Far From Home

by Lorelie Brown

  The rest of me thinks that’s absolutely batshit crazy.

  I rake my hair back with my fingers, trying to get it to straighten into some sort of normalcy. It’s not likely. I usually look similar to a scarecrow when I get up. The duck fluff that pretends to be my hair gets up to funny business while I sleep.

  “Um. Hi,” I say once I’ve cracked the door open.

  Niharika has the hall light on. I squint. She’s already dressed and completely put together, all the way down to a gold necklace and dangling earrings. “I’ve made breakfast. Come.”

  I don’t know what it is about this woman, but I start to blindly obey her and follow her four steps down the hall before I realize. “Oh. I should probably wake up Pari.” And go to the bathroom too, but there’s no reason for me to say that part.

  “Certainly. Come quickly though, dosas are best when they’re fresh.”

  Dosas. Oh man. My mouth waters. I hustle back into the bedroom and, without thinking, I launch toward the bed, landing on my knees. “Pari! Pari, wake up, your mom cooked.”

  She grumbles and wiggles as if she’s trying to get deeper under that pillow. I yank it away.

  “What the hell?” she grouses.

  “Dosas! She made dosas.”

  “So? I set the batter up for her last night.”

  Okay, so fine. This is not a big deal to her. I guess it’s something like if an overly excited infant jumped on my bed and started squeeing at me about someone making pancakes. Pleasant, but not exactly worth making an idiot of myself over. “I happen to enjoy dosas.”

  She lifts a single, graceful eyebrow. “I’m beginning to see that. I’ll make you dosas for Christmas, since they’re all you think about.”

  I tickle her in retaliation. My fingers find the soft undersides of her armpits. She squeals, completely taken by surprise. “You brat!” she howls.

  I have no mercy. She’s writhing under me, and her hips jump as if she’s trying to buck me off. But she’s also laughing like mad, which makes it completely worth it. She tries to bat me away. I only tickle her harder, until she cries mercy.

  “I need to pee,” she says between peals of giggles.

  “Promise you’ll never make fun of me again.”

  “Never?” she asks, drawing the word into long syllables of doubt.

  “Not ever.” I put my serious face on again. “Especially not about food.”

  She somehow sees through me. “Oh. Oh. I said something really bad, didn’t I?”

  She pushes up to a sitting position, which makes me realize that I’m straddling her thighs. I scramble off her. I’m shaking my head even though it’s not the first thing she’s said to me about food. She’s only human. No one can be perfect. I shouldn’t expect so much. “No, not really. You didn’t say anything.”

  She holds my shoulder. Her hand is hot, her fingers like individual brands. Maybe I’m allergic to her. “I won’t tease about food again. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not a big deal.” By which I mean I don’t want it to be a big deal. Isn’t that the same thing, more or less?

  “I’m still sorry. It was insensitive.”

  “It really wasn’t.” I feel pinned by her kindness. It makes me squirm inside, so my next words explode like a gush from a broken faucet. “It’s not even the food. I just don’t like the idea that there’s maybe something that you don’t think I can control myself around. It just doesn’t help that it’s food.”

  She doesn’t let go of me. It’s only then that I realize I had expected her to let go. My life is ruled by a thousand and one expectations, and none of them ever turn out like I think they will. Instead she holds my other shoulder too. Her bright-green eyes bore into mine. I swallow and realize the back of my throat is stinging.

  “I will never tease you about food or a lack of control again.”

  She means it. I can feel conviction pouring out of her and wrapping around me. I want to twist it up and tie it around my shoulders like kids do to make blankets into superhero capes. I would carry Pari’s conviction with me forever if I could. This morning will have to be enough. I smile because it’s all I can manage without bursting into sniveling tears.

  “Time to go eat?” I ask, because that’s easier than the tangle inside me.

  “Yes. We better hurry up. Amma will be annoyed if they go soggy because we’re being slow.”

  “You use this bathroom, then. I’ll stop at the one in the hall.”

  “Deal.”

