“I’m scared, too, Jazz,” he’d confessed to me the night before. The two of us had been playing cards, waiting for the uniform to arrive. “But don’t you think it’s time I stopped playing it safe?”
I couldn’t believe it. Dad was breaking his own parents’ code of survival just when I’d realized it was the way to go.
“Oh, and Jazz,” Dad had added. “We both know one of your mother’s hopes for the summer is to find some information about her past, but please don’t bring it up. I think she needs space to sort out her feelings on her own for a while.”
Dad didn’t have to warn me. Mom’s hunger to know more about her birth family was so intense I wondered how strangers didn’t notice it. Bringing up the topic before she did would feel like stomping across a newly seeded lawn.
Outside the gates of the academy, Dad paid the auto-rickshaw drivers while Mom, Eric, and I scoped out the scene. Girls of every size and shape milled around a courtyard. They were wearing starched white shirts with stiff, pointed collars and knee-length navy skirts with carefully ironed pleats, just like I was. Unfortunately, the rest of my ensemble didn’t quite fit the mold.
“I didn’t realize this uniform included shoes,” Dad muttered as we headed through the gates.
I was wearing sandals that laced up around my argyle socks, comfortable and worn, bought at a discount from the shoe peddler on Telegraph Avenue. Everybody else’s feet were encased in white knee socks and shiny black patent leather shoes.
“Or hair,” Mom added.
My shoulder-length hair hung loose around my face. The others wore their hair in long, tight braids tied with perky blue bows.
As we walked through the courtyard, silence spread through the crowd of girls like fog rolling into San Francisco Bay. Every eye was on us. We headed as fast as we could for the office.
Mrs. Joshi, the headmistress, greeted us warmly. She served tea and samosas, savory pastries made of vegetable curry wrapped in a crispy crust, and chatted about the orphanage. Apparently, Sister Das was a legend of sorts in Pune. Bubbling over with excitement, Mom told her about the clinic while Dad, Eric, and I chomped on samosas. Eric was enjoying them, I could tell, but for Dad and me, it was a case of comfort eating.
Finally, the headmistress turned to me. “I’m afraid you may find our rules difficult after the freedom young people enjoy in the West,” she said. “We do not permit makeup or jewelry during school hours. From tomorrow, please wear white knee socks and black shoes, and braid your hair with four ribbons. I will loan you one ribbon for today. You will begin in class ten. I have asked my niece, Rini, to provide necessary orientation.”
The bell rang on cue, as if it knew she was done with us. Mom quickly tied my hair into a ponytail with the ribbon, and Mrs. Joshi gave me permission to walk my family to the gate.
“I will send my niece to escort you back to class,” she said.
At the gate, I said my good-byes. Dad had dark shadows under his eyes, and I fought off a desire to jump into an auto-rickshaw, march into the orphanage, and announce that he didn’t know what he was doing. But would I be right? In spite of the worry in his face, his chin was set and his shoulders squared in a way that seemed familiar. It was the same body language I used just before hurling a shot put.
He kissed the top of my head. “Mrs. Joshi said you can catch an auto-rickshaw home with a couple of girls who live in our neighborhood. Think you can handle that?”
I nodded. “Hope it goes well, Dad,” I said.
Mom pulled my fingernail out of my mouth and reached up to kiss my cheek. “You’ll be fine, honey,” she said, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself.
I had an eerie feeling of déjà vu. Was this a repeat of my first day at kindergarten? But then Eric flashed me one of his sweetest smiles before disappearing into the auto-rickshaw, and I was on my own.
ELEVEN
Mrs. Joshi’s niece, Rini, was short and round, with dimples that deepened when she smiled. She chattered away in an interesting Indianized slang as we made our way to class. Her idea of orientation was slightly different than her aunt’s. “You’ll have to meet Sonia Seth,” she whispered. “Her dad owns a chain of department stores and has gobs of money. Sonia’s absolutely wild, but great fun. And that’s Lila over there. Her dad’s the best heart surgeon in Pune. . . .” And so on.
