by Saumya Dave
Only a guy like Zack would be intuitive enough to pick up on something like that.
NATASHA: I’ll see how she is when I talk to her. Will keep you posted.
She knows she should leave their room now. (Actually, she should have never gone in in the first place, but what’s done is done.)
But something keeps her rooted there. She’s not sure if it’s the buzz from the champagne or boredom or just good old-fashioned little-sister nosiness, but she can’t leave. On Suhani’s white bedside table there’s a candle from Anthropologie, a ring dish, a book titled Freud and Beyond, and, ah, the gold mine.
Suhani’s journal.
Natasha looks around even though she knows nobody else is in the apartment. Excitement rushes through her, the same type that she used to get when she’d press her ear against Suhani’s door and listen to her phone conversations.
She picks up the peony-covered notebook with the tips of her fingers, as if just one slip can result in it dissolving in her hands. The last page is dated earlier this week.
I’m worried Zack and I aren’t having enough sex. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I’m just not in the mood. Maybe I’m too tired or drained or something. I love living with him but sometimes I just come back from work and want my own space. All he wants to do is talk, talk, talk, and I feel like I hurt his feelings when I ask him to just give me a minute. And then when he does, his idea of giving me a minute is putting his mom on speakerphone! I know how selfish this is but sometimes I forget how we’re supposed to just embrace each other’s worlds in every single way.
Zack and Suhani are having issues like this? But everything between them always seems fine. Perfect.
Her thoughts are interrupted by her phone buzzing with a text.
The comedy club!
When Natasha gets up to grab her phone, she realizes she’s drunk. Very drunk.
MOM: I heard Karan is being set up with people!!!!! Call me now!!!
Her heart starts racing as she rereads the text. What does Mom mean, set up with people? Karan just proposed to her five minutes ago!
Mom has to be wrong. She’s been wrong so many times with her intel. Mira Auntie probably just said something and it got blown up. Because there’s no way Karan is being set up with anybody. He doesn’t exactly have initiative in the romance department, aside from the terribly timed proposal. Natasha had to teach him how to kiss, then touch her boobs, then do everything else. She often felt like a strict health teacher pointing out a woman’s anatomy.
She tells Mom she’s working and will call later.
The champagne’s starting to give her a headache. She sits on the corner of the bed. Maybe she should take a nap.
Her phone rings as she’s about to doze off.
“Hello?” She clears her throat so it doesn’t sound like she’s been drinking.
“Is this Natasha Joshi?” a man’s bored, low-pitched voice says back. He pronounces “Joshi” wrong, like most people, so it sounds like “Josh-eye” instead of “Joe-she.”
“It is. May I know who’s calling?”
“This is Ben. I’m calling from Midtown Comedy Center.”
Natasha grips the bottom of the champagne glass. Her heartbeat quickens. This is it. The moment she’s been waiting for is finally here. She pictures the looks on the girls’ faces. And Zack’s and Suhani’s. And Mom! What will she say?
“Hi!” Natasha lowers her voice. “I mean, hel-lo. How are you?”
“So, you did not make it to the next round for our comedy competition,” Ben says with the monotony of someone who works at the DMV.
Natasha checks the volume on her phone. “Excuse me? I think I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat that?”
Ben sighs. “The judges did not select you to move on in our competition.”
“Did not?” Natasha ignores the sense of dread that’s pressing on her chest as she processes his words. Ben must be mistaken.
But he says, “Correct. You did not. Now, if you’d li—”
“Wait. I don’t understand. I thought I did a good job. No, a great one. I mean, people were cracking up! A bachelorette invited me to do shots with her friends because of how much they loved my routine! If that’s not the sign of a success, then what is?”
“The comedians this time were some of the best we have ever had . . .” Ben drones on as if he’s reading his words from a script. A shitty script.
Natasha hangs up before she can hear any more.
Should she call one of her friends? They share everything with one another and she already knows how each one will respond. But then again, why be a burden? Someone they have to be worried about. She’s already enough of one for her family.
This is what she gets after putting herself out there and pushing past her comfort zone. After everything she’s been through, she’s back at square one.
She returns to the living room. Her notebook is still open to the last page.
Self-compassion, my ass, she thinks. Self-compassion is for people who actually deserve good things.
She removes the champagne bottle from the fridge and places it against her lips. Without giving herself time to think, she throws her head back and chugs so quickly that she doesn’t even taste the drink anymore. She should stop and take a break. But something pushes her to keep taking it all in, until there’s nothing left.
Ten
Zack
Hey, you okay?” Zack asks when he sees Natasha sprawled across their navy-blue sectional. This is how he finds her most days when he’s back from work: buried under a faux fur blanket, wearing sweatpants, and nursing a glass of something that smells like it should probably be reserved for frat parties.
“Fine,” Natasha grumbles. “Just some crap with my comedy.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Natasha shakes her head and sinks deeper into the cushion. “My perform— I mean, some of my, uh, material got rejected and I wasn’t expecting it because I thought it was good. Really good.”
“I’m sorry. That’s really frustrating,” Zack says as he looks at the pink sky gaping over Midtown Atlanta. He loves that their view makes him feel small and part of the city at the same time.
