Achyut must have seen how lost in her thoughts she was because he broke her silence with an exclamation:
“Ohmigod, you know what we should do? Ohmigod.”
“What should we do?” Ranjana asked.
“Why talk about Hell when we can go to Paradise?”
* * *
With the exception of Prashant, Ranjana had never been the driver while a male companion was in the passenger seat. They parked next to a chain-link fence, beyond which lay the object of their disappointment. It was as unfinished as ever. Ranjana had hoped they’d at least see a tractor, something that hinted at a project in progress, but no, it was the same old piles of rubble and coarse earth. The back of the large wooden sign, its insidious message facing the highway, looked like an instrument of torture.
On the drive over, Ranjana confessed to Achyut that she was in a writing group (he was the only person who knew besides Seema now). The more she talked about her work, the better she felt, but she still couldn’t shake the overall feeling of negativity that she associated with it. As she turned off the ignition, Ranjana told Achyut about Cassie’s frequent criticisms of everyone’s work. Achyut waved this away with one hand like it was the stench of skunk on the highway.
“Please. She sounds like a loser. Look at you: you couldn’t possibly be more fabulous, auntie.”
“You can call me Ranjana Auntie, Achyut.”
“Ranjana Auntie,” he said. “What does ‘Ranjana’ mean, by the way?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? How can you not know what your name means?”
“What does Achyut mean?”
“‘Imperishable.’”
“Well, well. That almost sounds like ‘Paradise Island.’”
“I always like to think about how it contains ‘Paris.’ I really want to go there.”
“You’ve never been?”
“Nope. But I feel like I would just love it there.”
“Usually, when I travel to India, my layovers are in Frankfurt or Amsterdam, but I did have a layover in Paris once. I didn’t get to leave the airport. I sat in a French McDonald’s and had a tea. But sometimes I lie and say I’ve been there.”
“I’d do the same thing. People who’ve been to France are just cooler.”
Ranjana was silent for a moment as she scanned the mess in front of them. “You know, in a way, this is very Indian. I’ve never really thought of it before, but Delhi is littered with buildings like this—unfinished buildings. Things shoot up there so quickly now. If you walk around the city, you’ll see dozens of structures like this, being built, abandoned. Or they’re crumbling.”
Achyut sighed and pulled down the sun visor in front of him. His face was brightened by twin strips of light. Ranjana could see narrow wrinkles already emphasizing his eyes.
She could feel a confession coming from him; his eyes were still with it.
“I got kicked out of my house. My parents found out.”
“That you’re … gay?” She’d rarely ever said this word aloud, and she felt the g catch in her throat before it came out.
“Yeah. ‘Gay.’ Gay, gay, gay. What a crock of shit.”
She was startled by his curse word, even though she’d heard him say others. She had never cursed in this car, and any time that Prashant did so, she pinched his cheek.
“Yeah, so, they kicked me out,” Achyut said. “Well, I guess ‘kicked out’ isn’t the right phrase. They told me that I had to change my lifestyle or take it elsewhere. So I’m staying with my friend Amber. She actually doesn’t have too bad a place. She works downtown and makes good money. I don’t see her all that much because I’m at the bar by the time she comes home from work.”
A terrifying thought came to Ranjana: Achyut was going to ask to stay with her. That’s what this was all about. He needed a place to stay, and that was why he was befriending her. Legally, it would be a nightmare. She couldn’t take in this man without inviting a darker reaction from his family. Not to mention Mohan’s reaction at such a thing.
Once again, Achyut read the expression on her face. “Auntie? Ohmigod, no. Ha-ha—no. I am not asking to stay with you.”
Until her shoulders melted back into their usual place, Ranjana hadn’t noticed that they had been hunched up to her ears. “Oh.”
“No—I’m just telling you this. I’m not gonna lie—it’s great to have a mother to talk to about this, even if it’s someone else’s mother. I mean, even though I didn’t grow up around you, I might have, in some other world. And even if that doesn’t sound like anything … it’s something. If I’m being honest, that’s why I approached you in the first place.”
He went on talking about his family and how they had found out about his sexual orientation. His mother had gone through his cell phone while he was asleep, snatching it up while it was not six inches from his head. Worse, it was not a boyfriend whose messages she had read but an older man he had slept with only once. His mother had woken Achyut up, then screamed for his father to join her in questioning him.
His parents ran an insurance company. His younger sister, Vandana—who listened to hard rock music, had pink hair, and seemed generally laid-back—still found his lifestyle abhorrent.
“That was the hardest part. I once lied for her when she was spending the night with her boyfriend, giving up her virginity. I mean, she smokes weed all the time, and she still ratted me out. She knew I was too good a guy to tell on her. I wish I had. Well, I also don’t wish that I had because I’m not that type of person.”
Ranjana had never thought about the possibility of Prashant’s being gay. He was such a typical boy. Would she have turned him out of the house if he were gay? Absolutely not. Your child was your child. Nevertheless, most Indian parents, she knew, would be very upset to have a gay child.
