Well-Behaved Indian Women

by Saumya Dave

  Eighteen

  Simran

  A year and a half ago, Kunal barely slept the night before his first day of medical school. He switched between lying on his stomach and then his back for a few hours before giving up and going for a run. He came back around six thirty a.m., his body draped in sweat and rain, his curls seeming darker and more defiant than usual.

  Holy crap, he’s starting medical school, Simran thought as she tried memorizing all the details of the morning. It was too early for the New York cacophony that usually reverberated through his windows, but the stillness illuminated the reality: they were embarking on a new chapter together. Again.

  Simran got out of bed during Kunal’s seven-minute shower, brushed her teeth, and made him a fresh cup of green tea. His suit for the first-day orientation was already hanging in the closet. She made a whole-wheat egg-white sandwich and put it into his reusable lunch bag. Her parents usually drank their morning chai together, but if one of them had to leave early, the other would have a warm mug of it ready on the kitchen counter.

  Twenty minutes later, Kunal was ready to go, thermos and anticipation in hand. Simran plucked some stray lint off his suit jacket while he slipped into his only pair of dress shoes, handed down by his father.

  “You’re going to be amazing,” Simran said as they both stood at his door. She didn’t know if it was his suit or the fact that the sun still wasn’t up, but something about the moment hit her. We’re grown-ups. Somewhere between the back seat of his Honda Accord and endless packets of Easy Mac, she and Kunal had become adults. Together.

  “I hope so,” he responded before squeezing Simran’s hand. It was the first time she had seen him nervous about anything.

  They held hands throughout the five flights of stairs. Simran wanted to be with him until he left the building. They kissed—the type of tasteful kiss she used to see wives gives their husbands in movies—and he stepped onto the sidewalk, his black umbrella releasing over his head. The rain had become even more threatening in the past hour, and every drop exploded on the sidewalk like a tiny shooting star.

  “Shit,” he said with a sigh as he gave the sky an irritated glance. “I hope I’m not late.”

  “You’re more than thirty minutes ahead of schedule. You’re fine.”

  He gave Simran another kiss, this time sneakily grabbing her butt (something he always did when she wore sweat pants).

  Simran watched him saunter to the intersection, eyes forward. She leaned against the doorway as she studied his straight, broad shoulders.

  Kunal turned around when the “walk” signal lit up. They exchanged smiles, and Simran blew him a kiss, aware that she looked far from cute in her glasses and haphazard pajamas.

  But then, in the midst of all his anxiety and rush, Kunal started jogging back toward her. The umbrella fell to his side, and Simran screamed, “You’re going to get wet!”

  He kept going.

  Simran stepped out of the doorway and met him on the sidewalk.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, holding her arms into the air. “Did you forget something?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head as a grin lit up his face. “I just had to kiss you again.”

  “Aw, really?” she gushed, and elevated onto her tiptoes.

  He lifted her face toward his. They stood there, ignoring the swollen traffic. A few minutes passed until she watched him stride back toward the intersection until he disappeared.

  * * *

  — —

  Now, the rain drums on Kunal’s bedroom window as he and Simran lay next to each other, their chests rising and falling post-hookup.

  “You know, I’ve really missed us feeling like us,” Simran says, resting her bare legs on Kunal’s. “And you’ve been putting in so much effort. It’s meant a lot to me.”

  He shifts up, cups her chin, and kisses her. “Of course.”

  She pushes herself off his single, flat pillow. They twist under the sheets, their nakedness peeking out. The sunlight is split by the dusty shades. When she leans forward to kiss Kunal, he seems unfamiliar, as though her internal tectonic plates have shifted.

  Simran starts dozing off later that afternoon. Kunal kisses her and shuffles out of bed, muttering something about getting a strong start preparing for the head and neck anatomy final.

  Simran wakes up when it’s dark outside. She steps out of bed and finds Kunal in the living room, scanning through something on her laptop. He’s deep in thought and doesn’t even look up when she enters the room.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  He doesn’t respond and just turns her laptop around. An old online conversation between Neil and Simran is on the screen.

  Simran inches closer to see the contents, but all she can manage to read is Neil saying, “You make me happy.”

  “Y . . . you,” she stammers, “were going through my e-mail? The archives of my e-mail?”

  “Fuck yeah I was going through your trash,” Kunal confirms, his voice raising. “And I’m glad I did.”

  Simran digs her feet into the thin carpet. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I was curious. And you know what? I didn’t think there would be anything to find. But then I come across this”—he points to the screen—“and it’s just awesome. Fucking awesome.”

  “It’s not like that,” Simran insists, her chest heaving. “Anymore.”

  “Anymore? Anymore? What the fuck does that even mean? Are there other conversations like this?”

  When Simran doesn’t answer, Kunal stands up and yells, “ARE THERE?”

  Blood pounds in her ears. She nods.

  Kunal clutches the flimsy coffee table and hurls it backward. Simran’s laptop falls on the floor, still open. He slams the lid.

  “Don’t do this,” Simran says, hesitant to touch him. “Please.”

