Chapter 1
When Mummie sent me off to college ten years ago with a prayer over my head and a sweet to my lips, she’d said, “Excel in school, beta. Don’t bring shame to your family.”
Shame came.
Everyone and their uncle had my dad’s ear on how he could’ve possibly allowed this embarrassment to continue. That was right. The Asian equivalent to American kids going to raves and experimenting was being a lit major. Every auntie locked up her sons when I came around toting my voluptuous love of the arts and sultry grasp of grammar. Forbid that my mastery over the written word seduce good Indian boys.
Worse yet? I left college.
Hello, two-time college dropout, was that you?
Third time was a charm. But it wasn’t exactly what my parents had hoped for.
“A degree in film and theater!” Papa had bellowed. “Was that what I’ve been paying for this entire time?”
Um. Yep. Surprise . . .
“Oh, ma . . .” Mummie had muttered, rubbing her temples in complete dismay and invoking the gods to ask what she’d done in her past lives to deserve this punishment.
I swore their yells haunted the house to this day like wraiths reminding me that I wasn’t meeting my potential.
In the past six months, to make matters worse for a struggling creative soul, rent had skyrocketed (thanks, Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, and other Californians mass migrating to Austin and tipping over the market), and without a full-time job, I ended up moving back home.
Whomp-whomp. Adulting fail.
So here I was: twenty-eight, somewhat jobless, practically friendless, and living back with my parents. What a prize, right?
And, yes, yes, I know twenty-eight sounded too damn old to be living with one’s parents. But not-so-fun life fact: things don’t always turn out to our best expectations, no matter how hard we try.
To add insult to injury, I was destined to spend yet another Friday night home alone.
Papa grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter and tilted an invisible hat to me. “I’m off!” he said. I wished I had his big weekend-project energy. It practically sizzled through the air.
“Are you sure you trust YouTube enough to fix Uncle’s broken sink?” I asked warily.
“Ah. We’re civil engineers.” He shrugged as if that explained anything, or in some way gave him handyman superpowers.
“Right. Because Indians can suddenly do anything when they don’t want to pay a professional.”
“Between us and YouTube, we can fix anything.”
“Can you, though?” I asked from the kitchen, the heat from the stove warming my side.
He flashed a grin. Wow. I was jealous of his sense of confidence as he went in headfirst with a wrench in hand to tackle a plumbing issue he’d never seen before at someone else’s house. And he didn’t even bother wearing jeans and a T-shirt like someone who was about to tackle a sink. He was, as always, decked out in a button-down shirt and khakis. I mean, talk about dad swagger.
He jerked his chin toward the simmering pot at my side. “Making Maggi?” he asked, referring to the desi version of Top Ramen and quintessential food for singles.
“No noodles tonight,” I replied. Then I remembered. “Oh, here!” I said, whipping toward the cabinet beside the pantry and then back to Papa to hand him his blood pressure medicine. “You usually have this with dinner, but since you’re eating over there, take it now. You don’t need food with it.”
“Thank you, beta,” he said, taking the medicine with a swig from the cup of water I offered. “Always looking out for me.”
“Of course, I’ll always look out for you.”
“What’s on the agenda for you tonight?” he asked as I walked him to the foyer.
My younger brother, Mohit, rushed down the stairs like a thunderclap. Rogue, my ferocious miniature Yorkie, barked with annoyance from the living room around the hallway.
“Motiben’s going to binge on chocolate in her sweats,” Mohit jested. “Like every Friday night.”
He shoulder-shoved me and I shoved him back. “That is not what I do.”
“Sure, sure.” He hopped into one shoe, then another, and flew out the door before Papa even slipped into his loafers.
Papa shook his head and called after him, “Be safe!”
Then he smiled warmly at me and patted my head. “Make use of a lovely night, huh?”
“Hah,” I said as I closed the door after him, my back hitting the wall as I stared into the near-deserted house.
I returned to the kitchen and checked the timer. Another minute should do.
Mummie walked into the space between the open-concept kitchen and living room, all dolled up to hit the town with her auntie squad.
“My spinster daughter,” she teased dramatically with a cluck of her tongue as she twisted on the backs of her earrings. “Did you even change out of your pajamas today?”
“Yes,” I muttered, glancing down at my faded green sweatpants and gray T-shirt, the delicious scent from my coffee-and-sugar-scrub soap still lingering on my skin.
“If you made an effort to meet people, you’d dress better and look nicer.”
“Hmm . . .” I mumbled. How could my own mother, after all this time, equate my introverted nature to laziness?
“What are you doing? Cooking?” she asked from the hallway.
I placed a hand on my hip and leaned against the counter, watching boiling water roll the little pink plastic item over as it floated at the top of the saucepan.
“Can I sterilize my menstrual cup in peace?”
The color drained from her face. “In my cha pot!”
“It’s the small one. Mummie, you never use this.”
“That’s unsanitary, Isha,” she chastised.
“Umm, no. The entire point of boiling is to make it sanitary. It’s clean before it goes into the pot.”
“Why can’t you just use pads?” she heaved out, exasperated.
“Don’t be disgusting,” I teased.
“Unmarried girls use pads.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mummie. You’re a nurse. You know mighty well that tampons and menstrual cups didn’t take my virginity. I mean . . . that sort of monumental moment would be quite disappointing, huh?” I couldn’t help but grin.
Then it came. The inevitable. With a deep sigh, as if bringing this up caused my mother a great deal of stress, she said, “Your papa and I have been discussing your life.”