Chambermaid

  “SHEILA!!! BABY!! SHEILA!! HERE!!!”

  “Sheila, I think that’s your mom, over there to the right?” Sure enough. In the McDonald’s, which opened up into gate D like a fast-food loft, were my mother and my father, who was the quiet, slightly confused yin to her absurdly unquiet yang. My mother was standing on an orange plastic chair in a red and green silk sari, screaming at the top of her lungs. I peered around, in search of Sanjay, who was supposed to have accompanied my parents to pick us up.

  She carefully hopped off the chair, grabbed Matthew and hugged him tightly. “You must be Matthew! We are just soooooo happy you decided to join us. That, that”—she lowered her voice—“bitch will rot in hell for treating you two the way she does.” Volume back up. Matthew tossed to Father, who managed a handshake and monotone “Welcome.”

  “Sheila, my baby girl. Baby girl. Baby girl.” She rocked me back and forth and I felt safe again. I wanted to move back into the womb.

  “Mom, hey, where’s Sanjay?”

  “Oh,” she released me. “He called right before we left and said he was held up at the hospital and will call you in a bit.”

  “Whatever,” I said, grimacing.

  “Sheila, he won’t be a resident forever. Be patient, baby, be patient.”

  Matthew and I waited under the globe-sized wreath outside of the station as my parents went to retrieve the car, a green Buick only slightly smaller than the wreath. My parents kept Buick in business. Not even the other uncles and aunties drove them anymore.

  Getting the car at Union Station was always a thirty- to forty-five-minute ordeal. My father would insist that the car was on level three, my mother certain it was level four. While reserved, my dad was no pushover and parking was his silent crusade. You never, ever told him how, where, or when to park. My mother used to brag that my dad had once sliced some guy’s tire at Tysons Corner for having taken his parking spot. She thought it was macho and I guess for a man who’s worn polyester pants and driven a Buick for forty years, going slasher every once in a while was pretty cool.

  The two of them would argue—she boisterously, he in a murmur—over level three or four. This would go on for about twenty minutes, at which point either Puja or I would find the car ourselves. This was the easy part. Nine times out of ten, it’d be on level one or two.

  I was pleasantly surprised this time. Just as I was going in search of them, the green ship sailed up to the curb with both parents chatting away happily. It turned out they had a new trick (“New Buick has high-tech keychain”). They would simply go from level to level, beginning on four, working their way down, hitting the trunk button on their high-tech keychain. When they heard a trunk pop open, the car was found.

  My mother gave Matthew the inquisition during the drive from Union Station to my home in Reston.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Idaho. I’m from a small town there. How about—”

  “And where did you go to college?”

  “Stanfor—”

  “Do you like Indian food?”

  “Ah, yeah, I do. I haven’t really—”

  “Great. I made pork chops,” she squealed. “You like pork chops, right?”

  “Yeah, I love them. They—”

  “Do you eat cauliflower. I made—”

  “MOM. We just got here. Ease up, OK?”

  My mother delivered her well-rehearsed look of hurt. “But Matthew’s my friend, right, Matthew?”

  “Yes, Dr. Raj, you are my friend,” he replied, pleased as punch. He’d fallen for my mother’s antics. This was record time for her.

  “So, where were we—do you like cauliflower?”

  “Yes, yes, I do.” He blushed. At that point, she could have asked him how many bowel movements he had daily and he would’ve answered gladly. The woman would have made a genius journalist. She was truth serum in a brown bottle.

  “Your sister and that new boyfriend of hers have been baking cookies,” my mother said disdainfully as we pulled into the driveway.

  Charlie was Puja’s newest guy. Harvard undergrad (“He even wrote for the Harvard Crimson”). Currently freelancing (read: disgruntled writer who thinks that everything besides the New Yorker is beneath him because he wrote for the Harvard Crimson). Lived in Williamsburg with roommates he met on craigslist. Hated the gentrification of New York. I hadn’t met him, but he sounded just like all of Puja’s former guys, except he was thirty-five, not twenty-five, making him more sad than interesting.

