Tehrangeles

1

Roxanna

One Paradise Crescent Place, Bella Rosa Vista, Los Angeles, California

It was a perfect eighty-­three-­degree December morning and Roxanna had decisions to make. “I think it’s called ‘zodiac reassignment something something,’ ” she was muttering into the perfumed pages of a magazine, knowing well that her sisters were half listening at best. She was sure she had seen it somewhere in those pages, and so she tugged at her Cavalli Havana-­frame shades dramatically as if they were the culprits behind the day’s compromised reading comprehension. “It’s just a legal thing, really. Court documents. I would be interested if I were you, bitches. Cursed energy is not just me here!”

It had been a while since all four sisters found themselves gathered together by the Grecian infinity pool, their favorite spot for morning family meetings. This time, Violet’s charity brunch had been rescheduled for another Saturday, Haylee hadn’t made it off the wait list for her Barbie barre class, and Mina—­who was usually on her computer or sleeping in from a late night on the computer—­had set extra alarms to avoid her sister’s wrath. Roxanna hated being up early, but she needed her sisters gathered together in the name of their future fame.

But instead of discussing the show, there was Roxanna’s pressing issue at hand: changing her birthdate.

“11:11—­make a wish!!” Her iPhone went off in a custom tone she considered angel chimes and so off she went as well, interrupting her own train of thought. She had learned about the power of 11:11 through so many socialites, models, and influencers who loved to post it to their social media. Only recently, with so much at stake, she began programming it into her phone.

Nobody made a wish. Just Roxanna, who wished for the obvious. (Score-­pee-­ho, she mentally whispered into where she imagined her brain and conscience met.)

“Wait, can I just ask . . . ?” Haylee said, as she had many times that day. Roxanna kept grunting as if to say, Go ahead, and Haylee again blurted, “Why are you doing this again?”

Roxanna threw down her magazine and looked her youngest sister in the eye. “We all have things we need to figure out! You know, this is going to be big. We gotta get it together.”

“I’m confused—­are you trying to move your birthday to be older or younger?” Mina asked, also not for the first time. She was trying to hold her tongue, like she had weeks ago, as zodiac reassignment sounded absurd at best and transphobic-­adjacent at worst. But it had been hopeless with Roxanna then, and it was hopeless with Roxanna now.

“Jesus fucking fuck!” Roxanna belted out. She was regretting this whole thing: the meeting mostly, kinda the show, and basically her life. Was this what the show was going to be like? She hoped not—­she would of course have to carry the thing, regardless; that she knew. Her gaze slid over to Violet, who looked to be calmly listening, although it was hard to tell with her eyes obscured by her oversize red-­acetate Balenciaga heart-­shaped sunglasses. She was likely asleep, not having said a word the whole time, but Roxanna preferred her silence to the reactions of her two younger sisters. Mina and Haylee could not be more different, but they were unified in not understanding her one bit.

“I just—­I just cannot go down as a Gemini—­it’s not, like, good for me!” she said. “Not the vibe. It’s that fucking simple.”

Mina tried not to groan. “Right. But do you really believe that? Does anyone even care about astrology that much anymore? It’s almost 2020.”

Roxanna rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter, babe,” she said in her snarliest snarl. “Everyone knows. Trump, Kanye. Both are Geminis. It’s not good.”

Haylee was nodding. “But then, like, wouldn’t all Geminis do that? Or, like, Aquariuses? I mean, seriously, is it that easy to just switch?”

Roxanna smiled big. Sometimes it felt like Haylee was the sole sister who did speak her language. “With money it is, bitch.” Their family lawyers were their friends, the real kind, who came to the holiday parties, and Roxanna already had a tentative okay to go with her zodiac reassignment from her father. “It’s just not done that often. There was that one case of the creepy old dude who just wanted to be younger for dating profiles. But we’re not changing my age. We’re just claiming my birth certificate is, like, wrong.”

This did not add up for Mina, but she had learned a long time ago to stay out of Roxanna’s hijinks. Plus, Roxanna had Haylee, who would eventually go along with anything Roxanna wanted.

“You are such a Gemini, though.” Violet spoke up slowly, yawning into the sun. The pool hadn’t been cleaned in some time—­dead leaves, a variety of crispy flower petals, and struggling insects floated on the surface—­or else she would have dipped in. “In the good way, Roxi.”

“I am actually very much Scorpionic,” Roxanna snapped at her older sister. “And, like, everyone knows that.”

Violet (Pisces) offered a tight smile and exchanged a quick glance with Haylee (Libra). Mina (Capricorn) was the only earth sign in the family, with Homa a Cancer and Al an Aries.

There had been so much to do and so many decisions to make now that the show was really happening, and Roxanna had decided this winter that they were going to settle it all. There were their names, for instance. “Roxanna,” her real name, had always been fine—­well, her real real name was fine too: “Roxanna-­Vanna,” Americanized from the start. Violet had been born “Banafsheh,” but started using “Violet,” the translation, when she opted for homeschooling, and only recently had she considered switching back. There was a supermodel named Violet she didn’t want to be confused with as her own career took off, she had said at first, but privately, Roxanna wondered if Violet didn’t simply want to appear more Iranian. Haylee, meanwhile, had been “Haylee” since kindergarten, as no one could pronounce “Haleh,” or so she insisted. And Mina, like Roxanna, had been born “Mina,” the perfect, nondescript name for the least flashy of the sisters. Their parents, Homa and Al—­even as “Ali”—­were to use their real names.

The producers had encouraged the family to keep everything as real as possible. Reality TV is all about keeping it really real, Roxanna remembered the main producer saying more than once over the phone.