  We reconvene in the kitchen at almost the same moment. Niharika sits beneath the window, both hands wrapped around a steaming cup. From the smell, I think it’s chai. “You took too long. They’ll be awful now.”

  “Don’t fuss, Amma.” Pari drops a good-morning kiss on her mother’s temple. Niharika looks up at her fondly. “They’ll be delicious.”

  “I heard you laughing.”

  “It’s Rachel. She’s a ruthless tickle machine.”

  I blush. It burns hot across my cheeks. Even my ears feel tingly. I fill my plate silently with a couple of the white and golden crepes. There are a few little dishes of chutney, yogurt, and some assorted things at the island. I slide into a seat and dose my plate with a pile of the chutney and a little collection of the other dishes. My restraint has flown, and I tell myself this is a special occasion. My switch has flipped.

  Pari gives herself a hefty serving of masala-spiced potatoes. Niharika doesn’t have any.

  I wonder if that’s how she’s stayed so skinny despite having Pari and her four siblings. I don’t know how she can smell something as delicious as the heady spices in this room and not eat like a mad man.

  I break off a piece of dosa and dip it in my chutney. Oh, it’s good. Light and fluffy and crispy. “Niharika, this is amazing.”

  “She means it, Amma. You’ve made her day.”

  “It’s simply breakfast.”

  I don’t answer because I’m too busy stuffing my maw. Oh well. She’s smiling at me. I guess kind of fondly? It’s better than scowling, and I’m eating yummy things. Whatever works. I’m a charm machine.

  Pari and her mom chat for a while. I take a cup of tea from Pari when she gets up to serve herself. It’s probably loaded with sugar, but just this once I’m not going to think about it. It’s heaven in a cup and goes perfectly with my breakfast.

  Pari leans against the island underneath the pale white of a cabinet. She’s still wearing the same linen pajamas she had on last night, but now her braid is tousled. I watch her, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I slept in the same bed as this woman. That I woke up holding her hip and with my toes along her calves. Because, oh yes, that sense memory hasn’t gone away.

  “Does that work for you, Rachel?”

  “What?” I jerk myself out of my reverie. I’d been staring at Pari’s long, dark hair, wondering how it would feel twisted through my fingers.

  “We’ll leave around eleven? There are a couple jewelry stores that I think would be our best bet. Then maybe we’ll get lunch.” Pari sips her tea.

  “Um.” I glance between Pari and Niharika. They’re both looking back at me. No pressure or anything. “Darling. Princess.” What would I call Pari if she were really mine? “Sweetheart … I have to check my accounts. I have a loan payment due on Thursday, and …”

  She’s shaking her head before I can even finish. “I’ll cover the rings. It’s fine.”

  I can’t help it. I glance at Niharika. She’s watching us with a little displeased pinch to her mouth. Pari sees where I’m looking. She comes closer and puts an arm around my shoulder. The soft side of her breast brushes my upper arm. “Amma, you should know that Rachel has a lot of accumulated student loans. Close to seventy grand.”

  I make a choked noise of embarrassment. “Pari,” I try to protest.

  I told her, but that’s not the same thing as wanting it spread everywhere. It’s impolite to talk about money. When I was a kid, I wasn’t even sure what my mom made, or how much our house cost
. Not that I should have known down to the penny or anything like that, but she just always said it was “not my business.” In my second year of graduate school, when I finally put together how much my repayment costs were going to be, I wished Mom had been a little more on the up and up.

  “Amma doesn’t care,” Pari assures me. She squeezes my shoulders. “She understands.”

  “Your family didn’t help you?” Niharika looks surprised, her eyebrows lifting and her lips parting a little. She puts down her empty teacup.

  “Uh, no.” I give a tiny little laugh, thinking of Mom offering to pay for anything. She’d worked her way up, and she thought I should have to as well.

  Though college costs for her had been a quarter of what I shelled out.

  “So Pari, you are supporting Rachel?”

  I have a need to defend myself even though, duh. That’s why we’re in this situation. It’s why I agreed to marry Pari. Quid pro quo and all that. This is a mutually beneficial situation. But I still don’t want to seem like a deadbeat. “I pay for things. Including my loans.”

