“Thank you,” she said, patting my head.
Aai hadn’t really gone out since our garage had been vandalized. Even if it was just across the street, it was nice to see her dressed up and going somewhere.
“Deepika Auntie invited a bunch of the doctors from the clinic to this party. Think any of the Americans will be able to say ‘Tilgul ghya ani goad bola’?”
I shook my head. That was the saying at Sankrant when you gave someone a tilgul vadi. It meant, “Eat the sweet and speak sweet words,” and I knew none of the non-Desi people there would be able to say it.
“You’re American too,” I said quietly, putting the Anarkali down on the bed. I hated how Aai always called white people “American,” like we were something different.
Aai frowned a little as she pinned the padar of her sari over her shoulder. “Isn’t that outfit so beautiful? How thoughtful of Avantika. Auntie told me that because you weren’t coming, Avantika went over to Noah’s to play. Why don’t you finish your homework up later and join them? You haven’t played with either of them in so long.”
I flopped back on the bed, deciding to give my tears a little help from gravity for their fall from my eyes by lying down. “Avantika never canceled that sleepover.”
“What?”
“I lied. I canceled on her so I could have a sleepover with my swim team. After I missed the team dinner at Diwali, I didn’t want to miss any more team bonding, any more inside jokes. Avantika found out and she was mad. Or sad. Or maybe both.”
Aai nodded. “Lying is not okay. But I am glad you told me the truth today.”
I fiddled with a sleeve of the Anarkali, sniffling as Aai sat down beside me. “I got into a big fight with Noah and Avantika. I was really mad at them and said some bad things. But now I’m sad and lonely, and I think maybe they are the ones who have a right to be mad at me.”
Aai brushed my curls off my cheek. “I have an extra plate of tilgul by the stove. Maybe you should go over there with it.”
“And say what? ‘Tilgul ghya ani goad bola’? That’s not going to solve anything.”
“It’s a good start,” said Aai.
* * *
As Aai headed across the street in winter boots and nothing but the sparkling shawl covering her lace sari, I trudged through the snow in my boots and puffy jacket, hoping my ski mittens had a grip good enough to not drop the slippery steel plate of tilgul. I didn’t know if it was the slushy snow, perfect for snowballs, that was making this walk so difficult or if it was just the fact that I was nervous to talk to my friends again, if, that is, they still were my friends.
I made my way around Dad’s garden, which was now in hibernation, passing the woody stalks of peony bushes, mock orange plants, and rose mallows that had flowers the size of my face in summer, until I got to the backyard. I could see the gray fin at the top of Noah’s sharkphin hat behind the fort he had made. I watched as he hurled a snowball a few feet forward at Avantika, who was hiding behind the pine tree in Noah’s yard. Noah peeked out of his fort grinning, trying to see if he’d hit his target, when he saw me instead. His smile disappeared.
“Hi,” I said, my voice shaking as I gripped the plate as tightly as I could.
Avantika stepped out from behind the tree.
Somehow, talking to two people I knew better than anyone else at school seemed way harder than standing up to Liam. I walked toward them in what felt like slow motion, dragging out my agony, until I finally was next to Noah and Avantika. Their faces were no longer full of cheer. They looked frosty, like the snowman in the song, and their eyes looked hard and serious, like they were made out of coal.
“We have this holiday today,” I said to Noah.
Noah nodded. “My mom’s at Avantika’s for it.”
“Oh.” I looked at the tilgul, glistening on the shiny plate. “Well, on this holiday, you’re supposed to give people this thing I’m holding. It’s sweet. And you say, ‘Eat the sweet and say sweet things.’ ”
Avantika looked at me. I handed her the tray.
She took it, eating a vadi and offering the tray to Noah, who stuffed a bunch in his mouth.
“I don’t have anything ‘goad’ to say,” said Avantika after she swallowed her food.
That was okay. I did. “Knock-knock,” I said.
Avantika and Noah looked at each other.
