Save Me a Seat

by Gita Varadarajan

  Love,

  Dad

  P.S. Interleague Phillies/Sox series this weekend. Want to watch it with me?

  I read it three times. It’s the first letter my father has ever written to me, and it takes a while for the words to sink in. Mr. Barnes had a bunch of quotes on the wall in his classroom. One of them was Writing can change the world. I think I finally understand what it means. I also know what I am going to bring to school the next day for Mrs. Beam’s assignment.

  I am sitting in the living room in my pajamas, drinking a cup of Ovaltine.

  “Quitting is not an option,” my father tells me.

  “Your father is right,” says Perimma. “Look how hard he is working in America, Ravi. Taking the train up and down every day, always on the phone. Do you see him giving up?”

  Perippa picks up his newspaper and goes out to the living room to read in peace.

  Perimma gets the bottle of red ayurvedic oil from the medicine cabinet, and Amma rubs some on my shoulder to relieve the pain.

  “Put this on,” she says, handing me the red sweater and matching monkey cap that my other grandmother knitted for me as a parting gift. “You need to cover up if you’re coming down with a cold. Get back into bed and rest. When you wake up, I’ll make you some rasam and rice.”

  “I repeat,” says Appa as he straightens the knot in his necktie, “quitting is not an option.”

  My life is a mess. Sleep is the only escape I can think of, so I do as my mother has told me. I put on the sweater and the tight monkey cap, which covers not only my head but most of my face, and go back up to my room.

  I wake up at 1:30 in the afternoon, dripping with sweat. I pull off the sweater and monkey cap and throw them on the floor. My shoulder feels a little better, but my sleep has not been a restful one. Miss Frost’s face haunted me in my dreams.

  Assumptions are often wrong, she kept saying again and again.

  “Where’s the monkey cap?” Perimma asks when I come downstairs. “The wind in this country will be the end of all of us.”

  “There’s no wind inside the house, Perimma, and the monkey cap is soaking wet.”

  Amma must have turned the temperature up. It feels like an oven.

  “Are you hungry, Ravi?”

  “Hurry and eat your mother’s runny rasam,” Perimma tells me. “Then we will get to work.”

  “Work on what, Perimma?”

  “Your mother and I have gone through your backpack,” she says. “You have been slipping up on your assignments, Ravi. No wonder you wanted to quit.”

  She hands me my agenda book and points to something I had written on the first day of school:

  Personal reflection: Bring in an object that you feel represents who you are, along with a one-sentence explanation for why you chose this particular object. Please write your sentence on an index card and do not put your name on the card.

  “It’s due tomorrow, Ravi,” Amma says. “Why haven‘t I seen you working on it? Did you forget?”

  “Don’t worry,” says Perimma. “While you were sleeping, your mother and I have taken care of it.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “We went to Staples and bought all the supplies,” Amma says. “And I bought you more mechanical pencils too, raja.”

  I was hoping she wouldn’t notice the pencils were missing. I know they disappeared, but I have no idea where they went.

  “You’re too soft on him, Roshni,” sniffs Perimma. “Losing all his pencils and the napkin from his tiffin box too? If his father had been so careless with his things, I would have made him pay to replace them.”

  Amma reaches out and takes my hand.

  “Leave your rasam to cool and come see what we’ve done,” she says.

  The truth is, Mrs. Beam’s assignment had totally slipped my mind. Personal reflection. At first I had thought it would be easy; I hadn’t even given it a second thought. I knew who I was. But now after three days at Albert Einstein Elementary School, I am no longer the same person I used to be. I am Curryhead, a loser who can’t speak English and has no friends.

  Amma and Perimma lead me to Appa’s office. Spread out on the desk are colored markers, a gold pen and a silver one, white liquid glue, glitter, glass gems, and all kinds of other shiny stuff. A piece of white chart paper lies in the middle, and at the top, in her neatest cursive, my mother has written—

  Ravi, sharp and shining like the sun.

