02/15/2026
Sean and I had our first date on Valentine’s Day. I was thirty-six, he was twenty-one—or so I thought for the two years we were together. After we split, we were at dinner. He was showing me his new driver’s license, happy with the photo. The birth year was off by one. No, he said sheepishly, that’s my real age.
Wait. You were only twenty when we met?, my mind spun. Why didn’t you tell me?
Because you never would have been with me, he replied
Sean first came to Akbar where I worked and everyone noticed. He was striking—Persian and Jewish with a black pompadour, a muscled body and a laugh that broke into a perfect smile. Heads turned. The next Friday he bounded up asking if I remembered him. “Yeah,” I said. “You wore that T-shirt last week.” The worst answer I could have given.
He came from money—his parents had fled Iran in ’79 and settled in the Valley. He drove a BMW, wore $300 jeans from Fred Segal and had business ventures with his brother that he didn’t seem to need. He was sweet and playful and our Valentine’s date turned into two years. Together we danced at Usher’s Grammy party, hoping Ellen and Portia might notice us. They didn’t. I took him camping only once, he hated it. And once I was being threatened by a drunk customer, he and his friend Ali jumped him, pinning him to the ground.
Outside of LA in Antelope Valley, I had discovered with my previous boyfriend David a deserted field of vehicles we called the Bus Graveyard. Just before we split, Sean, my fried Craig and I went out for the day to take photos. As we packed up to leave, a car came from nowhere disappearing behind some busses. Keep packing, I said, lets get out of here. We did. Just as we pulled out in Sean’s BMW, the car came shooting out. A toothless guy with a red bandana headband screaming at us to pull over as his friend gunned it, trying to cut us off. F**k that, Sean said flooring it. We blasted across the landscape, going airborne over dips and leaving a widening cloud of dust behind us along with the car that it quickly enveloped. It was some time before I screamed at him to slow the f**k down. They were gone.