Hold My Hand Page 3

  “And you don’t have anything else going on?” Becky squinted in the way she did when she felt like she wasn’t getting the full story.

  Alek considered, again, telling her all about Ethan. But something stopped him. “I think you’re underestimating the magnitude of the assignment. And I know I could just write about the famous story of Armenia’s conversion to Christianity, or the genocide, but I just don’t want to.”

  “The famous what?”

  “You know.” Alek got up and began pacing, the way he did when he talked on the phone. Not a cell phone, of course, since his parents still insisted that he didn’t need his own and could just borrow theirs when he needed to. “The Armenians were the first nation to convert to Christianity.”

  “I did not know that.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Everybody knows about that,” Alek scoffed. “The famous story of how King Trdat III converted the nation, back in the third century of ‘our lord.’”

  “Never heard of it.” Becky propped her legs over the side of the sofa and stretched.

  “I’m sure that when I start telling you, you’ll recognize it.”

  “Oh my God, Alek Khederian, I’m sure I won’t!” She rotated her ankles, making small circles in the air. “I’m sure that it’s one of those weird things that only Armenians know, like the recipe for stuffed grapevine leaves. Which I can’t help but point out you haven’t made for me in weeks.”

  But Alek remained unconvinced. “You’re telling me you don’t know the story of how King Trdat III became obsessed with this nun, Hripsime, and when she rejected him he killed her and everyone else in the abbey where she was hiding? And then, as divine punishment for his crime, God started turning him into a boar, but his sister Khosrovidukht had this dream that their old friend Gregory the Christian, who the king had banished into a pit twelve years earlier, could save him from the curse of lycanthropy? So they save Gregory from the pit and he’s, like, miraculously still alive, and he and the boar-king kneel in prayer and then the king’s humanity is restored and he converts the entire Armenian people to Christianity? You’re sure you never heard that one?”

  “I’m sure I would’ve remembered a story of obsession, rage, murder, of turning into a boar, for God’s sake—”

  “Lycanthropy.”

  “What?”

  “It’s called lycanthropy.” Alek resumed his position on the sofa. “When a human turns into an animal. Sometimes they can turn back, as is the case with werewolves. Other times, the transformation is permanent, like in Elder Scrolls. Unless you’re Dragonborn, of course, in which case…”

  Becky regarded Alek for a solid moment. “I’ve often wondered how you’ve ended up the way you are, Alek Khederian.” She popped a Haribo sour cherry into her mouth. “Were you exposed to cosmic rays as a youth, and instead of developing superpowers you just developed super weirdness? Or was it being brought up in your foreign house where your parents still don’t own a microwave because they’re convinced the rays make food radioactive and you’re not allowed to watch more than thirty minutes of television a day—”

  “—when I turn fifteen next month, my parents said they’d consider increasing it to forty minutes.”

  “Has anyone told them that THERE ARE NO SHOWS THAT ARE FORTY MINUTES LONG?” Becky almost-screamed before regaining her composure. “But now I think I understand. And in some small way, it’s almost a wonder you aren’t more messed up. So can we watch a movie? Or is there something else you need to tell me?”

  There was, of course, something Alek was dying to tell Becky. About last night and Ethan and the proposition. But he couldn’t. At least not yet.

  4

  Route 95, which doubled as the New Jersey Turnpike in certain sections and was its own entity at others in a mysterious anastomosis that even most New Jerseyans didn’t understand, was a real highway running north-south— the spine that held the state together.

  The secondary highways ran more or less east-west, parallel to each other. Route 95 more or less bisected them all, making the state’s road map look like a vintage tie rack. Route 33, smack in the middle of those east-west parallel secondary highways, was what the Khederians used to get to church: a mere four lanes, divided by a strip of land that would’ve been green in a different season, framed by wires strung high above either side of the road, connecting the part of New Jersey that bordered Pennsylvania with the part known for its boardwalks and funnel cakes and unfortunate MTV shows.

