Together Tea by Marjan Kamali Page A

plate, and Darya kissed her friends good-bye.
    Whenever math camp was over, Darya felt a certain emptiness. She loved these afternoons with her friends. She loved being in her dining room with two women who, unlike most Americans (and this included Sam), knew a thing or two about war and dictatorship and “the pain of prolonged prostration.”

Chapter Seven

    Action, Not Reflection
    Y ou are in the right place at the right time. You are the best and the brightest. Your future is filled with wealth and opportunity.”
    Mina bit into a slice of greasy pizza as she sat in the business school auditorium listening to Dean Bailey’s monthly “Question and Answer Lunch Bunch!” which had been advertised all over the B-school buildings.
    Mina knew that Dean Bailey couldn’t answer any of her questions. Like whether she should just quit business school and once and for all focus on being an artist. But there was free pizza.
    â€œYou will go to Wall Street and create wealth. This economy is going nowhere but up. Financial success is yours for the taking. The first decade of the 2000s will be phenomenal. Unstoppable. And you will be at the helm.”
    A drop of oil slid off the pizza slice onto Mina’s white shirt. She watched as it soaked into the cotton fabric.
    â€œYou will go further than any previous generation. But remember: This school is a place for action. Not reflection. Reflection is for the MFA students.”
    Some students laughed.
    But Mina reflected. She thought of all the pizzas she’d had at B&K’s Pizza where her father had pounded dough when they first moved to America. She reflected on her lunch with Mr. Dashti. It isn’t worth it anymore. That’s what Darya had said finally. You are worth more. Mina wanted an end to her mother’s graphs and charts, an end to the parade and charade of men over for tea. She certainly wanted that. But now what would happen?
    As Dean Bailey droned on about the excellent promise of the stock market, Mina fingered her pink coral necklace. It had been a gift from her best friend, Bita, given in a rush on her last afternoon in Iran. Where was Bita now?
    Just after Mina left Iran, Bita had written about how she and her family shelled peas in the bomb shelter, and about what a vermin Saddam was for bombing them. How she had to wear a mouth guard at night because during the bombing she ground down on her molars. In the last letter that Mina had received from Bita, she said how good she looked, indoors, of course, with her new bob hairdo. Outside, she had to cover her hair like everyone else.
    After the first few years, the letters stopped.
    â€œAnd remember when the recruitment officers are here, the worst thing you can do is renege on an offer. We do not renege. No reflection. No reneging,” Dean Bailey said into the microphone.
    With the hand that wasn’t holding the pizza slice, Mina sketched strawberries and veiled women in the margins of her notebook.
    LATER THAT DAY, PROFESSOR VAN HEUSEN , her finance professor, lectured from the podium, water bottle in hand. Mina never understood how he knew which student to call on. He rarely looked up at them, preferring instead to stare straight down at the floor as he lectured. She hoped he wouldn’t call on her today. She was completely unprepared.
    â€œWho can review for me the CAPM formula and equity versus debt?”
    Chip Sinclair, the finance superstar and first-class jerk, raised his hand. Mina listened to Chip review the formula as she plugged her laptop’s internet adapter card into one of the newly installed internet connection sockets. After a few minutes, she was connected to the web via dial-up and a website about oil paintings popped up as her homepage. She pulled out her legal pad and copied down Professor Van Heusen’s formulas from the whiteboard.

What is r?
  
It is the cost of capital,
the sacrifice involved. It is the