Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir (No Series) by Marina Nemat

my aunt’s cottage, and my mother and I visited them almost every day. Aunt Zenia was rarely at her cottage and spent most of her time at her factory, where she had a small but comfortable apartment, or at her house in Tehran.
    During my daily excursions on my bike, I noticed that teenagers were hanging out at one of the basketball courts. Each day, they showed up at about five in the evening. Boys played basketball, and girls sat in the shade, chatting and cheering them on. Finally one day, I decided to approach them. In small groups of two or three, about fifteen girls were sitting on the grass. I left my bike by a tree and walked to them. No one seemed to have noticed me. I spotted a girl sitting by herself on top of a picnic table and sat next to her. She looked at me and smiled. Her straight light brown hair reached her waist, and she was wearing white shorts and a white T-shirt. She looked familiar. I introduced myself, and her eyes widened with recognition. We realized we went to the same school, but she was a couple of years older than I, and we had never talked. Like me, her aunt owned a cottage nearby, and she and her family were staying with her aunt for awhile. Her name was Gita.
    One of the boys scored, and the girls clapped and cheered. He turned around and called out to a girl who was sitting close to us, “Neda, will you get me a Coke? I’m dying of thirst.”
    He was about five feet nine with large dark eyes that sat above strong cheek bones. His straight black hair bounced as he ran. Neda reluctantly stood up and shook the grass clippings from her white shorts. Her shoulder-length brown hair was tucked behind her ears.
    “Who’s coming with me?” she called out to the girls, and a few joined her. They walked to the other side of the narrow street to a fast-food restaurant called Moby Dick.
    Whispering to me, Gita pointed out a young man standing on the other side of the court. He was about six feet two, two hundred pounds, and looked at least twenty. The petite blond girl standing next to him didn’t even come up to his shoulder. Gita said his name was Ramin and that he was the most handsome man she had ever seen.
    “I’ll get him one day; he’s mine,” she said.
    My girlfriends had always been my age, and my experience with boys was quite limited. I had never considered “getting” a boy.
    “Hello there,” someone said from behind us. “Gita, who’s your new friend?”
    It was Neda. Gita introduced us. I discovered that Neda had a cousin who went to our school and whom I knew quite well. At the end of our conversation, Neda invited me to her birthday party the next day.

    I had the perfect dress to wear to Neda’s party. A few months earlier, my mother had decided to order some clothes for herself from a German catalogue, and she had offered to order something for me as well. I chose a white dress. It wasn’t too expensive but was beautiful. It had an open neckline, and its fabric was lacy and light. For Neda’s party, the plan was to go swimming first and then to her place for dinner and dancing. Gita had told me to wear my bathing suit under my regular clothes and to bring my dress along.
    On the day of the party, I woke up even earlier than usual and spent hours in the bathroom. I tried on all my bathing suits and, each time, stared at my reflection in the mirror, devastated by every flaw I saw: my arms were too thin, my hips too big, and my chest too flat. Finally, I decided to wear the white bikini Marie had given me. She had recently taken a trip to Europe, had bought herself new bathing suits, and had given me her old ones. I wrapped my white sandals in a plastic bag, folded my dress, and put everything in a canvas beach bag. It was ten o’clock in the morning. On most days, we left for Marie’s at around ten-thirty. My mother didn’t drive, and we always took a cab when my father was not around. I could hear my mother rattling around in the kitchen, which was odd; she was never