“Barron wants her to take saxophone,” Cynthia said. “He used to play it. Horribly.”
“And you’d rather have her learn the flute?” Barron said.
“I didn’t say it had to be the flute,” she said. “I said a woodwind.”
“The saxophone is a woodwind!” Barron said. Michelle was creating scalene triangles by lining up pieces of gnocchi on her plate. “I don’t want my daughter playing the flute. The flute is…” He shook his head and cleaned his mouth with his napkin.
“What?” she said. “Say it.”
He removed the napkin. “It’s bougie,” he said. “It’s a bougie instrument for bougie music that bougie people listen to.”
“I listen to classical music,” Cynthia said.
“I’m not attacking you. But we do enough bougie shit already. And I never complain. You want to spend a grand on a couch, I don’t complain. You want to fly to Paris for Christmas, I don’t complain. This is the one thing I’m asking for.”
“Daddy’s asking for,” Michelle said, which was illogical, but children often repeat statements they hear without consideration, even if they are illogical and lacking context. Frequently I had to correct Zahira.
Cynthia was quiet. Then she said, “Let’s talk about this later.”
“No, let’s talk about this now,” Barron said. “Let’s ask Karim what he thinks.”
“Don’t bring him into this,” Cynthia said, and I mutely agreed with her, but Barron was looking at me and I felt I had to provide some input because I was asking them for help as well.
Michelle was resuming her triangles. “Possibly it is best to present her both options, and see which she is interested in and excels at,” I said.
“And she’ll be interested in the sax, like any intelligent person,” Barron said. “Good advice, Karim.” Cynthia looked upset. “Fine, we’ll discuss it later,” he added. “Okay?” Cynthia quietly said okay. It wasn’t the ideal parenting technique, but in some ways it is preferable for both parties to state their opinions, even if it produces arguments.
I said loudly, “I hope the gnocchi has enough earthiness.” No one responded for a few seconds until Cynthia said it was very tasty.
After the cupcakes, I made tea and Cynthia read my contract and I discussed politics with Barron, who knew much about American history and taught me about the 1960s political movements, which was another area I wanted to broaden my knowledge of.
Finally Cynthia said, “The language is complicated, but it looks to me like if you sign this, you’re transferring ownership of the intellectual property to the company.”
She explained the details, but I didn’t 100 % listen to them. I was mute for several seconds before I remembered to thank her. I didn’t want them to ask more questions about what the intellectual property was, and fortunately Michelle yawned and Barron said they should get going. I walked them to the door and closed it behind them and sat down on my floor for several minutes.
Mr. Schrub had lied to me, or he had not told me the complete truth. And possibly he had only invited me to spend time with him not because he liked me, but because he wanted me to trust him enough to sign the contract.
I thought of what Barron said about confrontation. I emailed Mr. Ray again:
Please tell Mr. Schrub I would like to proceed with my own proposal and meet with him again to discuss it.
Then I understood that although Barron’s advice wasn’t about Rebecca, and although she wasn’t a phony like Mr. Schrub was, it was applicable to her to boot. It was cowardly of me to not contact her. You have to confront obstacles and not hope they will be resolved without hard work.
I was going to shoot her an email, but even that was cowardly, so I called her. She answered in a flat voice.
“Rebecca, this is Karim,” I said. I hadn’t strategized, which was possibly foolish, but sometimes it results in saying truer things. “It is my bad for the other night. I have some issues that are independent of you.”
She said, “Uh-huh.”
“Let us see if we can’t resolve this problem,” I said.
“What exactly is your problem?” Rebecca asked.
I hoped she would already understand, but I said, “It is difficult to explain.”
“I can handle it,” she said. “You don’t want to see me anymore.”
“No,” I said. “I mean, ‘No, that is false,’ not ‘No, I don’t want to see you.’” I find the usage of “no” as a prefix confusing because it’s not always clear what the negative applies to. Then I told her my recent thoughts about Ramadan.
“Uh-huh,” she said again, and I could tell she was uncomfortable, but she asked me more about Ramadan and how I felt about it, and how I felt about being with her during it and in general.
I said I didn’t feel good about it but I enjoyed being with her. It was difficult both to decipher my feelings and to state them initially, but the more I did it, the easier it was. “Possibly I should learn not to view my values as a series of binaries and instead find a compromise,” I said.
“That’s what relationships are about, right?” she said. “According to my last issue of Cosmo.”
“Do you classify this as a relationship?” I asked.
“I don’t really know,” she said. “It’s just been a couple of weeks.”
“We are not in Kansas anymore,” I said.
“What?”
“I have not been in a relationship previously,” I said, “so I do not know the appropriate amount of time before it is technically considered one.” When I said it, I realized it was the class of statement that someone like Angela from Cathedral would reject me for, but I hoped Rebecca would be careless.
“I’m no expert, either. But this is pretty quick,” she said, and my heart slightly plummeted, but then she added, “Though we could keep seeing how it works. And I’m joking. I don’t read Cosmo.”
“I do not even know what Cosmo is,” I said.
We made plans to see each other after work on Wednesday night, and for a little while I forgot about Mr. Schrub and Kapitoil, but only a little while.
big for one’s britches = lacking humility with a higher-up
bougie = bourgeois; middle-class or materialistic
chef = used without an article, the term for a chef at a classy restaurant
Cosmo = Cosmopolitan, a magazine for females that frequently analyzes romantic relationships
exploiter = someone who leverages; this is a word
lady friend = either female friend or romantic partner
philistine = someone ignorant of quality culture
phonies = false people
stab someone’s back = practice deception
steel-trap mind = a brain that does not forget many things
JOURNAL DATE RECORDED: DECEMBER 16
Mr. Ray replied and told me that Mr. Schrub would be very busy over the next week but he would contact me when he was free.
I should have said I was ready to sign the contract but that I wanted to meet with Mr. Schrub directly first. Now they knew I had reservations about the contract, and they were forcing me to wait so that I might reconsider. My father frequently negotiated with suppliers who used similar tactics, and I have read several business manuals on negotiating, although this was the first time I had ever had a real-world negotiating opportunity, which was why I made an error.
Of course I could simply write my proposal and try to publish it in an academic paper without telling Mr. Schrub, but he would fire me instantly for being too big for my britches and I would never have a chance to work for him again. Possibly if I waited and got him to see the idea from my POV, we could compromise.