  Kunal turns to face her.

  “Please,” Simran says again, her voice cracking.

  His eyes are wide. He’s taking deep, heavy breaths. “What the fuck ever went on with you guys?”

  The question seems to echo. Simran takes two steps backward. She could tell him everything, but then he’d be hurt, and what would really be the point? Just to make herself feel better for confessing? Or, she could put everything with Neil behind her, them, and they could move on. She could get over Neil with him. She pictures she and Kunal ten years from now. Both of them coming home from work, stretching out on the couch, drinking Pinot Noir out of bulbous glasses with thin stems. All of this would be so far behind them, it would be as if it never happened. Just a tiny blip in their story.

  But then what would that make them? What kind of start is that to a marriage? And after everything they’ve been through, doesn’t Kunal deserve honesty? Simran remembers the time he found out a professor gave him a C on a biology project without even looking at it, which Kunal learned after he met the professor during office hours and demanded a correction. The professor had a history of giving out arbitrary grades based on how much he liked a student. It wasn’t the grade that upset Kunal; it was the unfairness. He’s the type of man who has always based everything on principle.

  Simran pictures Neil’s glasses, the lines around his eyes, his wide smile. She stands up straight and says, “I . . . had feelings for him.”

  “Wow, that’s just fucking great.” Kunal pounds the sofa with his fist. “You had feelings for that asshole.”

  Somehow, him saying that out loud pushes her to continue. She can’t stop now.

  “We kissed,” Simran says, the syllables spilling out. “Once.”

  She pictures this scene as a comic strip. Her confession captured within a cloud above their heads. Kunal and Simran frozen in space. Some moments are like that. Frozen. She is officially that kind of woman. A cheater. A liar.

  “You kissed him?” Kunal furrows his thick brows, a
s if he’s trying to figure out a difficult test question.

  “Yes, that night we, we—”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he says, cutting her off. “You’re actually standing here, telling me that you cheated on me?”

  “Yes.” Simran feels pressure behind her eyes. She wishes the ground would open up and swallow her.

  She waits for him to yell or throw something or punch the wall. Or all three.

  Instead, he falls backward onto the black futon. He covers his face with his large hands. Simran sits next to him as he mutters something under his breath. He presses his feet into the ground, and she sees that his socks have holes in the big-toe areas. Him showing defeat stings far more than anger would.

  She rubs his lower back, surprised when he doesn’t flinch away. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her words are stupid and weak. She had envisioned this confession over and over again but still can’t think of something better to say.

  Kunal shakes his head.

  “Please, say something,” Simran says. Bitch me out. Call me names.

  There’s a key in the front door. Kunal’s roommate Vik, who works nine to two every day at a marketing firm and somehow manages to come home for a nap every afternoon.

  Once they hear Vik’s room door close, Kunal turns to her and says, “When Rekha kissed me, I pushed her away. But you didn’t push Neil away, did you?”

  Simran thinks back to that moment. Neil’s woodsy scent. Her nails digging into his arms, his thick hair. The edges of his glasses pressing against her cheek.

  “No, I didn’t push him away,” she says.

  In high school, she used to wonder how Kunal would react if he thought she cheated on him. She expected him to curse and threaten. Not talk to her ever again.

  But now, he looks up. “How could you not tell me that? This whole time? The feelings, the kissing? All of it? How could I have not noticed?” His tone is more surprised than accusatory. And somehow, he even seems calm. Maybe it’s a combination of counseling, age, and shock, but he’s exactly the opposite of how she thought he’d be.

  Simran shrugs. “You were really busy. Sometimes withdrawn. I mean, first we were fighting when you were in Africa, then you came back and we got caught up in wedding planning drama and our families and then, I don’t know, we just kept going on that way.”

  Kunal gets up and walks to the kitchen. She hears him remove a glass from the cabinet and fill it with water. He comes back into the living room.

  His Adam’s apple constricts as he takes large gulps of water. “So, now where do we go from here?”

  Simran raises her eyebrows. That’s it? Their betrayals just evaporated into thin air? They could be angry about something as stupid as a text message for days and then this was over in a matter of minutes?

  “I don’t know,” Simran says. “I think that because we’re really different from each other, we have to put in even more effort to make the other person happy, and that can be tough, but when we don’t, we open ourselves up to a lot of . . . issues. Maybe that’s just what it comes down to: how hard you’re willing to try. And I know you have been trying, with counseling and all.”

  Kunal nods, considering this. “I guess that’s why you were drawn to Neil. Maybe you just needed someone who listened to you. Understood you.”

  “Maybe,” Simran says, thinking that there is no single reason to pinpoint why you can have an instant and intense connection with someone.

  “But I don’t want to constantly fight when I leave for my trips,” Kunal says. “Or think that something bad is going to happen just because I have a demanding job. What about when I do Doctors Without Borders after residency? Am I going to have to worry about something like this happening again?”

  “No,” Simran says. “We’ll take those incidents as they come, and we’ll be married by then, so we’ll be taking both of our schedules into account when you make those type of trips.”

