Lovetorn (5 page)

I smiled. To me it was the most glorious fairy tale.

Suddenly, my mother put down her newspaper. “Well, I didn’t think it was the best of ideas,” she said sternly. I sat up straight. She had never told me this before.

“On that day I told your father, ‘Girish, what are you thinking? They are just children. Maybe they are friends now; but who knows what they will be in ten or twenty years, where their lives will take them, what fate has in store?’”

My father was quiet. Sangita looked up from the bare-bones beginning of her tapestry.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Shalini,” my mother said. “I love that family. Vikram is like my son. I just didn’t think we had the right to make that decision for you. But I had no choice. I had to accept it. The men had decided.” She stared at me for a second. There was an emptiness in her eyes.

“Look at you now,” she said. “Your heart is breaking because you are so far away from him. It is not fair to put you through this.”

“Asha, no need to be so dramatic,” my father said, brushing away my mother’s fears now just as he no doubt must have done thirteen years earlier. He stood up and stretched. “The children are strong. They will survive.

“And, Shalini,” he said, turning to me. “Please don’t feel sad. You and Vikram are destined to be together. It is written in the stars. In the meantime, there is always Skype.”

Chapter Six

THE PHONE RANG
very early the next morning. I jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs to answer it, knowing it would be him. My Vikram.

“Hi, Shalu,” a boy’s voice said gently. I felt a little flip in my belly. “How are you? How was the flight?” he asked. His soft, steady voice made my heart hum. I pressed my lips close to the receiver.

“It was okay.” I paused. Tears flooded my eyes now. “I really miss you,” I sobbed. Talking to Vikram for the first time since I got here drove home the fact that I was so far away from him. I clutched the phone tightly, afraid to drop it as if doing so would sever my connection to him. I thought back to the last time I was with him, at the airport. Thousands of people surrounded us, but for those few moments it had seemed as if it was just he and I alone in that large, chaotic space. Our hands had touched. He had wanted to kiss me, but that was something not done in public in my culture, especially not between two teenagers. Tears had streamed down my face. He had wiped them away, the way he had done since I was a little girl.

“What if you forget me, Vikram?” I had asked him.

“As if you’ll let me!” he’d joked. “And it’s you who might forget me, being in exciting America. Maybe you won’t want to return.”

“That will never happen,” I had said. “Never.” I had looked down at the ruby ring he had given me, an identical one on his finger. We had exchanged them a few days earlier in front of a shrine at Vikram’s house. His mother had insisted on it, said it was “high time.” I remember my mother being quiet, withdrawn from the proceedings.

Now I pressed the phone hard against my ear.

“I miss everything,” I said. “This place is so different. Everything is so new. I don’t like it. My school is horrible.”

“It’s only been a few days,” he soothed. “Give it time. You will find friends; you will get used to it. You’ll see.”

I nodded silently. He told me he loved me. I wiped the tears from my eyes and hung up. My mother was standing behind me.

“Vikram?” she asked. I nodded. My bottom lip trembled. I expected her to come toward me and comfort me the way she always did. But she shook her head, turned around, walked into the kitchen, put the kettle on for me.

I went upstairs to get ready. I put the stiff dress and panty hose I’d worn yesterday in the back of my closet and pulled out a pair of denim jeans—still new, crisp, and dark blue—a simple cotton tunic shirt, and a pair of flat leather sandals. I peered into the mirror, ran my tongue self-consciously over my braces, and tucked a few stray wisps of hair back into my braid. Sangita came out of the bathroom, showered and dressed, in a pair of khakis and a plain red T-shirt. She looked much more comfortable than I felt. Around her wrist were prayer beads, wound trendily. With her still-damp hair left loose and falling over one eye, a thin black cord around her neck, she looked almost American. She looked like one of them.

Outside school a short while later, I stood, frozen. It was harder today than it had been the previous day, when I hadn’t known what to expect. Here, now, I was filled with dread at being teased again, at having people laugh and whisper behind my back, at feeling left out of everything.

“Come,
didi
,” Sangita said, pulling me by the hand. “We’ll be late. Let’s go.” I wished I had even a fraction of her enthusiasm. I tentatively let her lead me inside.