Roxanna had assured them everything would be real. “Oh, well, we like put the keep it real in keep it real,” she had quipped in a bemused half-­cringe, to the producer’s delight. This one’s the one, she had heard the producer say to his assistant, her body filling with a warmth that she knew was just a dusting of stardom over a wash of absolute embarrassment.

The only thing Roxanna had left to worry about was her astrological sign. After all, identity was in, she had heard someone important say. The business of changing the birthdate on her documents had to be cheaper than the gender reassignment some of her classmates were opting for, she had argued to her parents, who were less worried about the cost than the state of Roxanna’s mental health.

And then there was the Secret. Only Mina knew. Violet was out of school now. She had been homeschooled, had finally graduated, and was still unready to commit to higher education. Haylee was a few months into high school, but she would eventually know. Roxanna could reason with her. Mina was more the issue, so practical and grounded—­and, well, always around. She would ignore the issue mostly, but occasionally it would smack right into her, when someone asked her about her heritage. At first Mina had thought it was because of their dad’s company, but as she entered tenth grade that year, Roxanna told her the truth.

Oh, well, we put the keep it real in keep it real . . . Her sister’s words buzzed like a dying neon sign in Mina’s mind.

Roxanna, in a measured hyperventilating Mina knew too well, had begged her not to tell. It had been a big secret for her, the biggest of her life. Roxanna did not have many secrets she could keep and Mina felt like it was a miracle she could keep this one, especially from Violet—who tended to know ­everything—and Haylee. In an ideal world, Mina should have been the last to know, and more than once she had considered telling their parents. But what would that do—­Al would maybe find it funny, Homa would use it as just another reason to remain depressed. It was bad enough that Roxanna’s very Roxanna-­ness had resulted in the reality TV deal anyway.

Unfuckingreal, Mina had said over and over.

When the producers wanted to meet, when something of the nothing was actually set in stone . . . well, then, we could decide! was how Roxanna had spun it. Mina, of course, had eyed Roxanna suspiciously, her silence tense and measured. Mina, who spent her time between Twitter and TikTok and Instagram and Snapchat, and kept her notifications on when she was supposed to be sleeping, was what they called extremely online, and for that reason she had been the first to speak up and announce that reality TV was totally over.

“What are you talking about, bitch?” Roxanna had nearly screamed.

“There are rumors this season is the Kardashians’ last,” Mina said plainly. “Who else is there? No one cares anymore. It’s very ten years ago.”

Roxanna was furious, but she did the only thing she could: ignore her. Fine with Mina—­she wasn’t going to be a main character, anyway. Haylee, meanwhile, was elated. She was new to being a teenager and she was ready for the world to see her. Homa had finally allowed her to dye her hair white-­blond—­she was born with lighter hair than the rest but certainly not platinum—­and she was trying to figure out how to look like her new favorite celebrity, always rotating among models and actresses and pop stars and influencers. She imagined that, as reality TV stars, they’d get all sorts of perks—­even better clothes, maybe even some lip filler, which she’d been dying to get after Roxanna and Violet had had theirs done at the height of Kylie Jenner Lip Kit mania. That was where Haylee’s mind was: the extravagant possibilities of fame.

Violet had been calm, as usual. As long as Tens, her modeling agency, was okay with the show, and as long as it amplified, not minimized, her modeling, then it was fine. Who knew, maybe it could really help, but the truth was Violet, like Mina, was more introverted. Her shoots were enough attention for her. She prayed that their dad, Roxanna, and Haylee could hog all the attention and Violet, Mina, and Homa could linger on the sidelines in peace. The show, of course, would be Roxanna’s.

Everyone agreed except Al, who said the show was really his. Roxanna was his favorite, and he was hers, though they were the two who competed the most against each other. Homa and Violet played the quieter matriarchs, and Mina and Haylee didn’t have much say in anything.

The best part for Roxanna was that the whole endeavor hadn’t taken too much convincing for Al. The bottom line, the producers said, was that it would be good for business. In the entire history of reality TV, there was not a case of a business not growing due to heightened profile offered by this sort of opportunity. Look at The Real Housewives—­Bethenny Frankel’s Skinnygirl Margaritas, they had said. Or Love & Hip Hop—­Cardi B’s entire career. Al was in, regardless. It was almost as if he had imagined it. He was the man behind Pizzabomme, and he was more than fine with introducing America to him and his beautiful family. He knew it was Homa who needed the nudging.

Homa had been suffering from clinical depression since the day they met but she made sure it rarely showed, if ever. She didn’t want to be seen, but she tolerated it. She was beautiful but not in a showy way—­hers was not the sultry full moon–­like beauty of her oldest, Violet, or the wild, trendy gorgeousness of her electric stunner Roxanna, not the angular, elite crisp of Haylee either. The one who resembled her the most was Mina, the only daughter who had settled into herself in a composed way. She had never even dyed her hair, and had kept it in a chic but fairly boring smooth, brown bob her whole life, much like Homa had.

When the producers finished their pitch and Al declared his unequivocal interest to Roxanna’s elated applause and all the other daughters displayed their varying degree of excited-­to-­polite smiles, all eyes fell on Homa, who, in her low, deeply accented, rich tenor, said, in barely a whisper, “Well, it will have to be okay with me, it seems.”

What Homa really meant to say was that it was clear it was somehow decided already without much input from her. One of her few friends had once told her Roxanna reminded her a bit of Ivanka Trump, as it felt like she was the real lady of the house, Al’s perfect counterpart. She was not just a scene-­stealer, but the real dealmaker. Homa knew there was little she could say to get out of it, but she felt most consoled hearing from the producers that they should not count on this having a long life, that shows like this rarely aired for longer than a season. It would likely be a one-­off and they could not expect much network support either. Of course they hoped for success, but the real secret to making it in Hollywood was to never bank on anything.