I wish I could answer, but I don’t know what to think. I swallow hard and look down at my list of “Things to Learn about My Culture.” Then I look at my “List of Resources” next to it: Internet, library, Uncle Sandeep. And the last line I jotted down: Where to start?!?
For the first time ever in a classroom setting, I feel stupid. Like a mixture of doo-doo skin, coconut, and bonehead, all rolled up into a lump.
Chapter 5
Molly spends all day pointedly ignoring me, while being hermetically sealed to Bobbi Lewis’s armpit. By the end of the day, I can’t take it anymore. I grab my books from my locker and sprint to hers before she has a chance to duck out.
When I round the corner, she’s slamming her locker shut and searching the halls. I almost run her over in my hurry.
“Hey,” I say, breathless. She gives me a look that could refreeze melting polar ice caps, and continues searching the halls.
“Moll—come on, we’re best friends.”
“We were best friends,” she says, icing me with her eyes.
“We still are, Moll.” I’m almost pleading. I lower my voice. “You’ve got to be sick of Bobbi by now.”
She juts her chin out. “Bobbi happens to be a great friend.”
My jaw unhinges. “Since when?”
“And she’s not a reverse racist, like you.”
“A what?”
Just then Molly stands on her tiptoes, waving madly. I turn to look over my shoulder, and Bobbi, looking like bronzed caramel with waist-length extensions, rounds the bend with a couple of her ladies-in-waiting. I feel the breeze as Molly rushes past me. I stand rooted to the spot, my mouth still open.
When I finally clear my head and look around, they’re all out of sight. I walk slowly toward the exit. A reverse racist? She can’t be serious! And Bobbi Lewis—a great friend? No way. Molly has either gone bonkers, or she’s really trying to piss me off. And knowing her like I do, it has to be the latter.
When I come out into the sunlight, I pull my coat tighter around my neck. I notice that a few lone brown leaves still cling to swaying branches. I hook my thumbs through the straps of my backpack, then freeze.
At the bottom of the hill, Molly and Bobbi are giggling and in animated conversation with someone in a car. Someone in a sea-green Buick Regal, someone wearing a crimson turban.
My ears pound as I get closer. Molly morphs into the Ice Queen as soon as she sees me, and Bobbi inspects her manicure.
“Samar! I thought I would pick you up today, and look who I ran into—your friends Molly and Bobbi!”
I shove my hands into my pockets and say nothing. I know if I dare speak now, it’ll only come out as incoherent sputtering. Uncle Sandeep looks at my face, then at the other girls, and scrunches up his eyebrows. He nods, as if he just solved an equation.
“Girls,” he says to Molly and Bobbi, “can Samar and I give you a lift somewhere?”
“No, thanks,” Bobbi says, tilting her head to one side and smiling a dimpled smile. “I have my car in the lot.” She turns to Molly and gives her an air kiss on one cheek. “See you tomorrow, chica.” She gives me a half nod and bounces away.
Molly looks only at Uncle Sandeep. “Thanks, but I’d rather walk, Uncle Sandeep.”
Again I have the sudden urge to tell her he is not her uncle—she has a million of her own to choose from. But instead I walk around to the passenger side and get in. Thank God she didn’t say yes.
“Oh, come on, Molly,” Uncle Sandeep says. “You’re on the way, and it’s getting rather chilly now. It’s only a few moments in the car—you’ll be home before you know it.”
Molly looks at me and purses her lips. She looks back at Uncle Sandeep and seems to consider the offer. I hold my breath. Don’t get in, don’t get in, don’t get in….
“You’re right—it is a pretty quick ride…”
Don’t get in, don’t get in….
“Okay, I’ll get in.” She climbs in, slams the door, and buckles her seat belt, while I grind my teeth.
Uncle Sandeep darts glances alternately at me and at Molly in the rearview mirror.
“How was school?” he asks, looking at neither of us in particular. I look in the side mirror on the passenger door and see Molly open her mouth to speak.
I blurt out, “Molly made a new friend.”
She closes her mouth.