In English class I settled into my seat, lifted my book bag, and pulled out the copy of
Beowulf
that Mr. White had given me. Charlie, the mean boy from the cafeteria yesterday, turned to me and grimaced, as if my mere presence had completely ruined his day. I tried to block him out, to forget he was even there, and concentrate on my lesson.

I was relieved when the bell finally sounded. I started packing up my things. I looked up and noticed two girls walking toward me. Sasha was the pretty blond one and Magali beautiful and black, with a mass of dark ringlets, but both memorable to me only because of their meanness. They were both slender and petite, and wore the low-waist jeans that seemed to be the favorite look at this school, held in place with thick belts. Magali’s pants had a tear near the knee, although it looked as if it had been put there on purpose; and Sasha’s golden hair was even shinier against a turquoise scarf around her neck that appeared to have been made from confetti. I had a nervous smile on my face. But they were approaching me, looking friendly. They were probably coming up to say hello and to ask if I needed anything. Maybe they would befriend me, like Amy had done with Sangita. Perhaps things wouldn’t be so bad after all, just like Vikram had predicted.

They were both standing right in front of me now. I beamed up at them, about to stand up and shake their hands.

“Here,” Sasha said, dropping a small white-and-orange box on my desk. “You could probably use this.” She and Magali snickered and walked off. I picked up the box. It said on the top, CREAM HAIR REMOVER FOR THE FACE—FAST, LASTING RESULTS.

I glanced up and saw Sasha and Magali standing by the door, both staring straight at me, huddling close to each other and laughing. My whole body had suddenly become ten degrees hotter. I put the box in my bag, waited until they had left the doorway, and then made my way out. I spent the rest of the day praying I wouldn’t see them again.

Sangita met me on the steps at the end of the afternoon. She was chatting amiably with a red-haired girl.

“Hi,
didi
,” she said. “This is my friend Amy.”

The girl waved at me casually.

“Hey,” she said. She had an open and friendly face, a gap-toothed smile. She wore her hair in a high ponytail, which swung from side to side as she talked.

“I gotta walk down the block to meet my mom,” she said to Sangita. “Call me later, okay?” She lightly touched my sister’s hand, gave her a bright smile, and bounced down the rest of the steps.

“She’s nice, right?” my sister said, turning back to me. “She introduced me to her other friends, Kayla and Beth. They are also really nice. Beth is Chinese. She was adopted by an American family. I never met anyone adopted before.” Sangita was excited and happy.

“How was your second day,
didi
?” she asked. “Do you feel better about being here?”

I nodded brusquely and shoved my hand into my open bag, pushing down the box of hair cream before Sangita saw it.

Chapter Seven

BEFORE LEAVING BANGALORE,
I had bought a small pink diary, its front cover decorated with a picture of a climbing vine. I had never had a diary before; but in view of the life change that loomed before me, I thought it might be a good idea to have a place to record my thoughts and feelings. It was also a way for me to remember all the things I wanted to tell Vikram. I had had no need of such a thing before, as he and I would talk many times a day and saw each other all the time; and he would happily listen to even the most mundane details of my life.

But with an ocean and a large time difference between us, I knew that wouldn’t be so easy anymore. Even though we could email back and forth, I would miss not hearing his voice several times a day.

Now, however, that diary served a whole other purpose. On the day we arrived, I had started instead to make a list of all the firsts I had experienced in that one day alone: the quietness of the house, the cheese sandwich for dinner, the fact that I could watch anything I wanted on TV without fearing that Dada would come in any minute and change channels.

In the two weeks that we had been here, I had filled four pages of the diary with all these firsts—things as inconsequential as having the electrician show up at precisely the appointed time, which never happens in India. The diary had become my best friend, my confidante, the replacement for all I had left behind. It had become something that was just for me.

Some of the entries on my list were repeats: I had listed Doritos at least three times, because I just really loved them. And some were meaningless: next to “Kiwi Strawberry Snapple” I had written, “Made from the best stuff on Earth,” because that is what all the ads said. Since coming here I had tried portobello mushrooms, guacamole, and a cheese-filled pastry called
pupusa
that reminded me of a
paratha
, only it tasted even better. I had doodled Vikram’s name across multiple pages, sketching hearts and flowers around it. I had written about the first time he had called me after I got here, how the softness of his voice made me ache for him. I had written about my mother, how distant and cold she had been, barely smiling, not really even speaking to any of us.