“It’s fine,” Natasha mumbles in a way that indicates it isn’t fine at all. “I didn’t get any feedback, so I don’t even know what wasn’t good enough about it.”
“Want me to take a look?” Zack asks. “I may not officially be a comedian, but Suhani does claim my dad jokes are the best.”
“No!” Natasha freezes. “Sorry, I mean, you’re busy and I should spare you that.”
“Are you sure? I really wouldn’t mind.”
“I’m sure. But thanks.” Natasha reaches for a Reese’s peanut butter cup from the orange bag on the coffee table.
“Have you been eating candy all day again?” Zack asks, not meaning to come off like her parent. Then again, he can get away with asking Natasha questions that Suhani can’t.
Natasha gives him a sheepish grin. “Maybe?”
Zack laughs. “I’m ordering us cauliflower rice bowls with roasted vegetables. Suhani and I get them from this place nearby and they’re amazing.”
“Sounds great. I should probably have a meal that makes me feel like I’m an Instagram fitness influencer instead of a kid who just went trick-or-treating.”
Zack puts in a delivery order, removes two cans of sparkling water from the fridge, and sits next to Natasha on the couch.
Being constantly treated like a baby in his house made Zack want a younger sibling, someone he could provide guidance to and be there for. And to his initial surprise, he and Natasha have random things in common: an obsession with Reddit threads, overachiever older sisters, an ability to not take things too seriously.
Despite Suhani’s occasional frustration, it’s been nice having Natasha h
ere. She’s so thrilled to see him when he comes home. Excitement and interest light up her face as he tells her about work and they both wait for Suhani to join them.
He’s about to tell her he’s glad she’s here, but when he looks up, Natasha’s staring at the now empty Reese’s wrapper in a daze.
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up so much,” Zack says. “Rejections are part of the process, right?”
“Yeah, that is what they say. I just didn’t think they’d hurt so much.”
“Of course.”
“And I’ve been feeling so shitty lately. It’s getting old. Heavy.”
“Is it just the comedy or also because of the Karan stuff?” Zack asks, even though he’s secretly happy it didn’t work out with them. He always found Karan a little uptight and, frankly, kind of boring, like the guy you dread having to make small talk with at office parties. Of course, he never told anyone that. Part of being a good son-in-law was knowing when to keep your mouth shut.
Natasha shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s all of it. I’m just, I don’t know, maybe a little lost.”
“Well, you’re figuring things out and that takes time,” Zack says. “What do you think about getting out of the apartment more? I know that’s not a big thing, but maybe you’ll feel a little better if you’re not cooped up here all day.”
“I could do that. It’s been harder to feel motivated to do anything, even take small steps like that.”
Zack reaches for his own Reese’s cup. “Have you considered talking to anyone in your family about how you’re doing? Your dad and sister do specialize in feelings.”
“There hasn’t really been a chance for that,” Natasha says.
“Don’t your parents call you every day?”
“Um, technically, yes.” Natasha flashes him a guilty smile. “But why ruin perfectly nice conversations, right?”
Zack snickers. He knows no one would consider Mom’s judgment and Dad’s softer questions about how Natasha’s filling her days to qualify as perfectly nice conversations.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay? I’m really fine and there’s no need to bother them.” Natasha gulps down her sparkling water.
It’s a request she’s given Zack many times. Don’t tell anyone, okay? And he never does. He gets what it feels like to be an outsider in your own family. His mom and sisters often told him he was too sensitive, too reactive to things. They never understood how he was molded differently by his dad than they were.
Natasha throws the blanket off her. “Let me clean up these candy wrappers before Miss Queen of Order gets home.”
“Good idea,” Zack says.
“Has she seemed stressed to you?” Natasha asks as the wrappers make a crinkling sound in her hands. “Like, more than usual?”
“Let me think.” Zack pretends to contemplate and then blurts, “Yes. A lot more!”
“She really is, right?” Natasha asks. “I’m glad I wasn’t just imagining it.”
“And she seems more closed off, too,” Zack notes. Some people are like babies: you worry about them more when they’re quiet. “I always try to talk to her, push her to open up, but that doesn’t really work.” To be fair, he knows that’s something he should respect more, his wife’s need for space when she’s upset.
“Oh, nooooo,” Natasha shakes her head. “You’ve gotta back off when she’s pissed. We used to switch off who would wake her up in the mornings growing up because she was like a grumpy little tiger. She has to come to you.”
They both laugh. Zack’s filled with a rush of gratitude at being able to talk to someone who understands Suhani’s emotional skeleton.
“We, uh, talked about kids for a split second,” he says.
“And?”
“And I don’t know. She didn’t seem that into it. To be fair, when we were dating, both of us were undecided about it and could see ourselves with or without them. I guess I’ve just shifted a little since then,” Zack says, wondering if, ironically, Suhani’s encouragement that he learn more about his dad made Zack more open to the idea of building a family of his own.
Their dinner arrives. Zack puts the brown paper delivery bag on the coffee table, which is now candy-free. A receipt is stapled to the outside and flutters under the air-conditioning.
