by Varsha Bajaj
I know Mom is also worried about having Dad’s father moving in. She wonders if he’ll expect her to be the dutiful Indian daughter-in-law, old country style.
I overheard them discussing it the other night. If I sit on the stairs, I can hear most of what they say when they talk in the living room. They might not like that, but sometimes I need to do it to stay on my toes.
“Do you think Papa will expect me to cook Indian food every night?” Mom asked.
“I hope not,” Dad said. “We make do with takeout from the store, and he’ll have to as well.”
“What if he thinks I’m an awful daughter-in-law?” she wailed.
“He won’t,” Dad said. “How could he?”
Mom replied, “I just want things to go smoothly, you know?”
I know that’s what we all want. I start to wonder what people will think of Papa’s accent, but I brush the thought aside and focus on the benefits of Papa moving in.
Especially that I can chill at home more, because there will be someone here to keep me company.
* * *
Dad is in the living room, hanging the WELCOME TO HOUSTON, PAPA! sign I made. And Mom is running around the house, straightening things that are already straight. She had the chicken tikka masala and naan catered but took the day off yesterday to make the vegetables and salads.
She yells for Dad. “Babe, have you tasted the aloo? Is the salt okay?”
He and I tasted the potatoes a few hours ago, and we both certified that the salt was fine. Mom has clearly lost her mind.
“Babe?” she calls again. Dad and I roll our eyes.
Then she stops in her tracks and finally notices how I am dressed. “Aww!” she says when she sees me in the traditional Indian ghagra choli. I beam. I am feeling it too. I posted a picture with the caption OOTD—outfit of the day—for my friends. The skirt is full and to the floor, and has a green-and-yellow paisley print. The solid-yellow blouse is fitted and shows a sliver of tummy. I have looped the scarf that matches the skirt around my neck.
“Now all you need are some earrings!” Mom says, giving me a hug. “Go and find some from my jewelry box.”
Family arrives within minutes of each other, like they’d planned the chaos, including Mom’s brother; Raj Uncle and Lindsey Aunty and their kids; and Dad’s sister and her kids. Everyone is talking over one another. I grab a plate of samosas and race my cousins upstairs to play the Wii.
An hour later, our house is bursting at the seams with hugging people—and music, food, and laughter. I hear guests welcome Papa repeatedly, tell him how happy they are that he has moved here, and invite him over for a meal. Papa must be beaming.
When we come down for lunch, the tension has slipped off Mom’s shoulders, or maybe she shrugged it off. Now she is relaxed—and she grins when the pulsating beat of the bhangra music starts.
My cousins and I giggle as all the grown-ups get on their feet. I’m not sure how it happened, but it has become a dance party. I have a theory, though: I think it’s the call of Papa’s magical red silk tunic.
Someone eggs Papa on. “C’mon. It’s your party. You have to join us.”
Papa is the center of attention with his white mane and his big laugh.
My cousin whistles.
Mom claps, and her foot taps.
Papa walks over to me. I want to run and hide. I am not the best dancer, but when Papa has both his hands outstretched, how can I refuse? Papa can move, even with his arthritis.
Now everyone is clapping to the beat. I twirl, and so does my skirt.
Midtwirl, I freeze.
I see the strangest thing.
What? How?
Chris Daniels, my next-door neighbor, is in the middle of my living room. Chris Daniels, the boy who is friends with the hyenas, just saw me spinning in my dressed-up Indian outfit.
I want the ground to split and swallow me.
My raised hands fall and tug my blouse over my exposed middle. I miss my footing and stumble right into Chris. He catches me. That’s how I know he’s not a hologram.
“I knocked. I . . . I rang the doorbell,” he stutters.
Of course he did. But there was no way we could have heard over the music rocking the Chopra house.
Chris points to the front door. “My dad wants to talk to your dad,” he says.
I nod and go to find him, wondering what on Earth his father would want to say to Dad.
I tug at Dad’s shirt and point to Chris, telling him Chris’s dad is outside.
Dad walks out. Chris and I follow. Before Dad can close the door, Papa steps out too.
Chris’s dad is pacing outside. He looks like he inhaled a steam engine.
“I can’t pull out of my house, and I’m running late,” he says, pointing at the car blocking part of his driveway.
He could have said hello. He always seems to be in a big hurry, too busy to chat.
I see Dad take a deep breath. “I’m sorry!” he says calmly. “Give me a minute, and I will have the car moved.”
Dad leaves to find the owner of the car.
Then I hear Chris say, “See you in school, Karina.”
That surprises me. We have never “seen” each other in school before, and I was not expecting our orbits to collide.
CHAPTER 4
CHRIS
LAST NIGHT, I left a letter from my math teacher on the kitchen counter. I knew it would make the gray clouds gather. As predicted, it’s a stormy day inside the house even though it’s bright and sunny outside.