  Classical music played as Alek’s dad sat behind the wheel, driving his family to St. Stephen’s Armenian Orthodox Church. The Khederians were a reliable twenty minutes late to Saturday school, just as they always were to Sunday services. Their reason for tardiness changed weekly, like the specials at a diner. But for the last few trips, one topic had been so charged, so contentious, that it and it alone reigned supreme: the heated debate Nik always lost about whether or not he’d be allowed to drive.

  “I got my license two months ago, but you never let me behind the wheel.”

  “That’s not true.” Mr. and Mrs. Khederian stood next to each other, presenting a united front. “You drove just last Tuesday.”

  “To the 7-Eleven. Which is three blocks from our house. And both of you came with me,” Nik responded.

  Alek suppressed a chortle as his father responded. “But you have so little experience. How are we supposed to trust you behind the wheel?”

  “But if you don’t let me drive, how’m I going to get any actual experience?” Nik tightened the loop on his skinny plaid tie. “It’s the ultimate catch-22!”

  Popcorn was the only thing missing from making the spectacle even more enjoyable to Alek. Now Nik sat in sullen silence next to him in the back seat as they made their leisurely way to St. Stephen’s Armenian Orthodox Church.

  South Windsor and its surrounding townships had plenty of places to worship: a plethora of churches, the largest of which was the Catholic brick and glass St. Anthony of Padua; a handful of synagogues, such as Beth El, with its Hebrew letters proudly marching across the facade; the Islamic mosque, adorned with its perfectly polished gold dome; and even a Baha’i House of Worship. But every weekend, the Khederians passed these local holy places and drove ninety minutes east on Route 33 to the nearest Armenian church.

  With all of the spots in the adjoining parking lot claimed by the less-tardy Armenians, the Khederians had to settle for the secondary overspill lot, a solid five-minute walkaway, Alek believed, intentionally to punish latecomers. Alek stuck his thumb out when they began the trek, parodying a hitchhiker’s plea, but no one in his family seemed amused.

  When they finally arrived, he and Nik bid goodbye to their parents, leaving them upstairs in a sea of pale-white skin and dark hair and eyes to drink coffee and catch up with the other Armenian parents who made the pilgrimage from all over New Jersey. Downstairs they went, to the basement of the church, where Saturday school classes were taught in rooms created by partitions that everybody claimed were movable, although Alek had never actually witnessed the gray monoliths reconfigured.

  The Khederian brothers passed the elementary and then middle Saturday school classrooms before settling into their high school section.

  In eager anticipation of her favorite season of the year, their teacher, Mrs. Stepanian, had decked out the classroom with Christmas paraphernalia. Trees and wreaths made out of green construction paper decorated the walls, the doors, the windows, even the ceiling of the otherwise drab basement classroom.

  Even though they were late, class hadn’t started yet, which felt to Alek a perfect metaphor for the entire Armenian existence. He sat on the far side of the room, behind Nik, who made a point of taking a front-row seat to illustrate his maximum nerdiness. Around a dozen other high school students, ranging from awkward freshmen to near-adult upperclassmen, checked their phones or chatted with one another while Mrs. Stepanian organized papers at the front desk. She always wore d
ark jackets over white blouses and even darker skirts that came down to her ankles, like she was auditioning to be an extra in The Sound of Music. A few minutes later, just after Arno, a freshman with deep, sad eyes, ran into the classroom, mumbling an apology for his tardiness, Mrs. Stepanian decided that now would be a good time to start.

  “I know you’re all very excited to get back your ‘What Being Armenian Means to Me’ papers that I graded this morning, especially because the student with the highest score will be awarded the privilege of reading their paper at our Christmas Eve service!” Mrs. Stepanian was clearly more excited than the rest of the class combined. “But I’m going to save that for the end of class. Now, for the language section of class, we’re going to read a Christmas pageant out loud. In Armenian!”

  Mrs. Stepanian handed out photocopies that appeared older than even she. Once the roles were assigned, the students fumbled their way through the text. Alek could almost hear the groans of their Armenian ancestors with every butchered sound and syntax.