“Has she always been like that?” he asks as he removes the cardboard bowls from the bag. “Not super into kids?”
“Kind of. I always assumed she saw too much as a kid herself.” Natasha mixes her vegetables. The smell of roasted Brussels sprouts and sweet potato fills the living room.
“What do you mean?” Zack drizzles his cauliflower rice with sriracha, something he only started doing after he and Suhani moved in together. His mother-in-law made him a spicy-food lover.
“I guess she always had to be such a caretaker in different ways. When she was really young, she taught my parents about the American school system and translated random things for them and later told them about stuff like visiting colleges. And then with Anuj and me, she was left in charge sometimes.” Natasha laughs. “I swear, she was stricter than Mom. Now that I think of it, she’s even a caretaker in her job. She’s just one of those perpetual fixer types. And to be fair, she’s good at telling people what to do.”
“She is,” Zack agrees as he pictures his wife sitting across from one of her therapy patients, untangling their destructive thoughts or teaching them how to notice patterns in their behavior, all while another part of her brain is wondering how she can improve the system at large. Zack always wanted someone ambitious but never imagined he’d find a woman like Suhani, someone who is constantly thinking and working and expanding. When Suhani talks about the changes she wants in medicine and mental healthcare, she comes to life. Zack’s sisters call her a “petite powerhouse.”
“She’s even gotten my mom to exercise more, live a little,” he says. “She pushes me at work and buys me these books about parent abandonment so I can process what happened with my dad.”
Natasha nods and then her eyes shift back and forth, as if she’s sifting through something mentally. “I didn’t think of this until you asked, but when she was in med school, we all wondered if something happened with her. She suddenly became so much more closed off and intense . . . until she met you.”
“Really? What do you mean?” Zack says.
“I don’t know. It was a vibe. I always wondered if Roshan had something to do with it. There was this weekend when I visited her and something just gave me a bad feeling. Then I told myself I was just thinking and worrying too much, like my mom. I asked Suhani about it a bunch of times and she always said she was just stressed.”
“Hm,” Zack says. His thoughts jump back to the Atlanta Memorial reception, where Roshan showed up out of nowhere, and the conversation at Highland Bakery, when Suhani made their relationship sound inconsequential.
“But she’s always stressed, you know?” Natasha shrugs. “I’ve never understood how someone can be so confident when it comes to doing things for other people but then so unsure when it comes to herself.”
“I say that to her all the time!” Zack exclaims. Sometimes, when he looks at his wife, he sees a scared little girl alongside a strong woman. He’s intrigued by all the versions of her, all the contradictions that make her who she is. Even though his mom always envisioned that he’d end up with a nice Jewish girl, he was never nervous about introducing Suhani to her. He knew she’d fall in love with her. Everyone does.
“Maybe y’all just need a reset. You both work so much and it has to be easy to just slip into this inertia-driven daily routine. Maybe go do something different together.”
“I think we need that,” Zack agrees. Being chronically exhausted can bring out the worst in a person. On some mornings, when he’s still buried in the emotional hangover of one of their fights, he’ll wake up and realize the fight itself was so stupi
d and unnecessary. Why did we even let it escalate to that point? he’ll wonder. Then later that day, he’ll remind himself that fatigue and resentment can add fuel to even the most minor arguments.
“After the wedding and honeymoon, it was just straight into work and it’s been nonstop for both of us. She’s actually suggested we go out for drinks during the week instead of just coming home and planting ourselves on this sofa and staring at our screens for the night,” Zack says.
They both stop talking when they hear the sound of the keys in the door. Two seconds later, Suhani’s dropping her purse on the tiny table in the front hallway and saying, “Cauliflower bowls? Niiiice.”
Zack pats the spot next to him. “Have some.”
Suhani takes a bite and makes an mmm sound, conveying that she thinks it’s delicious. “So, what were you guys talking about?”
Zack and Natasha exchange a glance. At the same time, they both say, “Nothing!”
Eleven
Suhani
Hey, you have a second?” Vanessa says as she opens Suhani’s office door. She’s in an outfit that they both have from a shopping trip to the outlets. Vanessa saw the bright-pink tweed dress on a mannequin and claimed it had Elle Woods vibes. She’s paired it with blush pumps and fuchsia lipstick.
“Sure! I’m not doing anything except trying to see a dozen patients an hour.” Suhani smiles and motions to her computer screen. “Haven’t had a chance to eat or pee. My new intake patient wouldn’t stop asking me where I’m from. I kept saying Atlanta and he still kept asking.”
“Why didn’t you tell him it’s none of his business?” Vanessa asks.
“You know I’m never going to say anything like that,” Suhani says. “And I honestly think he was trying to make conversation. At least he didn’t ask where my grandparents were born.”
To Vanessa’s point, Suhani needs to get better at switching between different types of armors throughout the day: the polite armor, the assertive armor, the I-can-handle-every-task-and-never-need-a-break armor. Sometimes, she has brief images of another life: opening a margarita stand on a beach, working at an airy, sun-filled flower shop, becoming one of those fun ladies who lunch. She had looked up some of these alternative careers when she almost lost everything in med school.