Lovetorn (6 page)

That night when it grew dark outside, my father turned on as many lights as he could, honoring the Diwali tradition of beckoning Laxmi, the goddess of prosperity, into homes. My mother walked around, turning them all off.

“No point wasting electricity,” she said bitterly.

My father didn’t argue with her.

“Asha, please get dressed,” he said. “Let’s go to the temple for prayers and celebrations. Mr. Jeremy has offered to take us.”

I looked excitedly over at Sangita. I knew she was as keen to go as I was. We both wanted to wear Indian clothes and go to a place filled with other Indians. We looked at our mother pleadingly.

“You go. I’m not interested,” she said, sitting down in front of the TV and picking up the remote. “Nothing is there for me. We don’t even know anybody. We’ll go and stand around like fools.”

“Asha, you’re not making sense,” my father said, a note of irritation creeping into his voice. “How will we meet people unless we go out and try? We can introduce ourselves to the priest. We can tell him we are new here. He will help us find other families to befriend. But by staying home like this, Asha, nothing will happen; our lives will not improve.”

“I’m going to sleep,” my mother said, slapping the remote down on the table. “Go if you want.”

She rose and went upstairs without turning back. Papa, Sangita, and I looked at one another. My sister’s bottom lip was quivering. I put my arm around her.

“I’m sorry, girls, but we’ll have to have a quiet Diwali at home this year,” my father said, trying to hide the disappointment in his eyes. “But see, all is not lost.” He went to his briefcase and pulled out a package. “Mr. Jeremy gave me this today, in celebration.” In my father’s hand was a small pink cardboard box. We opened it and saw that it was filled with soft, spongy, sweet
ladoos
, a traditional Diwali dessert
.
“He got it at the Indian store. They are not like your grandmother makes at home, but it was a nice gesture.”

The three of us sat down, pulled out some paper napkins from a small holder, and ate in silence.

Chapter Eight

AT SCHOOL A FEW DAYS LATER,
large purple posters were being put up advertising the Halloween Rock Horror Show. The school gym would be transformed into a haunted house for a Gothic rock concert. There would be Crypt Cupcakes and I Scream Cones and Ghoulish Gateaux and Blood Punch. The whole school was invited.

Sangita and I stared up at one of the posters.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think it’s silly,” I said. “It has nothing to do with us.”

“I think it looks like fun,” my sister replied. “Amy mentioned it to me. She wants to go. Some of our friends are going.”

Her words were like a stab to my heart, the way she said “our friends,” because she had them and I didn’t. I didn’t want to be comparing myself to my younger sister, but I was wondering why it had been so easy for her and so hard for me.

She saw the look on my face, and her smile disappeared.

“But you’re right,
didi
,” she said. “It is silly. Let’s not go.”

A note had been sent to all of the parents that students were allowed, even encouraged, to dress up for Halloween. My father first suggested that we go in our “best frocks,” and I cringed at the thought. Then he told us to find one of the saris we had brought from India, remarking that we would stand out in a crowd in all that silk and gold finery. I didn’t say as much to my father, but the last thing I wanted to do was accentuate the fact that I was Indian. I still attracted snickers sometimes when I spoke up in class, some of the students mocking my accent. Others went so far as to do a full-on imitation, wobbling their heads as they spoke as they imagined all Indians did. They told unfunny jokes about IT geeks and gas station owners. By now I had learned to ignore them. It still hurt, but I wasn’t going to let them see that.

Still, arriving at school on Halloween morning was like stepping into a bizarre dream. There was Pippi Longstocking, Spider-Man, a bunny rabbit, a shepherd. Cars spilled out Power Rangers, firemen, Wonder Woman, and girls in pink wigs. Even the teachers, who had, in my mind, always been the model of restraint and self-control, came in costume. People laughed as they greeted each other, complimented one another on their outfits. Sangita and I stood by in our regular pants and shirts, our satchels over our shoulders. Sangita looked at me a little sorrowfully. I patted her on the shoulder.

