“Ma, if Sharan knew, you would never have met your granddaughter. Samar wanted very much to meet you. And you and Papa have been crying for years to see your only grandchild.”
“Hiyo rubba!” Nani exclaims, slapping her hands together in prayer and looking up at the ceiling. She gives Nana a horrified look and asks, “You hear this, Ji?” And then, to Uncle Sandeep, “Sandeep, this is very bad. If Sharanjit discovers this deceit, she will certainly say we had a hand in the treachery!” She steps back from the counter, wrapping her scarf tighter around her shoulders. Splotches of pink dot her cashew-colored face. “Hiyo rubba, it will make everything much worse! If there is any faint hope of ever making amends with Sharanjit, you have canceled it today!”
“Your mother is right, Sandeep,” Nana booms. “This is unacceptable. You must take Samar home and return only with Sharanjit’s consent.”
I feel like I’m standing on a single, flat stone while everything—all my hopes for this meeting—falls away into oblivion. I blurt out, “But wait! Mom will never agree…and I don’t want that to stop me from getting to know you!”
Nani cups my face in her hands. “Samar, beta, believe me, we will be a part of your life. But not like this. It must be done correctly. If we do not do it properly, we may lose Sharanjit, and you, forever. A thought I cannot bear.”
Nana shakes his head angrily. “Sandeep, this is your fault! You should know better!”
“Go, beta,” Nani says, her eyes tearing up. “Go and talk with your mother. Then come back…with her, and we will do this the right way.”
And that’s it. Before I know it, Uncle Sandeep and I are shuffled out the door.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” Uncle Sandeep says, once we’re in the car and on our way. “They’re right. I should’ve thought it out more. This was wrong, and I’m sorry if I raised your hopes. Papa’s right, it is my fault. I’m the adult. I should have known better.”
Plan A fizzled before it was even launched. Plan B was a bust. There is no Plan C. I stare out the window and gulp down the tears threatening to burst forth. “It’s all a mess,” I whisper.
Chapter 10
The Friday after Thanksgiving passes in a daze. I swing back and forth from despair at the way the day unfolded and absolute amazement at finally having met my grandparents. I avoid Mom at every turn and slowly inch my way into the paper for Lesiak.
Every time I approach the assignment, or even try to think about it, there’s some sort of invisible force pushing me away.
I go back to the morning of the attacks, but it’s like trying to keep a helium-filled balloon on the ground without tying it up. I keep wanting to float away from the memory. I start writing, hoping that it will anchor me somehow.
The first thing I remember is the vice principal coming over the PA system and announcing that, due to an emergency, school would be closing for the day. She advised all students to go directly home. No one knew what was going on, but from the tone of her voice, everyone knew something was up.
The students around me darted nervous glances at one another. The Columbine shootings flashed through my head as I quickly packed up my books from first period. Then, within minutes, it got around: A plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. By the time Molly and I grabbed our things from our lockers and headed toward the bus stop, news had gotten around that a second plane had hit the other tower. Molly and I grabbed each other’s hands tightly and rushed out of the building toward the crowded bus stop.
But Mom was already outside by the curb, waiting, along with a number of other parents. She grabbed me and held me close for a moment before drawing Molly into the embrace as well. We drove over to the MacFaddens’ and watched the horror unfold on TV with the rest of America. There were a lot of tears, cups of tea, and hugs.
Mom and I left when it became too much to bear, and went home to our quiet little house. I wanted to stay with Molly and her family, where someone was always close by offering warmth or a hand-squeeze. I remember crawling into bed with Mom that night, for the first time since I was a little girl.
School was not canceled, but Molly and I, like many other students, stayed home for the rest of the week. Although Mom saw no clients in person, she took some emergency calls from panicked clients who were alone during that time. The days immediately after the attacks were jittery ones filled with a lot of sadness. Molly and I hung out every day, at her place or mine. Mom made us stop watching the news coverage that we had become helplessly entranced by, and she brought home several videos to take our minds off the attacks, if only for a few hours. I have to admit that it did help.