  Puja was smart, successful, and attractive. Yet she always dated men lacking in various departments, including looks, ambition, kindness, and solvency. If my mother hadn’t cornered the market on lecturing Puja, I’d say more about it. Then again, I thought that it was precisely because of my mother that Puja handpicked the men she did. For some reason, she didn’t respond well to “Puja, baby, why do you date galeej boys! You are thirty years old, find a nice husband.” Galeej was Konkani, my family’s South Indian language, for immeasurably gross. It was mothers like ours who kept the Charlies of the world in business.

  Usually these things lasted three weeks—a month tops. But Charlie had been around for two months, and more important, had made the cut for Thanksgiving. Boyfriends never—ever—were welcome at Aunty Roma’s Thanksgiving unless there was a ring on the finger. Otherwise, “What would everyone say?” Puja risked it for Charlie. Well, sort of. He’d be introduced as a “friend.” Puja agreed only to that, eschewing our mother’s request that we further lie that Charlie had been orphaned and didn’t have a family of his own.

  Walking into my childhood home, I felt the stress evaporate from my body. Even Charlie’s trucker hat didn’t spoil the feeling. We were in the middle of introductions when the phone rang. It was Sanjay.

  “Hey Sheels, welcome home. Listen, I can’t make dinner tonight. I’ve got to fill in for Mike. But, I’ll see you tomorrow—right? At Aunty Roma’s, OK?”

  “All right,” I started cautiously, walking out of the kitchen, “but I don’t understand. This is the first time I’ve been in Reston in months. Why would you offer to fill in for someone?” Stress reentered. “Not to mention, this is so rude. You know that I really wanted you to meet Matthew. He’s practically the only person who keeps me sane at work. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” It wasn’t until I started speaking that I realized how frustrated I’d been with Sanjay.

  “Look, Sheila. I’ll meet Matthew tomorrow. You know there’s nothing I can do about work. I am a busy resident. Look—if it’d make you feel better, I’ll come after my rounds—you know, at like five in the morning!” he said, sounding more like an insolent child than a busy resident.

  “I have no clue what’s going on with you. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said and slammed the phone, just like they did on soap operas. When I returned to the kitchen, everyone was seated for dinner.

  Something about the masala pork chops made me laugh behind Sanjay’s vegetarian back. I wanted to eat a whole curried pig out of spite. Instead, I sat silently as Charlie read from his imaginary memoir. He grew up in Darien, Connecticut, the only child of “hard-core Republicans.” He became “radicalized” his freshman year at Harvard. As predicted, he was “this close” (he spread his right thumb and index finger a centimeter apart) to landing a piece on the Sudan in the New Yorker and “wouldn’t consider” pitching it elsewhere. He normally hated doctors, lawyers, and bankers, but “this crowd—all of you guys” were different and “really down.”

  “How can you blanketly hate people just because of their profession?” Matthew asked, in between mouthfuls. “That, to me, seems more close-dminded than any hard-core Republicans I know.” Charlie looked at once confused and incensed. Puja pursed her lips, delivering her prize-winning glare in Charlie’s direction. It was one thing to knock bankers and lawyers, but my parents had spent their careers at the Veterans Administration, foregoing wealth to care for the poor.

  For once, my mother’s inability to deal with open confrontatio
n came in handy. “Well then, how about dessert.” She leaped from the table, thereby ordering a cease-fire. Not long after, everyone went to bed. Puja and I bunked together in my bedroom and Matthew scored Puja’s room, while Charlie got the rickety pullout couch. While not one for public fighting, my mother had mastered passive aggression, her retaliatory tactics tucked away in the trenches of seemingly banal things like sleeping arrangements.

  By the time we pulled up to Aunty Roma’s house the next day, all feelings of ill will had dissipated. It was Thanksgiving, after all, and the Indians and a particular white man were ready to make peace.

  My father maneuvered the Buick in between a dozen or so Mercedes and SUVs on the familiar cul-de-sac. We’d been coming here for Thanksgiving for as long as I could remember. Considering I barely knew my flesh-and-blood uncles and aunts, who were scattered all over the world, from Bombay to Dubai, London, and Toronto, these people were my family.

  “Hey, Boss,” my father said to a group of uncles, patting Uncle Kirin on the back. A slew of “Hey, Bosses” with a “Hey, Chief” or two followed. Matthew and Charlie were deposited with the bosses and chiefs.

