And Laughter Fell From the Sky (4 page)

“I just want what most people want,” she finally said to Abhay. “A nice place to live, a family. And we’ll have that, Viraj and I.” It sounded strange to couple his name with hers. She’d get used to it.

“What are you passionate about?”

She was passionate about—she didn’t know. Besides inappropriate men, that is. Could a person be passionate about material objects? She loved beautiful things. Sometimes she wished she could have been a jeweler, but that wasn’t a suitable career for her family. So instead, she had to deal with the idea of money, with numbers on a computer screen.

It was best, she felt, not to be passionate about anything. Passion had steered her into the arms of the wrong man enough times. She crossed her arms over her chest. Of course, she hoped she would feel passion for Viraj. That would be fitting.

“I’m trying to figure out how other people make decisions,” Abhay said. “Do you feel drawn, or pulled, to do certain things? Is it an emotional decision, or an intellectual decision?”

She wanted to put an end to these questions, in a gracious way. She turned to him and raised her eyebrows. “I’m a pretty simple person, Abhay. I just want what most people want.” She stood up, strolled a few steps away, and stopped with her back to him. She was aware that he was gazing at her, and that her slim figure made a pretty picture against the fading sky.

“I mean, I hope you’re not doing this just out of obedience to your parents,” Abhay said.

“I’m not. This is what I want to do.” She was still facing away.

“Your parents want you to be happy. They think the way to make sure you’re happy is to try to run your life for you. But you don’t have to let them.”

“You’re one to talk. It’s not like you’ve figured your life out.” Rasika’s phone sang again. She grabbed for her purse on the bench.

“I hate it when people are slaves to their phone,” Abhay said.

“Let me just see who it is. My mother’ll keep calling if I don’t pick up.”

Instead, Benito’s name was on the screen. She shoved the phone to the bottom of her purse. Benito was her gym trainer—very sweet, very encouraging. He had been interested in her for months. She clutched the purse in her lap until the phone went silent, then set her purse on the bench again. “What were we talking about?”

“The fact that you’re held captive by your phone.”

“Before that.”

“You were telling me that I haven’t figured my life out.”

“Right.” She crossed her legs and leaned her knees toward Abhay. “Life’s not so hard. Just pick something and do it. Get a job. Make some money. Get on with things.”

“You sound like my dad,” he said. “I thought I had figured it out. I thought I’d live and work at Rising Star all my life. I thought I’d experience a working-together feeling, but without the judgmental nature of traditional cultures. It didn’t work for me.”

The air was cooler now, and she slipped on her jacket. “You can’t solve all the world’s problems by yourself.” Talking to Abhay made her appreciate her own life. She wanted to be ready for tomorrow, ready to meet her future husband. “What do you know about tennis?”

“Why?”

“Viraj is interested in tennis. I need to know the latest news.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I don’t want to appear completely clueless.”

“So you want to pretend like you know all about tennis?”

“At least enough to ask a few intelligent questions.”

“The U.S. Open is coming up.”

“What should I ask him about that?”

“Ask who he thinks will win.”

Rasika considered this. That might draw him out. Men always had opinions on the future results of sporting events. “What are some of the names of the players?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s it going to be?”

“Somewhere in New York.”

Her phone rang again. She dug it out of her purse. It was her mother this time. She turned off the phone and stood up. “I need to get home. I’ll give you a ride to your house.” She felt ready to face her real life now, after this little interlude with Abhay.

When Abhay got out of Rasika’s car in front of his parents’ ranch house, it was about seven o’clock. He saw his mother at the dining table behind the picture window. She had taken over the dining room to display her product samples. He pushed open the door, kicked off his sandals, and dropped his backpack inside the door.

The heavy, dark chairs and china cabinet took up all the air space in the small dining room. A few small, lonely photos arranged in no particular order hung on one wall: his grandparents, his graduation photo, his sister Seema’s school picture. The china cabinet contained a haphazard collection of useless items too nice to throw away: cloth dolls and little wooden toys from India, a carved soapstone pen caddy someone had given him for a graduation present, various cutesy porcelain figures Mom had received from the “girls” she used to work with.

“Good time you had?” Mom gave him her new, practiced smile. She sat at the table, which was covered with a lace tablecloth under a clear plastic protective sheet. She was reading a book called
Unleash Your Selling Capacity
and jotting notes on a legal pad.

“I ran into Rasika.” He pulled out a chair and sat down in front of a stack of educational game boxes. The cover of the top game showed two crudely drawn anthropomorphic animals with huge eyes, playing with a spinning dial with numbers on it.

“Rasika.” Mom tapped her pen on her legal pad. “Her mother I must call. Sujata said she will give name of someone to host sales party.” She pointed her pen at Abhay. “Key to success is networking.”

Growing up, Abhay had often wished his mother would find some interests of her own and stop meddling in his life. Yet he never imagined his steady, sensible mother would have been taken in by this company. He lifted one of the educational game boxes closer to him. “Mom, do you really know what you’re getting into? How much did these samples cost, anyway?”

She thumped her palm on the table’s plastic covering. “It is investment,” she said. “In myself I must invest.”

Abhay was glad his father wasn’t around. He’d not only make fun of Mom’s bad English—which was for some reason worse than that of most other Indians they knew, and certainly worse than his father’s perfect speech—but also of her new sales talk.

Despite his mother’s poor English, his parents always spoke English at home; they didn’t actually share a common Indian language. Abhay’s mother had grown up all over India, as her father was posted here and there for his government job. Her family had spoken an odd mixture of Telugu, Hindi, and English at home. His mother could get by in five or six languages, but according to his father, she had never learned any language properly. His father, in contrast, had grown up in Bangalore and had mastered a fluent, literary-quality Kannada (at least in his own opinion). To practice his English, he used to listen to speeches by Winston Churchill and Jawaharlal Nehru. Abhay’s parents had not felt it necessary to teach him or his sister any Indian language.

