Simran shrugs.
“It is,” he says. “To make something that educates a lot of people and then gives solace to those who went through it.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way before,” she says, mentally repeating his words. Her family and fiancé never thought of the project as a source of solace.
“It’s true,” he says.
Her phone buzzes with a group text from Sheila and Vishal.
Vishal: You’re still talking to him?!
Next to his question, there’s an emoji of a face with hearts for eyes. She turns her phone around.
It doesn’t take long for Neil to pull up a chair to continue their conversation. They sit in the same positions long after the cupcakes are eaten and the champagne is drained. She asks him about Princeton, how he felt about letting go of a career as a physician, and tells him about her master’s in psychology. Somewhere between her latest research study and his refusal to take the MCAT, she realizes that she’s no longer missing Kunal or even worried about the guests glancing at them, whispering to one another.
When Neil scoots his chair closer to hers, she reaches under the table and slips off her engagement ring. There is a split second when she asks herself what the heck she’s doing, but she decides to ignore that voice. Sometimes it’s nice to leap out of character. Not discuss wedding planning for once.
Thirty minutes later, her mom comes to their table.
“Simran,” Nandini says in her ear. “It doesn’t look good to ignore everyone and just sit with one person, one boy, in the middle of your book party.”
“Oh, so now it’s my book party?”
Nandini places a firm hand on Simran’s shoulder. No daughter of hers will behave inappropriately. “Remember what I told you before. People are leaving and expect you to say bye to them.”
Simran stands at the door to hug people goodbye but keeps glancing around the room to make eye contact with Neil. After her parents are gone and only her friends are left, she motions for Neil to join her at the table again. They discuss the trials that accompany being a writer: crappy first drafts, tedious revisions, countless rejection letters, self-doubt, and the tortured-artist complex that they both don’t have.
If someone were to gaze through the glass double doors, they would see a pair of what seemed like long-lost friends, chatting effortlessly and cheerily, catching up on the years they’ve missed. The last people clear out, and the only sound is the clunk of cabs speeding over potholes.
It already occurred to her that Neil talks to all sorts of people at all sorts of times, is probably just being nice, and will more than likely forget about her. But for the rest of the night, she will not think of her life. Not when she and Neil are confined in the walls of her party, not when he places his hand on the small of her back as they cross Fifth Avenue to her favorite twenty-four-hour diner, and not on her cab ride home, when the streets are cluttered with cheap pizza and discarded beer bottles.
Nandini
“She just doesn’t understand. She doesn’t even think. If she just took one second to reflect on why I say the things I do, then she’d realize that I’m right,” Nandini says.
“WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Mami yells into the phone.
“Mami, you don’t need to yell the way you had to when I used to call India. You’re not holding the phone up properly.”
Nandini hears her mother mutter something in Gujarati, followed by the sounds of her adjusting her sari.
“Okay, I can hear you,” Mami says, as if they don’t go through this during every phone call.
Nandini repeats her earlier statement.
“You’re doing what you’re supposed to do,” Mami says. “It’s your job to set boundaries and show her right from wrong.”
“Yes, but she just doesn’t get it,” Nandini says. “We don’t . . . understand each other.”
“Well, are you proud of her?”
“What?” Nandini asks, as though she didn’t hear the question, when in fact her mother’s words were clear.
“Are you proud of Simran? For her writing? For who she is in general?”
“What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m proud!”
“Of what? You have to say it.” Mami commands her like an elementary school teacher telling someone to recite the alphabet.
Nandini clears her throat. “I think it’s impressive that she put together an essay collection. A book! It doesn’t even sound real when I say the words out loud. My daughter wrote a book. I know that couldn’t have been easy. And the way she depicted what girls go through during their teenage years. . . . It was thoughtful . . . and empathetic.”
“It was,” Mami agrees. “And what about her? Are you proud of her?”
“I am. . . .” Nandini’s voice trails off.
“But what?”
“But nothing,” Nandini says, and then adds, “I think there’s a lot that Simran still needs to realize, to learn. She’s getting married soon. And you and I both know that’s an entirely different game. To be spending time with another person—a boy—just sets her off on the wrong foot.”
“I know what you’re saying, but that’s not what I asked you about,” Mami says. “Simran has said you never tell her you’re proud of her. That you just point out what she’s not doing right.”
“That’s not true!” Nandini says. “I try to tell her, but she doesn’t hear it. When I say something—anything—she’s already waiting to take it the wrong way.”
“That’s not true,” Mami says.
“It is true. She never really hears what I’m trying to tell her.”
“She’s coming from a different place than you. What do you expect?”
Nandini bites her bottom lip. What does she expect? “I don’t know. I guess I hoped she and I could talk the way you and her talk.”
“Our relationship is different.”
“Yes, I know,” Nandini says, not bothering to mask the irritation in her voice.
“Is it possible that maybe you, you know . . .” Mami’s voice trails off.
“What? Is what possible? Just say it.”
Mami scoffs. “Is it possible that you’re being a little harsh with her?”
Of course her mother would go there. It doesn’t matter that Nandini has built a life in America, become a physician, and raised a family. Mami could always find a way to ask a question that poked a hole through all the self-confidence she spent years building.