Lovetorn (8 page)

My father, seated next to his boss, leaned over and served him first. Mr. Jeremy protested and said he would help himself. Then my mother served my father, as she always did whenever we ate together, while Sangita and I waited our turns to eat.

“This is incredible!” Mr. Jeremy said, tucking into his food. “I can’t remember the last time I tasted Indian food this good.” He laughed and raised his glass. He seemed so much more relaxed now compared to when he first got here, when it looked as if he couldn’t wait to get away. “Where did you girls learn to cook like this?”

“Our
dadi
,” Sangita said. “Also, all our
chachi
s
.
And of course, our mother. At home, in India, we used to help in the kitchen every day.”

Mr. Jeremy nodded thoughtfully and then turned his attention to my mother.

“So tell me, Asha, how have you been enjoying your time here so far? I know it takes awhile to settle in.”

My father looked anxiously over at my mother, his shoulders hunched.

“Everything is okay,” she said, averting her eyes.

My father’s shoulders relaxed again.

“You know, LA is a great city to live in,” Mr. Jeremy said. “There’s just so much going on. I moved here from Philly, and I really love it. The weather, the beaches, the people are so easygoing and friendly.”

My mother flinched. She bit her bottom lip. The food on her plate sat untouched. She coughed a small cough and played with the corner of her napkin.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Mr. Jeremy continued. “India is great. My grandparents are there, lots of relatives. It’s totally booming,
especially
cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai. Compared to what it was ten years ago, it’s crazy how much progress there is. But I have to tell you, I wouldn’t give up life in America for anything. India can be kind of aggravating, trying to get anything done. It’s still a Third World country. You guys are lucky you’re here.” He paused for a minute to place an overflowing spoon full of rice into his mouth.

I turned to look at my mother. Her nostrils were flared, her jaw clenched.

“You think you have done us a favor, do you?” she said bitterly. She barely opened her mouth to let the words through. Her eyes were fixed on our guest.

“What?” he asked, puzzled.

“You think you have done us a great favor by bringing us here, as if we were beggars in need of rescuing? Is that what you are saying?” my mother asked again.

“Asha, please, I don’t think Mr. Jeremy meant any such thing,” my father pleaded, his face turning red. “He was simply making conversation.”

“You do not have the right to come here and sit at my table and eat my food and tell me that my life is better here than it was in India,” my mother continued, scolding him now. “It is not. It never will be.”

A heavy silence now fell over the table.

“Asha, please,” my father said hesitantly. “Mr. Jeremy is our guest.”

“Yes, he is,” my mother continued, her face still stony. “And he is your boss. And I am here because I had no choice. But don’t expect me to like it. I will do my duty as your wife; and when our time is up in this country, we will go back.”

At that my mother neatly folded her napkin, stood up, adjusted her
dupatta
across her shoulders.

“Asha, I’m really sorry if I offended you,” Mr. Jeremy said. He had put down his spoon and fork, and looked up at my mother apologetically. “I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings. If I can help in some way, please tell me.”

His sincerity touched me, and I hoped it would soften my mother’s stance. But she didn’t sit down.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said. “Good night.” She went back upstairs, and we heard her shut the door firmly behind her.

I felt my stomach drop out of my body, as if there was nothing holding me together. All these weeks, my mother hovered at the periphery of our lives. She was there sometimes—in the kitchen, or in front of the TV—perhaps taciturn and unsmiling, but at least a shadow of her was present. And she would never, ever be rude to a guest, or walk out in the middle of a dinner gathering.

Now, tonight, after this outburst, I knew that a big part of my mother’s identity was gone. I wondered how I’d ever be able to reach her again.

A few days later as I was scrubbing the pressure cooker after dinner, the phone rang. I raced to it, hoping it might be Vikram.

“Hey! Is that Shalini or Sangita?”

It was Mr. Jeremy.

“It’s me, Shalini,” I said. “I’ll go get my dad for you.”

“No, wait!” he said quickly. “I was actually calling for you.”