I made my way to class quickly and quietly, like I always did. I sat at the back, waiting for class to start and watching as my classmates, now transformed into a parade of wild characters, filed in one by one. There was a Betty Boop, a vampiress, a couple of M&M’s, and three zombies. Sasha was carrying a tiny puppy in a bag and wearing a miniskirt and high heels. In my few weeks here, at least I now knew how to recognize Paris Hilton. Magali followed close behind.

I gasped when I saw her. She had pulled her hair into a single, thick braid that lay flat down her back. Using a black pencil, she had joined her eyebrows together and had drawn some short, slight whiskers along her upper lip. A fake set of braces gleamed through her parted lips. Her body was covered in a dress: a frilly white blouse attached to a knee-length pleated black skirt. I knew that dress. It was mine, my best one, the one I had worn on my first day of school. She had copied it exactly, down to the panty hose on her legs, her covered toes peeking through a pair of clunky black sandals. Her costume was me.

She caught my eye as she walked in and threw back her head in laughter. Some of my classmates laughed with her, while some of the others, seeing the look on my face, squirmed uncomfortably in their seats. Mr. White, now standing at the head of the class, said only a cursory “Settle down” before instructing his students to direct their attention to a particular chapter. But I couldn’t really hear him; his voice was flattened out by the pressure that seemed to be building in my head, the spiky heat I was feeling all over my skin, the large lump that was sitting in my throat and prohibiting me from even swallowing, even breathing.

The rest of the day was sheer misery for me. A few of the students in my class whom I would run into in the hallways pointed at me and giggled behind their notebooks, while others averted their eyes, perhaps picking up on my embarrassment. I felt angry, angry that even after a few weeks here people still felt the need to pick on me, and angrier still that I didn’t have a clue what to do about it.

At home that night I picked up my pink diary with the creeping vine on the front. I went back to the line that had “sadness” on it, the one I had crossed out, and wrote it back in again.

Chapter Nine

SIX WEEKS AFTER WE ARRIVED
in America, my father bought a secondhand burgundy Toyota Camry.

“We will be free to go where we wish, like regular Americans!” he said. Even without the car he had wanted to be an active participant in this new American life, talking longingly of exploring faraway places: Yosemite and Sonoma, Ojai and Oxnard. He liked to experiment with different foods, to connect with people and forge friendships. Part of him wanted to be like the American man he had pictured in his head. I half expected to come home one day and find him holding a pair of tongs, standing next to a sizzling grill, a dog wagging its tail at his feet. He would happily open up a conversation with the person waiting in front of him in line at the bank, segueing into how he had just come from India, how it was his first trip abroad, and my, how lovely and clean were the roads here—no bullock carts! And so terribly efficient the services! And who knew so much was available in all those huge stores! He said people liked hearing how their country offered so much. He said it made them proud.

“Asha, we now have a car! We are mobile!” he said enthusiastically.

My mother grunted from the couch, from where she had been watching an Indian game show. My father had had a few Indian channels added to our satellite TV programming, figuring that it might help ease my mother’s homesickness.

“I’m not interested in seeing any more of this place,” she said.

I looked at my father, both of our faces registering dismay. Neither of us knew what to do for her. It seemed the more we tried to reach out, the further she pulled back. I had a nagging feeling that it was no longer just a case of extreme homesickness, that there was something far more serious going on. She was gradually falling apart, but nobody ever talked about it; it was as if we all hoped that by not drawing attention to it, it would go away. I was convinced that if we left it alone, my old mother would return: the happy, cheerful, busy one; the one who saw all the children of our household as her own, never failing to step in to tie a shoelace, blow a nose, plop a straw into a freshly opened coconut.

I missed her, and I wanted her back.

Two days later, Sangita and I got home from school, rang the doorbell, and were surprised that nobody answered. This had never happened before; my mother, for all her depression and sadness, had at least opened the door to us.

“Maybe she’s in the bath, or sleeping,” Sangita said to me. We waited a few more minutes. The garage door was open; the entrance to the house through it was unlocked.

“Ma!” I called out, walking up the stairs. “We are home!” We went into our parents’ bedroom. She wasn’t there, nor was her purse.