“I am flattered that you told me all of this, Achyut,” Ranjana said. “I have to go, though.” It was an abrupt response, perhaps, but they had spent over an hour together and the sun had just set. By the time she drove him back to the coffee shop—where he had left his bike—and drove home, she would have just enough time to put dinner on the stove before Mohan pushed into the house, smelling of fishy sweat and his clothes stuck to his body as if he’d been doused in water.
“No worries,” Achyut said. “I’m just glad that we got to have this talk. I know that it’s out of the blue and kind of weird, but you don’t know how hard it is not to…” His voice trailed off, and she saw that he was biting his lip. He looked at her and shrugged. “Just—thank you.”
When they got back to the parking lot outside Dr. Butt’s office, Achyut hopped out of the car and turned to her. “Can I get your number, auntie?” She stiffened. “No need to worry. I’m not going to call you at some crazy time. I don’t even have a phone right now, after my mom took it. I just—can I have it?”
She pulled a pen and tiny notebook out of the glove compartment and wrote her cell number on it. Achyut took it from her and then snickered.
“What?” Ranjana said.
“Nothing. It’s just that I think this is the first time that I’ve ever asked a woman for her number.” He shut the door and was gone.
THE SAMOSA STUDY BREAK OCCURRED in the lobby of Whig Hall, a white, classical-looking structure that had an exact twin, Clio Hall, opposite a walkway. Together, Whig-Clio constituted the home of the debate teams and larger political discussions on Princeton’s campus. Prashant, generally not interested in political matters, had not set foot in these places, so he was surprised to see that their interiors were rather plain. The presence of the small South Asian student body did not help this effect of shabbiness, and Kavita was made all the more impressive in this setting. In some chameleonic trick, the darkness of her hair and eyes deepened when placed amidst a group of Indian girls. Although she fit seamlessly into the WASP-y hordes around campus—her beauty leveling any racial discrepancy—she could still pass as a proud desi woman.
She came up to him alm
ost immediately. At last, a vulnerability: a tiny dab of mint chutney was smeared under her mouth. Prashant felt a small glimmer of power as he pointed it out to her. She grinned and licked gently at her lip, swiping the dab away and laughing the moment off.
“I’m so glad you actually came,” she said. “And look—you didn’t even have to wear a turban.”
“Mine’s at the cleaner’s,” he said.
“Is there an apostrophe in ‘cleaner’s’ in that sentence?” she asked.
“There most certainly is,” he said. “You should know that as an English major.”
“Ahem,” she said.
“Oh, right—an English and mol bio major. Par-doe-nay-mwah,” he said in mock-French.
“Oh, no, I’m only getting a French certificate, not majoring in it,” she said. He hoped that she was kidding but was pretty certain that she wasn’t. “Do you know they’re offering a Hindi course now?”
He shuddered internally. She was going to ask him about his own proficiency in Hindi, and he would have to admit that he was terrible at it. Sure, he had some conversational basics, but he couldn’t watch a Hindi movie with a great level of understanding, and anytime that an Indian person had ever asked him for directions, he had always botched his response.
He decided to head her off at the pass.
“My Hindi isn’t exactly great. I did get a five on my AP Spanish exam, though.”
One of the girls standing near them heard this sentence and decided to butt in. “You should take the class! Hi, I’m Rashmi.” She put out her hand. He shook it and was impressed at the firmness of her handshake. Prashant could see that she was exactly the type of person he wanted to avoid, the overenthusiastic participant who would want him to join a mailing list and a dance group and a community service project. “We had to fight hard to get it recognized by the university, but we now have the class. It’s super-informal and easy, so you should come. One hour on Thursday nights.”
Any self-respecting student already knew that Thursday night was one of the biggest party nights of the week, since very few upperclassmen had classes on Fridays.
Luckily, Kavita intervened. “Prashant is a chemistry major, so that’s a lot of work right there.”
Rashmi had the audacity to roll her eyes.
“Let’s get you a snack,” Kavita said, diffusing the tension. She took Prashant to the large but rickety table that held three tubs of samosas and a mess of spilled chutneys that resembled a Jackson Pollock painting. It was funny to see the few American students eating samosas; instead of pecking at them with their hands and getting their fingers coated in ghostlike potato, they bit into them as if they were exotic fruits. They weren’t prepared for how hot they were inside, which caused them to fan their mouths, as if someone had put jalapeños on their tongues.
Prashant loaded up a plate with two fat samosas and a careful but generous serving of the three chutneys—mint, tamarind, and coconut. He thought of his mom’s cooking, how she pureed her own chutney, poured it into Tupperware containers, and tucked them into the freezer to be used at odd times of the year. He felt another pang of guilt for his tone with her on the phone the other night.
“So,” he said, tucking a piece of samosa into his mouth and trying to seem nonchalant. “How handily do you think you’ll win the election?”
