Lovetorn (9 page)

Tables around us were filled with chattering families. I couldn’t hear myself think. I hated that Renuka was right. I hated that my baby sister had instinctively known what to do but I hadn’t had a clue. And I hated that perhaps a part of me had
wanted
it like this, so that maybe I could wrap myself in my loneliness like an old and comfortable blanket. Perhaps the only way I was different from my mother was that she was more honest about her depression. I was simply the way I had always been in every aspect of my life: passive and unadventurous.

I looked up at Renuka and nodded weakly. Her face brightened.

“Listen, if it will make you feel better about yourself, do you wanna maybe get a makeover?”

I looked down at what I was wearing: black elastic-waist pants that had been handed down to me by one of my cousins, and a T-shirt that had a picture of Tweety Bird on the front.

“Nothing major,” she said. “Just a little hair trim, maybe a couple of new tees? You might feel more confident.”

“Let’s just walk around,” I said. “My father only gave me twenty dollars. And I never buy anything unless my parents are with me.”

We strolled past the shops, weaving our way in and out of the crowds. Renuka stopped outside a clothing store and grabbed me by the arm.

“Look,” she said, gesturing to the window. “Awesome.” The mannequins had on the type of clothes the girls at my school wore: strappy little dresses with high waists, jeans that were so tight they looked as if they had to be peeled off, T-shirts with funny sayings and cute pictures. Renuka pointed to leggings and a striped top.

“You could totally rock that with a great pair of boots,” she said. “What do you think?”

I stood silently, still sucking on my straw, enjoying the hissing sound it made as it hit the ice at the bottom of the cup. I didn’t want leggings, and I didn’t want to rock anything. I didn’t want anyone to make me over. I just wanted a friend.

“I’ll think about it,” I answered quietly. We continued walking in silence, half glancing in the shop windows. Something had come between us, something small and uncomfortable, like a splinter in a finger.

Renuka suddenly stopped walking.

“You know what?” she said. “I’m sorry. Forget what I said earlier. You don’t need a makeover. You’re totally fine as you are. You don’t need to go around looking like all the other girls in school. People are gonna love you as you are, or they’re not. You’re you. Own it.”

I tossed my cup into a nearby trash can and smiled.

I went home empty-handed, with the exception of a hair clip I’d picked out of a bargain bin in a clothing store, and only after Renuka told me that she liked it too.

When my father came to pick me up, all the way home in the car I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things Renuka had said—not about buying new clothes (or not buying them) but about not being afraid anymore to just be myself, to find ways to be involved in school, to get out of my own way. I understood what she was trying to tell me. I just didn’t know how to get there.

Chapter Twelve

I WAS YEARNING TO TALK TO VIKRAM
that night. After my fun afternoon out, the quiet of the house was oppressive.

I hadn’t told Renuka about him. At the mall she had occasionally pointed to a boy here and there, telling me how hot she thought he was. I had nodded agreeably. At one point I was about to say something, to hold up my ruby ring like the accomplishment it was. But I held back, fearing what she would think of me. A sixteen-year-old girl engaged from the age of three. She might have thought it pathetic.

Now, at home, I was profoundly lonely. I craved the clatter and chaos of my old home, Vikram—his beaming face when he came to visit, touching the feet of my grandparents in greeting and then taking me out, with a couple of cousins as chaperones, for a
chikoo
shake and to see the latest Bollywood film. We would sit in those dark, crowded theaters, our knees pressed against each other. I would turn and stare at his profile, silhouetted against the shadow-filled room: his slightly arched forehead, strong nose, high cheekbone, angular jaw. He was the handsomest boy around—handsomer even than the dashing heroes up on the screen. And he was mine.

I speed-dialed his number.

“Do you miss me?” I asked, almost as soon as he answered. I had never asked him that before. I just assumed that he would. But two months into our time here, with another twenty-two months stretching out endlessly before us, I wanted to hear it from him.

“Of course, Shalu,” he said. “A lot. I go visit your
dada
, and it feels so strange not seeing you running down the stairs toward me. College is keeping me busy. But really, it’s hard for me.”

