 The day my father died my mother became a different kind of woman He was the conservative one the cover your hair or you'll be rape type that I'll choose who you marry kind He had the I can't shake a woman's hand because it's in decent way of thinking To him the cloth that we wrapped around ourselves was always more important than who we were It was a heart attack sudden and without warning not the kind of death I think he would have wanted for himself He probably would have wanted to drag it out and make everyone suffer right there with him Two months later. We won the green card lottery and my sister Fadernac my mother and I moved from Tehran to San Francisco in a matter of two weeks I couldn't blame my mother, but I also missed her I missed the smiling singing woman who snapped her fingers loudly and Complained my whole life about how we were forced to cover ourselves when it was so hot outside and how it made life feel So stuffy and unnatural Why did God give her a beautiful head of hair if he wanted her to cover it all the time? And if they'd raised their daughters right couldn't they just trust us to find our own husbands? But now she adorned herself in black and prayed five times a day and insisted I find a decent Iranian husband to wed what about her friend Patty's son He worked at Google and liked obscure movies and tacos too My sister was no help she followed my mother around like a nervous intern Trying to learn how to cook and clean and present herself when a suitor did come along I had this horrible feeling that although the point of us coming here was to start fresh and take advantage of new Opportunities the two of them were just dying to keep things how they'd always been When we first came to San Francisco, I was 19 and started working at Foot Locker and going to art school full-time I wore the head job for no other reason than to make my mother happy My sister who was taking classes at City College so she could transfer to SF State didn't mind hers at all It makes me feel at home Fadar next said this place is so different. It's nice to have one thing that reminds me of Iran I hate wearing it. I said although at that point. I couldn't imagine myself roaming these hilly Unfamiliar streets without covering myself. I'm only doing it for mom on I hate how everyone looks up at us like we're from another planet Without it, I'd feel invisible Fadar next said as if that was a bad thing There are things I miss but I try not to think about those things. I can't talk to my friends in Iran anymore I can't watch movies that are set there and I try really hard to speak as much English as possible I'm not trying to fit in but I feel like you're either here or you're not and I'd rather be here than pretend The life in Iran we had was so perfect I'd go to Ocean Beach often even though the Sun was rarely out I actually preferred to go around five or six when the fog would really roll in and I'd sit there and let myself Get taken over by it the first day of summer after my first year of school I decided that I didn't want to work at foot walker anymore And that I wouldn't take summer school and that I just spend the summer exploring and having fun I didn't tell my mother or my sister. I made all these big decisions on my own for once and it felt really good I sat on the beach and it was so cold But I took my head job off anyway and used it as a blanket I sat there and looked ahead even though the ocean had been taken over by the fog and everything was covered in it And I laughed there were two people on the beach and I could barely see them It felt good knowing that if they did see me They wouldn't look at me in a strange way inspecting me and making assumptions about me and my family that were Conservative terrorists backward ignorant that we don't speak English that we're oppressed by men that we don't fuck and scream like every other woman in the world Someone could have passed by me right then and believed I was from this place not a stranger at all But someone who belonged it was a lie, but I was the only one who knew it so it didn't feel so wrong On my 21st birthday my mother wanted to take my sister and meet at dinner She insisted on taking us to a new Persian restaurant, but I told her I was tired of Persian food They have warm as absy like home. She insisted. I thought leaving was a good thing You make it sound like someone took your home away from you. Let's eat Italian food I said at the restaurant in North Beach We each ordered our own pasta dish and shared a pizza our waiter with his long slick back hair hairy arms and cloud of cologne was Charming he had a very manly vibe and I liked that and he didn't look at us like we were different But like we were beautiful like everyone else I wanted to ask him what part of Italy he was from whether his parents were still there whether he missed home at all He was so charming. He convinced my mother to get dessert, which never happened a Terima sue for her because it is her birthday. Can you bring a candle so we can sing please? No candle I said come on a beautiful beautiful girl like you should make the wish the waiter said and