by Saumya Dave
Mona is one of the five “Real Indian Housewives of Duluth,” a nickname she gave her group of friends after she learned some of the actual Real Housewives of Atlanta lived in their neighborhood. The Real Indian Housewives of Duluth stand apart from other Gujarati wives for their extravagant taste in saris, elaborate parties, and modern grooming practices inspired by their neighbors or children: colored contacts, light brown highlights, tattooed makeup, intricate nail art. Anita, Mira, and Kavita preferred not to socialize with them too much, but Bina appreciates their openness and honesty, the conviction with which they navigate everything from their daily dramas to bigger decisions. She finds their lack of phoniness (and, sometimes, lack of politeness) refreshing. With the sheer number of South Asians in Atlanta, it’s possible for people to break off into their select homogenous groups—the Gujaratis, Punjabis, Sikhs, Parsis—but Bina’s always felt there should be more opportunities that bring them all together.
“Are you doing okay?” Mona leans on Bina’s car. “I heard about Natasha and Karan.”
“Eh, what can you do?” Bina shrugs. “I’m fine. I’m not sure if Anita is, though.”
That’s another thing Bina likes about Mona: she comes out and shares what she’s thinking instead of dancing around it or pretending not to know.
“It’s a hard situation, though. I’ve always gotten the sense Anita defines herself by what her kids do, you know?” Mona removes her sunglasses.
There are two types of women from their generation in India: the ones who were forced into tradition and the ones who naturally embraced it. Bina’s only realizing now that she is in the former group while Anita is in the latter. While marriage and motherhood made Anita fold inward, Bina became less private, more willing to be seen. She always thought their differences made them complement each other. Obviously she was wrong. She was wrong about so many things.
“All our kids say things, do things, that upset us. It’s not such a big deal! And I’m sure she isn’t judging you in the midst of all this,” Mona offers.
Oh, she definitely is, Bina thinks. Judging is one of Anita’s favorite hobbies, as Devi observed during all her trips to Atlanta. I’m that woman’s worst nightmare, she often says. Anita even judges Mona for being too “unconventional” and “making people uncomfortable,” which are two of Bina’s favorite things about Mona.
Bina and Mona talk for a few more minutes. Mona glances at her vintage silver watch and says, “Ah! I didn’t realize how late it’s getting. I have to get to the Bollywood Closet. They’re holding an emerald-green sari for me.”
“Have fun!” Bina waves.
Mona can shop all day and not get bored. When she travels to India, she always takes a giant empty suitcase just to fill with the outfits she’ll buy there.
Years ago, Bina heard that Mona once ordered Sabyasachi saris from a new online shop. She was convinced the retailer sent her fakes and mailed back the saris with a note that read, You can shove these knock-offs up your butts! Some people claim Mona’s word of mouth is the sole reason that shop no longer exists.
Bina rolls up the window. “Suhani? Sorry, I’m back.”
“No worries!” Suhani says, never one to complain about being left on hold.
A rush of anticipation passes through Bina as she gets closer to Anita’s house, a house where Bina knows everything from the security code to where the fancy dishware is stored.
But her breath catches in her throat as she turns into the cul-de-sac.
“Oh my God.”
“What is it?” Suhani asks. “What’s wrong?”
Bina clutches the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip. “Mira and Kavita are here.”
“What do you mean? They’re at Anita Auntie’s house?”
“Those are their cars,” Bina says, not sure if she’s embarrassed, angry, or both. But then she feels the threat of tears. “Listen, I should go. I’ll talk to y—”
“Mom!” Natasha chimes in. Ha! So she was right there! “Are you freaking kidding me?”
“What?” Bina asks as she feels a flash of triumph, then anger, at hearing Natasha’s voice.
“You’re getting upset over these women meeting without you? Go in there and confront them about lying! What they’re doing is messed up!”
It is messed up, Bina agrees. Her daughters often know how to pinpoint what she’s feeling even when she doesn’t say much. As much as she loves talking to Anuj, she knows he’d never be able to do this.