  The aunties surrounded Puja, my mother, and me—a sea of loud brown people blabbing in accented non sequiturs (“Yes, yes, yes, Sudha makes very good pakoras,” “But what about that Mark Waters, he looks like bad man, I’m not woting for him,” “My Shalini has found good doctor like Sanjay”). Three subjects, thirty seconds flat. What they really wanted to talk about was the presence of Matthew and Charlie, both of whom had created an unspoken stir.

  The last time one of my childhood peers brought a member of the opposite sex to Thanksgiving was five years ago. Malu (twenty-six years old) had invited Rick, a beefy electrician (forty-two) from Maryland whom, we later learned, she’d met on matrimonials.com (“the meeting place for marriage-minded individuals”). Rick was one of many fetishists who cruised those Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi Web sites. Yet, it wasn’t his lascivious lust for the brown woman that brought Rick down, it was that he was an electrician. The only thing first-generation Indians tolerate less than no marriage is marriage to a blue-collar worker. Until now, nobody had dared to bring another outsider.

  I was on a mad dash for a samosa when Sanjay walked into Aunty Roma’s, a pudgy, red-haired girl in tow.

  “Hey, Sheels,” he said, clumsily embracing me. “This is Gayle, she’s a resident from Moscow.” A red-haired Russian resident in Reston—who would have thought!

  “I haven’t ever been to Thanksgiving, so Sanj was nice enough to invite me,” Gayle piped in with less of an accent than most of the people present. Strange—Sanjay always told me that, aside from his mother, I was the only person allowed to call him Sanj. “And I’m just so thrilled to finally meet you, Sheila.”

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I said, confused by her use of the word “finally.” Why hadn’t Sanjay ever mentioned Gayle? I thought I knew all of his friends. “Is Gayle a common name in Russia?” I said, blurting the first innocuous thing that came to mind.

  She giggled. “Oh no, no. It’s short for my real name.” Full stop.

  “Oh, what’s your real name?”

  “Ludmila.”

  “How nice,” I responded, bypassing the obvious question. “How long have you been here?”

  “Twenty years.”

  Twenty days, twenty weeks, twenty months, even, and I’d have understood the “from Russia” introduction—but twenty years?

  “Mrs. Kapur!” Ludmila said, leaping at Sanjay’s mother and leaving the two of us alone.

  “Look, Sheels,” he started.

  “Don’t call me Sheels,” I interrupted. “We are currently not friends and only my friends call me Sheels, Sanj.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Sheila. Look I’m sorry about last night. You just have to understand the life of a physician.” Just as I despised when lawyers referred to themselves as attorneys, I found it equally repulsive when doctors called themselves physicians. It felt like an undeserved promotion. “It’s just that—”

  Matthew joined us, extending his hand. “Hey. You must be Sanjay. I’m Matthew.”

  “Oh, hi,” Sanjay replied awkwardly. “It’s nice to meet you . . . finally.”

  Aunty Roma shrilled—saved by the bell. It was time to eat.

  The three of us passed Charlie, who was holding court with a pack of bejeweled aunties.

  “At Harvard . . .” Giggles all around. He was playing the Ivy League card, a pathetic move even for Charlie. Indians, like Jews, Koreans, Lithuanians, and every other immigrant community, worshipped the Ivy. Don’t get me wrong—WASPs love Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as much as their immigrant compatriots, but given how common it is for them to make it into the Ivy, it’s more expected than adulated. Just then, Charlie popped a chutney-laden pakora in his small mouth, took a sip from his piña colada (all the aunties drank them), and proclaimed: “Then, my second year at Harvard, I got really into Hinduism.” Charlie beamed. The aunties cooed their way to the dining room.

  Puja, Charlie, Matthew, Sanjay, Ludmila, and I were at the kids’ table, along with Anil, Sahil, Rupa, Ramesh, Jay (short for Jayenth), and Hema. The aunties and uncles elbowed each other for the best seat at the adult table. Uncle Bharat, Aunty Roma’s husband, said an inaudible, incomprehensible prayer followed by Aunty Roma’s yearly toast: “To very very good friends, family, food.” Clink. Cheers.