“But it will change!” I had written optimistically. “She knows we have no choice but to try and be happy with Papa’s decision.”

On this Sunday evening, the light was starting to fade outside. The weekend had been a welcome reprieve from the stress that was school. I sat alone in my room and looked through the pages of my diary. There was “homesickness” and “loneliness” on page two. Beneath that was “sadness,” but I picked up a pen and put a neat line through it when I remembered that I had felt sad the day
chachi
Rekha, wife of
chacha
number two Pramod, had died. It had happened in such a haphazard, needless way: tripping over her sari and tumbling down a flight of steps.

In place of sadness, I now wrote the word
excluded
, something that had never been a part of my life before. In my old house I couldn’t feel left out if I’d wanted to. During birthday celebrations and wedding anniversaries, everyone gathered in the big main hall to eat cake that Dadi would order from a local bakery. Even though I saw most of my family members every day, these parties were special.

Now, next to “excluded,” I wrote a few more words that were hard for me to write. “No plans for Diwali.” The new year, the biggest holiday in India, was around the corner, and nobody was even discussing it—no talk of festivities, fireworks, or gift giving. It was as if it didn’t exist.

Later that evening I folded laundry with my mother and my father and helped Sangita with her homework.

“What shall we do for Diwali?” I asked, as if it were a thought that had just that second popped into my head. My mother looked at me coldly.

“What will we do? We will sit here alone, like we have done every night since your father brought us to this place.” My mother’s mood was off again, as it had been almost constantly since we got here.

My father stopped what he was doing.

“Please, Asha, don’t worry. I have been thinking about it. We will celebrate as normal.”

“How?” my mother demanded. “There is nobody to celebrate with.”

My father’s voice turned appeasing.

“We will do prayers at home, like we always do. The girls can buy new clothes. We will visit the temple in the evening. We will connect with people. We will find a community here.”

I started to feel just a little more hopeful. There was something about anticipating Diwali that always put me in a celebratory mood. Even here, thousands of miles away from the extended family I’d always shared it with, the thought of it stirred some excitement in me.

I glanced toward my mother, hoping to see even a glimmer of the same anticipation. But instead, she gazed up from a fresh, dry peach towel she had clasped beneath her chin and looked right through me.

Sangita and I were excited to wake up on Diwali morning. There was an air of newness around us, a sense of possibilities. Our father had even suggested that we take the day off from school. I was tempted—any reason at all not to have to go in!—but Sangita said she didn’t feel right about it, that if it wasn’t technically a holiday, we must proceed as usual. I forced myself to agree with her.

We said our prayers at our makeshift temple and came running downstairs. “Diwali
mubarak
!” My father beamed, wishing Sangita and me a “Happy Diwali” with a slight hug and a big smile. He had already spoken to his parents, and Vikram would be calling me soon.

Our mother was in the kitchen, her back turned to us, stirring something on the stove.

“Ma, Diwali
mubarak
!” Sangita and I ran to her, throwing our arms around her waist. She turned around. Her eyes were pink, her nose runny.

“Happy Diwali to you girls,” she said tearfully, hugging us both. “May God bless and protect you.”

“Ma, don’t be sad,” I said to her. “It is a beautiful day, and we will make the most of it. Please.”

She wiped her eyes and blew her nose with her
dupatta.
She wished us a good day at school and turned back to her cooking.

At school, the pressure to have a good day felt even more heightened. My grandparents had taught me that how the year begins is how it will go on. As a result, it was crucial that I was, if not exactly thrilled and jubilant, at least not miserable. If I could just get through the day without being teased, humiliated, or poked fun at, then maybe there would be hope for me yet. And it seemed the goddess Laxmi, whose auspices are sought on the day, had listened to me after all: I was left alone. Nobody talked to or befriended me, but they didn’t make fun of me either. It was a small mercy.