  The letters are gold, the borders decorated with glitter and gems as elaborate as a Tanjore painting. Under this they have glued down photographs, each with a shining border of its own. Pictures of me receiving the award for winning the Math Olympiad. Me, standing on the podium with a gold medal for running. Me, holding my certificate for best outgoing student at Vidya Mandir. They have even taken one of my real medals and stuck it on the chart with Sellotape. I should feel on top of the world, seeing all these reminders of my success, but instead my stomach is churning so badly I think I am going to be sick.

  “Do you like it, raja?” my grandmother asks, her eyes twinkling with pride.

  “I’m sorry, Perimma,” I say as my tears begin to flow. “I can’t take this to school. You were right. All of Perippa’s hard work at the tea plantation was for nothing. I am a complete failure in America.”

  She looks at me, and her face is soft.

  “Don’t cry, Ravi. Everything will be okay.” Then she pats me on the back and quietly leaves the room.

  “What is wrong, Ravi?” my mother asks. “You have to tell me.”

  This time I do.

  When I have finished pouring out my heart to Amma, she puts her arms around me and wipes my tears with her pallu, the end of her saree.

  “Don’t worry, raja,” Amma says softly.

  I want to believe my mother, but nothing she has done so far has helped me. Not the naan khatais, not the kan drishti, not even her black tongue.

  “Ravi?” Perimma is standing in the doorway with my grandfather. “Your perippa has something to tell you.”

  My grandfather is wearing a warm sweater and a monkey cap of his own. In his hand he holds a small tea strainer he has brought from the kitchen.

  “Come, Ravi,” he says. “I have an idea.”

  “Do you want a ride to school this morning?” Mom asks. She’s dressed and already wearing her apron. There’s a flash of lightning followed by a boom of thunder.

  “Sure,” I tell her, looking out the window at the dark sky. “I’ll take a ride.”

  I tip my glass up and drink the last of the strawberry-banana smoothie she made me for breakfast. No huevos rancheros, just a smoothie and two bowls of Cheerios. Like normal.

  Dad comes into the kitchen. There’s a piece of tissue stuck to his chin where he cut himself shaving.

  “Did you tell him yet?” he asks my mother.

  “Tell me what?” I ask nervously.

  “I’m quitting my job,” Mom says.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I tell her, even though I hope it’s true.

  “It’s a done deal,” she says. “I already gave my notice. Today will be my last day.”

  “Don’t we need the money?” I ask.

  “I’ll find something else,” Mom says. “To be honest, I’m not crazy about the job anyway. When I suggested to the kitchen staff that maybe we could change up the menu a little, offer some healthier options like quinoa or tofu or something, they looked at me like I was crazy.”

  I laugh. I’m happy to eat tofu and quinoa, but I’m even happier to eat chicken fingers and hamburgers. If my mother really isn’t going to be the lunch monitor anymore, that means lunch can go back to being my favorite subject at school. Woo-hoo! There’s another flash of lightning.

  “Guess we’re going to need our raincoats,” Mom says.

  “Game one, seven o’clock tonight,” Dad reminds me. “We’re still on, right?”

  “Are you kidding?” I say. “Big Papi is gonna bring it home for the Sox. You think I
want to miss that?”

  When I go upstairs to brush my teeth, I find Mia hiding under the bed. She’s afraid of thunderstorms.

  “Don’t worry, Mimi,” I tell her, reaching under the bed to give her head a pat.

  “Joey!” my mother calls. “Hurry up. The roads are going to be slick, and I don’t want to be late.”

  I give Mia one more pat, grab my backpack, and run downstairs.

  “All set?” Mom asks, handing me my raincoat. She’s got hers on already.

  “One sec,” I tell her. I go into the kitchen, open the cupboard, and take out a small glass bowl, like the one my mother had put the chopped cilantro in the day before.

  “What’s that for?” she asks as she watches me shove the bowl into my pocket.

  “It’s for an assignment,” I tell her. “I promise I’ll bring it back.”

  “What’s the assignment?” she asks.

