Lovetorn (17 page)

“Nothing much. Just hanging around at home. My sister is going to swimming camp. I thought I’d stay with my mom.” I wasn’t looking forward to the summer. Renuka and her parents were spending a few weeks in Europe and then she had signed up for a visual arts program. It seemed that everyone had plans but me.

“There are so many great summer camps,” she said. “I heard about a fantastic residential math program in Canada. That’s your thing, right? Or if you want to do something less academic, you could study Spanish in Costa Rica or do community service in Sicily. If I hadn’t already planned on going to Bangladesh, I’d probably try something wild like that.”

“My parents won’t agree to me going somewhere by myself, even if it’s for my studies,” I said.

“There’s a lot that’s closer to home,” she said. “Day camps. There’s even something here at the school. Could be cool.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, knowing that I would do no such thing.

The next day as I stood by my locker, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. It was Toby. I was thrilled to see him.

“So get this,” he said. “Me and my dad were driving around Culver City the other day, and we passed the Krishna temple, so I told him we just
had
to stop. We went in there. It was super-cool. A few people were sitting in the back listening to music. And it had a great vegetarian restaurant. The food was amazing. I thought of you.”

I knew exactly the place he was talking about. My spirits were soaring now, not just because Toby had stopped to talk, but because, while he was with his father many miles away, he had seen something that made him think of me.

“Going away for the summer?” he asked. I was holding my satchel behind my back, swinging it slowly from one side to another, feeling it gently thump on the back of my legs.

“No,” I said. “You?”

“I’m going to be a teaching assistant at the music camp here. Kinda made sense since I’m gonna major in it in the fall. I’m going to Colburn. My first pick was Juilliard, but I didn’t get in.” He paused for a second. “It’s not so bad; I’ll be close to home.” I silently cheered.

“Anyway, I just want finals to be done with. But you should sign up for summer camp here,” he said. “They got everything: math, literature, drama. Field trips too. Like regular school but with less people, and everyone is totally relaxed.”

“I hadn’t thought of it,” I said.

“Look into it. It’ll be fun,” he said.

I was trying to hide my elation at being asked to do something with him, a way to see him every day. He turned to leave.

“Oh, Toby, wait,” I said.

He turned back around.

“Are you going to prom?” I blurted. The idea of him going with another girl had haunted me more than I thought. I regretted the question as soon as it left my mouth. It was none of my business.

“Yeah, I’m going,” he said. “A bunch of us are.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Why?” he asked. “What’s the deal?”

“Oh, no, no deal,” I said. I looked down at the floor, staring at the shiny tile beneath my feet. A couple kissed briefly on the lips three lockers down.

“Okay, gotta run,” he said. He walked a few paces down, stopped, and turned around again.

“It’s just me and a bunch of friends. No biggie,” he said. “Really.”

It was as if he was trying to reassure me, even though I had no right to feel insecure. It was humiliating.

Far easier for me were finals, which were a breeze. I whizzed through math and finished my English paper twenty minutes before everyone else. I could already see the As I’d get in Social Studies and Science. My rigorous education in India had served me well here. Vikram called me after every exam to see how I’d done, and before each to wish me luck. He seemed to love me as much as he did before I’d left India, maybe even more.

My father needed very little convincing that summer camp would be a good option for me. He had lots of work to get through. And he didn’t want me sacrificing my summer on behalf of my mother.

“We’ll manage,” he said. “She’ll manage.”

Chapter Twenty-two

THE FIRST DAY
of summer camp was like being in a completely different place. The usually crowded halls were thinned out. Everything was quieter. I liked how it felt.

I had chosen to focus on math. I had a new teacher, Mrs. Brockwell, who had a knack for making precalculus fun. It was intense: two-hour sessions followed by a break and then a couple of hours more. But it was an immersion program, designed for AP students. I fit right in. It also felt strange not having Sangita accompany me to school each day, as she did during the regular semester. She had signed up for a swim-and-sports camp and was on a completely different schedule.

On that first day I saw Toby at lunchtime, standing in front of a vending machine. I approached him from behind.