  Niharika nods and gives Pari a look that I’m pretty sure says, We’ll talk about this later, young lady. But they let it go. For now.

  I still feel terrible by the time we get to the second jewelry store. The first one had been ostentatiously out of anything close to my range. We might as well have been orbiting Pluto for how comfortable I felt there. We’d moved on quickly, I think because Pari had read me as easily as a Jezebel post.

  The second is a little better. At least they have a couple cases of those tacky round-charm bracelets, which means they aren’t stylistically flawless. I have a chance of affording something. My credit card will cry, but it has a little bit of room on it.

  Pari grabs my hand. It could have been innocent—we’re palm to palm, but she doesn’t lace our fingers together. It feels like a lifeline thrown to me in the middle of an ocean. I hold on for dear life.

  “We came to this one for a reason,” she tells me quietly. “They have a designer line I think you’ll like.”

  I catch her gaze. Does she really know me well enough to be able to choose jewelry for me? My mom specializes in gift certificates—to places I never go—and no ex-boyfriend had been able to pick anything more special than an electric can opener. The only Christmas I spent in a relationship, he got me an iPod shuffle. I liked it, but he got me the dark gray—obviously just what they’d had sitting on the shelf. I wanted the blue version.

  Pari walks me up to a small display of rings under glass. She nudges me to sit on a padded stool. My knees buckle. The row of sapphires along one side are particularly beautiful. Tiny chips of the sky and the ocean wrapped in sparkles.

  I’m caught. Mesmerized. There’s pretty and then there’s pretty, and the sparklies that Pari has sat me down in front of count as absolutely fucking pretty. “What are these?”

  She touches the glass as if she’s touching pieces of art. “They’re a particular designer’s work. She’s local. I’ve met her at some parties, and you made me think of her work.”

  She waves over the salesman, who’s a middle-aged man with a balding head and a tubby midsection. She taps the glass. “I’d like to see that sapphire. Second from the right.”

  There is such crispness, such authority in her expression. He hops to it immediately, bobbing his head in deference.

  His patter seems to be automatic. “It’s a natural sapphire, hence the paler color. The center stone is one carat, the cut an emerald.”

  “What?” My attention is finally snatched from the beautiful thing he’s holding toward me.

  “The way in which the stone has been cut is called an emerald cut. See the rectangular, somewhat vintage styling?”

  I nod. My fingertips are numb with how badly I want to touch this ring. It isn’t just the stone itself, which looks like the ocean and the sky in a star. It’s the nearly bulky design of the metalwork. It should have seemed awkward or graceless, but it doesn’t.

  Oh, how it doesn’t. It’s amazing.

  “Try it on,” Pari urges me.

  I take it, but I hesitate before putting it on my finger. I know Niharika is nearby, probably right behind me, but I don’t think about her. Pari takes the ring and holds my left hand as she slips it on my ring finger.

  I’m shaking.

  I’ve never owned anything like this before. It fits me like putting a missing piece of bone into place.

  Even better, Pari is looking at me and smiling. “It’s perfect. It fits you.”

  I know she doesn’t only mean the sizing around my finger. The ring turns me into something more than ordinary. I struggle so hard with liking myself, the way my joints are fit together, the way my skin covers me. The fold of my waist. This ring, this hand … I like them when they’re together. I lace my hands together. The effect carries over to my other hand.

  It’s just a ring. A stupid ring made of a piece of rock and metal. I shouldn’t be this starry-eyed over a twist of metal.

  But I am.

  Pari is talking to the salesman. He brings out a similar ring, though this one is set with a deep-green emerald. She tries it on, and it fits, plus it compliments her eyes.

  “Perfect,” Niharika declares. “Now you take them off. Tonight you’ll go on a date and do whatever you like, and at the end of the night you ask each other again.”

  “What?” I say on a weird bark of laughter. Because I do awkward in such a stellar fashion, I clap my right hand over my left as if I’m hiding my precious from Gollum.

  “Amma, no.” Pari is calm, but she’s shaking her head. “She loves it. I’m not going to force her to take it off.”

