“Don’t you want one of those church weddings?” my father asked when I called them with the news. “I’ve vowed never to go to another Indian wedding, and it would be bad form if I didn’t come to yours.”
In hindsight, I probably wanted an Indian wedding so badly because I thought that small bit of tradition and ritual might soften the acute sense of loss I felt about the city of my perfect childhood summers. And I wanted to replicate a photo from my parents’ wedding reception where my mother is wearing a sari and my father is wearing a suit, both with enormous garlands around their necks. My father had just returned from a trip to America, and that suit was a signal of where he had been and, from this vantage, a sign of where he was headed. For me, the photo has always represented their youth, before good and bad decisions aged them.
“She doesn’t want to wear a sari,” I said to my parents when Eva and I first visited them after getting engaged.
Eva shot me a pleading look. “I didn’t say that.”
“Let me rephrase. She doesn’t want to be one of those white women in a sari.”
“Well,” my mom said, leaning in closer to Eva, “if she wants to wear one, she’ll wear it well. And she’ll certainly look better than you did in a tuxedo. Remember when you went to the prom? People must have thought you were a waiter.”
Unlike my father, my mother had been excited to put together an Indian wedding. When my two sisters had gotten married, my mother had treated the whole thing as a utilitarian affair: she needed to get her daughters married. But now, with their lives feeling a little more settled in America, she relished taking her future daughter-in-law shopping for clothes and jewelry. And of course, I was the lone son.
“But remember,” my father had said, “it doesn’t have to be so long. There is nothing in any religious book that says how long the wedding needs to be. Tradition is simply a guideline, a suggestion. And I would suggest something short and sweet.”
In the photo that now sits on the mantel above the fireplace, there is Eva’s immediate family and mine, with the two of us in the middle. I am wearing my bespoke Indian salwar suit, which I had bought while I was in India, and Eva is wearing a deep orange wedding dress, the color a match for the sari she’d worn during the full, unshortened ceremony. Both of us have garlands of flowers around our necks and huge smiles on our faces.
I was thinking about the smell of those flowers as I started the car, backed out, and drove away. I had a few hours to kill before I met Eva at the boys’ school for a meeting with the principal to talk about Neel’s drawing. I decided to take a walk on the beach. The day had only gotten warmer—the ocean breeze would be welcome.
We went to the beach all the time, but I seldom went by myself. As much as I enjoyed the water, I didn’t like being at the beach all that much. The sand got everywhere, and while I found the salt water cleansing, I was uncomfortable with the depth of the ocean. But today a change of scenery seemed like just the thing.
I drove to one of the more secluded beaches in town, parked my car, and began walking on the sand. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and besides a few sunbathers here and there, the place was empty. I found a spot at the point, in the shade of secluded cliffs and an overhanging tree. I took off my shoes and sat down, leaning against a rock. The ocean was calm and glassy, and for a few minutes I gazed out at it, trying my hardest to empty my mind of every possible thought. I had purposely left my phone in the car.
I lay down on the sand and closed my eyes; the sound of the crashing waves suddenly became louder. When I opened them, I saw a small crew of sandpipers digging their long beaks into the wet sand, searching for food. I closed my eyes again and felt sleepy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d napped in the middle of the day. What did it matter now? I didn’t have to be at the school for a while. I let myself drift off.
Sometime later, my shaded spot had moved into the sun and I felt hot and itchy in my jeans and half-sleeve shirt. My forehead was sweaty. I checked my watch. Somehow, well over an hour had passed.
The beach was still empty. Out in the water, two glistening gray bodies eased themselves out of the waves and back under. The dolphins were much closer to shore than I had seen before. I watched them come out again; they seemed to be swimming away, but then, when they appeared a third time, they were back to where they’d started. They were circling, beckoning me. I decided it must be a sign.
I looked down the beach; no one was there. I took off my shirt, then my pants and boxers. I didn’t have a towel. I left the clothes in a neat pile and ran toward the ocean. If I’d had on swim trunks, I would have waded gradually into the cool water, but doing without, I just ran straight in. I went under, swam several yards, then surfaced, my lips tingling from the salt. Farther out, I saw the fins emerge from the water again.
I didn’t know if there was danger in getting too close to them, but I swam out about fifty yards, the farthest I had ever been. Below me, the ocean floor might have been fifty or sixty feet deep. I treaded water. The dolphins reemerged, now much farther out. I turned around, and by the time I made it back to where I could stand, I was exhausted. I started to get out, the black hair on my body wet and clean, and noticed two women walking toward me, down the beach. They were well into their seventies, I guessed, but they were moving swiftly. For a second I considered staying put until they passed, but I didn’t even break my stride. I saw them do a double take, clearly noticing me emerging fresh from the froth of the ocean, just as I’d emerged from my mother’s belly.
Perhaps at some other point in my life—at some other point in the week—I might have picked up the pace and run to my clothes. I didn’t want to seem like a creep. But as the week had slowly chipped away at me, the idea of stripping down didn’t seem so strange. I walked out of the water, and as I passed in front of the women, I turned to them. I smiled and they smiled back. I figured it’d be a good dinner party story for them—they’d always remember the man who emerged naked from the sea on a warm Wednesday afternoon.