it's thick Italian Accent and he smiled like he meant it. So I let him bring the cake When they sang I didn't look up because I knew the whole Restaurant was staring at us at the three covered women who were from that other place And I wish for only one thing to feel like one person and not two To mend this tear that had begun ripping at my heart the moment We'd landed years ago was slowly splitting my insides into two separate things What did you wish for a fat on that ass which was an annoying question for our husband? I said because I knew it's what my mother and sister wanted for me more than anything else When I went to the bathroom after dessert. I saw the waiter standing by the kitchen on his phone He couldn't see me But I could see him and hear him on the phone And I had to stand there for a moment and listen harder because I couldn't believe I was hearing things right He was speaking Farsi just like I did with no American accent at all He was an immigrant like me who'd created a false identity for himself as a sleazy Italian server He was flirting with some girl over the phone in Farsi asking her to come over later after his shift No one would leave a good tip for the Iranian waiter at the Italian restaurant But he made good money this way and I admired him and his commitment to being something He wasn't and feeling no remorse for it at all My last year at art school an online app recruited me to work on their design team It was a dating app where only women were allowed to initiate Conversations and they were trying to hire more women. So even though I look like I wasn't the dating type They didn't care as long as I was a woman I was studying graphic design and I thought it was okay at it But when they saw my portfolio they immediately offered me a job and a salary that was enough to rent my own studio in San Francisco So that was all I needed to know. I don't know why I thought my mother would actually let me move out though She herself wasn't working and since Farinac was still in school full-time. She told me the whole family needed the money You can't be so selfish all the time. She said we might live in America, but we don't do things that American way It's not the American way a lot of young people in Iran have their own places Those are loose girls with no morals You can't leave us until you go to your husband's home and is it so bad living with us? She protested as she stuffed grape leaves with ground meat and raisins in our tiny kitchen And Iran our kitchen was the center of our home where everyone ended up during parties to mix and mingle Here it was a narrow space with barely enough room for Farinac and my mother to stand in and cook What would your father say may his spirit be happy? He would dive embarrassment. He's already dead I wanted to say but I knew she wouldn't take it well. So instead I said did you really love him? She stopped what she was doing and looked up at me in hesitation. You're always speaking English, ma'am June You'll forget your farsi. She said because she was an expert at changing the subject. Did you really love him? I asked her again in Farsi. Love is a complicated word She said and then she listed off a bunch of things she needed me to do before dinner and that was that For six months, do I have time to do a little bit more? Okay a little bit more Okay for six months I wore my hedge up to the office and for six months Everyone was really nice to me but never invited me out for drinks after work or to Giants games as it turns out Even when you try to make an effort to hire more female employees you end up hiring mostly men My co-worker Ashley who worked on the marketing team was blonde and beautiful and offered me dark chocolate every day because she Thought it was healthier than regular chocolate except she ate at least two bars a day There were a few guys who said hi to me every so often But they didn't look at me the way they looked at Ashley and they were too afraid to ask me anything about myself Probably because they thought either they looked dumb or they'd embarrass me One day I showed up went to the buffet to get my free breakfast sat down on my desk and took my hedge up off It wasn't a conscious choice. I hadn't planned it or thought about it ahead of time It wasn't too hot I just needed air and I didn't and I didn't think about what everyone would think or say or even asked myself Whether I was really ready to stop wearing it Ashley was the first to say something about it and it took her only two whole days So you like don't always wear that thing she asked me in the break room It was make your own Sunday day and I was eating three scoops with a mountain of syrup Ashley had found a bar of dark chocolate I didn't know what to say. I Mean, I just thought it was a part of your religion. I didn't realize you could take it off whenever My mother wants me to wear it. I told her I don't think it's necessary though I said because I couldn't talk to Ashley about the tearing that was happening inside of me I couldn't ask her she knew how to fix it. Ashley was one person one thing Nothing was broken and jagged inside of her. Thank you