“Hey,” he said, jumping back a little bit. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I wanted to say hello. Thank you for encouraging me to do this. I’m really enjoying it so far.”

“Cool,” he said.

“How was graduation?” I asked. He must have looked irresistible in that navy blue robe, a scroll in his long-fingered hand. I had vowed not to ask him about prom.

“Felt great,” he said. “My folks were proud, which doesn’t suck.”

“And how are your classes going?” I asked. He was so easy to talk to.

“Good so far, I think,” he replied. “We’re focusing on vibrato, which doesn’t really work with Baroque. But hopefully there’ll be time for me to try an awesome Debussy piece.”

“Oh,” I said. My face was a blank.

He laughed.

“Sorry, I must have sounded like a total douche,” he said.

He was holding a bag of pretzels from the machine and now opened it and offered some to me. I reached in and pulled out a few.

We started walking out together. It seemed as if neither of us had anywhere to be.

“Is that lunch for you?” I asked. “A bag of pretzels?”

He tossed a couple more pretzels into his mouth, crunched loudly, and shrugged.

“Do you like Indian food?” I asked.

The two of us sat on a wooden bench on the school grounds, the rice and vegetables I had prepared the night before laid out, the faint smell of cloves and cinnamon lingering in the air between us. Toby and I shared a meal, and I wanted it to never end.

A week into summer camp as I walked home, I realized that if Toby had preoccupied me before the start of the session, now there was no getting away from him. I harbored a longing—an unexpected, illogical longing—for a boy who was not my fiancé. It was stupid, senseless, so out of character for me. But no matter what I told myself, I couldn’t get over my feelings for the dark-haired flute player I was just starting to know.

It was the middle of the afternoon. It was perfect weather, so reminiscent of Bangalore, with just a touch of humidity in the air and the stillness broken by a slight, occasional breeze. I could hear the jingling music from an ice cream truck that had pulled up at a park down the block. A long-haired young boy with his cap on backward whizzed by on his skateboard. Across the street, a man was cleaning his garage, stacking cardboard boxes and filling big black plastic bags with trash. My heart felt strangely calm, my head clear. I looked at my ring again. I felt ripped in two. I had fallen for Toby, but right now there was nothing I could do about it.

On the approach to my house, my feet suddenly stopped moving. I stared out at the patch of grass outside. A woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat and holding a small shovel hacked away at the dirt. A row of perennials had been gouged out of the ground.

If it wasn’t for the nightgown, I wouldn’t have recognized her.

“Ma! What are you doing?” I shouted, running now.

She looked up and raised her hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun.

“I’m gardening,” she said. “I was just watching it on TV. Remember that small area behind Dada’s house where I used to grow onions and basil? I used to love going out there, to see what had sprouted.” She looked back down again at the dirt, her eyes vacant.

“Your sister is swimming,” she said, continuing to dig. “Your papa is working. You are studying. Everyone is busy doing something. So I thought, ‘Okay, I will garden!’” She started to laugh, a forced, contrived laugh.

“Ma, please come inside. Papa must be on his way home with Sangita.”

She calmly went on plunging the shovel into the ground.

“Please, Ma, you shouldn’t be out in your nightclothes.”

“Like anyone will notice!” she said loudly, her eyes narrowing. “They are all in their own world. I can be here wearing nothing, and nobody would care.”

She was trembling. I dropped my satchel and put my arms around her. Just then my father’s car pulled up. Sangita was sitting next to him in the front, her wet hair clinging to her head. They both looked through the windshield, astonished.

My father leaped from the car.

“What is happening here?” he asked, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “Asha, what is this? What are you doing? What happened to our flowers?”

My mother stared at him from under the hat.

“You want your flowers? Here! Here are your flowers!” she shouted, picking them up from the ground and tossing them at him.

“Come, Asha, let’s go inside,” my father said, more calmly now.

My mother stood firm for a second, but my father put his arm around her shoulders. I stood on the other side, and she crumpled between us. We escorted her into the house. The dirt fell off her nightgown onto the carpet. My father reached over and pulled off her hat.