“It’s really difficult to make any money with these pyramid scheme things. It’s a scam, Mom,” Abhay said. “Only people at the top make anything. They get you to pay them for these samples, and then you’re stuck. And when you do make a sale, everyone else above you gets a cut.”

“I will not listen to negative talk. Anyone will make money who works hard.”

“Why are you doing this, Mom? I thought you liked your job.”

“I want to follow passion,” Mom said.

“Your passion?” He’d never once heard his mother use this word. He’d been trying to prod Rasika into stating her passion, and here his own mother, who had a very nice path to follow, had suddenly found some crazy desire.

A door opened down the hallway, and they heard a faint, insistent drumbeat. His sister Seema listened, very quietly, to a rhythm and blues station from Cleveland. He was surprised at her musical choices. She was six years younger than him, eighteen—thin, shy, and almost friendless, as far as he could tell. While they were growing up, he hadn’t paid much attention to her. But he knew her enough to notice she’d changed while he was away, becoming more odd and reclusive. Then the door closed again, and the house resumed its tomblike silence.

“Education is passion for me,” Mom said. “Learning will be fun with the games. Look. They come with video. Kids will love video.” Mom set the appropriate boxes in front of him as she spoke. “Letters . . . numbers . . . addition . . . spelling. Even geography.”

“There are so many educational games out there already.”

“These are different. Children will self-teach. Child watches video and learns to play. Game is self-correcting. See?” She opened a box and displayed the game board, cards, and playing pieces. “While mother is cooking, child will be learning.”

“What kids need is more time with their parents, not more time watching a video.”

“What you know about raising children? Anyway, parent can play with child. Very versatile these games.”

She must have picked up these words—
self-correcting, versatile
—at her sales meetings. Outside the dining room picture window their neighbor, Mrs. Tully, was taking an evening walk with a tiny terrier on a leash. Abhay had a crush on her daughter, Michelle, during high school. He could still picture her long, dark-blond hair. He’d sent her a “secret valentine” cupcake during the student council’s fund-raiser and had asked her to several school dances. Michelle never spoke to him, not even when they were waiting for the school bus together at the corner.

“So, Mom—have you set up any parties yet?”

“Almost. This close I am.” Mom held up two fingers a centimeter apart. “At least I think you will support.” She set her pen down. “Seema is embarrassed because mother is trying something new. Your father does not want me to keep things in dining room. Where should I keep? Everyone else has own space. Your father has whole room for home office. I have no place. Kitchen is my place, yes? No more.”

Abhay had no idea his mother had ever felt resentful of her role within the family.

“You said I should do this,” Mom said. “Now even you are against.”

“I suggested you get into a pyramid scheme?”

“You always said, ‘Mom, don’t let Dad push you. You are smart. Get life of your own.’ ” Without her fake smile, she looked more like the mother he remembered from his childhood. “So lonely I was, after you left. Your father was upset because you went to that place. You will never come back, I think. And then Linda at work said there is this company and invited me to meeting. Dad was against, but I remember what you told and I went.”

Abhay did remember telling his mother, occasionally, not to let Dad get her down. Dad was ten years older and had a Ph.D. in physics, while Mom had only completed two years of college. Dad sometimes ridiculed her for her lack of understanding of investing, her lack of interest in current affairs, her confusion around scientific topics like electricity and bacteria and molecules.

“I want to show I can also do something important,” she said.

“If it makes you happy, I guess I’m happy for you,” he said.

His mother stood and started stacking the game boxes. “How is Rasika?”

“Fine. I guess she’s meeting an eligible bachelor tomorrow.”

His mother clicked her tongue. “I don’t know. So well Sujata has done. Rasika is not at all smart, and look at her—making all money, driving around in Lexus car.”

“I think Rasika is actually very smart, but for some reason she tries to hide it,” Abhay suggested.

His mother waved away this reasoning. “Even Pramod, his test scores were not so good as yours, and now almost finished with medical school he is. What do we do wrong? Your sister stays in room all the time now. Your father is telling about medical school or engineering or computer science. Such high scores she got on SAT exam. But she will not talk. I only wish she will take more interest in appearance. I tell her, Seema, you must smile and speak nicely. My best I have tried.”

Here was the mother he knew! “It’s not your fault, Mom.” How could he explain to her that his situation wasn’t a tragedy? And that Rasika’s situation was not necessarily a success?

She patted his arm. “At least you are home. Now you can go graduate school. Never too late it is. Try again if you don’t succeed first time. Never give up. You talk to Dad about graduate school, OK? He went to sleep early today. Tomorrow you talk. He will advise you.”

Abhay nodded. Maybe he ought to talk to his father, man to man.

“I put food away already,” she apologized. “For some time I kept out. When you did not come, I put in fridge.”

“That’s OK, Mom.”

“Can I heat something for you?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No worry.” Mom bustled into the kitchen. He heard her open the fridge door. “Rice I have, and mixed vegetable kurma. And rotis. You like rotis with kurma.” Her voice sounded hollow, coming from inside the fridge.

He didn’t feel like having her serve him and hover around, asking questions. On the other hand, he was hungry. And he did want to reconnect with his mother. He followed her into the kitchen and served himself from the containers she was taking out of the fridge. While his plate was rotating in the microwave, his mother started drying and putting away the dishes in the drainer. He said, “Let me do that later. Sit down with me while I eat.”