Blending Out

by Priyanka Bagrodia

  Finally, a mere forty minutes after they’d started, Ryley said, “Hey, I think I should get going. I forgot I had scheduled a call.” She would have to trust herself and her intellect to deliver her to the top. She’d always learned best by solo studying after all.

  Cassidy sighed. “You know what, Ryley, that’s not believable at all. We can see through you when you huff off and pretend you’re fine.”

  Ryley had quite shockingly never been directly called out on her propensity for sulking by anyone outside her family, so she sat there for a bit, stymied. Finally, she said, “I honestly am tired and I feel like you all have strong opinions.” She began to gather her books to give her hands something to do and her eyes somewhere to look.

  Cassidy wrinkled her little button nose. “Yes, we do have strong opinions. We’re lawyers. It’s our job to know how to argue.”

  David chimed in before the two could continue their back and forth. “Okay, Cassidy, that’s enough. Ryley, I’ll text you tonight. Maybe we can get dinner?”

  Ryley nodded at him, grateful for his intervention though she could have used his support about thirty minutes ago. He had been too busy staring at Cassidy and focusing on bantering about the material. Gathering her books, she said, “Okay, well, I have to get going, but I’ll see you all in class tomorrow.”

  Mark gave her a sympathetic smile and waved her off, ever the perfect diplomat.

  As Ryley turned to go, Cassidy added as a seemingly offhand afterthought, which meant it was anything but, “I’ve seen you hanging out with Rohan. He would fit in well with the study group dynamic. He always brings in that policy perspective no one else is thinking about.”

  Ryley responded to Cassidy’s not-quite question with a non-committal nod. Ryley was not going to ask Rohan to join on Cassidy’s behalf when she felt like she might have just been kicked out—or kicked herself out—of the study group. Besides, “hanging out” was a strong term for the one ten-minute talk they’d had in the semester. He’d wished her a Happy Diwali to celebrate the Indian new year earlier in the month. They’d talked about what their parents used to do in celebration—all the candles they’d light, the Bollywood dance performances they’d make their kids learn, the sudden upswell of Hindi around a house in which it was otherwise notably absent—and had then parted ways. Ryley had not made any effort to talk with him since.

  Things would have been different if they’d connected as Americans first, using her learned definition of American, which was necessarily constrained to sharing a similar love of Chipotle, Beyoncé (or Rihanna, she wasn’t picky), brunch, drinking, and Obama, but Ryley hadn’t wanted a friendship primarily based on shared Indian heritage. She didn’t need to connect through her Indianness when she knew she belonged in America.

  As Ryley pulled open the door, Cassidy commanded, “Wait,” and, deciding to be more direct, said, “Can you ask Rohan to join?”

  “I think you’d have as good a shot. I’ve talked with him once in the last month.” Ryley turned once again to exit out of the room, but Cassidy’s irritated clucking sound stopped her.

  “Still, you know him better than I do, so I think it’s worth it. He’s never made any effort to come over to me.” Cassidy seemed to think over her own statement for a second or two and then added, “It must be because I’m too white. Your whiteness is at least on the inside. Come on, I bet he’d open right up to you.”

  David was half-nodding along, almost questioningly. Mark opened his mouth and then closed it, looking to Ryley for direction. Ryley gave a short, barking laugh of disbelief. Even as Cassidy had validated her for essentially being white, for being just like them, she still looked to Ryley’s brown skin and thought it a prop that automatically connected Ryley with all other Indians. That all Indians, if they wanted, were one and the same. Ryley bit out, “Oh, yes, I forgot. The fact we’re both brown is an instant guarantee of friendship.”

  Cassidy didn’t stutter or apologize as Ryley had expected. Instead, Cassidy rolled her eyes and returned her gaze to her laptop, letting a nice, neat tension settle in the room. During the pregame to the Harvard-Yale game, Cassidy had warned Ryley she’d turn into a bit of a lunatic as finals approached, saying the statement with a what-can-you-do shrug. Even Mark had tried to prepare her, but Ryley found herself incredibly disappointed nonetheless. Ryley left the room without another word.

