbler back to Bitsy. Susan said, Here, Mama, and shoved her own tumbler at Ziba. They followed Dave across the lawn toward Maryam. Bitsy raised her eyebrows at Ziba, but Ziba had no idea.

Maryam? Dave was saying. Won't you sit down? I brought you a gla.s.s of lemonade.

Oh, thank you, but Sit down, Mari -june! Sit down! Susan said, and Jin-Ho said, Please, please sit down. They were tugging at her arms and giggling. Maryam seemed puzzled, and no wonder; the only place to sit was directly on the ground. But she did allow herself to be dragged down, finally, until she was seated tailor-fashion on a stretch of mossy gra.s.s already cleared of leaves. Then Dave handed her the lemonade.

In the distance, Sami was telling Lou, It's like the insurance companies have completely forgotten that gambling is their job description. They won't insure a house if it has ever in its life had a leak; never mind that the leak has long ago been Dave called, Sami?

Sami broke off and looked over at him.

Girls, Dave said.

Still giggling, the girls dug something out of their pockets. They pressed closer to Maryam and started working busily just above her head. Maryam said, What ? She tried to bat their hands away but they were all over her, four insistent little fists making brisk, bustling motions. It's sugar! Susan cried. We're grinding sugar!

What on ?

Maryam, Dave said. Will you marry me?

Maryam stopped swiping at her hair and stared at him. The girls were still working away, but Dave said, Okay, kids, that's enough now. Reluctantly, they stepped back.

Maryam said, What?

This is a formal proposal, he said, and he dropped to his knees beside her. Will you be my wife?

Instead of answering, she looked at the girls. Sure enough, their hands were full of sugar cubes the uniform white rectangles that came in the yellow Domino box.

The sugar should have been cone-shaped. That was what they used in Iran: rough white cones of sugar some six or eight inches tall. And the people grinding it should have been grown women known for their happy marriages, and they should have worked over a veil so that the crystals would not be speckling Maryam's hair like a very bad case of dandruff. And it was never ground at proposals. That happened only at weddings.

Either Dave had been gravely misinformed or else he had decided to redesign the whole tradition. Switch it around and embellish it. Americanize it, you might say.

Maryam looked past the girls to the others: Bitsy smiling above her pitcher, Pat clasping her hands as if praying, Sami and Lou gaping, and Ziba herself... what? Probably clench jawed with tension, because it would be so sad if Maryam said no to this poor, sweet, foolish man.

Maryam looked at Dave again. She said, Yes.

Everybody cheered.

On Sunday Ziba woke with a headache from way too much champagne. It had been a rowdy celebration, extending so late that finally Maryam herself had been the one to break it up. By that time both girls were sound asleep on the couch, which Ziba would have noticed earlier if she hadn't been so tipsy. Sami had to carry Susan out to the car. (He practically had to carry Ziba.) He'd drunk very little himself because he was driving, and this morning he was cheerfully smugly, even putting on his socks while Ziba said, Oh, oh, my head, and squinted toward the alarm clock. Nine-fifteen. Oh, G.o.d, she said. Where's Susan?

Downstairs watching TV.

I feel as if I've got a bowling ball in my head. I turn this way wham! Turn the other way wham!

Want some aspirin?

I'm afraid I might throw it up.

I warned you, Sami told her.

Sami, don't even start. Okay?

He rose and padded in his stocking feet to the bathroom. She heard the medicine-cabinet door slide open. One, or two? he called back.

Four, she said.

She heard water running.

I hope Maryam doesn't feel this bad, she said.

She didn't drink all that much that I noticed.

Oh, great, was I the only one?

Well, Brad was putting away quite a bit, and it seemed to me that Pat and Lou were fairly Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

Sami stepped out of the bathroom and sent her a questioning look.

Don't answer it, Ziba told him.

But a moment later Susan called, Mama? Mari -june's here. Ziba said, Oh, G.o.d, and fell back on her pillow.

I'll go, Sami said. He set two aspirin on the nightstand, along with a paper cup of water, and left the room. After a pause, Ziba heard his chipper Hi, Mom! and then murmur, murmur normal morning voices that made Ziba feel even worse.

Well, no getting around it; she would have to show herself. She sat up to swallow the aspirin. Then she hauled herself out of bed and went to the closet for her bathrobe.

By the time she arrived downstairs, Maryam was seated at the kitchen table watching Sami fill the kettle. Whether or not Maryam had drunk much champagne, she had the drawn, unhealthy look of someone who had stayed up too late. Her black blazer turned her skin almost yellow, and she wasn't wearing lipstick.

Morning, Mari june! Ziba said. She tried to sound fresh and energetic.

Maryam said, Good morning, Ziba. Then she said, I was just telling Sami that I feel horrible.

Oh, do you really? Me too. I don't know what I could have been This is the worst mistake of my life.

Excuse me? Ziba said.

She looked over at Sami. He was standing to one side of the stove now, waiting for the kettle to heat. Mom didn't mean to say yes, he told her.