It was mindless babble, but at least I didn’t have to come up with any conversation in return. Outside the classroom, I hesitated, trying to steady my nerves.
“What’s the matter?” Rini asked.
“Nothing. How many girls are in this class?”
“Only forty-five,” she said. “We’ve been dying to meet you ever since Sister Das made the announcement at Monday’s assembly. We want to find out everything about life in America.”
“You do?” I asked, hardly listening. “What period is this, by the way?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking puzzled. “Oh! We don’t change classes as you do. The teachers come to us. This is the class ten room. We stay in our assigned desks all day, except for tea breaks and tiffin.”
“Tiffin?”
Rini giggled. “I mean lunch. I should know how to talk American; I’ve watched enough of your films, for goodness’ sake. Oops . . . I mean movies. Come on, let’s go in.”
I followed her inside, keeping my eyes on her back. Her braids swayed in front of me like two pendulums. The teacher was wearing a carefully ironed and pleated blue and white saree, and she gave me a brief smile. “We are quite pleased to see you,” she said in a voice that was as starched as her saree. “Ladies, please rise. Let us welcome Miss Jasmine Gardner.”
All forty-five girls stood at the same time and clasped their hands in front of them. It would have been fascinating to watch if they hadn’t all been staring at me. They looked like a synchronized-swimming team practicing a routine outside the pool. “You are welcome to our school, Jasmine,” they chanted.
I mumbled something unintelligible in response. The teacher handed me a thick textbook. Clutching it like a life preserver in front of me, I made my way to an empty desk in the back of the room. The morning work began with algebra formulas we hadn’t covered yet in Berkeley, and I was forced to concentrate.
As soon as the bell rang for tea break, Rini pounced on me. She dragged me over to her friends like a first grader with an extra-special show-and-tell item. Three girls checked me out from head to toe. All the girls in the class were dressed identically, but these three managed to add a certain flair. Maybe it was the way they wore their bangs, or that their skirts were at the school’s limit of shortness. Or the fact that perfume, which was not on the list of forbidden fashion items, wafted around them. I suspected that one of them was even wearing a touch of pale pink lipstick.
“This is Lila,” Rini said. “And this is Sonia.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi!”
“Hello.”
Sonia was the one wearing the lipstick. She was taller than the other girls, although shorter than me. She had glossy black hair and big almond-shaped brown eyes. Her shirt was closely tailored and clung to her curves even more tightly than mine.
I could tell that Rini and Lila were waiting for either Sonia or me to talk. I waited, too, feeling as if I was about to take an exam on a book I hadn’t read.
Sonia obviously had no problem diving right in. “Was that Indian woman really your mother?” she asked.
I nodded but didn’t say anything. Why was everyone around here so shocked that Mom and I were related? Not every daughter looked like their mother, did they?
“We heard a rumor that she’s one of Asha Bari’s children,” Sonia continued. “Is that true?”
“It’s true,” I answered.
“Oh. So your mother was adopted,” said Lila, a skinny girl with a beaked nose. She made the word sound as though it were some kind of disease.
“How’d you find out about Mom?” I asked. Pune was a big city, after
all.
“Sonia’s father is the chairman of the board at Asha Bari,” Lila informed me. “The academy is sort of connected to the orphanage; they were founded by the same set of Catholic missionaries.”
“We’ve known you were coming to Pune for ages,” Rini added. “But we weren’t certain you’d be here until Monday. We were so excited to see your whole family come in this morning!”
Sonia sighed dramatically. “Your father’s so tall and handsome, with that wavy hair and fabulous skin. I can just picture him at eighteen. How did your mother manage to catch someone like him?”
What? Had I heard right? Dad—handsome? Mom — managing to catch him? I had to set this girl straight. Immediately. “They were in college together,” I said. “He was in love with her for years before she decided to marry him.”
After a pause, the questions continued along a different line. “I bought a copy of the latest Greg Lamington album,” Rini said. “We dance to his music all the time at the disco. I hear he’s supposed to be even more amazing live, though. Have you seen him on tour?”
