Noah & Navid

Chapter 51- Ashamed of Us

-+- Noah's Perspective -+-

We found a nice restaurant inside the resort and Navid asked the hostess for a private booth. She said they were pretty busy, but she had a small one left for us.

She led us through the restaurant to this long row of tables broken up by a foot of space between each. On one side of each table was a long, padded bench running along the wall. The other side had chairs.

I don't like that setup, but the place was packed. There must have been a convention at the resort. A lot of single adults in business casual dress filled the place.

Our table was surrounded on two sides by an L in the padded bench. Navid slid into one side and I was to his left on the end. It was like I was at the head of a very long table.

Our neighboring diners were four men who looked similar to Navid. They were dressed in button-up shirts and slacks. They had those disposable lanyards on with their names and titles. I tried to read them without staring.

"Salaam," one of them said to Navid with a nod. He didn't respond right away.

"That means hello in Arabic!" I said with a smile. I'd read that when I looked up information on the language. The man nodded towards me and returned my cheer.

"Yes, hello," Navid said. He put his hand on my thigh protectively under the table as though the men would jump on me and take me from him.

I looked up to see his forced smile that said he wasn't happy with this situation. He didn't like me engaging strangers.

In his thinking, only the "stronger one" engaged strangers. He also wanted our privacy, especially away from people of his home culture who might judge us.

Navid made polite conversation with the group in their language. He knows enough Arabic to function when he needs to and enough French to get me hard.

I loved listening to him go on in a foreign language. I wish I understood some of it.

A waiter came and gave them their check. He turned to our table then and Navid ordered for both of us. I was surprised that he picked the exact thing I was looking at on the menu. The men handed the waiter their check and left shortly after.

"They seemed nice," I said when the group had gone.

"There is energy conference for their company. They are engineers from Northern California," he noted. We finished our dinner quietly, the rush had died down so no one came to fill the table next to us.

The next morning we slept in late and had room service brunch. We walked down the beach and into the little village. Navid said we needed to buy gifts to send to Iran.

"Is it a holiday?" I asked.

"No, Noah. There is wedding coming soon for my close cousin and two birthdays for my brothers. Also my father will have birthday next month. I send gifts to excuse my absence," Navid said.

"You wish you could be there?" I asked.

"I would want you with me... This would be difficult. Also I finish my degree so there is always possibility I could not return to here, to you. I cannot take the chance. People sometimes get stuck in Iran as way to control the people. We cannot afford for all the educated people to move away. They call this brain drain... But yes... I wish to be there for these things. They are my family," Navid said as we walked past the tourist shops.

"I'm sorry. I wish we could move there and be together with your family. I could live with you and your parents! Maybe I could learn Farsi since you never want to teach me." I said as Navid opened the door to a jewelry store off the main square.