Lovetorn (11 page)

Charlie sat up straight and uncrossed his arms, like a child who had just been chastised at the dining table for playing with his food.

“Okay,” he said.

“Good,” I replied, pulling his books toward me. “Now, let’s start at the beginning,”

We went over the basics of perimeters and volumes. He had a decent grasp of some of the simpler concepts but had lost his way after that. By the end of the hour he seemed a little more confident, and I was a little more relaxed. Afterward, we stood at the top of the steps to the library. He looked a little off-balance, his backpack weighing him down on one side.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You are welcome,” I replied.

“See ya,” he muttered, walking down the steps to a waiting car.

At home later, I emailed Vikram and told him about my new “student.” Then I went upstairs to see Sangita. She was sitting on her bed doing homework, chewing on the back of a pencil. Her fingernails were painted bright blue. A Justin Bieber song was playing on the radio, and her right foot was tapping lightly to the music. There was so much about her I didn’t recognize anymore.

“Hi,
didi
,” she said when I walked in. “How did it go? With that rude boy?”

Her eyes opened wide when I told her how I had almost lost my temper with him, and she put her hands over her mouth.

“Good for you,
di
,” she said. “Good that he saw he couldn’t push you around anymore!” We both giggled. Then her face became more serious.

“Are you enjoying it here more now?” she asked. She cocked her head to one side, the way she often did when she asked a question.

“I suppose I am. Except for Ma. I’m still worried about her.”

Sangita turned on her back. Her breathing became heavier. She had tears in her eyes.

“What? What is it?” I rushed to her side and put my arm around her skinny shoulders.

“I hate her,” my sister said quietly.

“Who?”

“Ma. I hate her. I hate that she’s in her stupid room all day. She doesn’t care about us.” She was sobbing now as I held her. I hadn’t even considered how hard our mother’s behavior had been on Sangita. She was still young and didn’t understand the way my father and I were trying to.

“I’m sorry,
didi
,” she said now, lifting her head and looking at me.

“It’s okay. I know how you feel,” I said. At that moment, I started to wonder what it would take to get my mother to be herself again. If we were sick, would she care for us? When our birthdays rolled around, would she bake us a cake, say a special morning prayer, smile proudly at how we had grown, kiss us on the foreheads like she had done every birthday for all our lives? What if she had retreated so far into a place that nothing—not even her love for us—could bring her back?

Chapter Fifteen

IN HOMEROOM,
Mr. White started talking about a school-wide project that got my interest, the first time that had happened. Sangita had discovered swimming as a big love. I had yet to find mine. But when Mr. White started speaking now, I really listened. It might have been because he used the word
India
up front.

“The idea is to help women in developing countries: India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mexico,” he said, scanning a flyer in his hand. “A new group called Food4Life, started by another eleventh grader to help underprivileged women start businesses, grow their own food, sustain their own lives.” He turned the flyer around as if looking for any more pertinent information.

“Seems to be a worthwhile cause. If any of you has the time, jump in. You can sign up here,” he said, indicating a clipboard next to him. He put the flyer down on his desk on top of a pile of papers and tapped it as if indicating that he was done with that portion of homeroom.

Before leaving, I stood by his empty desk and picked up the clipboard. There were no other names on it. I took the pen attached to the clipboard but held it momentarily above the first line, where I should have been scribbling down my name. I really couldn’t do this now. I had chores to take care of at home, a mother who needed tending to—the drugs hadn’t worked, and she was no better. My father still had to be cooked for, and I had a fiancé thousands of miles away whom I missed. I had even offered to take home some of Charlie’s math papers to look over after our weekly tutoring sessions. Charlie had said that polynomials and trig equations almost made sense now. Sometimes we would talk a little on the way out of the library. His father had found a new job, and things were better at home. At school, he’d mumble a “Hey” as I walked by. My father had seen the pressure I was under and briefly considered hiring a housekeeper. But he quickly changed his mind, realizing he wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone he didn’t know in the house all day and his wife too depressed to oversee what he would describe as “the running of the household.”