“Actually, I’ve never heard of him,” I answered, wincing at the thought of a disco. Dancing and I were mortal enemies.
All three girls’ mouths fell open. But after a moment of shock over my ignorance, they continued to ask questions, grilling me about other favorite celebrities. It didn’t take long to figure out that they knew much more about the American entertainment industry than I did. They were addicted to the same music and movies as the kids back home.
“We’ve never owned a television, so it’s impossible to keep up with this stuff,” I said. “I’m sort of out of it, I guess.”
Sonia raised her eyebrows in surprise. “No television? But you’re an American. From California. California inventedentertainment.”
I shrugged. Either Eric or I halfheartedly asked for a television every six months or so. My parents always said no. It wasn’t a question of money. “Time’s too precious to waste on watching commercials, kids,” Mom would explain. “Besides, those ads breed discontent. They’re always trying to convince us that what we have and who we are isn’t good enough.”
Helen and Frank didn’t have a television, either, so we were doubly deprived. Dad occasionally took us out to the movies, but he supported Mom’s no-TV decision, as he did most of her decisions. I didn’t really think about it much anymore. Now that I was fifteen, I wanted a car more than I wanted a television.
“Lucky you, keeping away from the media hype,” said Rini, obviously trying to cheer me up. “We have to keep up with both Hollywood and Bollywood. It gets exhausting after a while.”
“I actually know more about Bollywood than I do about Hollywood,” I said, remembering the dozens of Mumbai-made Hindi movies Helen and Frank had dragged me to see. And even though my grandparents only understood about ten words of Hindi, they constantly played Indian pop songs on an ancient tape recorder.
“Spoken like a true Indian,” Sonia said, smiling. “But I simply can’t imagine life without a small screen at home!”
“I’m too busy to watch anything anyway,” I said.
“Busy with what?” Sonia asked.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t see myself explaining about running a business, staying in shape for track, and keeping my grade point average up—not to mention visiting Helen and Frank, keeping an eye on Eric, and of course, hanging out with Steve.
Sonia studied my expression. “Aha!” she said, nodding wisely. “Busy with a boyfriend, I’ll wager. Lucky thing. American girls don’t have a thousand relatives breathing down their necks, warning them to avoid men at all costs.” Her voice changed, taking on a matronly Indian accent. She wagged her head. “If you even so much as touch a boy before you are married, Sonia, you will most certainly acquire a very, very vile disease.”
The girls giggled, and even I had to smile.
“Bring us a picture of this boyfriend tomorrow,” Sonia ordered as the bell rang.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“A likely story,” countered Sonia. “A secret romance, no doubt. Like Romeo and Juliet.”
For the first time in our conversation, I found myself wanting her to keep talking. Even though she was obviously living in a Bollywood fantasy world, I was beginning to like what I saw there.
TWELVE
The two girls I rode home with Chattered nonstop, shouting over the auto-rickshaw’s roaring engine and the unending blare of horns. I kept my eyes on the back of the driver’s head, fighting the urge to put my fingers in my ears. When I finally entered the cool, quiet apartment, I almost collapsed with relief. Slipping into a pair of shorts and one of Steve’s old T-shirts that he’d passed on to me, I decided to get my boring weight-training session out of the way.
As I lifted and counted reps, I fought the temptation to run down the hill to the phone. A good discussion with Steve was my usual way of unwinding in the afternoons. No crowds. Just the two of us, working the booth, chatting, taking a coffee break every so often. But I’d just spoken to him three days ago. It was too expensive to call so soon. And I couldn’t let him know that I was missing him a hundred times more than he was missing me.
As for sending e-mails, Dad and Eric had found a cyber café, but it had been packed with hordes of young people. “You’d hate it in there, Jazz,” Dad told me. “Everybody stared, and I almost suffocated trying to check my e-mail.” He made it sound as if I should avoid it for my own good, like an allergic person staying inside during pollen season. I didn’t mind taking his advice; I couldn’t even finish one satisfactory handwritten letter. Composing regular e-mails seemed like a monumental task.