“I can’t go and confront them,” Bina says. “There’s obviously a reason they didn’t want to come today or call me here. Anita isn’t ready for us to reconnect.”
“I think Natasha’s right.” Suhani’s tone is gentle but firm. “You can’t just let this go.”
Natasha sighs. “Look, Mom, no offense, but when did you get so scared? You’ve always talked about how it’s important to speak up. Didn’t you get into fights with people because you talked too much when you were growing up?”
Bina leans back in her seat and absorbs Natasha’s words. Maybe she’s right. Maybe decades in America have made Bina a watered-down version of her younger self.
“Oh, so now both my daughters are pretending they’re my mother?” Bina asks.
Suhani says “No” at the same time Natasha says “If that’s what it takes.”
“I understand what you’re saying.” Bina takes a deep breath. She refuses to let herself cry. “But now is not the time to confront anyone.”
And then, before Natasha can convince her otherwise, Bina turns in the cul-de-sac and heads straight home.
Nine
Natasha
NATASHA: Damn, he actually knew me. Really knew me.
IFEOMA: Who? Karan?
PAYAL: Why are you talking about him? Are you drinking?
NATASHA: Only a little.
Natasha hides her wineglass as if her friends can see it. She also gets out of Karan’s Instagram feed. He hasn’t added anything new in weeks. He also hasn’t deleted the pictures of the two of them.
She should have just said yes. Who cares if it felt too soon? Anything has to feel better than this, this never-ending pang of missing the one person she’s spoken to every day since she was a baby. She considers telling her friends this. But this time she knows they won’t get it.
PAYAL: You better not be prepping for another comedy contest behind our backs.
IFEOMA: Agreed! And you don’t need him. You have us. Sounds like you kicked ass the other night.
NATASHA: It felt like the audience loved it. The comedy club is supposed to call me any minute now to let me know if I made it to the next round.
IFEOMA: You obviously did. You’re going to win the whole thing. Now it’s just onward and upward.
Ifeoma sends a GIF of Michelle Obama pointing to the sky.
PAYAL: Agreed. Onward and upward.
IFEOMA: Maybe it’s not the best idea for you to stay at your sister’s place.
NATASHA: I’m good for now. Seriously.
IFEOMA: Come stay with us. Jordan won’t care. We have an extra bedroom.
NATASHA: Y’all are studying all the time. Don’t need a third wheel.
PAYAL: Do it! Also, I know Karan believed in you and all but tbh, I dunno if he could have really handled it. He’s all proper and safe at the end of the day. Probably needs someone like his mom. Don’t they all?
NATASHA: Maybe you have a point.
PAYAL: I know. Also, anyone down to go to Barcelona Wine Bar Friday? I’ll be done with the freaking MCAT!!!!
NATASHA: Can’t wait!
Natasha adds a thumbs-up emoji, then puts her phone facedown on the glass coffee table. It’s been weeks since she became a full-time aspiring comedian. She’s finally living the dream.
She waits to feel something. Something grand and purposeful. A sign
that she’s on the right track.
But all she can focus on is the steady hum of Atlanta traffic outside Suhani and Zack’s curved living room windows and the occasional clank of the ice machine.
Did any of her role models ever mention that living the dream is kind of anticlimactic?
It’s almost noon but she’s still tired. She’s so tired of being tired. Getting into bed early, like that WebMD article recommended, hasn’t helped. Whenever her head hits the pillow, every thought possible comes to the forefront of her mind in an endless spiral.
From her duffel bag, she removes a pen that reads fluoxetine in bold blue letters. Dad used to get so many things from pharmaceutical companies—pens, tote bags, notepads—and he handed them out at home like Christmas gifts. A teacher once questioned Natasha when she showed up with a Xanax duffel bag and Natasha spent too long trying to convince her she wasn’t selling drugs at school.