Things were crazy enough. I needed to just bide my time for the next couple of years, not spread myself too thin.

But I loved the whole idea behind Food4Life. I liked what they were trying to do. I was reminded about how charity was such a big part of our home life in India. Dada was always willing to help out a struggling family, a cause, an organization that did good. It gave him immense satisfaction, and I had grown up seeing the value of being of service to others. Right now I remembered Renuka’s advice to me. If I wanted to squeeze any joy out of my time here, I couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore.

I wrote down my name, email address, and phone number.

That evening I received a text from a girl named Amina, telling me that the first meeting was scheduled for the coming weekend at her house.

At eleven on the following Saturday morning, I nervously rang the doorbell as my father waited in the car until he saw that I’d been let in.

“Hey.” The girl smiled, opening the door. “Shalini, right? I’m Amina.” She wore big glasses that covered half her face, and her frizzy hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. “Everyone else is already here. Come on in.”

I followed her down a set of carpeted steps to a basement that had been transformed into kind of a den/study; there was a TV in one corner, a laptop computer in another, a minifridge, books everywhere, family pictures on the walls. It was cozy and welcoming, and I instantly felt at ease.

Three other people were seated around a coffee table. I found a spot and settled in.

“We were just about to get started,” Amina said. “Let’s quickly go around the room and say a little about ourselves and why we’re here. I’ll go first.

“Okay, so I’m Amina,” she started. “I was born here, but my parents are from Bangladesh. I started Food4Life after reading an article about famine in Bangladeshi villages. I realized those families didn’t need a handout but rather a way to make sure they were never hungry again. With this program, I want us to raise money to help women in as many underdeveloped countries as we can.”

She turned to look at a pretty strawberry blonde next to her.

“Hey, I’m Justine,” she said. “I’m on the cheerleading squad, I organize the regular school blood drive, and I am on the yearbook committee . . . so yeah, I really
need
to be doing something else.” She rolled her eyes. We all chuckled. “But this seems really worthwhile, so I’m in.”

Patrick, a tall, brown-haired boy, was next. He said he had already decided on a career with an NGO and thought this would give him a little hands-on experience. Catherine, a Korean girl, said she wanted to be able to “give back,” and added that being involved in something like Food4Life would look great on her college applications.

Then it was my turn.

“My name is Shalini,” I said. “I’m from India. I grew up witnessing poverty on a daily basis. I would give a few rupees here and there, but I knew it would not really make a difference. I feel that something like this, something that goes to the heart of a family, can really make an impact. I feel obliged to help.”

Amina handed us each an orange folder containing sheets of paper with the Food4Life mission statement, one another’s contact details, and a list of possible fund-raising ideas.

“Wanna brainstorm?” she asked.

We were sitting on coffee-stained floral furniture, passing around a big bag of potato chips, cans of Pepsi and Sprite hissing softly as we opened them. Amina, a hand cupping her chin, looked over at me and smiled. I glanced around at the group, at these kids who seemed so, well,
nice
, and settled back into my comfy armchair. I might just have finally found a place where I belonged.

Vikram called very early on Valentine’s Day, his cheery voice wishing me a “happy and lovely day!” He had already sent me an e-card: a picture of a woman with bright red fingernails holding a tiny red cardboard heart with a ribbon tied around it.

The words read:
My heart. It’s yours
. It was very sweet, very Vikram.

“I’ve been missing you a lot,” he said on the phone now. Lately people in India had been embracing Valentine’s Day with new fervor, young people catching on that it was now something trendy to celebrate. For the past two years Vikram and I had exchanged homemade cards; and last year when he had come over for dinner with his family, he had brought me a single white rose, leading all my cousins to shout
“Wah re wah,”
which loosely translates as “Wow, oh, wow,” while Dada shook his head disapprovingly.

“Have you been missing me?” he asked now.

“Of course I have,” I said. “But I’ve been so busy with this new group.”