  The major impediment to completing the exercise was Shushan, a senior from Red Bank, who proved her inanity in new and exciting ways in every class. Last week, for example, she consumed thirty minutes of class with a presentation about why Kim Kardashian should be the next Catholicos of the Armenian church. This week, the seventeen-year-old from two school districts away, who was reading the Virgin Mary in a bold casting against type, stopped every two lines to ask a question.

  “Um, Mrs. Stepanian?” Shushan interrupted the reading again, for the seventh time in five minutes.

  “Yes, Shushan,” Mrs. Stepanian replied wearily.

  “How come some kinds of incense are more honest than others?”

  Mrs. Stepanian sucked in her breath, eager to return to the reading of the pageant but knowing that as an educator, she had an obligation to engage her inquisitive pupil. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Well, the second wise man brings frank incense?” Somehow, Shushan’s gift for upward inflection made every sentence sound like a question.

  “It’s one word—frankincense.” Alek tried, to the best of his ability, to keep the judginess out of his voice. “It just describes the incense’s odor. Not its moral quality.”

  “Oh.” Alek saw Shushan’s brain trying to process the information. Whether or not it succeeded was up for debate. “Can I ask another question?”

  “Myrrh is a kind of perfume,” Alek responded in anticipation.

  “Wow—everyone must’ve smelled horrible in biblical times if two of the three gifts to the baby Jesus were about BO.” Shushan shuddered as she conjured her worst nightmare: ancient personal hygiene. “Thank God we have, like, toilets and things today? And breath fresheners?”

  In the moment before Alek could perform his signature exhale and eye roll, he heard a chortle from the corner of the classroom. He and Arno locked eyes, sharing a quiet moment of existential absurdity at the phenomenon that was Shushan Keshishian.

  “Is there something the matter, Alek? Arno?” The teacher’s question shattered their little spell.

  “No, Mrs. Stepanian,” the boys said at the same time.

  “Very well, then.” She managed to arch an eyebrow at each of them, even though they were sitting at opposite ends of the room. “Let’s continue, then.”

  For the rest of class, every time Shushan or one of the members of her gaggle butchered the Armenian language, Alek and Arno shared a secret smile across the classroom. The surprise at finding an ally in Saturday school almost trumped Alek’s confusion about how Shushan could have survived in the world this long being so challenged. Almost.

  Alek and Arno had only been in the same Saturday school since the start of the school year; Arno had just graduated into the high school section. He had thick, dark Armenian hair like Alek’s, but not as curly, and eyes like bottomless pools that made him look older than his thirteen years. The only thing Alek could remember about Arno was that he was the youngest of a large family—maybe five or six siblings who’d passed through St. Stephen’s.

  Alek wasn’t sure who was happier that the class finally reached the end of the play: the teenagers themselves or Mrs. Stepanian, who felt it necessary to correct every mispronunciation, leaving her to interrupt just about every student on every line. She collected the ancient photocopies after they had reached the end then stored them in the file cabinet as if they were precious artifacts. Then she returned to her desk and produced a stack of papers, like a magician finishing a trick with a dramatic flourish. “I wonder who will be chosen to read their ‘What Being Armenian Means to Me’ paper at the Christmas Eve service?” she said, as if she didn’t already know.

  Traditionally, the nerdiest senior won this great honor, and in Alek’s mind, his brother, Nik, was a shoo-in. He’d even heard Nik telling his mom how honored he’d be if he were chosen, in that humblebrag way that made Alek want to gag.

  Mrs. Stepanian deposited Nik’s paper on his desk. He held it up so that Alek could see the big fat A on top, written in a thick green marker. Alek only hoped his own paper wouldn’t be graded much lower, since his parents’ passive-aggressive disappointment would be annoying at best and maddening at worst.

  “The student reading is my favorite part of the service,” Mrs. Stepanian confided as she continued handing papers back—to Shushan, to Arno, to Voki, a jockish boy from Neptune, one town south. “Hearing you young people talk about being Armenian on Christmas Eve—it’s just the perfect way to start the year!”

