“Two weeks later, I showed up,” said Gaibi. “She told me she loved me.”
In late November, Mrs. Gaibi asks Mrs. Bozorg to meet her after physical therapy to get a surprise. “Oh, you are taller than me,” said Mrs. Bozorg when she saw Mrs. Gaybe without crutches. Then for the first time, they held hands as they walked down the street.
They have spent Christmas with Mrs. Bozorg’s aunt at Barnard, Vt. While there, Mrs. Bozorg, whose parents arrived in the United States after the Iranian Revolution, discovers a random Persian affair with Mrs. Gaibi.
“My aunt went to school in Tehran with Molly’s father’s cousin,” said Mrs. Bozorg.
In the summer of 2019, Mrs. Bozorg takes Mrs. Gaebe to Cherry Grove on Fire Island for a week. It quickly became an annual tradition. The following summer, Mrs. Bozorg bought a weekend home in Big Indian, New York, and moved into Mrs. Gaibi’s apartment.
In August 2021, Cherry Grove was swept away by Hurricane Henry. The couple vacated the home they were renting at the time and stayed in a motel during the worst of the storm. During this time Mrs. Gaebe begins to put her plan to propose. She bought a rainbow canvas ring the next day and asked Boudoir LeFleur, one of the couple’s favorite drag queens, to be part of the proposal.
In the middle of a Boudoir LeFleur show at Cherry’s on the Bay, a restaurant and venue on Fire Island, she exclaims with mock innocence, “Is Molly in the room?”
“Laila John,” said Mrs. Gaibi onstage, using Persian love. When Mrs. Bozorg joins her, Mrs. Gaibi gets down on one knee with a rainbow cloth ring she had picked up that day at a local gift shop.