“Knock-knock,” I tried again, glad my rabbit hat was covering my ears, which were probably red with embarrassment.
“Who’s there?” asked Noah.
“Varan,” I replied.
“That’s not how it goes,” said Avantika.
“Knock-knock,” I said again.
“Who’s there?” asked Noah.
“Varan.”
Avantika shook her head. “That’s wrong—”
“Knock-knock,” I said, one last time.
“Who’s there?” asked Avantika, her brows furrowed in what was either confusion or annoyance, or a little of both.
“Aamti,” I replied.
“Aamti who?” asked Noah.
I looked down at my salt-stained boots. “Aamti worst.”
Nobody said anything.
“It’s supposed to be like, ‘I’m the worst.’ ” I looked up slowly, but instead of seeing Noah or Avantika, I saw a snowball coming right at my face. The slush hit me and started to slide off in chunks. And when I finally saw Noah and Avantika, their eyes no longer looked like pieces of coal.
“I deserve that.”
“Yeah. You do,” said Avantika, a small smile crossing her face.
“I probably deserve one too,” said Noah, flattening a handful of snow on his face. “I shouldn’t have put that picture in the paper without telling you. But I swear, I was only trying to help.”
I nodded. “It’s okay. I’m sorry for saying you did it for the wrong reasons.” I turned to Avantika. “And I’m sorry for being the worst friend ever to you. Manju would never have done this to Anju.”
Another snowball hit me in the shoulder.
Avantika shrugged. “Varan’t you glad I didn’t hit you in the face?”
She ran down the yard, and Noah followed her. They ducked as I set the plate down, scooped up snow, packed it tight, and threw snowballs at my friends, my laughter finally at home, drifting across our yards like it used to.
chapter THIRTY-SIX
Despite the unusually warm winter, everything was finally back to normal in my world of swimming and school, even as the snowball fights started to turn into puddle-splashing competitions. Lunch and English class with Noah, Avantika, and Emma was always fun, even with Mr. Crowe sometimes trying a little too hard to be cool.
In FACS, Avantika quickly realized why working with bossy Aidy could be challenging, but we managed all right. While wondering what our midterm dishes would be (Avantika was going to make bhel because it had a blend of spices and was sour and sweet like her, she said), we even managed to make a decent stack of pancakes, baked crackers from scratch, and whipped up some delicious spaghetti sauce.
And in swimming, all the Dolphins were so good, winning our last two meets, Coach was positive we might be making State for the first time in a decade. I was finally back to swimming at my fastest, just like Harper. It was a good thing, too, with conference finals just a week away. In fact, I was so happy, I didn’t even flinch when Aidy came up to me after our last practice and dropped a pink plastic razor in my duffel bag, begging me to shave before the big meet and not “ruin things this time.”
I was ready to keep on having fun with my friends and keep on doing well at swimming and school as we got ready to celebrate the Marathi Hindu new year in Detroit. The Maharashtra Mandal rented out a high school for this year’s Gudhi Padwa. The grown-ups were all going to watch a play from India in the auditorium while dozens of young kids hung out in the babysitting room and the middle schoolers and high schoolers hung out in the cafeteria, waiting for dinner.
Late, as usual, we parked near the back of the pa
cked parking lot. I took in the muggy air, straightened out my magenta Anarkali from Avantika, and scanned the cars for hers, eager to see her inside. A couple of men were working on the large electronic high school sign by our car.
“Hi,” smiled Dad, honking the car with a button to make sure it was locked.
One of the men gave a nod back to him.
Aai pulled her shawl around her sleeveless sari blouse. “You shouldn’t be so friendly,” she told Dad in Marathi. “Who knows how these people will act or what they’ll do.”
“ ‘These people’?” asked Dad.
“Not everyone thinks the same of you as you do of them. Not everyone is happy to see an Indian driving a nice car around here. Not everyone is going to have a change of heart just because you say hi to them. Especially not back home in Oakridge.” Aai lowered her voice, but I could still hear her. “I’m scared one day we will be driving home late at night and one of them will run us off the road.”