  PART III

  FEBRUARY

  CHAPTER 13

  FEBRUARY 2009

  100 percent. Ryley loved getting tests back. She kept her face neutral; the exaggerated Joker grin she wanted to let crawl across her face would be obnoxious. She let the small seed of contentment sit like a warm coal at the bottom of her stomach.

  “Class, overall good job at doing a phenomenally mediocre job. Some of you could have used the help of a curve, but I curve it off the highest score. And in this case, the highest score was a hundred.” Mr. Weber let his eyes rest on hers, as he said “a hundred” and Ryley gave a slight, barely noticeable nod in acknowledgment. She dropped her eyes to her desk shortly thereafter; she didn’t want his sustained gaze to give her away. The competition was intense, and as sophomores, they knew their grades this year and the next would be crucial for college applications. She’d rather not have a target painted on her back, though she knew her classmates already had a sense of her. Students were constantly sniffing each other out.

  As if to prove her point, Josh decided to stretch his body, managing to twist his head in the process so he directly faced her. She casually flipped the first page of her exam so the score was obscured just as he casually dropped his eyes down.

  Raising his voice to be heard over the rain beginning to pound at the window, Mr. Weber continued, “History is a hard subject. I get it, but I do not reward laziness. I gave a seventy percent to those who said World War One began because of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and then went into depth about meaningless details. Please do not word-vomit and expect me to be impressed. See me if you have questions, but let’s turn to the assigned reading.”

  Ryley took notes mindlessly, automatically transcribing the words Mr. Weber said without digesting them. Instead, she focused on the small seed of happiness within and nurtured it, wanting it to grow and fill her so she could backlog the feeling of contentment and pull it out on a sad day. She was usually swift to squish out feelings of self-satisfaction and smugness, reminding herself of things that could have been done better, or areas in which she was lacking, but she let herself enjoy the success for now. Mr. Weber had looked at her with such approval that she had felt genuinely special, like it was undoubtedly good she was the way she was, that nothing needed to be changed about her.

  As the clock hit 8:45, Mr. Weber immediately cut himself off and said, “Until next time then.” He was punctilious and never started late or stopped late and had never gotten the names of Asian students confused nor those of the Black or Hispanic students. She liked him. Probably also in large part because he liked her.

  As she started to pack, she pondered what to do with the free Friday evening she had awaiting her. Usually, she had softball practice, followed by practicing the piano for a couple of hours, followed by homework. Her parents had asked her to stack up on extracurriculars for her own good and Ryley hadn’t minded, knowing she had to be exceptionally well-rounded if she was to get people to give her a chance. The latest statistic being thrown around was fifteen percent. Elite colleges, the ones that would open the doors to bigger and better things, only allowed Asians to fill up fifteen percent of their incoming class and a basic level of academic excellence was taken for granted. She needed to be good enough to outcompete the other Asians vying for those same spots with extracurriculars, showing she was more than her GPA. Or, as her college advisor put it, more than another “grade-obsessed Asian.”

  But tonight, softball had been canceled because of the thunderstorm taking LA by surprise. Naturally, that had become the only thing anyone could talk about, and she’d had
at least ten conversations about the shocking weather; not that she had anything better to talk about.

  She saw Josh waiting for her out of the corner of her eye. As she finished packing up, he explicitly asked, “How’d you do on the test?”

  “Fine, fine,” she said, keeping it generic as much to irritate him as to preserve her academic anonymity. He’d not done enough subterfuge to justify asking her directly. He should have tried to peek at her exam at least two more times.

  “How did you do?” she finally asked after he said nothing more and just stood there, fidgeting with his backpack strap as he waited for her to finish packing up. She stopped pretending she was looking around for a pencil she knew she’d already put away and swung her backpack over one shoulder. Her painful attempt at a power play had lasted long enough and was, quite frankly, unnecessary. She had quickly moved on from the debacle that was Homecoming, deciding it wasn’t even worth it to nurse a grudge. Leaving a quarter of the way into the game had made enough of a statement, and it wasn’t like she could demand an apology from him for speaking his truth.