The strategy was top-notch. They would come home after dinner with their friends and be in a happy mood, and they would see the letter. They would have time to sleep on it. Mom would calm Dad down after he saw the note, which said:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Daniels,
I worry that Chris may not be in the right class. We should discuss his math abilities and aptitude.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Hubbard, 7th Grade Math
My last worksheet is attached. A letter D is etched in red. It’s early in the school year, just Labor Day weekend, too early to start dealing with the math beast. But the math teacher doesn’t agree with me; she thinks problems should be “nipped in the bud.”
I was struggling. Finding the value of x was as impossible as finding the socks that got lost in the laundry every week. Maybe the washing machine had the socks and the x answers.
When I enter the kitchen, Mom is drinking coffee, and Dad is trying to fix a lopsided blind by pulling on it.
He yanks.
The blind responds by now tilting at a sharp angle. Dad swears.
Mom notices me and says, “Good morning, sleepyhead. We saved you some food.”
Dad yanks again. If it doesn’t work once, you should always try the failed method again.
Then he sees me.
“Need to talk about this,” he says, picking up the worksheet and waving it around.
“Bill!” Mom says. “Give the boy a chance to eat.”
Dad yanks for a third time. The blind is now at an even sharper angle. He cusses again. “I’m going for a shower and then to the mechanic. The car’s making a strange sound. Last thing we need. They’ll say the transmission is about to die and charge thousands of dollars. Last thing we need.”
When Dad’s stressed, he repeats himself.
As he walks away, he says, “Chris, your math grade has to improve.”
“Yes, sir!” I say.
“Chris, honey,” Mom says, “maybe you should start going to the after-school tutorials. Your aunt says they really helped Tim.”
“Or maybe I need to forget about algebra and drop down to the easier math class,” I say, frustrated.
“Chris, look at me,” she says. “Can you honestly say that you’ve tried your very best?”
She
has a point, but I ignore her question. “Maybe Dad needs to go for some anger-management classes,” I mumble.
“Chris,” she says. “Dad is stressed about work. There were more layoffs at his company last week. He’s worried. I’ll talk to him.”
Mom always makes excuses for Dad’s irritability. Wish she’d make similar excuses for my math grades.
Dad heads out while I’m still in the kitchen, eating. Slowly, I take one bite of waffle and another of eggs—alternating sweet and salty, the way I like it.
A few minutes later, Dad returns. “A car’s blocking the driveway. The neighbors must be having a party. There are cars lining both sides of the street. Chris, go tell them to move that car.”
“Why me?” I say. “I barely know them.”
“Isn’t the kid in your class?” asks Dad.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t even talk to me.”
“Go! Go,” he says.
Karina’s family has lived next door for years, but my parents hardly talk to them either, except to say good morning. Dad believes that just because you live next door to someone, it doesn’t mean you have to be friends. When they first moved in, Mom thought of trying to get to know Mrs. Chopra, but she never seemed to find the time to go over and say hello.
I quickly change into shorts and a T-shirt, and run across the yard.
Cars are parked all down the street and into the cul-de-sac. Someone has squeezed their car into a space outside our house, but it blocks our driveway enough that backing out is impossible.
I ring the doorbell and wait.
Dad’s in his car, watching impatiently.
I ring the doorbell again. Embarrassing.
No answer. I can hear the party inside.
I ring the doorbell for the third time and try not to look over at Dad. I can feel his foot tapping.
I count—1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10—and turn the knob on the front door.
On the outside, our houses are built of the same bricks and siding. Same windows and door. Same oak trees in the front yard. Same front doors. They are like two chocolates in a box.
But on the inside, they have different centers.
There are at least fifty people milling around. I stand in the foyer unnoticed, gaping. How am I supposed to find Karina?
Some of the women are wearing bright Indian clothes, and a few of the men wear turbans. I’ll have to ask Matt why—or Google it.
The music pulsates, but the lyrics are in a language I don’t recognize. And it’s loud. No wonder they didn’t hear the doorbell.
A homemade banner says WELCOME TO HOUSTON, PAPA!
Who is Papa?
I remember that Dad is waiting in the driveway. I need to find Karina’s dad. Fast.
I take a few steps into the living room, and I see her. She is dancing with an older man. His loose, long shirt is as red as Superman’s cape.
As she twirls, Karina’s skirt is like a floating halo around her feet.
She turns and sees me.
Karina stumbles. I don’t blame her. I would lose my footing too if I suddenly saw her in my living room. She collides straight into me. We almost land on our butts, but I manage to step back, find my balance, and steady us.
“I knocked. I . . . I rang the doorbell,” I say.
She looks stunned, as if she doesn’t understand.
“My dad wants to talk to your dad,” I say.
“Oh!” she says. “Okay.”
Within minutes, Karina finds her dad and they step outside with me.
Dad is now pacing outside. I wish he had stayed in his car. I wish that he had taken a deep breath and calmed down while he waited.
The older man in red, who must be Karina’s grandfather, steps out too.
Dad points to the car blocking our driveway. He sounds annoyed when he tells them he’s running late.
I want to evaporate into thin air.
Karina’s dad apologizes. He says he’ll have the car moved in a minute and runs back inside to get the driver.