Chapter Eleven

THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY MORNING,
my father, Sangita, and I loaded up the car with Pyrex dishes full of food, a thick blanket, a soccer ball, and some fold-up chairs. Half an hour later, we pulled into a large, grassy park with playground equipment at the far end, a basketball hoop off to one side, picnic tables, and barbecue pits in the center. Mr. Jeremy was laying out plastic plates and cups. He looked over at us and waved. Next to him was an Indian couple about my parents’ age and an Indian girl who was about mine. She was wearing a white sweater, black jeans, and boots. Her hair was cut to about her chin. Even from a distance I could see she was pretty. I approached with my sister and my father, and she waved as if she had known us forever.

“Great, you made it!” said Mr. Jeremy, shaking all of our hands.

He made the introductions. Haresh Idnani; his wife, Poonam; and their daughter, Renuka. Old friends from Philadelphia, living now in LA.

“Hello, uncle, aunty,” I said, addressing the elders first as I had been taught to do. “It’s very nice to meet you.” Simply being able to call someone “uncle” and “aunty,” with all the familiarity that that conveyed, was a treat.

Aunty Poonam asked where my mother was. My father replied that she was “not feeling herself” and left it at that.

Renuka reached out to greet me with a hug. Tiny crystal earrings dangled from her lobes.

We helped ourselves to food; we had prepared traditional Indian snacks while Renuka’s family brought green salad, garlic bread, pasta, a box of tangerines.

“Run off, girls; get to know each other!” cooed Aunty Poonam, smiling widely, the way my mother used to smile. Uncle Haresh started telling my father about his aerospace engineering job. Renuka feigned a yawn, and I giggled. We took our plates and settled down on the blanket.

“You just got here from India, right?” asked Renuka, folding a piece of lettuce into her mouth and looking at my sister and me as if we were curios in an antique store.

“Yes, from Bangalore.”

“Wow, that’s epic,” she said. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like, coming from there to here.”

With very little prompting from Renuka, Sangita chatted enthusiastically about how much she liked school and her new friends, how easy the homework was. She talked like a kid who had just returned from Disneyland. I envied her happiness.

“What about you?” Renuka asked, turning to me when Sangita went off to get some juice. “How do you like it?”

“It’s not a bad place,” I said, my tone markedly flatter than my sister’s
.
I turned around to make sure Sangita wasn’t within earshot. “But I am finding it hard to fit in. The other kids at school are not so nice to me; and, unlike my sister, I haven’t made any friends there yet.”

It was a relief to say it aloud. With my father and Sangita, I always had to pretend. Vikram had some idea of how unhappy I was, but not the full extent of it. Here was a girl I had only known for an hour, but I felt like telling her everything.

Renuka put her plate down on the blanket and wiped some crumbs off her fingers. The sun had dipped down behind a mountain, cooling the air. I wanted to go to the car and get a jacket but didn’t want to tear myself away from the conversation.

“I’ve never been to India,” Renuka said. I tried not to show my shock. I couldn’t fathom the possibility of an Indian person who had never been to India.

“My dad came here as a kid; he married my mom here; I was born in this country. We have some relatives in Mumbai, but nobody I really know. All my grandparents are here. I’ve never had a reason to visit India, which is stupid, I know, because I shouldn’t need a reason.

“So because I’ve never been there, and I don’t know what your life was like, I can’t really give a lot of advice. High school can be really fun. But you know nothing’s gonna just fall into your lap, right? If you want to be happy here, you need to kinda make it happen. If you want friends, you need to go make them. You gotta make an effort. Seriously.”

Those words lingered in my head for the rest of the afternoon, as we three girls threw a ball to one another, swung on the swings like preschoolers, and chatted about the latest movies and our favorite TV shows over steaming hot tea from a thermos. It was the single happiest day I’d had since arriving in America.

Later as we rode home, my father asked Sangita and me if we had enjoyed meeting our new friends.

I nodded as I gazed out of the front passenger side window.

“Renuka is really, really nice,” I said.

“Yes, she seems to be a very good girl,” my father agreed, turning on his indicator light to merge into another lane. “Very straightforward, honest, and polite. I talked to her while we were having
chai
after lunch. And I said to her, ‘You are how my Shalini would be if she was brought up in America.’ Was I wrong to say that,
beta
?”