I watched as Aai’s nose started to turn red and she blinked back some tears.
“You spend too much time looking at websites about toxins and worrying about little things. Too much time hiding at home. It lets thoughts like these fester,” Dad said as we finally reached the walkway to the school doors. “I saw you looking at that news article on Ajay and Joginder this afternoon. Why? It’s been almost three months since that horrible day. They’re both out of the hospital. Their breaks have healed. Their bruises are gone. Ajay’s eye is back to normal. Why keep reliving the past?”
“You should have seen the comments people were writing underneath it. ‘Good. Now the terrorists will think twice.’ ‘Go back to your sandbox.’ ‘Go back to your country.’ Sound familiar? I’m not some naïve, paranoid person. This isn’t the past. This is our present. This is our new reality. So instead of wasting time trying to speak to people who will never change, you should realize it’s pointless and figure out how to keep quiet and stay safe.”
“The world is still full of more good people than bad. You need to get out and socialize more. Maybe you should join the PTA.”
Oh God, no. I briefly panicked, thinking of Aai embarrassing me as she tried to change the cafeteria menu to organic. As we entered the high school, the smell of ginger-spiced chai wafted around the halls.
“I’m here socializing, aren’t I?” snapped Aai, her face twisting into a huge fake smile as she waved at Maya’s mom and Deepika Auntie in front of the auditorium.
I said bye to my parents and ran down the hall to the cafeteria, trying not to lose my chappal as they flopped against my heels with each stride I took.
Avantika was sitting with Maya and Tanvi at a table by the wall of windows on the cafeteria’s edge. Tanvi was showing Maya something on her cell phone and snickering, while Avantika just stared out the window at the raindrops that were starting to sprinkle down on the school’s courtyard.
“Oh, hey,” said Maya, noticing me. “I love your Anarkali!”
“Thanks,” I said, sitting down next to them and fixing my orange odhani around my neck. “Avantika got it for me from India.”
“Aww, nice,” said Tanvi. “Do you go back home often?”
“Her home’s in Oakridge,” I said, my bangles jingling against one another as I patted my curls over my forehead.
Tanvi rolled her eyes as lightning flashed outside and the rain grew heavier. “Fine. Do you go back to the motherland often? Is that acceptable?” she asked me.
We always called India the motherland while joking around. Of course it was acceptable.
“Do you really want to live here after living in India?” asked Maya quietly, seeming genuinely concerned. “Like stay here, I mean? I don’t think I could do it. The shopping is so much better in India. The food is better. The weather is nice and warm. …”
“I miss my family. I miss being around my people. I miss the TV shows, the movie channels, Indian MTV, the Gujarati dance competitions, the Marathi singing competitions, getting to hear Hindi songs all the time on the radio. … But it’s also too hot there sometimes. The traffic and pollution can be bad. It can be hard to find a good job with all the competition. I love India, but I’m starting to like it here, too.”
“It’s so weird,” said Tanvi. “Everything you’re saying is what our parents must have felt when they first came here, when they were fobs.”
Tanvi’s body jolted a few inches up as Maya not-so-subtly kicked her under the table.
“Sorry,” she said to Avantika.
“It’s okay,” Avantika said. “How many years do you think it took before people stopped calling your parents fobs?”
“What?” asked Tanvi, totally confused.
“I was just wondering how many years I would need before I would pass the test and no longer be called that.”
“Probably like ten years, maybe?” Tanvi shrugged, totally oblivious to the fact that Avantika was trying to show her how rude she was being.
I fiddled with a loose sequin, watching as its metallic green color turned gold depending on how the light hit it, and felt sorry for Avantika. Here Aai was worrying about our present, with some people thinking we weren’t as good as them. But Avantika would never be able to shake her past, which was just as good as any of ours, because people like Tanvi would always think she wasn’t as good as them.