“Maybe she went for a walk,” Sangita suggested. I could tell that even she didn’t believe it. My mother never went anywhere alone, not even for a stroll down the street.

We went back downstairs. There was no food on the stove. We called Papa at work, who said he had no idea where my mother was.

We waited for ten more minutes, glancing out the window anxiously and looking everywhere for a note that she might have left. I called my father again, and within thirty minutes the Camry came gliding up the street.

My father rushed in, sat down, and put his face in his hands.

“Your mother has not been well,” he said, looking up at us. “She has not been the same since we left home. I thought that after a few weeks here, a month even, she would adjust. But she is more miserable than ever. I am really worried.”

My father stood up, put on his jacket, and went outside, Sangita and I trailing along behind him. He walked across the street and knocked on a door. A tall, bald man in a blue flannel shirt opened it.

“Excuse me, sir, I am so very sorry to be bothering you in the evening. My name is Girish Agarwal. We are new here. We live across the street. I was wondering if you might have seen my wife? She has been missing for some hours, and I do not know who else to ask. She would have been wearing some traditional clothing.”

The man extended his hand. “George Roberts,” he said. “Sorry, I wish I could help you. But I haven’t seen her.”

My father turned to go. The man spoke up again.

“I’m sorry it’s taken us this long to meet,” said the man. “My wife and I have been meaning to come over with a casserole. We don’t want you thinking that this is an unfriendly neighborhood,” he said.

“Of course not,” my father replied genially. “It is kind of you to have even thought of it.”

“You know, let me quickly ask my wife,” he said. “Betsy!” he yelled out. “Can you come here a second?”

Mr. George’s wife came to the door. I had often seen her walking purposefully down the street, a weight in each hand, her short, curly, gray hair bouncing as she went. She was short and wide in the back and reminded me of Dadi.

“Well, hello there.” She smiled. “Please, come in.”

“You are most kind, but we are very anxious,” said my father. “My wife has gone missing. It has been some hours. We were wondering if perhaps you might have seen something?”

“Oh, yes, I did see her,” Betsy said, the eyes behind her green-framed spectacles brightening. “Must have been around one this afternoon. She was standing by the bus stop on Dover Drive.”

My father frowned, his usually round and happy face suddenly stressed.

“Thank you, Mr. George, Mrs. Betsy,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m certain that with your help I will be able to locate her. The next time we meet, it will be under more pleasant circumstances.”

Following our father’s lead, we walked quickly to the bus stop. My father squinted as he peered at the lists of stops for the three lines that ran through there. He looked away, scratched his head, and squinted again.

“Come, girls. Let’s go home and get the car. I think I know where she is.”

Chapter Ten

WE SAW HER,
seated at the back at a small table surrounded by four black plastic chairs. Her hands were around a white Styrofoam cup; her head was bent above it. Ranjit Singh, the owner of Delhi Delites and Supplies, looked over the counter at us. We rushed up to my mother.

“Asha, what are you doing here?” my father asked, alarmed. “We have been so worried about you!”

My mother looked up, her eyes vacant. Under the bright fluorescent lights, she looked pale, the circles under her eyes darker than I had ever noticed.

“
Bhai sahib
, so good you have come,” Mr. Ranjit said, his navy turban wobbling atop his head. “For hours she has been sitting here. Of course, that is okay, all are welcome, but she did not seem well. She has only been sitting and drinking tea.”

“Thank you,” my father said. “I will take care of everything.”

My father wrapped his arm around my mother’s hunched shoulders and escorted her out to the car.

She was silent all the way home, only vaguely shaking her head at my father’s various entreaties to communicate. Finally, as we rounded the street that led back to our house, he simply gave up.

At home, he took her up to the bedroom, helped her get into bed, and came back downstairs. Sangita and I were already busy making dinner. He went into the den, put his feet on the coffee table, and rested his head on the back of the couch. He looked shaken.

I brought dinner to him there, everything stacked neatly on a red plastic tray, and Sangita trailed behind. Kishore Kumar was wailing in the background again.