“No, Papa,” I said quietly. “I think you’re quite right.”

Renuka called me the next morning, uttering the three words that I had longed to hear from someone ever since I had gotten here.

“Wanna hang out?” she asked, smacking noisily on a piece of gum.

My heart actually jumped in my chest. In a flash I had visions of Renuka and me being like the other girls I had seen in school, the ones who went home with their friends after class, texted each other constantly, and talked excitedly about going to the movies or bowling or shopping. The fun of a girlhood friendship was something I had missed. I wanted to be like Sangita, who had lately taken to going off after school with Amy in her mother’s SUV. Amy had a heated pool in her backyard, and Sangita loved spending time there. She often stayed over for dinner. Many times, she asked me to go along with her. But being asked by my kid sister to join in with her and her friends because I didn’t have any friends of my own made me almost want to cry.

Now, here was a girl calling just for me.

“Yes, I’m free today,” I said happily. “What shall we do?”

After Renuka and I made our plans, I rushed upstairs to get dressed. I stopped in at the prayer room. I hadn’t been in there in a few days, which was unusual for me. I had begun to lose faith. My mother was miserable; I had been miserable. But now, on this beautiful Sunday, I began to feel just a little more hopeful. I bowed my head in thanks. Then I gently knocked on the door to my parents’ bedroom. My mother was in a chair, looking out the window. She was still in her nightgown, a Kleenex folded in one hand.

“I’m going out, Ma,” I said. I wanted her to share my enthusiasm, to be happy for me, to tell me to have a good time. Instead, she looked right through me, nodded, and went back to looking at the scenery outside the window.

My father dropped me off at a mall halfway between our house and Renuka’s. She was standing next to a fountain inside, a small, sparkly handbag slung over her shoulder. Even though she looked trendy, I wasn’t intimidated by it. And unlike the other girls in my school, she didn’t look me up and down when I walked in.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said.

“No problem. I got here early. I always worry about not being able to find a parking spot.”

“You drove?” I asked, shocked. She and I were the same age, and I couldn’t imagine myself behind the wheel of a car. In India, the family shared a number of cars and drivers. None of the women of the house had ever had to transport themselves anywhere.

“Yup,” she said proudly. “Got my learner’s permit the day I turned fifteen and a half. My mom was in the car with me. That’s by law.” She rolled her eyes. “She had to do some errands around here anyway. But I’m getting hooked on the feeling of being able to get myself anywhere.”

“Of course,” I said, feeling even more like a child.

We went to the food court and had a chocolate milk shake and split a veggie burger and fries.

“It’s so cool you could come out today,” she said. “I liked talking to you yesterday.”

“Me too,” I said. “It was the longest conversation I’ve had with another girl since I got here. Except my sister, I mean.”

“I hate that you’re, like, not having a good time,” she said. “You shouldn’t be hanging out by yourself. There’s so much for you to get involved in.”

“I know,” I said, thinking of the endless activities that happened at school: sports, music, the school paper, drama club, debate team. I hadn’t been a part of any of it. My lack of interest aside, it was impossible. Schoolwork and looking after the house in the face of my mother’s condition was more than enough to consume my time; I didn’t need to add an extracurricular activity to the mix.

“I don’t have time for anything new right now,” I said. I wanted to tell Renuka about my mother, but she was still a new friend. I wasn’t sure how much my father would want me to say.

“See, Shalini, this is what I mean,” she said, a look of disappointment crossing her face. “Nothing happens on its own, especially in high school.”

I sucked on my straw. The fact was, I didn’t even know how to make friends. In Bangalore I was surrounded by kids my own age. There was always someone around to talk to, to play with, to hang out with. I’d never had to actually go out and befriend someone. I didn’t even know where to start.

“The people at school don’t seem very accepting of me,” I said. “I look as if I don’t belong. Back home, nobody ever teased me.”

Now Renuka let out a tiny grunt of frustration.

“This is America!” she said, waving one hand in the air. “It’s all about diversity! The only thing that’s stopping you from having a great social life is you. You just need to get out of your own way. Look at your sister. She has the right attitude. She jumped in. You have to do the same.”