My studio apartment feels as roomy as it did four years ago.  Almost as roomy, anyway.  The otherwise pristine emptiness is ruined by a last furnishing – my futon – left behind for Nooshin’s use.  I stand over it critically.  Does it have a future with me in Tijuana or not?  I know what Phoebe would say.  Trash it.  She hated sleeping on my futon even more than she hated fucking on it.  The futon really is a piece of crap.  Just a rickety pine frame with a discount mattress on top.  But what can you expect from a starving undergrad who became an even-more-starving grad?

The toilet flushes.

Nooshin emerges from the bathroom.  She’s wearing her sunglasses and that cowled hijab thing that makes her look like a Sith lord.  But no bandage across her nose.  Its bridge remains fat and purple.

“Don’t look.  It’s still gross,” she says, walking over to a little corner of habitation – her suitcase and backpack.

I watch her squat down and paw through her belongings.  She wears the same Old Navy hoodie I remember from Avenida Revolucion, the same stovepipe jeans, the same Nikes.  I’ve finally met somebody more impoverished than me.  But that’s not what my libido notices.  It’s focused on Nooshin’s bony ass, which looks like an upside-down heart from this angle.  My dick is getting hard – and pinned in the wrong direction.  Shit.  Not good.  I quickly reach into my pants and reorient it.

“You hungry for lunch?” I ask, all cool-like.

“Nah.  Not really.  That was a big breakfast, you know?  I’ll probably be good until dinner.”  She’s lying.  She wolfed down the Egg McMuffin I bought her – peeling off the Canadian bacon first – and then pretended to be full.

“I know a great taco joint.  Just a few blocks away.  We can walk it.  They’ve got a fish taco you have to taste to believe.”

She straightens up…up…up…until she’s sunglasses-level with me, a few dollar bills clutched in her hand.  “I’ve got some money for lunch.  I’ll buy you something.”

“Forget it.  I’ll buy both of us something.  You can owe me.”

“Not this time.”

“Yes this time.”

“Nick.  Please.”

“No.”

Nooshin’s full lips compress into a thin line.  She wheels off.  “You have to let me pay.”

“As soon as you’re cashing a paycheck from the University of California Regents.”

“But I thought Hercules said the funding wouldn’t be released until sometime in January.”

My grin becomes false.  Hercules told me the supplemental grant funding would hit in January or February – if it hit at all.  This is the worst economic crisis the State of California and its university system has ever faced.  32% tuition increases for students, 10% pay cuts for faculty.  When a living legend like Hercules doubts his ability to get something done, it’s bad news.  Very bad news.

But I don’t say that to Nooshin.  “So you pay me back sometime in January.  I’ll float you until then.  I’ve got enough money.”

She leans over the sink, staring out the kitchenette window at Koreatown.  For a really long time.  Without speaking.

“What?” I ask.

“Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but…”  Her shoulder blades rise and fall in the hoodie.  “It’s hopeless, Nick.  You have to give me a job, and drive me around, and buy me food.  All because I’m hopeless.”  Her hands tighten on the sink edge.  “You’ll end up resenting me.  You’ll end up hating me.  The same way my family does.”

I take a deep breath.  “Remember what you told me?”

“When?”

“When we first met.  On Avenida Revolucion.”

“I’m not sure…”

“You pointed at your eye and told me ‘God made me this way.’  Do you think God made you to be hopeless?  To be resented and hated?”

Nooshin turns around, accusing in her Sith lord cowl.  “Nick.  You’re so insincere.  You don’t even believe in God.”

“We’re not talking me here.  We’re talking you.  And you believe in God.  Right?”

“Yeah.  I do.”

“A god who allows your husband to beat you up?”

She hesitates.  “No, but the Quran – ”

“Nooshin.”

“What?”

“Do you deserve your broken nose?  Was it willed by God?”

“No.”

“And your family, treating you the way they did yesterday.  Do you deserve that?”

“Well, no.  At least, I don’t think so.”

I confront her across a small apartment that brings us closer than we intend.  “Look, I don’t know anything about being a Muslim.  I’m just your friend.  I signed up for this.  But me and God agree that you’re not hopeless and you don’t deserve this shit.”