He led her into the den and eased her gently onto the couch, telling Sangita to fetch her some water. My mother threw her head back onto the cushion and closed her eyes.

“Why did you bring me here?” she said, sobbing now. She opened her eyes and looked straight at my father. “You never even asked me. You just decided; and you brought me, all of us. I miss home so much.” She was crying hard now. My father’s face was a blank. He looked over at me.

“Bring her medicine,” my father instructed me.

I ran upstairs, leaping over two steps at a time, and into my parents’ bedroom. The orange bottles weren’t in their usual spot on the dressing table. I went into the bathroom. The bottles had been emptied and were lying in the trash atop a pile of used Kleenex. I happened to glance into the toilet bowl. At the bottom of the water, in a neat little pile, were handfuls of partially dissolved pills. I took the empty bottles downstairs to my father. He looked at them and then back at my mother, who was quiet again, her cheeks stained with tears. Then he went to the phone and called Dr. Gupta. I followed him, while Sangita stayed with our mother. He spoke quickly to the doctor, told her what had happened, nodded at what she was saying, hung up.

“It is normal,” he said, frowning. “The doctor says that this talking she has been doing with the other women, this sharing of feelings, has stirred some things in her. She says it is not a bad thing, what has happened. She needed to speak her mind, show us her true feelings. It is better than saying nothing.”

My father and I went to pick up a new batch of pills, which Dr. Gupta suggested we put in my mother’s food. She said that my mother should not be left alone, at least not until the pills kicked in. Sangita, my father, and I came up with a timetable.

Late one night I came downstairs to get some milk. My father was sitting on the couch listening to music, his head resting in his hand.

“Papa?” I said gently.

Startled, he opened his eyes.

“What’s the matter, Papa? Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I have some decisions to make,” he said, rubbing his eyes now.

I sat down on the ottoman next to him.

“Tell me, Papa,” I said.

He reached out and touched my hand.

“You have always been such a good girl, a good daughter,” he said, sitting forward. Then he leaned back in his seat again.

“Mr. Jeremy has been talking to me about extending my contract.”

I sat upright.

“But one year is not even up yet!” I said, stating the obvious.

“I know,” my father said quietly. “But what has surprised me is not that he has asked, but that I have been considering it,” he said quietly. “I am enjoying it here, my life, my work. I feel useful, valued. Despite all the unhappiness that has been caused by our move, I want to stay. I must be crazy.”

“Sangita and I are not unhappy,” I said. “In fact, I think Sangita is happier than I have ever seen her. She thinks she’s the next Michael Phelps.” I laughed weakly.

“And what about you and your Vikram?” Papa asked. “You are miserable without him.”

I wanted to correct him but didn’t. I
was
once miserable without him. But not anymore. I had filled my life with other things.

“Don’t worry about Vikram and me,” I said. “We have all our lives to be together.” I paused. “What about Dada? You promised Dada you would go back in two years.”

“I will handle Dada,” my father said with surprising determination. “I am a grown man, after all.”

“So it’s just Ma then,” I said quietly.

“Yes, it’s just her.”

Chapter Twenty-three

I TOLD TOBY ABOUT MY MOTHER:
the depression, the doctor, everything. After I finished recounting the gardening incident, he nodded thoughtfully.

“So she had a complete meltdown,” he said. “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Sure.” He shrugged. “She probably needed to freak out a little. Beats lying in bed all day doped up on drugs.”

We were sitting on a mat having lunch on the school lawn. He reached into a brown bag and pulled out a small baguette packed with slices of turkey and tomatoes. I unfolded the plastic wrap around my cheese-and-chutney sandwich and took a bite.

Toby reached over with a napkin and wiped off a smear of the green mint sauce from near my lip.

“Thanks,” I said, feeling a little awkward.

He stared at me.

“You’re cute,” he said.

I looked down.

“I’m not. You don’t have to say that,” I replied. In my family, vanity was discouraged. I had always believed that the only reason I had landed a catch like Vikram was because our fathers had decreed it.