  “I’ll explain in the car.”

  When I tell my mom what I’m doing for my personal reflection project, she starts to cry. This time, for a change, it’s the happy kind of crying.

  “You are one terrific kid,” she says. “Do you know that?”

  Believe it or not, I feel like I kind of do. I’m in a pretty good mood by the time we get to school. It doesn’t hurt that Friday is pizza day at Einstein. My favorite school lunch of all. As we turn in the driveway, out of nowhere, this dark red minivan comes speeding around the corner and almost cuts us off.

  “Watch out!” my mother cries, honking the horn.

  The driver of the minivan honks back and doesn’t even slow down; she just zooms past all the cars waiting to drop kids off, then cuts in front of the line and parks sideways so nobody can get past. A dark-haired woman in a long blue dress jumps out holding the biggest umbrella I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s really pouring now. As my mom and I run across the parking lot together, jumping over puddles, the woman in the blue dress hurries around to the other side of the minivan and opens the sliding back door. A minute later, a little kid in a funny-looking red hat gets out. He’s so small, at first I think he’s in first grade or something, but when he turns around and I see the way he pushes up his glasses with his thumb, I know right away who it is.

  As my mother and I walk towards the front door together under our big umbrella, I notice Big Foot crossing the street with a tall woman in a yellow coat. The wind blows her coat open, and I recognize the apron she’s wearing. She’s one of the workers in the lunchroom, a person they call the lunch monitor. Could this be Big Foot’s mother? Suddenly I remember the cartoon Perimma had found in my backpack. I’m Stupid’s Mommy. The person who drew the cartoon was insulting Big Foot’s mother, just as he insulted mine.

  “Are you listening?” asks Amma, pulling at the chin of my monkey cap to straighten it. “I made curd rice for your lunch today.”

  “I know, Amma, you told me.”

  “Wait, let me finish. I made curd rice, but I checked the school menu; the option for today is pizza. It’s vegetarian, so”—she unties a knot at the end of her pallu; inside are two paper notes and two twenty-five-cent coins—“I thought you might want to eat school lunch today, like the others.”

  I want to:

  Throw my arms around Amma and give her a big kiss.

  Tell her she is the best mother in the world.

  Show her the page in Bud, Not Buddy where Bud says he carries his Momma around inside him all the time.

  But here is what I do instead:

  Thank Amma for the lunch money.

  Look around to make sure no one is watching.

  Give her a quick hug.

  Amma, Perimma, and Perippa are waving to me as they drive away. I watch until the maroon Odyssey disappears over the hill and I can’t see them anymore. Yesterday I was feeling like a complete failure, but today as I walk into Albert Einstein Elementary School, I feel like the luckiest boy in the world.

  Dillon Samreen jumps out of a black Mercedes three cars down the line. It has one of those vanity license plates you have to pay extra for. It says: ENVY ME. Inside I can see his mother looking in the mirror on the back of the sun visor as she puts on her lipstick. My mom only wears lipstick when she’s going out to a party. She looks better without it.

  The wind is blowing, and it’s really pouring now. Everybody is honking their horns because Ravi’s mom’s minivan is blocking traffic.

  “Do you need your plugs?” my mother asks me.

  I shake my head.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Pop the trunk, Mom!” Dillon shouts, banging his fist on the roof of the black Mercedes. “Mom! Are you deaf? I said pop the trunk!”

  The trunk finally opens, and Dillon leans in and pulls out a big cardboard box. He wraps his arms around it and walks away without bothering to close the trunk.

  Mom and I look at each other, then I run over and close the trunk. Mrs. Samreen doesn’t say anything—she just flips her visor back up and drives away.

  “Have I already told you that I think you are one terrific kid?” my mom says a minute later as we walk through the front door.

  She heads off to the cafeteria, and I start walking down the hall toward room 506. Ravi is walking in front of me. He has pulled off his weird red hat and is trying to comb his hair down flat with his fingers. It’s not working too well. Dillon Samreen is standing by the door when we get there.