She clicked her tongue and swiped the air. “Oh, come on. It’s a fair race. Odette’s got a great chance, and Richard has a bit of the jock vote.” Odette Kim was an extremely affable actress who had been in a few commercials when younger. Richard Bender was a high school basketball hero who was now pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. Odette’s flyers featured her face placed onto the Quaker Oats logo—her most high-profile commercial gig—with the phrase “How ’Bout Dem Oats?” Richard’s flyers featured a drawing of a basketball with a lightning bolt through it with the phrase “Best of Bolt Worlds.” Neither flyer really made any sense.
“It’s a totally unfair race,” Prashant said. “Face it: everyone loves you.”
“Ha,” she said, and looked away with an expression that bordered on bitterness. It was shocking to him to see her make such a face. She usually seemed unflappable, incapable of being wounded.
He pressed on, not sure how he had just offended her. “I’m just saying, you are so smart and funny and … charming. I’d want a person like that to be my president.”
This was embarrassingly earnest, and she reacted accordingly. She made a caring frown, then touched his forearm reassuringly in a way that had become like a lifesaving elixir. “You are so sweet. I appreciate it. I guess I’m just nervous, is all. The thing is,” and she leaned in, somewhat comically but also seriously, “I want to win really badly.”
They both laughed, but he could see that she had an undeniable wish to win. It was the thing that most students at this school had in common. Even though he considered himself more reserved than most guys here, he knew that he still possessed a constant desire to succeed, to be the best in his class, to justify his presence here by collecting impressive accomplishments. It wasn’t enough to get into a great school; you had to continually and handily prove that you belonged there more than everyone else. As with most things in his life, he found something very Indian about all of this, but the other students, regardless of background, seemed to believe it just as firmly. Were Indians really more successful than other people, or had that been a lie, a cultural red herring that his parents had used to make him get good grades growing up? He looked now at Kavita Bansal and didn’t quite know the answer. She was the ultimate Indian American, but perhaps her success had nothing to do with her ethnicity and everything to do with her unique intelligence.
“The only thing I’ve ever won are chemistry awards,” he said. “And those weren’t national or anything. They were just at my high school. Though I did make National Honor Society, of course.”
“You know, I didn’t,” she said. His jaw fell open in genuine shock. “No, really, I didn’t. I’m sometimes not the best test-taker. I get nervous.”
“You must have done well on your SATs and ACTs and all that,” he said.
“Well, yeah.”
“You got a perfect score, didn’t you?”
“No!” She was obviously lying.
“Swear on this bite of samosa that you didn’t get a perfect score on your SATs.” He held out his last bit of pastry.
“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes.
Then, the awkward moment that was bound to mar their otherwise great interaction occurred: via the many Indian weddings he had attended, in which newly anointed husbands smeared an inaugural bite of cake on their brides’ faces, he assumed that he would feed her this bite. Meanwhile, she thought she would pluck it from his hand and pop it in her mouth. What ensued was their hands colliding, the samosa somersaulting in the air and landing on the ground. Prashant could have sworn that it had made an actual THUD, but that would have been impossible. He bent down to pick the piece off the floor, then stood up with it. For a split second, he thought that she would eat it anyway, which was mental. He placed it back on his plate, then tried to resume the conversation.
It was the type of awkward encounter that not even Kavita Bansal’s affability could erase, and the rest of their conversation was stilted. The Hindi class was raised again, he remembered, though there didn’t seem to be any firm commentary on it one way or the other. Soon enough, Kavita was off to socialize with others. To make her rounds. Prashant lingered by the now-emptied table for a bit, thinking that she may circle back to him or at least give him reassuring nods from her various posts around the room, but it became clear after a certain point that this was not going to happen. He deposited his paper plate in the large gray trash can, a mess of roof-like trays and sewage-like dashes of chutney. He turned and scanned for her once more. He locked eyes with her, but her wave good-bye was perfunctory. When he got back to his room, he buried his face in his pillow.
At least he had gotten some quali
ty time in with her, but he replayed the samosa moment in his mind and kept cringing. The one good thing was that the study break had made him tired, and he fell asleep fully clothed, abstaining from self-flagellation for one night.
* * *
He had to give them credit: his parents had more or less heeded his directions not to smother him, so their impending visit was justified. (Less justified: the fact that his parents insisted on driving the seven hours to see him only so that they could have dinner for an evening, then spend another seven hours driving home.) Aside from those awkward phone calls from his mother, Prashant had been relatively free from their inspection. Like some futuristic robot putting up a force field, he had enabled every possible Facebook firewall to prevent his mother from seeing his pictures, even though they weren’t particularly damning. There were various snippets of pastel shirts and red Solo cups of beer and the occasional appearance of cleavage and tan legs. Of course, there was also Prashant teetering with drink and the occasional drag or toke. However, the university seemed to transform its bacchanalia into something acceptable and almost bolstering. Prashant had come to see it as a place where people simply got shit done. The difference between students at Princeton and students at party schools, he thought, was that students here got in their partying, doing damage to their brain cells and campus shrubbery in equal part, but the next morning there they were, sprawled over their library books—clean-shaven or ponytails neat—glistening and peppery. This was how he wished to present himself to his parents: glinting and clean and sanitized.
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