Then, the Saturday after the eleventh, Mom suggested that Molly and I go shopping for a bit. She dropped us off and went home to have a session with one of her Saturday clients. Molly met up with her dad for lunch, and I took the bus home with my new pedicure kit.
That’s when I first saw my uncle Sandeep on our doorstep.
I stop writing for a moment to reflect on my first impressions of my uncle, and the fact that the attacks on September eleventh were what prompted him to seek me and Mom out in the first place. I wonder how Mom could not want to be around her family at a time like that. I wonder why it never occurred to her to seek out her family like Uncle Sandeep did.
I swallow the little pit of bitterness in my throat and turn to the research I’ve done online. So far, I have about thirteen pages of notes. Balvir was right; there are a lot of similarities between Pearl Harbor and what happened in New York City, but like Uncle Sandeep said, there are a lot of differences, too.
My head is swimming in notes and memories when Molly calls.
“Hey, Wally!”
“Moll! When are you guys getting home?”
“We’re driving in late tonight, so come over tomorrow morning, okay? I can’t wait to hear all about it!”
“It was awful.”
“I know, I got your message. Come for breakfast, okay?”
“Okay. How’s it going with Great-Aunt Maggie?”
I can almost hear her eye roll. “Same ol’, same ol’.”
That girl has no appreciation for what she’s got.
The next morning Molly and I are in her room after a breakfast of lemon-ricotta pancakes that Molly whipped up. In theory they should be delicious, but in reality, they’re more like lemony Frisbees.
“Go back to your mom, and maybe be a lot smarter about it this time? It’s the only logical next step,” Molly says, putting the finishing touches on her pinky toenail. She’s painting it Granny Smith Apple green.
“If this was your mother, that might be the logical next step. With my mother, the logical next step is a quick dive off the Empire State Building, Moll.”
She drops her head to the side. “It’s not that bad.”
Molly’s lack of comprehension is getting on my nerves. “Maybe not for you.”
“Look.” She stops painting to look up. “You got to meet them. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“I want more than that! I want what other people have…what you have with your family…I want my peeps.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Peeps?” She screws the top back on the polish and blows on her toenails. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Sam. There’s a lot of crap that comes with the package.” She waddles on her heels to her dresser. “What color do you want?”
“Fine—give me the crap. I want the whole package…black.”
She pulls out the squeeze bottle of henna she bought from the tattoo shop in town. “You have no idea what you’re asking for…people nosing into your business, giving you their opinions on everything you do, from your hair to your toenail polish to your boyfriends…where do you want it?”
“Just underneath my collarbone.” I pull my sweater down from the neckline. “You don’t seem to understand. I want people in my business…people other than my self-centered, egotistical mother. If it’s just me and her for the rest of my life, I swear I’m going to make that trip to th
e Empire State Building.”
“Then you have to come up with a new plan.” She squeezes the thick liquid onto my skin in curlicues and soft ripples. It’s a design I picked from ones she has in her portfolio. That’s her secret. Although her parents want her to be a lawyer, Molly’s real talent is beauty.
“Or go back to Plan B,” I say miserably.
“Don’t move,” she says, dabbing a cotton ball soaked in lime juice and sugar water on the raised henna tattoo. “You have to hold your sweater like that for at least thirty minutes.”
“No way.” I squirm out of my sweater. “Do you have a sweatshirt with a zipper up the front?”
She throws one next to me. “Plan B means convincing Uncle Sandeep again.”
“That might not be as hard,” I say, slipping my arms through the sweatshirt. “He wants this as much as I do, I think.”
“Which is why he doesn’t want to piss off your mom.” She stands back, admiring her work. “Nice,” she says with a pleased nod. She pulls out another bottle of henna mix, the one that leaves a deep tangerine stain on the skin, and grins, wiggling her eyebrows up and down. “I like the authentic stuff.” She starts a design on her forearm, from the inside of her elbow to the inside of her wrist.