I can tell she’s wishing she never got in. Good.
Uncle Sandeep raises his eyebrows and looks in the rearview mirror at Molly. “Is that so?”
“Bobbi is not a new friend,” she says tersely. “Samar and I have known Bobbi almost as long as we’ve known each other. We just never bothered to get to know her better.”
I shake my head and turn around. “Excuse me?”
Uncle Sandeep nods earnestly.
“Yes, it’s very important to give people the benefit of the doubt,” he says. “You never know how much you might have in common with another person unless you put your fears aside. Good for you, Molly.”
Molly nods gravely. “Yeah, I’m glad I gave her a chance.”
I’m floored. I want to bang some cymbals together and wake Molly up from her delusional fantasy. “Fears? ‘Gave her a chance’? We weren’t afraid of Bobbi Lewis—she’s a stuck-up rich girl who thinks she’s better than everyone else! At least that’s what Molly said earlier this year.”
“Maybe it’s time to grow up,” she shoots back. “Maybe some of us are ready to move on and up.”
On and up?!?
Uncle Sandeep rounds a corner. I begin to fire a smart comment back when something loud thuds against Uncle Sandeep’s door. He swerves into oncoming traffic and swerves quickly back into his own lane. Another couple of thuds, then a loud clanging sound as something hits the rear window.
“Duck down, girls!” Uncle Sandeep shouts.
“What the hell is that?” Molly yells from behind. I crane my neck to see what’s happening. An earthquake? A tornado?
What I see is three guys standing on one side of the road, pelting debris at Uncle Sandeep’s car. They hurl bags of garbage and soda cans from the curb.
Uncle Sandeep rolls down his window. “Stop—wait!” he yells.
“Go back home, Osama! No bombs on civilians here, asshole, this is America!”
I sit up, my body vibrating like a guitar string. I recognize those voices. They’re Rick Taylor, Chuck Banfield, and Simon Monroe. Guys I’ve known since grade school, whose voices make me want to run. Rick Taylor and Chuck Banfield ambushed me regularly in second grade, before I started hanging out with the right people—namely Molly and her friend Anna, before Anna moved away to Hawaii.
Molly’s eyes are wider than mine. “What the f—!” she breathes, then darts a look at Uncle Sandeep. “What the hell are those guys thinking?”
Uncle Sandeep shakes his head as he whizzes through traffic and speeds away. “Nothing new,” he says, glancing back over his shoulder. “The last couple of months have been like this.”
“Why would they do that? Why would they call you Osama? You’re not anything like him…you didn’t do anything!” Molly says in astonishment. I breathe deep. My nails are digging into the seat.
“Tell them that,” Uncle Sandeep says, pointing his thumb behind us. “Sikhs, Muslims, Arabs, Indians—it’s all the same to those guys.” He takes a shaky breath. “I understand the fear and suspicion, but this”—he waves around the car—“this is unnecessary!”
I finally find my voice and screech, “Why did you open your window? You could’ve been hit in the head by a soda can, or…worse!”
“I had to say something, Samar. They’re ignorant, those fellows.” He flips on the windshield wipers to clear some of the dirt from the windshield. “The only antidote to ignorance is education.”
I gawk at him. “So you wanted to give them a lesson? Do you think they care?”
“I have to do something. I can’t simply sit here and be afraid; they would think they’ve won.”
“I’m with Sammy on this one,” Molly says, looking shaken up. “I’d keep my windows up and drive real fast. They’ve never done anything to me, but I once saw those guys drive a nail through the shell of a live turtle just to see if they could.”
Uncle Sandeep pulls into Molly’s driveway and whips his head around to look at her. “You know them?” he asks, a note of dread in his voice.
Molly and I nod. “Since grade school,” I say.
“You girls be careful,” he says passionately. “They’ve seen you in this car with me.” He gives me a desperate look. “Don’t walk home alone, Samar. Always make sure you are not alone!”
“Don’t worry, Uncle Sandeep,” Molly says, leaning forward and putting a hand on my shoulder. “Sammy won’t be walking alone.”