I used my boxers to dry myself off, and put on my jeans and my shirt. I removed as much sand from my feet as possible before putting on my socks and shoes, and I ran my fingers through my hair to comb it.
When I got back to the car, there was a text from Eva. “Are you close?” She had sent it at 2:45, which is when I was supposed to have arrived at the school. It was now 2:55. I drove over as quickly as I could, but by the time I got there and parked, Eva was waiting for me outside.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I lost track of time. What happened?”
She reached over and removed some sand from my ear. “Did you go swimming?” she asked, perplexed.
There were wet spots on my shirt.
“I did.” She had a neutral look on her face; I had no way of guessing how the meeting had gone. “What happened?”
“It’s fine. He’s not suspended. I’m actually glad you weren’t there. You would have lost your shit. I tried to keep the peace so they wouldn’t suspend him. That would have set us back weeks, if not months.”
“I’m glad you did. Does he have to do anything?”
“No. We just need to have a conversation with him about appropriate behavior.”
I was relieved that at least one of the week’s disasters had been averted.
“God, I hate that man,” Eva said. “He’s constantly quoting other people; I never know when he’s speaking for himself. I swear, if he quotes Martin Luther King at me one more time, I’m going to scream.”
I really liked it when Eva let the hate fly.
“Didn’t you teach this afternoon?” she asked, turning back to my wet shirt. “Why were you at the beach?”
I was about to explain when I saw Suzanne walking toward us. With all her PTA duties, she was at the school often. “I’ll tell you once we’re done with this awkward conversation,” I whispered.
“Hey, you two,” Suzanne said, her eyes studiously staying on Eva, not me. “Everything OK?”
“Fine
,” Eva said. “Fine.”
I could see that she wanted to keep walking.
“I heard Neel might have had some trouble. Please let me know if I can help in any way.”
“Neel is a bright kid,” Eva said. “He gets bored in class waiting for everyone else to catch up.”
Though her tone didn’t reveal it, I knew Eva was pushing back at whatever Suzanne was not saying in her offer to help.
“He certainly is,” Suzanne said. “I’ve been in the class. He’s always done with his work well before any of the other kids. My son included. The school needs to do a better job of keeping him engaged.”
This generosity loosened Eva up a bit. It loosened me up too.
“What did the note say?” Suzanne asked. “I know I shouldn’t ask, but I’ve been dying to know. Jackson said the teacher took something away from him.”
“It’s sitting in the principal’s office,” Eva said. “He insisted on keeping it. I’m sure he’ll let you see it.”
“No, no,” Suzanne said. “I’m sorry I even asked.” She finally looked at me. “Leslie told me you two had a chance to talk.”
“Sounds like there are a lot of conversations happening all around,” I said.
“I just wanted to know what Leslie was thinking in relation to all this,” Suzanne said. “That’s it.”
“And what’s her take?”
“I don’t know,” Suzanne said. “What I do know is that Mark is coming to the meeting this Friday. I told him not to, but he’s insisting. And he hasn’t been shy about telling others what happened. It’s the most involved he’s ever been at the TC. He seems to be developing a diversity curriculum all on his own. He sends us more and more articles and books to read every day. I wonder if he’s read them all himself.”
I wondered what books Mark wanted them all to read. The Fire Next Time? Beloved? Maybe my old favorite, Invisible Man. I’m sure he’d suggested smart books—he could do his research like anyone else—but the irony of his newfound role as great educator on the long history of American racism was not lost on me. I hoped that was true for the rest of the committee too.
“Am I still invited to the meeting?” I asked.
“Of course. You’re a member of the committee. He’s not.”
“I’m very interested in hearing what Mark has to say.”
Without saying anything else, Eva started walking away, and I followed. I looked back at Suzanne for the slightest second; she seemed a little hurt at being abandoned without warning.
“Why do I hate that woman so much?” Eva asked, her voice almost loud enough for Suzanne to hear.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe she means well but doesn’t know how to say it. I can’t figure her out.”
“When did you see Leslie?”
“After my match last night.” I wondered if she’d been a little tense with me because things had been tense between her and Eva. “Are you two having some kind of fight?”
Eva shook her head. “I’m taking a small break from her. We’re just in different places right now. Or maybe we’ve always been in different places. She likes not working, and spending Tim’s money. I like my job and what we do in the world—and I don’t have that much money to spend. I don’t know. It may end up being a long break.”
School wouldn’t be out for another half an hour. We took a walk down the street to get a cup of tea.
“I went to the dermatologist,” I said as we walked.
“And?”
“And he was worried about that mole on my heel.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
“Jesus. You need to tell me these things.”
“I was going to, but I didn’t want to worry you. What if it’s bad?”
“It won’t be,” Eva said.
Why did everyone have so much false confidence in my life except me?
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t. But why don’t we wait to worry about it until we have something to worry about.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“When are you supposed to hear back?”