I suddenly felt unsettled. Vikram was a gorgeous, outgoing nineteen-year-old boy; and I wondered if perhaps he wasn’t going to become like the other boys, interested in girls and parties. He was fun loving, self-assured. I was self-conscious about my braces, about my hair in that old-fashioned braid. Even compared to the families of other girls in India, my family was ultratraditional. My best friend’s brother had recently gotten engaged to a French girl. One of my older cousin’s schoolmates would be going off to a university in London. I knew that the college-going daughters of my parents’ friends wore sleeveless tops and skirts and traveled in taxis on their own, met boys at the pubs. My grandfather would never permit any of that. He remained rooted in an old India, one that no longer existed outside of his longing for it.

Now, with me no longer in the way, maybe Vikram would welcome a chance to see who else was out there.

I couldn’t bear to think about it.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, sensing my discomfort.

“I’m feeling insecure. What if you meet someone else?” I couldn’t believe the words were coming from my mouth, and I shook my head a little. Perhaps I had been watching too much American television.

He laughed.

“Never, Shalu,” he said. “I came to see you on the day you were born. My mother tells me that our fates were sealed there and then.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know. But if your mother hadn’t said that . . . if our fathers hadn’t made the arrangements . . . would you, well, would you still feel that way? Would you still want me?” It was out there now. A question that had never been asked. Despite the strictures of our combined family units, would Vikram and I still have been drawn to each other?

“Even if our fathers were not best friends,” he said quietly, “I would have loved you from the moment I saw you. Whether you were a baby or a grown woman. I would have seen the goodness in your heart, the sweetness of your nature; and I would have loved you.”

I sighed with relief. God, I loved this boy.

After we hung up I lingered in the armchair, staring at the ring on my finger, remembering the day we had exchanged them.

Until that day there had been no official recognition of my engagement to Vikram. Thirteen years ago, my father had dutifully told his parents of the agreement, and Dada had matter-of-factly informed the rest of the household. The news had been received with little fanfare and even less surprise. The next morning, Dada had checked with our family astrologer. As I played in a makeshift sandbox, the astrologer had told Dada, “It’s a good match; they will be happy, have children, live long lives.” It had been all that Dada needed to hear.

I myself hadn’t found out about it until I was eleven, when my grandmother told me as we cleaned rice in the kitchen, and only after I had told her that my all-girls convent school was soon going to have classes with boys. My grandmother had stiffened when she heard that, as if suddenly aware that I would soon have proximity to boys outside of my family, outside of Vikram.

“Keep to your girl friends,” Dadi had instructed me. “For when you are of age, you and Vikram will be married. It is already arranged.” And with that she removed a large black stone from the mound of rice and flung it behind her shoulder. I remember scraping off the grains of rice that stuck to my palms and racing out to the courtyard to find Sangita. She had been sitting in a rubber tire swing that swayed from an old oak tree. I grabbed her little hands and told her that one day Vikram would become her
jijaji
, her brother-in-law. She smiled at me, her mouth all gummy holes and half teeth, and went back to swinging. I had been elated, not just because I was going to marry Vikram, but because I was going to marry at all. It had been my only girlhood dream.

Thanksgiving was upon us before we knew it. For weeks now it had been everywhere. TV commercials showed supermarkets offering sale prices on turkeys, lavish spreads of mashed potatoes and green beans and corn bread, women with shiny lipstick and golden hair beaming at their guests. At school everyone had discussed their Thanksgiving plans: relatives flying in, a trip away. More than ever before, I felt the need to belong, to be invited to participate.

My father, not wanting his first Thanksgiving to pass him by, called Uncle Haresh to broach the idea of doing something together. Mr. Jeremy had already gone to Philadelphia to see his family. I sat next to my father on the couch, playing with the fringed edge of a velvet cushion.

“No, no, of course not, that’s absolutely fine,” my father said, looking a little disappointed. “Of course you’ve made other plans. But please don’t worry about us; we will be fine, maybe do something quiet as a family.”