Dad notices the older man and nods in greeting before he walks off to wait in his car.
I want to tell Karina that my dad’s having a bad morning, but that would be weird.
Karina introduces her grandfather. “He just moved here from California,” she says.
I shake his hand.
Daniels, I tell myself, you gotta make up for your father’s lack of friendliness with a smile that splits your face.
“See you in school, Karina!” I blurt out as they leave.
CHAPTER 5
KARINA
IT’S BEEN ALMOST a week since the party. A week since Chris Daniels was in my living room. Every day since then, he smiles at me. It’s a hesitant smile, which I respond to with another hesitant smile.
He still sits on the bus with the hyenas. I imagine it would be hard to break from the pack—on Animal Planet, they said if a hyena tries to leave his pack, sometimes the others will literally tear him apart and have him for dinner.
I don’t want Chris Daniels to be eaten alive, even though the hyenas did laugh at me when Quinn made that crack about my arms. But I guess I should let that go. First of all, I don’t care anymore—I’ve learned to like my arms the way they are. And second of all, it was over a year ago. We’ve both grown since then. Papa always says, “Let bygones be bygones. They are too heavy to carry around.”
Speaking of Papa, in the week he’s been with us, he’s transformed our house.
I shouldn’t be surprised. I remember how perfect he and Grandma kept their house in California, inside and outside. The lawn was always mowed, weeds were too afraid to grow, clutter never piled up, and faucets did not dare to drip.
Dad remembers Papa always puttering around fixing things, but he figured that Papa had probably slowed down in his seventies. Wrong! He’s still like the Energizer Bunny. Going! Going! Going!
Last Monday, Papa made matar paneer with homemade paratha, and it was so good that Mom, Dad, and I couldn’t stop eating till every last bit was gone.
“Since Grandma died,” he said, “I taught myself to cook from YouTube videos.”
I remembered him also telling me that during one of our weekly Skype chats. I’d thought he meant he could make some pasta or eggs.
That evening, I overheard Mom saying she feels guilty that Papa is cooking for us. But Dad says it’s okay, because it makes my grandfather happy. I think Papa keeps busy because when he sits still by himself, he feels lonely.
“Your grandma and I were married for forty-five years and never spent more than a few days apart,” he tells me. “We loved being with each other.”
I cannot even imagine what that is like. I see him look wistfully beyond the trees in the backyard, as if he can see Grandma waiting for him on the horizon.
And so he keeps busy, hopping from one thing to another—polishing this, scrubbing that, repairing this, replacing that, reorganizing this, decluttering that.
Until on Thursday, we cannot find cereal or computer paper or scissors, and I find Mom sitting at the table in the kitchen, intently coloring a mosaic picture of a palace. The coloring book was a checkout-line purchase to help her de-stress. I have never seen her use it before.
Mom whispers to me, “Today, Papa replaced the broken slats in the fence.”
“The fence between our house and Chris’s?” I whisper back.
Why are we whispering when Papa is out in the yard? I think we worry that he can be everywhere at once.
“Yes!” Mom says. “He didn’t ask them or anything. He got into the car, got what he needed at the store, and did the job.”
She groans.
He is mending fences, like Chris and I are. We even ended up as partners in English class yesterday. We will see how that goes.
“Hopefully they won’t mind,” I say. “May
be they will even be happy.”
Mom picks up a red pencil and colors. “I don’t know. Dad said Mr. Daniels was a bit intense when they spoke the day of the party.”
Yes. He was that. I now understand Mom’s stress—who knows what Mr. Daniels will say. Papa should have waited till we talked to the neighbors before he took on a repair job.
“So what are you going to do?” I ask her.
“Dad thinks we should go over and explain things to them,” she says. “I also think Dad needs to talk to Papa about telling us before he starts on projects.”
“Good luck with that,” I say, and Mom shows me that her fingers are crossed.
* * *
Later, in the evening, the doorbell rings. I peek through the peephole.
“Mom,” I call out in panic. “It’s Chris’s mom.”
Mom is all flustered. “Whoa! She beat us to it. I wish your dad was here.”
We invite Mrs. Daniels in. She seems as nervous as us, and she’s clutching a checkbook.
“Mrs. Daniels, please come in. I’ve been meaning to stop by, but . . .” Mom’s voice trails off.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Daniels says. “We noticed that someone repaired the fence between our houses.”
“My father-in-law,” Mom tells her. “We didn’t know he was planning to do that. If we had, we would have said something before—”
“My husband has always meant to fix it too,” Mrs. Daniels says.
The conversational dance is as awkward as a hippo dancing with a gazelle.
“We’d like to pay our portion of the repair work,” Mrs. Daniels says.
“Oh no! No!” Mom gets as red as a beetroot. “Please!”
Mrs. Daniels blushes too but insists. “We can’t not contribute our share.”
“We should have asked your permission. After all, that fence belongs to us both,” says Mom.
“Which is precisely why we should share the cost of the repairs,” Mrs. Daniels says.