  Except that makes it even worse. I don’t have any idea how expensive this is. I peek at the tag on the inside. The price isn’t too bad. I guess. It wouldn’t be that bad if I weren’t in debt up to my eyeballs, at least.

  Niharika has a stubborn set to her mouth and chin. “You’re lucky I’m not insisting on a Tamil version of the engagement ceremony.”

  Pari’s eyes narrow. “If we go out, visiting her family is completely skipped.” She’s bargaining. Even with her mother, she has a sharp edge that shows exactly why she’s in the business world. I wouldn’t want to go head-to-head with her. Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually getting to know her, or maybe just the side she wants me to know.

  “I won’t even try.”

  I’m not sure what the Tamil engagement involves, and I’m glad that my family won’t be involved, but I’m uncomfortable with the idea of a date tonight. Especially because I’m not ever letting go of this ring. Metaphorically, of course. I won’t surf with it on.

  But is this what being bought feels like? I don’t think it is. I don’t want it to be true, at least. Yet there’s no denying that I’m feeling incredibly more positive on the concept than I would have been yesterday.

  “Amma, can you give us a moment?” Pari asks.

  “I’ll go browse. Maybe I’ll give your father an idea of what to get me for our anniversary.”

  The moment we’re alone, Pari scoots in next to me on the padded stool. I can tell that she’s barely hovering on it, probably through dint of will and one butt cheek, but I don’t slide over. I think maybe I’d melt into a puddle if I gave up the support of the chair.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not in the least,” I answer. Yay honesty, right?

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I don’t want to be a horrible person.” I clutch her arm. She’s soft but has enough force to stand up to me.

  “But …?”

  “I’m not giving this ring up.” I crack then, looking straight at her. Our faces are close. Very near. I can smell cinnamon on her breath. “Please don’t make me. I’ll pay you back. It’ll probably take me about six months shy of forever, but I can do without Starbucks or Netflix.”

  She brushes a lock of hair behind my ear. Her fingertip just barely grazes me, sending a shiver down my spine. “You can h
ave the ring. No matter what.”

  “I love it.”

  “I can tell.” She holds my hand so that we can both examine at it. She’s still wearing the coordinating ring. Our hands look as if they’ve been posed. My pale creaminess and her darker brown. The rings bring us together. “It’s right for you. I stopped at the first store because it’s more expensive. I knew Amma would like to go there. But for you … I knew we had to come here. I was just hopeful this one hadn’t been sold already.”

  How? How is this happening? I’m not sure I understand. “I’m glad it wasn’t.”

  “Besides, buying rings is one more thing for my paperwork. I’ll keep the receipts to show in my immigration interview.”

  I can understand that kind of answer. I wish I could give her more in return. “My mom won’t go for the ceremony thing.”

  “Because it’s foreign?”

  “Because it’s effort she’d have to expend on my behalf.” I’m rubbing the ring with my thumb. It’s already absorbed my body heat.

  “Going out tonight doesn’t have to be a big deal. We can sneak out and sit on the beach for a couple hours and talk about nothing.” Her shoulders pull in an apologetic shrug. “It would make her happy. I’m not sure why, but it’s worth it if we can get out of a step of the process. Wedding ceremonies can be very convoluted.”

  I laugh, and it sounds a little hysterical, even to me. I close my eyes. I can still feel her. “Yeah, just one small problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  I open my eyes again. She’s so close. I could crawl into her. Her thigh is pressed against mine, and I know her exact temperature. “That sounds like my idea of a perfect date.”

  “That doesn’t seem bad to me.”

  I keep my mouth shut. It’s easier this way. I don’t want to tell her.

  I may be drowning.

  By that evening, I know it for sure. I stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom, my hands on the cold marble. The ring is still on my finger. I don’t often look at myself in mirrors. I’ve learned to skate by them. If I look too long, I always find things I’m displeased with. I wish my arms had more definition. I wish I didn’t have such a rounded stomach. I know now that it’s not fat, but I bemoan the shape of my muscles.