So after my workout, I slogged through a pile of homework assignments. When those were done, I realized I had absolutely nothing to do. And my stomach was growling. That was it—I was hungry! I hadn’t eaten much all day. I headed for the kitchen to forage for a snack, singing a tune from one of my favorite movies, The Sound of Music, to cheer myself up.
“These are a few of my favorite things,” I sang loudly and off key, thinking I was alone. “When the dog bites—”
I stopped abruptly. I wasn’t alone after all. A strange girl was rummaging through our cabinets. This must be the helper from the orphanage, I realized, remembering that Mom had said she was going to start working today.
The girl’s faded sky blue salwar kameez was ironed carefully so that the folds fell symmetrically around her slim body. Her hair was tucked neatly into a bun on the back of her head. Little touches of gold shimmered everywhere— at her ears, at her wrists, on her ankles. As she opened our drawers, a dozen slim golden bangles jangled on her wrists in accompaniment.
She turned. Her oval face had the big-eyed, highcheekboned beauty that could make the cover of Vogue. She held her head high and moved gracefully, and I found myself thinking that she certainly didn’t look like a penniless orphan. “Good afternoon,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “I’m Danita. You must be Jasmine. Come in, come in. Was that you singing?”
“Call me Jazz,” I replied automatically, wishing I’d stayed in my room. “Yes, that was me. Where’s my mother?”
“Still working.”
“What about Eric? And my father?”
“Eric is playing soccer with some of the little boys. Your father’s still in Auntie Das’s office. He has been there all day.”
Poor Dad! That nun had him closeted away; she’d probably bolted the door behind him. It sounded like there was no way for him to escape.
“I’m not very used to an American kitchen,” Danita was saying. “Some of your things seem a bit unfamiliar to me. I wonder if you could help me.”
I wonder if you could help me. Those were practically the same words Mona had used when she’d conned me into hiring her. I glared at the bags of groceries on the counter. Wasn’t there any way to avoid needy people? Now they were turning up in my own kitchen.
“Use these,” I said curtly, sliding the butcher block full of kn
ives in front of her. I set out the cutting board and pointed out the spice rack. I handed her the colander and she began washing vegetables. I even pulled out a couple of pots and pans from the cabinet beside the stove. Now I wanted to escape before she asked for anything else.
“May I make you a cup of tea?” Danita asked. “Auntie Das says I put magic into my tea. ‘Creamy, delicious, and good for the soul,’ she always says. You must be hungry after school. Let me fix you a snack.”
I hesitated at the kitchen door. A mix of caffeine and calories sounded great to my empty stomach. Besides, the kindness in her voice surprised me.
“Would you like to learn how to make tea?” she asked. “Come and watch.”
I thought of the vile stuff Mom had concocted. It might be good for one member of our family to learn how to brew a good cup of tea. As I listened to Danita’s instructions, I was thankful for how well she spoke English. It hurt my brain when I had to talk or listen to Hindi for long periods.
“Your English is great,” I told her when she handed me the finished product: a fragrant, steaming cup of tea.
Danita opened a packet of biscuits, spread them in a fan on a plate, and set it on the table. “My sister Ranee is much better at English than I am. Why don’t you sit down, Jazz Didi?”
From my Hindi lessons, I knew that didi was the word for older sister. It was also used as a term of respect for nonrelatives. This was the first time anybody had used it for me. It had a nice ring to it. I sat down at the kitchen table, feeling like an honored guest.
I blew on the tea to cool it a bit and watched Danita chop onions and potatoes into tiny cubes. As her hands moved in perfect rhythm, the golden bangles chimed together, sounding like faraway church bells.
“You’re having chicken masala tonight,” she told me. “And potatoes and peas. With rice, of course.”
I was suddenly more than hungry; I was ravenous. I took a sip of the tea. It was perfect. Creamy, sweet, and smooth. Just as good as a latte, if not better. I sighed with satisfaction.
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