  Kunal frowns. “You know, when people are married, they don’t have to put their lives on hold.”

  She glares at him. “Who’s talking about putting anything on hold?”

  “Nobody. I’m just telling you this now so you can’t throw it back in my face later. You shouldn’t expect me to stop everything just because we make a commitment.”

  He walks around the coffee table. “In Africa and Costa Rica, I met people who stay there for big chunks of time and some others who live there for good. I could see us doing that one day. It would let me practice the way I always imagined.”

  “Now you want to live in one of these places?”

  “Sure,” he says, as though he just suggested they move to Jersey City. “A lot of people do it. Their wives are all friends with one another. The kids play together. It’s not so bad.”

  Kunal sent Simran a New Yorker article the other day about Paul Farmer. In the body of his e-mail, Kunal wrote, “This guy is incredible.” Which he was (it’s difficult not to be incredible when you devote your life to treating sick people in Haiti). But with Kunal’s ideal arrangement, only he gets to be the Paul Farmer.

  Simran’s problem this entire time hasn’t been Kunal’s absence. It’s been his attitude. He’s content with her being one of the tinier accessories of his life. He’s okay with them simply filling their default roles.

  “What about my career?” Simran asks. “I’m going to stay in India after our shopping trip.”

  “But that’s just this time. And because we’re already going for our wedding shopping. I didn’t think being in India was going to be a regular thing.”

  “Maybe it will be a regular thing,” she says. “I could see things going that way.”

  “I wasn’t aware that’s what you had in mind,” he says, frowning.

  “Well, now you are aware,” she says.

  “Where is this coming from?” he asks.

  Simran refuses to back down. “It’s always been there. I’ve just suppressed all this stuff for years to try to be someone I’m not. And I’m sick of it. I’m not doing it anymore. So I’m asking you, after we’re married, if I also need to travel so I can teach and write, will you be okay with that? Will you be okay with us having a long-distance marriage because of my ambitions?”

  “Simran, I don’t understand why you always have to stir the pot for circumstances that aren’t even occurring.”

  “So now I’m stirring the pot because I’m asking if things will be fair?”

  “No, it’s just that I didn’t think you’d be this way. I mean, my mom handled everything with my dad’s job, and I don’t remember her bitching every chance she could. Why can’t you just learn how to deal?”

  “Why can’t I?” Simran asks, her voice raising more than she’d like it to. “Maybe because I’m not your mom, Kunal. I wasn’t raised that way. Hell, you know my own mom isn’t even like that.”

  “You’re right,” Kunal agrees. “Your mom’s controlling. Whatever she wants, goes.”

  “Fuck you,” Simran blurts, smug when he raises his eyebrows in surprise. “You have no idea what my parents’ marriage is like.”

  “Maybe I don’t entirely,” he says. “But I get worried that that’s how you’ll want to live your life in the future. I want to do things for the world and lead a simple life. Have someone to come home to who I can rely on. I’d hope you would respect that. And I’ve always needed you to make things happen.”

  Yes, you get to be the honorable doctor who gives free services to dying children. I should be so grateful to just be next to you while your noble needs are catered to.

  “I want to do things for the world, too,” Simran says. “I know I don’t travel to all these places to treat sick people, but I’m also planning my own ways to contribute.”

  “But it’s still different,” he insists. “You know that I don’t care to live in a big house or d
rive a nice car or take a lot of extravagant vacations to God knows where. I mean, I’ve thought about even getting a job in med school because of all the loans I’ve had to take out. And when it comes to an opulent life, I just . . . I don’t respect that. Not at all.”

  A new life sprawls out in front of her, one spent justifying her tastes and interests, proving herself day in and out. She feels the blood rushing to her face as she soaks in the truth, his truth.

  Simran glances at her outstretched hand. The diamond ring appears lifeless under this fluorescent light, like it’s trying too hard.

  “Both of us seem to want incompatible things in life,” Simran says, her voice becoming hushed.

  He sighs. “Look, people have differences and they figure them out. It’s not a big deal.”

  Simran raises her now-quivering voice. “It’s a big deal to me. I want someone who wants to call me and make me a priority. Make my career a priority. Someone who loves and respects my family. And you know, at times, you do that, a lot of that . . . but it always seems to go away. The other day, Sheila was telling me about all these things Alex does for her, and I started feeling jealous. Jealous. Of my friend who is going through something so difficult.”

  “Seriously? This again?” Kunal asks, and she almost wishes she could retract her words. Almost. “It’s so fucking annoying when you compare me to other guys. It’s like I can never be good enough. You act as if you’re doing me such a big fucking favor by putting up with me. But you know what? You’re no walk in the park, either, Simran. The other day, I was in such a good mood and then I thought, ‘Damn it, I have to go see her tonight. She’s probably going to be pissed about something. But of course she won’t tell me what it is; she’ll just bottle it all up.’”

  He catches Simran blinking away tears but continues talking. “You know, if you want things to change, then why don’t you go ahead and be the fucking change? Did you ever think about that?”