  Nik positively beamed as he flipped through his paper, pretending to care about the comments that had been written in the margins.

  “I’m sure that Mr. and Mrs. Khederian are going to be especially proud this Christmas.” Mrs. Stepanian handed Alek’s paper back to him, finally, facedown.

  He handled the paper carefully, like it might be booby-trapped, bargaining with a God whose existence he doubted. I’ll learn all my Armenian verb conjugations if you just give me a B-. And if we can get into the B+ range, I’ll even memorize my vocabulary list.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Khederian,” Mrs. Stepanian announced to the entire class, as if it were some big surprise.

  Nik cleared his throat to deliver the speech he no doubt had prepared to appear incredibly spontaneous.

  But Mrs. Stepanian cut him off. “Alek, you will be speaking at this year’s Christmas Eve service!”

  Alek flipped his paper over, blinking away disbelief at the A+ that indicated his perfect score.

  * * *

  Nik refused to speak to Alek after class. And after Alek brokenly told his parents that his essay had been chosen, he felt Nik’s simmering fury turn to a full boil as their parents heaped praise upon Alek. They trekked back to the car, which was buried in the inch of snow that had fallen since they entered their house of prayer.

  “We’ll read Alek’s essay while you boys tend to the car.” Mr. Khederian popped open the trunk, handing his sons the ice scraper and brush.

  “I left it inside,” Alek admitted, relieved.

  “Then go back and get it!” Mrs. Khederian put her purse in the trunk and opened the passenger door.

  “I’ll just print it out again when we’re home,” Alek said.

  “But then we won’t be able to read Mrs. Stepanian’s comments,” Alek’s father said.

  And see your A+ with our own eyes, Alek added mentally.

  “Hurry on up, Alek.” Mrs. Khederian stepped into the car, cranking the heat up to high. “I’m sure Nik won’t mind scraping the car.”

  His brother was radiating so much anger, Alek suspected he could just melt the snow and ice entrapping their mom’s red Toyota with pure fury. He turned, half walking, half jogging back to the church.

  The side door that was only open on Saturdays was still unlocked, thankfully, and Alek took two steps of the yellow linoleum stairs at a time, hurling himself down to the basement, turning at the kitchen, and sprinting past the bathrooms to the little room where Mrs. Stepania
n tortured them weekly.

  He swung the door open and found Arno, sitting alone, in the far corner. A memory of Arno singing in the children’s choir last year popped into Alek’s consciousness. He’d never heard Arno speak because he was painfully shy. But in the choir, his tenor solo had soared through the sanctuary.

  “Hey, Arno.” Alek swiped his essay from the bin underneath the chair where he suffered every Saturday. “What’re you still doing here?”

  Arno’s silence was the first sign that something was wrong. Even though making his family wait would annoy them, or maybe because it would, Alek waded through the desks to the boy sitting in the corner by himself. That’s when he saw the word, written on the inside cover of Arno’s textbook in the thick, black streaks of a Sharpie.

  Gyot.

  Alek froze.

  He couldn’t remember the first time he’d encountered that word. It must’ve been in church, or maybe during a family function where his cousins were present. Alek had been called many things in his life: nerd, geek, dweeb, douche, pussy, choad, tool. In the same way that he couldn’t remember when he learned what those nastier words meant, he couldn’t remember when he first learned that gyot was the Armenian slang for “faggot.”

  Of course, Alek had been called a faggot, too, although, ironically, less since he came out last summer. And no one dared to whisper it under their breath when Alek and Ethan walked hand in hand down the hall together, because of Ethan’s school-wide reputation as a badass, solidified during the infamous food fight he instigated last year. But when Alek was by himself, he’d still heard it muttered as an upperclassman “accidentally” clipped his shoulder during the hurried five minutes between periods.

  And yes, it hurt. And yes, life would be better if he didn’t have to deal with that shit. But also, he didn’t really care. To worry about what people like that thought would be like engaging the people who denied that the Armenian Genocide happened. He didn’t need or even want the approval of people who chose to live in a close-minded world.