I pressed the sequin down flat, watching it all in silence. So much for speaking up. I thought I was different after writing my op-ed. But I suddenly felt like the old version of me. The old version of me who could have protected Avantika when Noah’s story hit the front page but instead changed the subject, drawing everyone’s attention to Avantika because I had wanted people to think it was her, to get a break from it all for once. And now, I should have helped again. I should have said something instead of sitting there voiceless, like the old version of me.
But it was like Aai said. Whether I was Home Lekha or School Lekha or Old Lekha or New, what was the point in trying to explain something to someone who wouldn’t change?
chapter THIRTY-SEVEN
The rain was coming down hard as we drove home that night. The drops tapped on the car windows, sounding as loud as the time I had dropped a box of pasta shells and the noodles tumbled out onto the wooden floor. And before we were even halfway home, the sky began to groan and the water started coming down even harder, battering the car.
Dad had to slow way down on the exit off the freeway to Oakridge. The whole ramp was flooded with pools of water, and the storm sirens were howling.
“This should be snow,” said Aai. “I can’t believe how warm it is in March.”
We turned onto the regular road, the winter potholes now home to rainwater, and the car hydroplaned, skidding across the water as the steering wheel spun out of Dad’s hands.
“Careful!” shouted Aai as I clenched the handle above my window.
Dad regained control of the car just as an SUV coming in the opposite direction swerved toward us, moving out of the way at the last second.
He looked back through his rearview mirror. “I think they need help.”
Aai shook her head. “They just tried to run us off the road. I told you this would happen.”
But Dad turned the car around.
“What are you doing?” I cried. This could be the person who painted those words on our garage. Or it could be someone who saw my op-ed. What if Mr. Crowe showed it to a friend without knowing the friend hated people like us? Or what if the person who wrote on our garage somehow saw my op-ed and followed us, waiting for the perfect time to run us off the road?
My stomach dropped as Dad parked the car. The SUV was on the side of the desolate road, a DON’T LIKE IT? bumper sticker on its back window, its blinkers flashing in the downpour. My fingers felt clammy. This was it. This was the price of speaking up.
“It’s a woman and two kids,” Dad said, putting his jacket over his head as he got out of the car.
A few cold drops sprinkled on my face in the few seconds
the door was open, and I breathed in the crisp, calming air.
“What is he doing? He’s going to get us all killed,” Aai muttered to herself.
But it was loud enough for me to hear, and I started to feel sick all over again. What if we were in danger? What if what happened to Ajay Mama and Joginder Uncle happened to Dad? Would we be the next article in that hate crime series in the News? I craned my neck for a better view as Dad talked to the driver and crouched down by the SUV’s wheel.
Aai clicked her tongue and sighed. “They have a flat.”
“What?”
“Their tire. They have a flat.” Aai unbuckled her belt.
“Where are you going?” I put my hand on my buckle, but Aai stopped me.
“Stay put. You know your father knows nothing about cars.” Aai opened the door and rushed to the SUV in front of us, rain pelting her expensive sari.
I gripped my seat belt hard, feeling the belt tighten around my waist, trying to squeeze the worry out of myself like I was juicing an orange.
I saw the doors open as Aai neared. The driver and her two kids exited, stepping into the view of our headlights. And my hands went limp.
It was Harper and her little brother, Harrison. I quickly unbuckled my belt and ran out to their car.
“Are you okay?” I asked my teammate.
Harper nodded, holding her winter jacket over her and Harrison’s heads. The rain was drenching my bare feet in my chappal, making them feel like they were soaking in the Sports Club pool.
Aai crouched in her sari and expertly removed the lug nuts. She raised the car up with the jack and put on the spare tire that Dad and Mrs. Walbourne had pulled out of her car.
Mrs. Walbourne bent down by Aai’s side as she tightened the nuts on the spare.
“I can’t thank you enough. The river on our side of town is totally flooded. There was water pouring into our house. I was trying to go to a motel, but with the storm and the flood causing everyone to evacuate, no local motels have room. I was about to get on the freeway to drive out farther when this happened.” She began to cry. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse for us. …”
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