Chapter 33 Simi
Thirty-Three
Simi
It’s been close to twenty-four hours since my stupidity put my sister in the path of danger again.
Ever since Rupi quietly let Prem and me bring her back to my apartment like someone who’s had the life force sucked out of her, we’ve barely heard a word come out of her.
I thought Saj’s visit would change her mood.
It did a little. She’s excited about going after Ron’s operation now, but she won’t talk about anything other than that.
Prem and I make chai in our pj’s. Rupi is drawing on her sketch pad on the living room rug, completely lost in the world of what she’s creating.
Prem wraps his arms around me from behind and places his chin on my shoulder. “You smell good enough to eat,” he says. “Like spun sugar and hugs.”
I press into him as he nuzzles my neck. It’s weird to have him see me like this—in the liminal space between leaving behind the night and not yet dressed for the oncoming day. He’s squeezing me like he wants to soak this unguarded me up, like this is the me he’s always seen.
We stand there like that for a moment, watching Rupi. I can feel my worry reflected in his breathing. Somehow having the concern in both of us merging like this feels like purpose.
“She’s plotting something, isn’t she?” he says. “Do you think she’ll run away again?”
“She’s definitely up to something,” I say. “But I have no idea what. She isn’t following her usual patterns of behavior.” But neither am I.
We take the chai to Rupi. She shows Prem the sketch she’s working on. A sleepy-eyed girl in pajamas with waist-length hair and bare feet.
“Almost as beautiful as the real thing,” he says, and Rupi makes a gagging face, even though they’re both looking smittenly at the paper.
After chai, Prem kisses me, hugs Rupi, and leaves for work.
He’s going to work the first half of the day, and I’m working from afternoon to evening.
We don’t want to leave Rupi alone. The fact that she broke and told Prem’s mother the truth means she’s already chosen a path, and I just know that the path is going to involve removing everyone else from danger.
Especially Prem’s parents. And doing something incredibly stupid.
I’m not sure if she’s feeling reckless enough to run away and go back to India, but I can’t think of any other option, and there’s a good chance she can’t either. So, I’m not ready to leave her alone and take that chance.
How can she think about leaving me now, when we’ve found each other again? When we have access to everything we’ve ever wanted. The comments from our neighborhood group keep running in my mind. I would do absolutely anything to keep her from those vultures.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” I say.
She looks up from her sketch and meets my gaze warily. She’s been avoiding eye contact. It’s telling that she doesn’t ask me what it is.
“Remember the blackmailer cop?”
That makes her sit up a little. So, she isn’t quite as insulated as she wants me to think.
“I googled him.”
She sighs and puts the sketchbook down. “That’s really smart.”
“Well, he’s dead. He died of COVID. In jail.”
She blinks. “Google told you all that? How come?”
“Because the case got a lot of coverage.”
“Really?” I can tell her brain is racing. “Why? It’s just another corrupt cop.”
“Because your recording was leaked, and it went viral. He was famous, or infamous.”
She rubs at the ink on her arm and chews hard on her lip. “So, everyone knows what happened.”
“Everyone.”
“How do you know?” She’s working hard to hide her horror, but her skin is turning pink under her thumb.
I pull her hand away and squeeze it. “I went to the neighborhood social media group.”
Her eyes pick up the rage inside me. “It’s that bad, ha?”
I nod. “Going back home is not an option, didi. Please.”
Suddenly the way she’s looking at me changes. “How long have you known?”
“I just found out.”
“Simi? I thought we weren’t lying to each other anymore. How could you not tell me? How could you keep going with our plan when you knew everything had changed?”
“Because nothing has changed. You are not going back. How does it matter how long I’ve known? What matters is that you know how vicious those people are.”
She pulls my hand to her chest. She’s barely shown any emotion since we came home from the Guptas’.
Now her eyes fill with tears, and she looks at me funny.
“No. That’s not the part that matters.” She drops a kiss on my knuckles.
“And I can be a hundred times more vicious than they are. You know that. They’re just people. ”
I’m about to argue with her, but she wipes her eyes and gives me her first real smile in the past twenty-four hours. “Dead, ha? And jail! I guess you were right, sending the video was pretty badass.”
I pull her into a hug. “Have I told you how lucky I am to have you for a sister?”
“Not lately. But you were enough of a chipku that I do know that.”
I pull away and study her face. “We’re going to make this work, okay? I’m not letting you go back.”
She turns away and then lies down with her head in my lap. It’s been a while, but this used to be our favorite way to talk. Only it used to be my head in her lap as she asked about my day.