Anuj texts her. Just FYI, don’t be too worried about the video I uploaded to your YouTube channel from the contest night.
NATASHA: Worried? Why would I be? Thought I was okay?
ANUJ: You were. Just haven’t really gotten any views of the video. It probably just takes awhile to get on people’s radars.
Nobody cares to see her stand-up comedy? Even when she thought she was pretty decent? Maybe she wasn’t decent.
No, she can’t think that way. Anuj is right; these things take time. Any minute now, she should be getting a call from the Midtown Comedy Center telling her that her performance that night was good enough to get to the next round.
And Alexis Diaz’s improv class starts in a few weeks. A few weeks! It’ll be Natasha’s chance to really connect with her role model. She pictures Alexis stroking her chin and saying, You’re a natural, Natasha!
The reverie pushes Natasha to get out the black Moleskine she uses for comedy notes. The first page reads adolescent inspiration and has a list of memories she wrote for potential jokes:
Sneaking behind Mom and Dad to log onto AOL Instant Messenger and talk to boys
The beautician’s horror at my eyebrows the first time I went to the threading salon
Poking Karan’s eyes with my nose during our first kiss
She stares at the pages until they become blurry. Even though those are her ideas and they once seemed like they had potential, she now feels an odd sense of detachment from them.
This happens too often. She gets so excited and pumped up to do something, and then, when the moment comes and she finally has the time, something weighs on her and all of a sudden she can’t act.
Just put something down, she tells herself, remembering the advice from one of the comedians she read about.
In the slanted handwriting that she was always told was too messy, she writes, When the Only Place to Go Is Living with Your Uptight Sister.
She glances around the apartment and scribbles, My sister is beautiful. My sister is the reason I have low self-esteem. She’s scary. Snobby. Judgmental. Always makes me look bad. Probably why I should go to therapy.
Suhani and Zack will be at work for at least seven hours, so she has their entire place to herself. She stretches across their suede navy-blue sectional and pretends that this is her high-rise apartment, that these are her nice things, and that she has all her shit together. A tiny voice tells her to snap back to reality, but she ignores it. A little delusion never hurt anyone.
She gets up and walks around the apartment. Her gaze lingers on the large wedding photo in the front hallway. It’s of Suhani and Zack laughing as they put rose garlands around each other. Grains of rice are suspended in the air around them. The picture is sweet, but Natasha didn’t think it was special enough to be blown up and enclosed in a sterling silver Tiffany frame. Clearly she was wrong because the Atlanta Journal-Constitution thought it was special enough to feature it at the top of the Wedding section.
She moves back toward the living room and takes note of the modern artwork, designer shoe collection, and sleek Sonos surround-sound system.
I don’t have any of this.
Before she can push the thought away, she feels it burrowing into the corner of her mind with a barnacle-like grip.
She opens her notebook again.
My sister’s a shrink, which means she’s intuitive about people. And she really is! She knows JUST when I’m starting to feel good about myself because that’s the EXACT moment she shows up and makes sure I hate myself again! Isn’t that something? I should give a shout-out to her great work ethic but she’s been doing this since we were kids, so I think it’s just one of her many natural talents!
Not bad. Maybe it’s a little harsh, but she can tone it down later. It’s the first time in so long that an idea has come to her that all she can focus on is the tiny victory of putting something down on paper, something she can hear herself performing.
She scrolls back to her text thread and pulls up Ifeoma’s GIF.
Onward and upward.
She walks into the kitchen even though she already knows there won’t be any good snacks. Suhani’s weird about food. She once told Natasha that she thought cooking was a lot of work and taken for granted, something women did while the men sat in the adjacent room discussing big ideas and having fun. Maybe both of them ran away from becoming their mother in different ways.
Sure enough, the fridge is barren except for Tupperware and Pyrex containers full of Mom’s and Zack’s mom Barbara’s food. Natasha drafts a grocery list on a sky-blue Post-it note. She can make a Publix run later this afternoon. She might be lazy, but she’s no mooch.