“Early next week. I have no idea why it takes that long.”
We went into the coffee shop and got iced teas. As I was putting sugar in mine, I turned to Eva. “I’m a little scared.”
“I know,” she said, grabbing hold of my hand. She’d had a few biopsies herself.
“Not just that.” I told her about the protest and my screaming. Just thinking about it made me feel embarrassed all over again for losing my composure. “I went to the beach after to wash off the muck.”
“This is insane,” she said, sounding both incredulous and concerned. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. I just want the week to be over.”
She got back in line, bought two huge chocolate chip cookies, and we went to pick up the kids. Arun came running toward us; Neel was more circumspect.
“You’re both here and we get cookies?” Arun asked, sounding confused as he took an enormous bite.
“What did they say?” Neel asked.
Eva and I looked at each other.
“Everything is fine,” she said. “Let’s just not draw in class for a while, OK?”
“Fine.” Neel gave us a sly little smile.
Eva drove the boys to the TC, and I followed in my car. When we got there, it was mostly empty. Eva had parked near the bottom courts, and I parked next to her. The kids had already gotten out and run off with their cookies to play Ping-Pong. Eva was rummaging in the back of her car for swim things. She kept a swim bag there—with suits for all of us, towels, and a few bags of almonds—for unplanned visits like this.
She walked on ahead to the pool. I stopped to watch a doubles match. Four A-level guys. The ball made a crisp, clean sound as it popped off their racquets. All four players were constantly moving their feet, even when the ball wasn’t coming toward them. I badly wanted to be invited to a game like this. The TC was filled with all sorts of different, parallel, hidden social hierarchies and cliques. The old families, the new ones, the ultrarich, the ones with two working parents, the out-of-work parents who pretended they weren’t, the Christians, the liberals, and on and on. It was one large, shifting flow chart of alliances that everyone could see but no one could fully map. But I’d always assumed that play on the court transcended this. If you were good and you weren’t an enormous dick, you got invited to the better matches. Even if you were a dick, but you had game, you still played. There were rules within the matches, but also rules on how the matches got set up. If you were lower on the hierarchy, you didn’t insist on punching above your weight.
But as I watched the match, and all of them pretended I wasn’t there, I questioned whether good play could take care of everything. Between what had happened at the pool the night before and what Suzanne had said, I was sure that Mark had been in touch with various club members and instructed them to shun me, that if enough of them did, maybe I would get the hint and realize that the TC was not a place where I was welcome anymore.
The kids were already swimming when I walked into the pool area. Usually Neel was up in Arun’s grill, but now they were gliding around each other gracefully. I changed and got in with them while Eva swam some laps. I loved watching her swim.
“One lap?” I asked.
“Sure,” Eva said.
We raced the length of the pool. I swam as hard as I possibly could, but she was already done and waiting to do another when I got to the end. She always beat me.
I took turns raising Neel and Arun over my head and throwing them toward the deep end. After a while of that, we warmed up in the hot tub and waited for the pizza we’d ordered to be delivered. We got out to eat, then went right back into the hot tub. As we were sitting there, the gate opened. Leslie’s two girls walked through.
“Do we have time to get out before she gets here?” Eva asked.
I shook my head.
“She’s
just so smug about her well-behaved girls.”
A minute later, Leslie walked through the gate. She saw us and, realizing that we might have noticed her hesitation, came straight over and started talking, as if we’d hung out a few nights earlier for a barbecue and a swim.
“A quick after-dinner dip,” Leslie said. Then she lowered her voice. “The girls are driving me absolutely crazy.”
Leslie’s girls had already jumped into the pool. Neel and Arun joined them.
“Is Tim coming?” Eva asked as Leslie stepped into the hot tub.
“He’s traveling for work. I’m not sure I even know where he is. Des Moines. Boise. One of those.”
“I haven’t seen him here in a while,” Eva said.
“Funny, I haven’t seen him at home for a while either,” Leslie said. “He comes home from these week-long work trips and then gets mad when I need a little break away from the kids. They’re depleting me. These lovely girls. I don’t know what to do.”
I could see that Leslie wanted to talk to Eva.
“I’ll go swim with the kids,” I said, getting out of the hot tub.
* * *
“What was up with chatty Leslie?”
We hadn’t had a chance to talk about it since we got home from the TC. The kids had to be put to bed.
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess Tim has a new job, and he’s gone a lot. And it sounds like maybe he took a pay cut. I’m not sure. Anyway, she seems lonely and a little stressed out. I get it, but when I think about everything we have going on, it’s a little hard to empathize.”
A few minutes later, we turned off the lights. Eva drifted to sleep quickly. I picked up my phone. I had two new emails from Dan.
The first one’s subject line: “Assuming you’ve seen this?” The body of the email only had a link. I clicked through.
While the story that had come out on Tuesday morning had been on a smaller, lesser-known website, this second one was on a site with a much bigger following called Mansfield, named after the editor who had started it. I had graduated into wider cultural relevance, and with that came the sort of exposure that would put my job in still greater jeopardy.
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