He put down the phone and looked over at me. All these weeks, he had put on a brave face about everything. But now there was a holiday that was all about family and celebration, two things my father adored more than anything else in the world, and I could see he felt alone. We both did.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It is not our holiday anyway.”

On Thanksgiving Day, the street was more quiet than usual. Even the mothers and nannies who would stroll their babies outside weren’t there today; the regular walkers and joggers stayed indoors. My mother hadn’t emerged from her room for two days.

Sangita and I were sitting on the couch, our novels and knitting projects and schoolwork spread out on the coffee table before us. I would have given anything to be somewhere else at that moment, to be part of a group, laughing and eating, gathering around the TV afterward to watch a football game I didn’t understand. But it was just us, with only one another to keep us company.

We gazed through the curtain of the living-room window and saw a car pull up outside the home of Mr. George and Mrs. Betsy. Two couples emerged, holding a bouquet of flowers, bottles of wine, a casserole dish. One of them rang the doorbell. Mr. George, wearing a big smile and a red sweater, answered it. Everyone hugged and shook hands. Behind him I saw several other people gathered in the foyer, drinking from long-stemmed glasses and laughing. It was just as I had seen in those TV commercials, all joy and merriment. Mr. George shut the door. I let the curtain fall. A brass clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly. It was so quiet I could hear Sangita breathing. My sister and I looked at each other again, and I saw in her face the loneliness I had been hiding in mine.

Chapter Thirteen

DR. GUPTA WAS A LARGE WOMAN
with a loud voice and a wide mouth rimmed by bright pink lipstick who wore her hair in a bun covered by a small black hairnet. The first opening she had was on the Thursday after Thanksgiving, and my father grabbed it. She was the only Indian female psychologist in a thirty-mile radius.

The weather had cooled, the days were shorter, and my mother was worse. It was a miracle she had left the house to go there, but my father had begged and then threatened. She barely even left her room anymore, especially since my father had put a TV in there, which she kept tuned permanently to Indian channels. Now, every time I passed her door I heard Indian news shows about landslides and labor unions, ads for jewelry stores and cooking oil. In that upstairs bedroom, with its beige curtains and picture of an oak-shaded country lake on a wall, my mother had shut out her new world and disappeared into the India she had left behind.

I was alone in Dr. Gupta’s waiting room, mindlessly flicking through a copy of
Good Housekeeping
; my parents were in an examining room. Twenty minutes later my mother emerged, her eyes puffy, her nose red. Dr. Gupta had asked to speak to my father privately. My mother sat down in the chair next to mine. I put my hand on her arm, asked her how she was feeling, if she wanted a cup of water. She folded her arms in front of her, laid her head against the wall behind her, and closed her eyes.

On the way home we stopped at a nearby pharmacy to fill the prescription that the doctor had written. My father returned carrying a small bag containing a couple of orange bottles of pills, their labels a jumble of unpronounceable names and dosages. At home, my mother went upstairs to nap.

“Clinical depression,” my father intoned, his face more serious than I was used to seeing it. “Dr. Gupta wants to run some tests to check for hormonal imbalances that might be compounding the problem.” He sounded as if he was talking about an acquaintance rather than his own wife. “But for now we can only rely on two things: medicine and time.”

“I like your hair like that,” Renuka said as soon as I stepped out of my father’s car. “The clip looks really nice.”

I raised my hand to the shiny silver clasp, adorned with a small crescent moon and a crystal-studded five-point star, that held up my hair on one side. It was the one I had bought at the mall the first time I had gone out with Renuka. My hair was brushed straight and left loose instead of woven into the thick braid I had worn down my back for as long as I could remember, the one that had caused the vegetable vendors to refer to me as “
choti walli
,” the girl with the braid. Every morning since I was a little girl, my mother used to rub coconut oil in my hair and then braid it into a single plait. It was our moment of togetherness in a crowded household. We hadn’t had many of those moments since my mother had gotten sick.