“You and Prem should go over to his house today,” Rupi says. “His mother is going to worry if Prem doesn’t go back and reassure her that he’s not angry. You should go with him. Present a united front.”
“But he is angry.”
“Why? It’s not his mother’s fault. She has every right to be upset. Make sure she understands that you know that.”
“Fine, let’s go over there now and visit.”
“I’ve been wanting to work on some sketches. You know how much I miss it. But you should stop over on your way to work. And anyway, I don’t want to deal with Tanuja’s drama. You don’t have a choice but to deal with it.”
I know Rupi too well to fall for this. She’s just being her stubbornly sacrificial self again. She wants me to use this crisis to bond with the Guptas.
“I’m a little fed up with you patronizing me, Rupi,” I say.
Despite her best efforts, she looks so crumpled, so defeated, lying there. I want to shake her but also squeeze her tight. I stroke her hair.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says.
“I don’t need you to lock yourself away from the Guptas for them to like me.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any danger of them liking me more than you right now. It’s more like separating yourself from the shadow of evil.”
I smack her shoulder. “Stop it! Pathetic is just as bad as patronizing, and it suits you even less. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“You’re thinking the ‘sometimes loving someone means letting them go’ thing. And it’s nonsensical.”
“You know what’s even more nonsensical? The ‘you only hurt those you love’ thing.”
“I’m sure there’s a balance between those two things, and we’re going to find it together. Remember how you used to always say we’re a package deal? Well, we are, and the sooner the Guptas know that, the better.”
Turns out we shouldn’t have worried, because as I sit there stroking my sister’s hair, a knock sounds at the door.
Prem’s mother, Preeti, and Chandni march into my apartment. They’re riding on a mighty cloud of apology and bluster.
“I am a terrible person,” Tanuja opens with and then throws her arms around Rupi.
“What you are is a dramatic person, Mamma,” Preeti says and throws her arms around me. “I knew it! I knew I couldn’t have been wrong about you and Prem.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say.
“Obviously you didn’t tell me. Such a mess of complications going on around here,” Preeti says.
“No kidding,” Chandni says, then offers to make a piece for the empty wall in my living room.
Apparently, everyone knows all the sordid details of our arrangement.
Also, apparently, they don’t care.
“What kind of person makes a sacrifice like this for her sister?” Prem’s mom says, throwing her arms around me and kissing my cheek with some force.
She smells like lemons, jasmine, and chai.
Everything comforting in the world. Something as soft as a fuzzy blanket wraps around my heart.
Rupi is right. This woman is potent. I feel like I’ve been injected with a dose of liquid maternal warmth.
She wipes my eyes with the edge of her scarf in the most movie-mom gesture ever. “It’s too much. You girls are too much.” She’s miserable, and her misery feels so much less complicated than any misery I’ve ever experienced, it makes me feel lighter. “I said such awful things to you. I’m so sorry.”
“Please, please don’t say sorry, Auntie.”
“What is all this Auntie-Shantie business?” she says. “You will call me Mamma, yes?” Then she looks at Rupi. “But maybe in private for the next two years?”
Confusion clouds Rupi’s face.
“Rupi, beta, we have to make one change to the wedding plans. You will have to pick a different sari. I think I want to save my wedding sari for Simi. If that’s okay with you, Simi, beta?” She turns to me, and if I weren’t so confused, I’d already be crying.
“What are you saying?” Rupi says.
“What does it sound like we’re saying?” Preeti says. “There is absolutely no reason to change any of our plans. The wedding is next week. Everything is already paid for. Why cancel now?”
“Why cancel?” Rupi says, eyes wide with disbelief. “Because this was never meant to be a group fraud project.”
“What fraud?” Chandni says, studying other walls in my home to hang hair on. “All we know is that Prem loves you, and we can’t wait to welcome our new daughter-in-law”—she throws a look Rupi’s way—“and her sister into our home.”
Identical smug smiles cover all three of their faces. Rupi looks too stunned to make words.
“It’s the perfect solution,” Mamma says. “If both you and Rupi move in—you know we have plenty of extra bedrooms—no one needs to know who does what.”
Now I’m too stunned for words. That’s exactly what we were planning ourselves, but from her mouth it sounds too preposterous to wrap my head around.
“That’s . . .” Rupi looks at me. She’s thinking the same thing I am. A month ago, she’d said darned near the same thing. Now she folds her arms across her chest and looks at everyone like they’ve collectively lost their ability to think.
She opens and shuts her mouth a few times. Then instead of arguing the point, she settles on “That’s very generous of you.”
Which is the thing that strikes terror in my heart, because I know that look and I know that she’s made up her mind about something, and it’s far worse than the rest of this mess.