I watch her work for a moment. She’s completely absorbed in the lines and dots she squeezes out of the bottle. She lays the final squiggle down with a flourish.
“Gorgeous, Moll,” I whisper.
“Thanks,” she says, holding her arm out and appraising it. “I hope that new basketball player notices. Diego, I think his name is.”
“I’m sure he’s noticed you already, Moll.”
She looks up. “Hey, what’s going on with you and Mike?”
“He had Thanksgiving dinner at his cousin’s. I’m going to see him tomorrow night.”
“Are you guys all right?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Things seem…different somehow.”
She nods. “He seems different now that he’s working all the time.”
“It’s something else, too. He’s got a problem with Uncle Sandeep, and—”
“What kind of problem?”
“I don’t know. He just seems pissed off and bitter all the time.”
“Hmm,” she says, looking down at her arm again. “Gotta watch out for that.”
Mike’s mom is home when I arrive for dinner on Sunday night. All the windows are open, and she’s fanning thick smoke out of the kitchen. “Hello, Sammy! Come on in, I’m burning dinner.”
“Hi, Mrs. Brezinsky.” I take off my coat and start fanning the fumes with her.
She laughs. “Looks like we’ll be ordering pizza!”
Mike stomps down the stairs. “Hey, Sam,” he says, bending down to brush my lips with his. “I’m calling Nonno Frankie’s. Any requests?”
“Mushrooms!” his mother shouts over the exhaust fan.
I shrug. “I’m easy.”
He gives me a “yeah, right” look and goes to the living room to order. I follow behind him and tuck my legs underneath me on one end of the big cream-colored leather sofa. Mrs. Brezinsky collapses next to me.
“It would’ve been a perfect soufflé,” she says, brushing mahogany strands out of her eyes.
I look at her hair, the color of rich earth with thick white roots tangled throughout, and how it bleeds into warm mahogany about half an inch up from her scalp. I give her a reassuring smile. “I’m sure it would have, Mrs. B.”
She sighs and nods, the slender fingers of one hand raking her hair back. Her face, which on a good night is as pale as the moon, is even paler tonight, making her Cindy Crawford mole rise like a little black hill at the corner of her mouth.
“Mmm,” she says, crossing her legs. “What’s on television tonight, anything good?”
Mike hangs up the phone and clicks the remote. He flips through until he lands on The Simpsons, one of his favorite shows.
His mother swings her top leg slightly. “How was your Thanksgiving, Sammy? What did you and your mother have?”
“My mom’s not big on Thanksgiving.” I say, smoothing my skirt down over my thighs. “She sometimes makes a small dinner for us, or we order in early before everything closes.”
“Oh,” she says. “Well, we went to visit one of Mike’s cousins in Pennsylvania for the day.”
“It sucked, as usual,” Mike mutters.
She gives him a look. “It wasn’t so bad, Michael.”
He keeps his eyes on the TV. “It was so bad. Every year’s the same—Judy gets pissed drunk and yells at Bob for cheating on her ten years ago, Laura cuts her kids down in front of everyone, and we all hate each other by the time it’s over.”
She purses her mouth. “There are good parts to it too.”
“Yeah, the booze.”
The doorbell rings. Mrs. B. gets up to answer it. “That’s not funny,” she says over her shoulder.
“That was fast!” she says flirtatiously to the delivery guy.
Mike rolls his eyes and says loudly, “They’re around the corner, Mom.”
“It was still fast,” she snaps.
I reach across to touch Mike’s arm. “How’s work?”
“It’s all right,” he says, pushing the recliner back. “They’re piling on the work before the holidays, so everyone’s doing twice their share, or more. But we don’t get paid overtime, we get to bank the time and take it off later, in order of seniority.”
His mother comes in with the pizza and some plates and napkins. She sets everything down on the coffee table in front of us. “Seems like that’s the scene everywhere,” she says.