Amina had stressed the importance of doing as much as we could in the four months left before the end of the school year. There had been a bake sale the previous week when Justine and I had set up a table on the school grounds during lunch break and sold cupcakes and peanut brittle. The preparation had taken my entire Sunday, for as well as I could cook Indian food, baking, I had discovered, was not my forte. Nobody had ever told me that you needed to let cupcakes cool before you iced them, or that there was a difference between baking soda and baking powder. I hadn’t ever touched an egg before. The kitchen had been a disaster area, and I’d had flour in my hair for two days afterward. But sitting next to Justine behind a table selling sweet things for a dollar apiece, chatting during those quiet moments—I had just loved it. This past weekend, Patrick and I had organized a book drive, collecting unwanted books from students to sell. I’d had no idea how much work all of this would take but didn’t regret joining for a second.

What I liked the most was that none of us had a specific ”job”; we all pitched in, and so far everybody seemed to be doing an equal amount of work. I had printed out flyers, or had been in charge of the money, or had asked my father to help me set up a charity car wash down the street. We often lunched together in the cafeteria, talking not just about what we were going to do next for Food4Life, but about other parts of our lives as well: Patrick flew gas-powered radio-controlled planes on weekends, Justine’s parents were about to foster a young black kid from South Central, Catherine’s older brother had been accepted into Harvard. I loved being included, becoming a part of their lives, a member of these new, interconnected circles.

I thought of all this when Vikram asked me if I missed him. I had been too preoccupied to really be missing anyone.

“School is so crazy, actually. I went from having nothing to do to having too much!”

“Well, Shalu, I told you,” he said, “that you would find friends and be happy there. I knew it would happen. I wish I could be there with you, especially today.”

I paused for a moment. There was a more expansive quality to my life now, more in it than ever before. And because of that, Vikram had a smaller role. It was weird to even think that, but it was true.

“I wish you could be here too,” I said, a little preoccupied.

Mr. Jeremy invited my family out to dinner on our six-month anniversary in Los Angeles. He had asked Renuka and her parents to join us as well. As he always did before we went anywhere special, my father talked quietly to my mother, urging her again to please come along. She was on a new drug now, Dr. Gupta having explained to us that sometimes it was a question of trial and error before you had the right medication.

“Asha, half a year has passed,” I heard my father say as we were preparing to leave. “You cannot continue this. We have all settled in here and are making very comfortable lives. Please, Asha, just snap out of it now.”

“I’m not bothering you if I’m sitting here,” my mother said, raising her voice slightly. “I’m not telling you not to go. I’m fine at home. You go, all of you. Just leave me alone.”

My father appeared from the room, his face filled with frustration.

“I give up,” he said, shaking his head.

“Papa, let me try,” I said. I went in and sat on my mother’s bed. She was twirling her
mangal sutra
with one finger.

“You’re looking very nice,” she said. I was wearing a long, flowing gray skirt and a red top with a cowl neck. It had become my new “best frock.”

She looked up at me, her face shaded with sadness. She pulled me to her. Her hair was damp. She smelled of rosewater and jasmine, and a small dusting of talcum powder from the back of her neck rubbed off onto my top, leaving it speckled in white. It had been her first shower in five days.

“I will stay home with you,” I said. “We will sit and watch TV together, and I will make you
chaat
.”

“You don’t need me,” she said. “Nobody needs me. I am worthless here. Everybody is managing fine without me.”

I opened my mouth to tell her she was wrong, but she silenced me with a finger to my lips.

“Daddy’s boss has invited you. Please just go.”

At the restaurant, I decided not to think about my mother. The evening was so much fun, and I didn’t want anything to spoil it. Renuka, Sangita, and I sat at one end of the table, sipping Coke in frosted glasses. Renuka said my new outfit looked “sick,” which I was given to understand is a good thing in Renuka-speak. We giggled about Vikram. Renuka asked if she could try on the ruby ring, and I let her. She held up her hand in front of her, clapped, and said, “Yay!” Then she covered her head with her napkin and pretended to be a blushing Hindu bride, and we giggled some more. When she gave me back the ring, she forced a pout and said, “Boo hoo.” I gazed at the sparkling little ruby proudly.