I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. She loved all of the one billion people in India? A lot of dumb stuff had been said that night, and that was definitely near the top of the list. But I knew that I, of course, was by far at the top.
“No, no,” Valerie said, “I couldn’t.” She seemed taken aback by the intimacy of the offer.
“I’d like to,” Suzanne said, an almost pleading tone in her voice, as if a pair of fancy earrings could ease the awkwardness of the moment.
“That’d be nice. Thank you.”
“Did you play a sport in college?” Stan asked Valerie.
“I didn’t,” she said, turning to Stan, and added before he could ask: “UCLA. Just a fan.”
There were a series of conversations going on around the room. Leslie was busy talking to Mark and Jan about their time in Spain, telling them how much she’d loved her study abroad year in Seville. Bill was talking to Richard about the rigors of junior tennis. I was having trouble getting Bill’s attention. Somehow, I needed to get him alone so that we could talk.
We were now well past the fifteen-minute mark that we allotted for each couple. Suzanne didn’t place her interlaced fingers on her lap. Instead, she let the conversation die down naturally. And when it did, she said, “Thank you so much for coming. We’ll be in touch very soon.”
The meeting came to a close. Once again, the Browns shook hands with everyone, and when they got to me, Valerie had a kind, calm expression on her face, perhaps the one she typically reserved for when a skinhead with a bullet-ridden chest rolled into her operating room. Bill shook my hand as well, gave me a muted smile. When they left the room with the Blacks, I wanted to follow, to apologize in the privacy of the darkening evening outside.
“I’m going to see if I can catch the Browns before they leave,” I said. I didn’t expect any opposition. This was precisely what they all wanted to hear.
And with that, I ran out of the clubhouse, into the night and toward the cars. There were no lights in the parking lot, but at the far end I could see an SUV backing out of its spot. As it came toward me, I stepped forward, hoping it was the Browns. I wasn’t sure if they knew I was out there, but as the car got closer, the headlights shined directly at me. The car slowed down. Thank god, they were going to stop. But then they maneuvered away from me, and as they passed, I could see Valerie in the passenger seat, illuminated from the light of her cell phone. Bill was saying something to her, with his eyes on the road. They drove out of the lot before I could catch their attention.
I turned back toward the clubhouse, and through the windows I could see that the rest of the committee was still there, in animated conversation.
In the dark, I felt so horribly alone, with the light from the bright stars above not quite making it down to me. It was the first cool night after a long summer, and the damp air felt refreshing on my skin. How had I become the one who, again and again, filled every last bit of silence with some stupid joke? Why was I incapable of learning a simple lesson? Shut up, Raj.
I headed to my car.
“Raj.”
The sound echoed in the parking lot, the voice coming from the dark, as if a hellhound were barking my name. I heard heels tapping on the ground in quick succession. I stopped and waited. Finally, Suzanne appeared. The only light came from the clubhouse, and when she stood close to me, I couldn’t see her very clearly.
When I had first met her and her husband Jack, it had been a very hot day and our kids were all swimming in the pool. We were talking in the shallow end, and after I told them what I did for a living, they spent the rest of our time together trying to persuade me that a liberal arts education was a waste of time and money.
“If they want to read books, they should go to the library. They should be learning to do something when they’re in college. Be a doctor, an engineer.”
I had reduced Suzanne to those words, convinced that she thought all human endeavors had to have utility. And yet, every time I saw her after, she did and said things that surprised me, often inquiring about and showing a genuine interest in what I was teaching that term.
The previous week, we’d been the last ones left after the membership meeting, cleaning up together. In the parking lot, as we were about to get into our cars, a little drunk off the wine and the power to say yes or no, laughing and making fun of the couples we had seen that night, she had told me about her visit to the Taj Mahal. “What a luminous place,” she’d said. “I was so happy to have Jack and my boys at my side. But as I gazed at all that marble, I realized that no one would ever build something so majestic in honor of me. I know it sounds ridiculous. Of course they wouldn’t. But still I was left with such a deep, profound melancholy. It was almost like my whole body was melting away.”
Several seconds passed without either of us saying anything.
“Maybe it was the summer heat,” I finally offered.
There were a few more seconds of silence and then she belted out this wild, beautiful laughter that echoed in the empty parking lot.
Now here we were again, though I imagined the conversation would be rather different.
“Did you catch them?” Suzanne asked in a soft voice.
“No.” I’d wanted to so badly. And now I wished I’d gotten in my car immediately after the Browns had driven away. I needed to be by myself, and I certainly didn’t want to talk this through with Suzanne.
“What happened back there?” Suzanne asked in a gentle yet stern tone that I suspect she used with her children after they’d thrown a temper tantrum.
My mind felt like a hive of bickering bees. I ran my fingers through my hair, as if that might help order my thinking. “I said something terrible. I didn’t mean to, it just came out. Now I feel sick to my stomach.” Much as I desperately wanted to, I couldn’t take this back. “I get the sense that you and the rest of the committee are very concerned about it.”
“Yes, we are.”
I mean, who wouldn’t be? But still it rankled that after years of turning the other way, they were finally taking a stand on something.
“I’m not making an excuse for myself here, but I didn’t see that same concern from everyone when that woman called me Kumar. I know they’re not the same. But still.”
“I’m sorry about that. She’s an idiot and they’re going on the bottom of the list. But you know this is of an entirely different magnitude. You just called—you called an African-American man, an African-American doctor . . .” Her voice dropped off.
“I didn’t,” I said. “And what does it matter that he’s a doctor?”
“Several people in there would disagree with that. Everyone heard it. We’re all horrified. And no, it doesn’t matter that he’s a doctor, but you know exactly what I mean. It would have been equally bad if you said it to someone else.”
I wasn’t going to explain to her the difference in intention and the crucial replacement of the “er” with an “a” in what I had said. But then I did.
“I’m not your student,” Suzanne said, snapping at me. “And I don’t live under a rock. And neither do you.”
I was figuring out how best to reply, but Suzanne continued on, as if reciting a script the committee had hastily put together for her.