He gives her a wobbly smile. “Good,” he says, “very good.”
My eyes fill. I want to say something to Molly, but I know I’ll unravel if I do. She gathers her bags. “See you tomorrow, Sam.” I nod, blinking back my tears.
When we get home, Mom is already upstairs, finished with her clients for the day. One look at my face and she flies to my side. “What happened, Sandeep?” she says sharply.
“Take a look at the car,” he says, shaking his head.
Mom walks over to the window.
“My God!” she breathes. “Were you in an accident?”
“It was no accident,” I say, collapsing into a chair and unlacing my boots.
Mom’s eyes harden as understanding seeps in. “We’ll file a police report,” she says firmly.
Uncle Sandeep walks to a seat and sinks into it. He puts his head in his hands. “Sharan, I’ve filed so many police reports…they must have a binder full by now.”
Mom explodes. “There must be something we can do! At least on the grounds of property damage, if nothing else, no? We can’t just let them get away with this!”
“Nothing was damaged, Sharan…just ended up with a dirty car.” He looks up at her with a puzzled expression. “You act as if this is something new, as if we didn’t grow up with it.”
She wrings her hands. “The name-calling, bullying…the schoolyard fights, yes. But for me and Sammy it hasn’t been the way it was when you and I were growing up; we’ve had far fewer incidents of this kind…at least until—”
“Until I came along,” he says softly. “This is what you ran away from. And here I am, bringing it all back to your doorstep.”
Mom doesn’t meet his eyes. “Sandeep, we’ve spoken about this ad nauseum. I left because I couldn’t breathe. I felt like hands were around my throat, day in and day out. I left because that”—she points out the window to Uncle Sandeep’s car—“was going on at school, and at home I wasn’t allowed to have a single free thought!”
“And all these years everything’s been fine because you could pretend you don’t belong to us.” He stands up. “You could run away, fit in, and cloak your differences—become an upstanding assimilated American.”
“Careful,” Mom says, her voice deadly calm.
“No, Sharan, you’ve had your say about Ma and Papa and me.” He walks to his coat and boots. “Why doesn’t Samar speak a stitch of Punjabi? Why has she no clue about her family? What does she know about her history, the struggles of her people?”
Mom’s hands clench at her sides. “I think you’d better leave now.”
“Fine,” he says, “but you need to hear it. Samar deserves better.” He looks at me. His lashes are wet. “Bye, Samar. You have my cell number—call me if you need anything at all.”
I nod, feeling like I’m being torn to shreds.
Mom bangs things around in the kitchen after Uncle Sandeep leaves, then gives up. “Can you just fend for yourself tonight, Sam? I’m tired,” she says with her back to me.
Fine by me. Sitting through dinner with her right now would be like Chinese water torture, slow and maddening.
I go upstairs and sit down at my desk. But my uncle’s words play a game of tag through my brain: This is what you ran away from.…You could pretend you don’t belong to us. I open a textbook to study, but the words jump in and out of my mind like puppies in a box. Why doesn’t Samar speak a stitch of Punjabi? Why has she no clue about her family?
I close the textbook and log on to my computer. I go immediately to Google. I type in “Sikh history” and get 158,392 listings. I click on the first one: a site with a squiggly character in 3-D and the phrase “One Creator. Universal Equality” scrolling across the top. Two minutes into reading about the ten guru prophets, my computer shuts down. I growl, boot it back up, and go to a different site.
On religioustolerance.org, I find:
Sikhism was founded by Shri Guru Nanak Dev Ji (1469–1538). At Sultanpur, he received a vision to preach the way to enlightenment and God. He taught a strict monotheism, the brotherhood of humanity. He rejected idol worship, and the oppressive Hindu concept of caste.
The name of the religion means “learner.” It is often mispronounced “seek.” It should be pronounced “se-ikh,” with the final kh sound like the kh in Mikhail Gorbachev.