“I know you’re just saying that.  But I’m going to pretend you really mean it, because it’s sweet.”  A tear spills from underneath her sunglasses.  Then another.  She tugs her hoodie sleeve over a hand and wipes her cheeks.  “I need a plan.  For getting out of this mess, I mean.  A better plan than just try harder.”  The tears are coming faster now.  “Like, I can only stay here until the end of the month.  So that means I need to find a new place by the new year.  And I don’t have any money.  Do I sell my plasma or something?  Is there some hotline I can call for help?”

“You need a plan to get a plan.”

“What do you mean?” she sniffles.

“It’s something we used to say back on the farm.  When the problem cascade got out of hand.  The combine was down, the crop was too wet to harvest, the corn futures were for shit anyway.  I’ve totally lost you, huh?”

Nooshin nods.

I wander over to the other window and look down on my Ford Explorer from a third-story angle.  I’ve been paranoid about its security ever since I returned from Thanksgiving and found the tires slashed, the quarter panels defaced with spraypaint.  I wonder if my truck will be any safer in Tijuana, where a dozen people get killed on a bad day.

Behind me a small voice says, “I guess I just go back to my parents.  I don’t really have any other options.  Maybe that’s what you were trying to tell me.  But I’m going to stay here as long as I can.”

“Shit.”  The word hangs against the glass.  I stare through it at La-La Land, a seemingly endless expanse of wealth slouching through hazy sunshine toward the Pacific.  Drive past the Han Kook Supermarket – the western boundary of Koreatown – and you’re in the high cotton of Wilshire Country Club, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, UCLA, Bel Air.  Nooshin comes from the opposite direction.  Inland, past downtown and into the hand-to-mouth grit of East LA.  I saw Terrazas Park for myself yesterday, and it wasn’t pretty.  Of course, neither are my new digs in Colonia Libertad.

“You don’t need to stay here with me.  You should go back to Tijuana and get on with your research.  Just call me when the funding is released.”  Nooshin pads into the bathroom, rips off some toilet paper, and blows her nose.  “Ouch.”

“Shit shit shit,” I say, briefly fogging the glass.

“You know, this is scintillating entertainment, watching you swear at the window.  But I’d rather do something else.  Call me crazy.”

“Me llamas loca.”

It takes her a beat to get it.  “Ha ha.”

I begin to pace the room, clomping despite the carpet.  “You can’t go back to your parents.   After what I saw yesterday that’s fuckingly obvious.”

Now some real mirth from her.  “Nick.  I don’t think that’s a word.  What you said right before obvious.”

“Don’t interrupt me.  I’m trying to get on a roll here.”

“Sorry.”

“And you can only stay here until the end of the month.  And you have no money to stay someplace else, at least not until I get the funding and you can start digitizing the archive.  So – what?”

She’s giggling.  “You made the f-bomb an adverb.  The adverbial f-bomb.”

I fight an urge to laugh, then another urge to crush her in my arms.  “Look, you don’t have to go back to your parents.  That’s not your only option.  You can stay with me.  In Tijuana.”

Her mouth hangs open.  Then snaps shut again.  Her throat moves, swallowing shock.  “Nick, I – I…oh god.  You’re going to make me cry again.”  She reaches into the bathroom for more toilet paper.

“Stay with me.  At least until I’ve got the funding and you’re making money, okay?  Then you’ll have options again.  You’ll be in a position to do whatever you want.”

“I can’t accept.  It’s so not fair to you.  I’ve already been such a burden!”  The waterworks are back.  She discards a wet wad of toilet paper and reaches for more.

I step closer.  Behind the smoky tint of her sunglasses I can see her right eye jerking in its socket.  “Too bad, dude.  I’m not leaving without you.”

“You…you have to.”  Nooshin winces as she blots her cheeks, which swell into her broken nose.  “Ouch.”

“Give me that.”  I take away the toilet paper and do it for her.  I’m close enough to smell the Egg McMuffin on her breath.  She’s never looked so kissable before, and my libido is running with the throttle wide open.  But that isn’t why I’m doing this.  Okay, okay.  Not the only reason.