  Uncle Bharat carved Aunty Roma’s famous curried turkey, stuffed with potatoes. Having grown up on the spicy bird, I found noncurried turkey repelling. Matthew appeared to be an immediate convert while Sanjay grimaced theatrically at the plates of meat. As soon as he was finished carving, Uncle Bharat sat down and fell asleep sitting up amid all the action. Nobody noticed. He did it every year.

  “So, you’re a radiologist—that’s sounds really interesting,” Matthew said to Sanjay. “I’m in awe of doctors. You guys have the hardest jobs.”

  “No more difficult than clerking for Judge Friedman, that’s for sure,” Sanjay said, grinning and toying with his plate of spinach. Puja was deep in conversation with Ludmila, and Charlie was busy surveying the scene, like a keen tourist.

  “Yeah, but the cadavers . . . I just couldn’t do it.” Matthew shook his head. “I’ve always found it amazing that you guys can deal with the gore. I’m way too much of a wimp.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s just part of the job. You know—the bodies. We just have to deal with them . . . it’s no big deal,” he lied, vigilantly avoiding eye contact with me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run to the restroom.” I presumed the words cadaver, gore, and bodies necessitated a receptacle.

  “Wow—that’s so cool. I wish Heidi and I were in different professions. It must be so interesting.”

  “Interesting is one way to put it,” I said, smiling.

  “So, do you like Charlie?” Puja whispered to me when Ludmila got up from the table. Before I could respond, Puja and I overheard the following: “So, Jay-ENTH, how do you feel as an Indian in the United States?” Charlie was a Helga Friedman protégé.

  “It’s Jay. And honestly, I don’t even think about it. I was born and raised in Washington DC and now live in Chicago, where lots of Indians live.” Jay stood up under the guise of wanting more food. “It’s the twenty-first century, man. And you live in New York. Every other person is Indian there.” Jay hit the road. Puja shook her head, annoyed. Sorry, Charlie.

  The dining room was restless, as Indians aren’t much for lengthy, seated meals. I took advantage of the sudden commotion to slip downstairs, the location of the secret basement bathroom. I maneuvered my way past Aunty Roma’s prize-winning collection of clutter, a distinction earned from her steadfast refusal to discard anything, ever. Why throw away used wrapping paper when it can sit in your basement for decades?

  I heard murmurings and peered around the corner—and gasped! Sitting Indian-style, in between a life-size Pink Panther stuffed animal and a dilapidated Sit’n Spin,
were Sanjay and Ludmila.

  “What the fuck!” I screamed.

  Sanjay looked up, frozen with terror. “It’s . . . it’s not what you think!” he blurted, grease dribbling from his mouth. I didn’t know what to think. In one hand, he was clutching a half-eaten turkey leg; with the other, he was pulling on the wishbone. Ludmila, his competitor, was rubbing Sanjay’s knee with her free hand.

  “You’re eating turkey?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Sheila, it’s, it’s—”

  “It’s bullshit!” I yelled. “You . . . you closeted meat-eating hypocrite!”

  Sanjay tried to stand but got tangled in his surroundings. “Shhhh . . . Sheila, my mother will hear you. She’ll kill me if she knows. Please—just please don’t tell her,” he implored, peering through the panther’s fuzzy pink legs.

  “Tell her about us, Sanj, about us!” Ludmila begged, pulling the wishbone in opposite directions by herself. It snapped and she held up the larger portion. “Look, I won,” she announced victoriously.

  “I don’t need anyone to tell me anything,” I seethed. “You know what, Sanjay—if you wanted out of the relationship, all you had to do was break up with me. But cheating on me? It’s humiliating. And you certainly didn’t have to make me feel bad about the meatballs.”

  “Sheila, Sheila, I’m sorry, it’s just that my mother would have been so mad. She was dying for us to get married.”

  “How could such a brave physician be so scared of his mother?” With that, I ran back up the stairs and stormed past Charlie, who was muttering something about “hegemony” and “disenfranchisement” to Uncle Bharat.

  “Mom,” I whispered to her, “I can’t explain it right now, but I have to leave immediately.” She looked shocked. I squeezed her arm. “It’s all fine. Matthew and I are going to take the Buick. Someone can give you guys a ride home, right?” I smiled, trying to assure her that nobody was about to die. Before she could insist on leaving with me, I peeled Matthew away from a plate of cutlets in the kitchen, snatched the keys from my father’s jacket, and was out the door.