  “Okay. Definitely not top of class like you.” He left the words there as a hook. She stayed silent.

  As they were exiting the classroom, Mr. Weber called out, “Ryley, fantastic job.”

  Ryley turned to him with a pained, grimace of a smile, said, “Thanks,” and turned to face straight again.

  “So, you got the hundred,” Josh said loudly. Too many people were hovering around outside the classroom and more than a couple of heads swiveled to look at her. Ryley’s ears burned, but at least the brown of her skin would camouflage the red flush she could feel painting her cheeks.

  “I never said that.”

  “Mr. Weber essentially said it for you.”

  She would have liked to tell him to shut up, but she was sure Josh thought he was bragging for her in that deluded brain of his. He didn’t know of her single-minded campaign oriented around fitting in such that a simple portrait of Indian academic excellence paired with her “stick in the mud” image, as Kyle had called it, was doing her no favors; even colleges didn’t want that.

  Harrison came up before she could formulate a rebuttal that would concisely and accurately encapsulate all her thoughts. “Oh, yeah, she’s a little brainiac. You should see the amount she reads.”

  Ryley was startled to see Harrison ground to a halt next to her. They rarely interacted at school. Ryley would prefer that he stick to that pattern.

  “Okay, Harrison, don’t you have band practice to get to?” Harrison was as loaded up on extracurriculars as she was, though he was a senior.

  “No, I’m skipping class. It’s not required. Also, I know I said I’d give you a ride home tonight, but I want to go to the mall and watch a movie with some friends. Can you get a ride from Mom?”

  Harrison was off to Princeton and although he’d been an incredibly serious student through most of high school, once he’d gotten early admission, he’d decided to become a social butterfly. People had accepted him with open arms. As she’d noted at Homecoming, he’d leaned into being a tech geek, dressing carelessly on purpose and comfortably playing up his nerdiness. He hadn’t bothered to show that he was on the same playing field as the jocks or the clique of rich, white kids and had never challenged the existing social structure with its preset stereotypes. Instead, he’d just been infallibly helpful and kind even when people were rude to him.

  The black BMW he drove her to school in every morning was the only nod he ever made to their family’s wealth. But even the BMW didn’t stand out amongst the Audis, Mercedes, and Lexuses that packed the school’s parking lot, so people were comfortable treating him like they’d treat an adorable puppy. Ryley disliked it, but she supposed he was happy, so she kept it to herself. After all, his method seemed to be working for him.

  “Ryley?” Harrison prodded her. Josh stared at the two of them. Ryley wished Josh would buzz off.

  “Yeah, I’ll call Mom and ask her,” Ryley said shortly. She had just gotten her driver’s license, but they still carpooled together and Harrison unfortunately got priority over the car. He was only two years older.

  “Wait, didn’t you say you lived close?” Josh asked, absentmindedly running a hand through his shaggy mop of hair.

  “Yeah, like a fifteen-minute drive.” Ryley was confused why he cared.

  “I’m not doing anything. I can drop you off after school.”

  “Hm, okay.” She realized her surprise made her sound decidedly ungrateful, so she added, “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Solid, man. Thank you,” Harrison echoed. Then he was bouncing away like an overgrown rabbit. He called out over his shoulder, “Congrats, Einstein.”

  Most of the students from their history class were still gathered in the small patio that doubled as a general locker area outside the classroom. A couple of them shot her long looks. Harrison was not the type to actively sabotage or embarrass; he was too good for that. That being said, he was the type to let himself get in the way. Because he would have liked everyone to know he got the top score, that meant she wanted everyone to know she got the top score. Never mind that she was intensely private about her grades and she’d never share anything meaningful about herself if she could help it.