“Phil Taylor and Todd Hamilton got fired last week. The company’s hiring illegals under the table for pennies a day.”
His mother shakes her head. “I hope they tighten those borders like they said they would. Especially now—it’s such a scary world out there.”
My stomach clenches. Phil Taylor…Rick Taylor’s brother. I nibble at my slice.
Homer Simpson’s at the Kwik-E-Mart, and Mike cracks up when Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Indian owner with a heavy accent, starts talking. I put my slice down and stare quietly at the screen.
I’ve watched Apu at least a dozen times before with Mike and never had this feeling. I never thought it was uproariously funny like some of the kids at school or Mike did, but it never really bothered me either. Or did it, and I just ignored it?
I think of Nani and Nana with their heavily accented, proper English. What would Mike think when…if…he ever met them? Would he see pride and dignity? Or would he see Apu at the Kwik-E-Mart? And Uncle Sandeep? Even though he has no accent, there’s the beard and the turban. What would Mike see?
I feel a swirling, sinking feeling. A feeling of being exposed, and at the same time, completely invisible.
“What’s up, Sammy?” Mike asks. “You haven’t touched your pizza.”
I look at the slice. “I’m actually not feeling well.”
Mrs. B. looks at me in concern. “Let me get you something. Pepto-Bismol, Midol, Tums…?”
I shake my head. “I think I need to go home.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, brow wrinkled. “Maybe if you lie down for a moment…?”
I shake my head again and put my hand on my roiling belly. I try to breathe, to calm myself down.
“Come on,” Mike says, getting up. “I’ll take you.”
Mrs. B. helps me on with my coat, and Mike takes my hand.
The frigid air feels good when we step outside. He looks at my face as we walk to the car. “You gonna hurl?”
I shake my head.
“Got diarrhea?”
I smile in spite of myself. “No.” Mike’s ability to make me smile under almost any circumstance is one of the qualities that hooked me on him in the first place.
We get into the car and he turns the heat up full blast. “If you fart, I’m opening all the windows. Let’s get that straight right up front.” He looks at me with his goofy grin, the
one that kicks my temperature up a notch.
I roll my eyes, still smiling a little. “It’s not gas.”
“Then what is it?” he asks, pulling out of the driveway and onto the main road.
I stop smiling and stare out the passenger-side window. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just…I don’t think The Simpsons is that funny.”
He gives me an “are you crazy?” look. “It’s hilarious. That’s why you’re feeling sick?”
My stomach flips again. “I don’t think it’s funny to make fun of that Indian guy….”
“You’re joking, right? Tell me you’re not serious.”
I say nothing.
“Sammy, it’s a cartoon. They’re laughing, joking, ha-ha…get it? The show makes fun of everyone!”
“I know, but…” I look at my knees, then turn to look at him. “It’s not funny…to me.” In my mind, the image of Mike coming face-to-face with Nani and Nana and their Apu-like accents sprouts tall and dark, like a giant fir tree blocking the sun.
He leans back in his seat. “You’re changing, Sammy.”
I stare at him, my mouth ajar. “I’m changing? I’m changing? Mike, no one has changed as much as you have in the last year! You are nothing like the guy you were when we first met—ask anyone! Even Molly has noticed….”
“So you and Molly talk about me—about what a jerk I am?”
“No, it’s not like that….”
I see the muscle at his jaw jump as he steers with one hand. “Well, maybe we’ve both done some changing. You used to be way more fun. Now you’re way too serious…you can’t even take a joke. I mean, come on—The Simpsons? Everybody thinks it’s funny. Let loose a little. Life is too tough to get that serious.” He pauses. “Is it your uncle?”
There’s a note in his voice that sends a chill through all the layers I’m wearing. A chill that wakes something up inside me.
“This has nothing to do with my uncle,” I say coldly. “This is about me…seeing things differently—more clearly—than I’ve ever seen them before.”
Shine, Coconut Moon Page 10