Huh. Mom always pronounces it “seek,” but Uncle Sandeep says it the way you’d say “sick,” but with a harder k sound…I guess that’s what they meant by the Mikhail Gorbachev thing. I go back to the Google listings and click on another site, allaboutsikhs.com.
Over twenty million Sikhs follow a revealed, distinct, and unique religion born five centuries ago in the Punjab region of northern India. Between 1469 and 1708, ten Gurus preached a simple message of truth, devotion to God, and universal equality. Often mistaken as a combination of Hinduism and Islam, the Sikh religion can be characterized as a completely independent faith….
Sikhism…recognizes the equality between both genders and all religions…. Sikhs have their own holy scripture, Guru Granth Sahib. Written, composed, and compiled by the Sikh Gurus themselves, the Guru Granth Sahib serves as the ultimate source of spiritual guidance for Sikhs….
I’m so absorbed in what I’m reading that when my cell phone buzzes next to me, I almost scream. I flip it open. Mike.
“Hey,” I say, making my voice as normal as possible.
“I’m on my way,” he says. I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to stop reading. Between everything that happened on the way home from school and the fight between Uncle Sandeep and Mom, the heat and excitement I felt about tonight has deflated quite a bit.
“Still there?”
I try to muster up some enthusiasm. “Mm-hmm, yeah, I’m still here. Okay, see you soon.”
I hang up and look around in a daze. How do I go through an evening with Mike without telling him what’s going on? I don’t want to be a downer on his birthday, yet it’s almost all I can think about right now. In my head, the words I’ve been reading on my computer screen compete for air time with Uncle Sandeep’s words—What does she know about her history?
Okay, pull it together, Sammy.
I rifle through my closet. I’m no longer in the mood for Molly’s thigh-highs. I pull on a short skirt, black nylons with a tiger at the ankles, and a tight black sweater. Mike’s favorite outfit. The sweater is itchy as hell, but I’ll deal with it for tonight. You could cloak your differences…become an upstanding assimilated American. I’m shivering, but I can’t tell if it’s from the cold or the nuclear blasts detonating in my brain. It should be pronounced “se-ikh,” with the final kh sound like the kh in Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mike honks his horn outside. As I hurry down the stairs, I hear Mom grumbling. “Why doesn’t he come to the door like usual?” She looks out the window.
“Too cold out,” I say, grabbing my coat.
“That’s never stopped him before….” She eyes my outfit. “B
ut you’re not too worried about that, I suppose.”
I zip up my spiky, low-heeled boots. “Heated house to heated car.”
“Where are you two going?” She folds her arms across her chest and leans against the wall, watching me carefully.
I avoid eye contact. “We’re staying at his place, watching videos.”
“For his birthday?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s what he wants.”
“Then why the…outfit?”
“Because it’s his birthday.” As soon as I say it, I know it’s not enough of an answer. “We might go for a bite to eat or something.” Not entirely untrue.
“Is his mother home?”
“Yes.” Also not entirely untrue—there is a framed eight-by-ten of her on the wall. I finish buttoning my coat. “Are we done with the inquisition?”
She gives me a long, hard stare. “Be home by eleven. It’s a school night.”
“Bye,” I say, turning around and opening the door.
“Hey!” she says, pointing to her cheek.
I hesitate, then blow her a kiss and dash to Mike’s car.
“I gotta start calling you an hour before I get here,” he says as soon as I shut the door behind me.
As he backs out of the driveway, I reach for his hand. “Happy birthday to you,” I sing cheerily.
He grins, looking at my outfit. “It sure is.”
“What do you feel like watching?”
“A couple of guys from work wanted to meet me at Joe Junior’s for a bite to eat.”
“Do you want to go?”
He shrugs. “I told them we’d stop by.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t think you’d mind.” He looks at me. “Do you mind?”
“I guess not. It’s your birthday.”
Tonight is All-You-Can-Eat Wing Night, and Joe Junior’s is packed. We squeeze through the throngs to a table of guys I don’t know and their girlfriends. A few of the faces I recognize as guys who were in the same year as Mike at Melville.
Shine, Coconut Moon Page 5