The fridge side door has two chilled bottles of champagne.
Perfect.
Natasha opens the cabinets. One entire shelf has pairs of flutes, coupes, and tulips. Of course her sister has multiple types of champagne glasses. Natasha takes a coupe glass and pours a generous serving. If Karan was here, he’d shake his head and laugh with her. He’s the only person who can appreciate how intense Suhani is.
In the moments Natasha has space to think, she realizes that’s what she misses the most about him: the silent understanding that can only be shared with someone who often knows you better than you know yourself.
The bubbles tickle her throat as she goes back to her notebook. On the last page, there’s something scribbled in her large, bubbly handwriting.
Self-compassion.
You need to practice being nice to yourself. You know, self-compassion, Dr. Jenkins, her therapist, told her during their last appointment.
Dr. Jenkins was in her forties and always wore fun shoes: turquoise pumps, glitter sneakers, flats lined with fringe. She spoke in a calm voice that was ideal for those mindfulness apps everyone loves. When she wore sleeveless blouses, Natasha took note of her toned and tanned biceps. She certainly was nice to herself, and Natasha found that inspiring.
But even though she liked her therapist, she felt like there were certain things Dr. Jenkins just couldn’t understand, like the way Natasha had to always consider how her behavior impacted others or how her community saw going to therapy as a weakness or how, even though Dad is a psychiatrist, she never felt like she could tell her own parents about getting help.
She finishes her champagne and walks to the fridge for a refill. On the way back to the couch, she notices that Suhani and Zack’s bedroom door is cracked. She steps inside and ignores Suhani’s voice telling her not to even think about snooping.
The afternoon sun gives the entire room a soft glow. A sophisticated adult mixture of scents hangs in the air: perfume, spicy aftershave, eucalyptus oil. Their king-size bed is made, complete with hospital corners and a mountain of throw pillows. What’s the point of having so many freaking pillows? It seems like so much work to remove them every night and put them back in the morning.
Suhani’s dresser is covered with bottles of perfume that smell like different ex
otic flowers. At the edge, Natasha sees the hot-pink spine of a burn book. They both bought one after the first time they saw Mean Girls. There’s a stacked makeup case with Suhani’s latest splurges from Sephora. Suhani’s tried (and failed) to get Natasha into everything from bronzer to fake eyelashes.
A pair of gold-and-white ankle bells from Suhani’s kathak lessons are hung on the wall. Mom enrolled both of them in the North Indian classical dance class when they were in elementary school. The instructor, Kajal Auntie, had a habit of teaching steps by shouting dramatic commands: You are a blooming lotus flower! Show me you are Goddess Saraswati! Twirl like a Bollywood actress! Suhani used to practice for an hour before class while Natasha found reasons to get kicked out at least once a month.
At the corner of the dresser, there’s a sepia-toned picture of the Joshi family during their first trip to Disney World. Mom and Dad are in the back in matching Lion King T-shirts while Suhani has her arms around Natasha and Anuj. Splash Mountain is behind them.
Natasha refills her champagne flute and then starts on the closet. It’s an ad for the Container Store. Everything is labeled and folded and in its place. Someday, Natasha thinks as she sips her champagne and gazes around, she’ll have enough money for nice things. Even if she isn’t a girly girl like her sister, it would feel cool to have one kick-ass pair of shoes, like Dr. Jenkins, or a handbag that tells the world she’s doing well. She scans Suhani’s collection of satchels, clutches, and cross-body bags, then moves on to her wardrobe. Her hands graze dresses with vibrant animal prints, a blush-pink leather jacket, an impressive collection of hats. Some of it even reminds Natasha of Mindy Kaling’s outfits that she posts on her Instagram account.
Zack texts her. Did Suhani seem mad this morning?
NATASHA: She’s always mad. Don’t worry about it.
ZACK: But something’s been different about her.
NATASHA: Did she say something?
ZACK: No. Just a feeling.