  “Morning, ladies,” he says, flashing one of his evil crocodile grins. “Welcome back.”

  We both ignore him. Ravi goes straight to his desk. I notice he’s carrying a small package wrapped in the same kind of brown paper his math notebook was covered with. I put my hand in my pocket and feel the little glass dish. It had seemed like such a good idea when I told my mom about it in the car, but now I’m not so sure. What if nobody gets it?

  “Before we begin, boys and girls,” Mrs. Beam announces, “I’d like for you to place your personal reflection objects on your desks, and bring your explanation cards up here and put them in this basket.”

  There’s no turning back now. I hang up my raincoat and carry the glass dish over to my desk. Then I dig around in my backpack until I find the plastic bag containing my object. I had picked it based on its perfect shape and color. After examining it carefully to make sure it hadn’t cracked or chipped on the way to school, I put it in the dish and take the index card with my sentence written on it up to Mrs. Beam.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing what you brought today, Joe,” she says as I drop my card into the basket. Then she smiles at me.

  I don’t know why, but there is something about that smile that gives me hope. Maybe Mrs. Beam will like the idea I came up with for my object. Maybe she’ll realize that I’m not really a pain in the neck who doesn’t pay attention. Maybe she’ll even write something nice about me on my report card at the end of the year the way Mr. Barnes did.

  But apparently none of those maybes are supposed to happen, at least not to me, because when I get back to my seat, the little glass dish is empty.

  Dillon Samreen is standing near the door when I arrive at room 506. I ignore him and his crooked Shakti Kapoor teeth and take my seat.

  “Place your personal reflection object on your desk, and bring your explanation cards up here and put them in this basket,” Mrs. Beam tells us. Before I can unwrap my packet, I first need to wipe off my glasses, which have become clouded up from the weather. Amma gets upset with me if I use anything other than the special wiping cloth Dr. Batra gave me to clean my glasses, so I open my backpack and pull out the cloth. Just as I am about to remove my glasses, Dillon Samreen reaches around me and snatches something off Big Foot’s desk. He pops it into his mouth and quickly sits back down, but not before I have seen what it is he’s taken.

  It’s my own fault. I should have known better than to leave anything out on my desk when there’s a known kleptomaniac sitting two feet away. So much for impressing Mrs. Beam with my great idea. All I have left is an empty dish, which is
exactly what I feel like at the moment.

  Ravi has left his package sitting unopened on his desk while he takes his card up and puts it in the basket. Lucky for him, Dillon is too busy unpacking his own box to notice. Mrs. Beam starts talking to Ravi about the Indian cookies his mom had made for her, but I get distracted when I see what Dillon Samreen has brought. It’s a big plastic yellow star with a picture of—what else?—Dillon’s face glued to the center. Perfect. I watch as he rips open a package of AA batteries and loads a bunch of them into the back of the star. When he’s finished, he sets it on his desk, pushes the ON button, and the whole thing lights up and starts playing “Ghetto Superstar.” Lucy Mulligan and her little girlfriends come running over. Pretty soon they’re all dancing around Dillon while he sings along to the music.

  “Ghetto superstar, that is what you are

  Comin’ from afar, reachin’ for the stars …”

  His singing is bad, but the girls don’t care. I notice his boxers are decorated with yellow stars, and the top three buttons of his shirt are undone. Gross. I’m not sure, but I think he might have glitter on his chest.

  “Take your seats please, boys and girls, and we’ll get started,” Mrs. Beam tells us.

  I am in big, big trouble.

  “RAH-vee?” Mrs. Beam says as I drop my card into the basket. My heart is pounding. Have I done something wrong? Amma had offered to write my explanation on the card in her neat handwriting, but I had insisted on doing it myself. Can Mrs. Beam not read what I’ve written? After talking with Perippa last night, I had been so sure that this assignment would be a proud moment not just for me, but for my whole family. Now all my other failures come flooding back like a giant wave. My accent, my math, my English, my manners …