I spend most of Thursday afternoon with Tommy, Juan’s teenage nephew, riding horses around the tiny rock-strewn corral overlooking Tecate. We make an utterly ridiculous horseback couple. Tommy looks like his mode of transportation should be a lowrider, not a palomino nag. He’s dressed in that oversized San Antonio Spurs jersey and baggy jeans cut off mid-calf and shower sandals. A thick gold chain with his initials is worn backwards, dangling across the DUNCAN appearing above the gigantic numerals 21. It kept getting in the way of the reins, so he flipped it over his shoulder. I’m riding in a miniskirt hiked up around my hips because I couldn’t manage sidesaddle, and barefoot since I wore my cute wedgie sandals today. Not exactly conventional equestrian attire.

Afterward we trail through the house stiffly, complaining about our sore butts, and lean into the main room to check on Nick and Juan. They’re right where we left them, sitting hip-to-hip on the couch, staring intently at Nick’s laptop. Nick has solicited Juan’s help in constructing an index for the Korea Textile maquiladora archive. Apparently it takes a businessman to organize a business archive. The room around them looks empty without its piles of cardboard fruit boxes. Meanwhile the Explorer sags beneath the weight of all that paper, waiting for the drive back to Tijuana.

Tommy leads the way into the kitchen, a spartan expanse of bare countertops and linoleum flooring. He opens the refrigerator door and closes his eyes for a moment, enjoying the chill. “Whatcha want, Nooshin? Bud? Diet Pepsi? Water?”

“Diet Pepsi for me, thanks.”

He tosses me a bottle unthinkingly, shaking its contents into a bubbly froth that rises dangerously toward the cap. I twist off the top gingerly over the sink. Behind me I hear the sound of an entire can of beer being opened and guzzled and discarded. Then the sound of another can being opened.

“You wanna listen to some music or something?” Tommy asks, and belches contentedly.

“Sure,” I shrug.

“Come on. The stereo’s in my room.”

The words provoke a burst of irrational excitement that makes my heart pound. A boy’s room, omigod! I’ve never been in a boy’s room before, only seen them on TV and in movies. I wasn’t allowed to have boyfriends or even just boy friends in high school, and I married Saman instead of going to college so I missed the whole boys’ dormroom thing. What vast secrets could possibly lurk behind that door? It opens like a portal to another dimension…

My eyes are immediately assaulted by posters, enough to almost wallpaper the room. Tommy’s male psyche is advertised with tricked-out street racers, black rappers loaded with bling, girls busting out of their swimwear and lingerie. The visual cacophony makes the rest of the room seem sparse and unlived-in. Inside the open closet is a rack of t-shirts and jerseys hanging above a couple suitcases and more shoes than I own, mostly Nikes. The twin bed is covered with a plain black bedspread. The only other furniture is a scuffed dresser with a mirror on top.

I’m surprised to discover that Tommy also has more jewelry than I do. A lot more jewelry. The open tackle box on the dresser is overflowing with more merchandise than you’ll find in a Tijuana joyeria. Chains of various types and thicknesses, many with crosses or St. Christopher medallions dangling from them. Bracelets and weird lace-up wristbands. Big chunky earrings that are probably cubic zirconia. Rings, including the rectangular kind that fit over several fingers and spell out words like DAWG.

Next to me Tommy is rummaging through his CD case, explaining “I’m kinda going through an old school phase, you know what I’m saying?” He slides a disc into his stereo. Beats waft through the room, some kind of laid-back gangster rap. “Now that’s some smooth styling.”

On the floor next to the dresser is a cardboard box filled with comics. I put my Diet Pepsi on the dresser and park myself on the bed, tucking one leg underneath me. Then I reach my leg other out, hooking my foot inside the box and pulling it close. I lean over and root through the brightly-colored covers, searching for manga or graphic novels. What I find is disappointing. Tommy’s taste in comics is pretty orthodox, mostly X-Men and Spiderman and stuff.

“You want a toke?” I glance up and find him standing by the window, face twisted around a miniscule joint, holding a lighter to its recalcitrant tip. After a while he blows the sickly-sweet smoke outside and coughs, despite trying not to. “Damn girl, this is some good shit.”