  Ryley and Josh agreed to meet by the parking lot after school and parted ways for the day. Neither mentioned the possibility of getting lunch together.

  * * *

  Ryley and Josh made their way to his car in relative quiet. Ryley was still slightly surprised by the offer but she decided not to look a gift cow in the mouth—that’s what her mom always said, simultaneously poking fun at the Indian obsession with cows and her penchant for getting idioms mixed up.

  When they stopped outside a red Mustang parked only two cars down from the empty spot where Harrison’s car was usually parked, Ryley was surprised. She’d had no idea their parking spots were so close together. It wasn’t like they were really friends, though; hence, she was still slightly confused about the current state of affairs. As they got settled into the car, Josh proudly began droning on about the horsepower of a Mustang. Ryley tuned him out, compiling a list of potential reasons for why he was suddenly being so nice to her in her head.

  Eventually, as they were peeling out of the parking lot, he asked, “Where do you live?”

  Ryley tried not to make how tightly she was holding onto the car’s handlebar too obvious as she chirped, “Just off Mulholland. I’ll direct you when we get to my cross street.”

  He scoffed. “You’ll direct me? Ryley, sometimes you talk like a robot.”

  “And sometimes you talk like a moron.” Ryley had not meant to say that aloud, preferring to keep her more pointed retorts to herself to write down and laugh at later, but the never-ending number of things to tweak and fix was getting to her. She wanted access to the script everyone else seemed to be reading off that fed them the right slang and dialogue lines.

  Josh stared at her in shock for a couple of seconds before he suddenly started to laugh. “Nice one, Ryley.”

  They passed the rest of the short drive in relative silence, letting The All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell” transition to Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” without comment. Ryley would have liked to slip in some subtle nod to how musically cultured she was, but she couldn’t figure out how to do it after she’d sung along to Britney Spears’ hook chorus. It had been unintentional, a result of being too focused on pretending she was texting a friend when she had just been typing random letters into her Google Search.

  Eventually, Ryley decided to ask, “So what are you doing this weekend?”

  “Just baseball practice. And then I’m probably going to go over to Taylor’s. He’s having a party for the baseball team. I thought he invited the softball team.”

  “Yeah, he did. I blanked,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She was in the middle of rereading Mrs. Dalloway for the third time anyway, and she could hit up some of the friends in her exte
nded friend group if she truly wanted to socialize; she’d continued treading periphery friend land quite successfully. As they got off Mulholland and started getting close to her house, she began to guide him through the side streets.

  As Josh made the final turn onto her block, he said, “It looks like you live pretty close to Taylor. If you want, I can pick you up on my way over.”

  Ryley fiddled with the seatbelt as she weighed what to say. Although Josh was usually nice enough, he never put himself out like this and something felt off now. Ryley couldn’t quite bring herself to ask him directly.

  Instead, she said, “Oh, yeah, sure. That would be great. It’ll save me from having to get a ride from one of the girls.”

  “Okay, cool.” He didn’t exactly sound enthused. She would have liked to snap that she didn’t need his pity if that’s what he was inviting her out of, but she also really didn’t want him to take back the invitation. So she said nothing, even as he drove up to her front gate.

  “Whoa, nice house,” he said, slightly taken aback. “I did not expect you to live somewhere like this.” The house looked a bit like a mini castle with its regal cobblestone exterior, stained glass windows, and a pointed little tower spire situated front and center with ivy hanging off the trellis upfront.

  Feeling skittish and uncomfortable, she didn’t acknowledge his words and rather abruptly hopped out of the car with her backpack in hand, leaning slightly against the car to say through the open window, “Thanks for dropping me off and for offering to take me to the party tomorrow. I seem to be racking up favors with you.” She punctuated her last statement with a light-hearted laugh. He smiled back at her but didn’t argue with her words, just giving her a small wave before driving off. She looked forward to spending the rest of the night alternating between replaying that interaction in her mind and stressing about attending a party to which she had not quite been invited.