“Nah. I’m cool.” I flip through a Punisher comic, admiring the artwork.

“How’d your eye get fucked up?”

“It’s a condition called amblyopia. I’ve had it ever since I was born. It’s correctable if you catch it in time, but I never got treatment for it in Iran, only when we came to America.” I muster a laugh. “It used to be lots worse. You should see some of my pictures from when I was a toddler.”

“Iran, huh? Did your family leave after all the…” He puts out the joint and sits down next to me on the bed. “Uh, what was it again? The hostage shit? Or was that some other country?”

“That’s the right country. But my parents didn’t leave after the hostage crisis, when the Shah was overthrown and Ayatollah Khomeini came to power and the Revolution happened. They stayed until the end of the Iran-Iraq war.” I feel like I’m reciting from a history book. Two generations of my family are still haunted by those events, but they aren’t even memories to me.

Tommy is silent for a while. It’s a typical reaction. Most Americans don’t know enough about the Middle East to hold up their end of the conversation. “So you’re, like, a Muslim?” he finally asks.

“My whole family is, yeah. But I’m not observant like I used to be. Not since my grandfather died.” Just saying it, I realize a lot of things changed when my grandfather died. He was the anchor tethering us to Iran. After his death Mom stopped packing me lunches of stinky leftover Persian food. Farsi wasn’t spoken around the house as much. Talk of our homeland ended. “Are you Catholic?” I ask Tommy.

“Not the getting-all-wacked-out-about-it kind. I don’t go to mass. Not since I was a kid.”

“It’s the same for me. I haven’t been to mosque since, since…” Since I went to the mosque in Kansas City and used their computer to email Nick. All the trapped desperation comes rushing back. But also a happy glow. I’ve been falling for Nick since the day I met him.

Forgotten in my hands, the comic book slips to the floor. I bend down to retrieve it — and discover a stash of porno mags underneath the bed. Penthouse. Barely Legal. Perfect 10. “Tommy!” I start giggling, then realize I’ve mortified him.

“Awww dawg,” he complains in embarrassment, kicking the glossy smut further under the bed.

“Sorry, dude. I didn’t mean to…” I don’t know what I didn’t mean to do. Make him turn that blushing color, I guess. “So, um… You’re not seeing anybody here?” The question makes me start giggling again.

Even he’s laughing a little. “Nah. The girlies here, they just wanna get married.” He puffs out the oversized 21 on his jersey. “I ain’t marrying no Mexican chick. They’re way too traditional for me. I need a girl who knows how to get down. How to freak like I freak, you know what I’m saying?”

Actually I’m clueless, but I assume it’s similar to everything Nick has been teaching me in bed. “What do you do for fun around here, anyway? Do you go out a lot?”

The 21 deflates. “Nah, not really.” He seems to reconsider his words, worrying that the admission makes him less macho. “I mean, I don’t got my posse here. I don’t like to roll alone, you know what I’m saying? Anything can go down in a place like this if you’re alone.”

I follow his gaze to a picture tacked to the wall. A half-dozen young Hispanic males swaddled in baggies and athletic jerseys, their jewelry glinting in the flash, mugging for the camera. It takes me a moment to pick out Tommy. He’s safely nondescript in their midst, blending into invisibility.

“Are you learning a lot from your uncle?”

Bitterness suffuses his features. “Yeah. Right. I’m learning a fuck of a lot.” He turns away and considers the stereo for a while, head-bobbing absentmindedly to the strains of gangsta rap. “So far I’ve learned all he does is talk on the cellie. Big fucking deal.” He chugs his can of Bud and crumples it in a fist.

I’m flashing back to my introduction to Juan, to his brief lament about Tommy, the nephew he was supposed to turn away from whatever dead-end future he was drifting toward. The bafflement and frustration in his words — even outright disdain for Tommy’s lifestyle and ghetto-style appearance and inability to speak Spanish — but also the underlying affection. I wonder if that’s what Dad and Mom experience when they think of me. A daughter who fills them with confused disgust, even if they love me. And hopefully they still do.