Chapter 18
The closer they get to the wedding, the less time Simran has to do any work, thanks to the ever-increasing number of tasks from Veena perima.
But it’s given her time with Kavitha. Last night, it was pulling down and washing every single curtain because in a few days, a steady stream of relatives will walk through and judge every inch of this house like they’re experts on an HGTV show.
There’s nothing like doing manual labor while whispering about secret plans to make it feel like they’re co-conspirators again.
But Kavitha still won’t talk about anything that’s not directly related to the wedding or Operation DDLJ.
“Simi!” Veena perima’s voice drags Simran back to the present, where she and Kavi are helping her out in the kitchen. “You need to go to Patel Brothers to get kadipatha.”
Kavitha snickers. “She can’t go to the store, she doesn’t drive.”
Veena perima’s mouth turns down in distaste that a flaw has been found in one of her instructions. “Okay, so Simran, you wash the dishes, Kavitha, ni store po.”
“We should both go,” Simran says quickly. Anything that gets her out of this house is welcome.
“Why?” Veena perima asks.
“Because sometimes it’s really hard to find parking, so she might need to go inside while I stay in the car,” Kavitha jumps in.
“Seri, seri,” Veena perima says. “Come back fast.”
“Poitu varen, Amma,” Kavitha says.
As expected, the parking lot is chaotic with cars, shopping carts, strollers, and people everywhere. Not helping are the two grandmas standing in a parking spot, chatting away, oblivious to the cars piling up behind them.
As soon as Simran and Kavitha walk in, they’re faced with the fresh coconut counter, where one of the store workers is using a small machete to hack off the tops and shear the green outsides to reveal the hairy brown rounds used in cooking and prayer ceremonies.
A prepared foods counter in the back doubles as a snack bar with a man assembling pani puri for a mass of hungry mouths.
The other side of the store houses the fresh market with piles of vegetables Simran doesn’t even know the English names for.
And somewhere amid all this is a full-blown supermarket, the towering aisles packed with so many items that it practically defies gravity.
Simran and Kavitha work their way through the crowd, knowing that they’re here for one thing but will leave with at least fifteen.
Simran peruses through the snack aisle and picks up two bags of murruku, Kavitha’s favorite.
“Hey, can you grab some Eno? It’s over there,” Kavitha asks.
Simran locates it on a shelf that is too high for her pocket-size cousin to reach. She smirks as she pulls it off the shelf, pretending to stoop as she hands it to Kavitha. “Here you go.”
“Not a word, you sentient redwood tree,” Kavitha says.
Simran laughs. “Who needs antacids?”
“Appa. Since the surgery, he will sneakily eat spicy and fried food and then be in all this pain after and have to hide it from Amma,” she says.
Simran doesn’t say anything, the guilt gnawing at her.
She sees how the surgery cleaved this family into two eras of their own: Before, Ashok peripa, so tall and strong that any kid lucky enough to sit on his shoulders—quite often Simran—felt like they were a giant.
And now, after that heart attack, him almost always sitting, his daughters and wife fussing over him.
It was that first sign of mortality, the reminder that the family unit that made up your whole life could be broken.
Simran and Kavitha round the aisle and nearly run into someone else’s cart. “Sorry—” The words freeze on Kavitha’s lips.
“Hello, you!” Ajay Pillai, Kavi’s former fiancé, says before seeing Simran there. “Simran, hey! It’s been a long time.”
“Hi, Ajay,” she says. She had forgotten all about Ajay—and that the grocery store is ground zero for The Community.
“How are things?” Kavitha asks. Ajay is nice-looking in a bland, parent-pleasing way, just like his personality. How could Veena perima have ever thought he’d be a good fit for her live wire of a cousin?
“Things are good. How are you?” he asks Kavitha with a genuineness that catches Simran off guard. “Sorry, it’s been a minute since we caught up.”
Kavitha smiles back warmly. “That’s okay,” she says. “I’m good.” He tilts his head. “Still at home?”
There’s something wistful in her eyes as she says, “You know how it is.”
Simran watches them closely, but she’s missing something. Is it affection?
“I’m glad we ran into each other, actually.
Meet my wife, Priya,” he says, gesturing to the woman standing next to him.
Priya is petite and light-skinned with big eyes artfully lined with kajal and wearing a casual raw silk salwar set that is unfairly stunning on someone doing a grocery run, a picture of the perfect South Indian wife.
Simran and Kavitha are both in ratty old t-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops.
She watches her cousin closely but Kavi doesn’t seem to be bothered by meeting this woman.
There’s something else on her mind. When Ajay’s parents come to stand on either side of Priya, both his and Kavitha’s smiles drop immediately. “And, of course, you know my parents.”
“Hi, Aunty, Uncle,” Kavitha replies. She manages to plaster a tight, thin smile on her face. Simran greets them too.
Neither of the Pillais smile back. Mrs. Pillai scans Kavitha from head to toe with such intense disapproval that Kavitha seems to shrink down beyond her already small five feet and three inches.
Mr. Pillai simply stares blankly and then they both walk away without a word.
Ajay shoots Kavi an apologetic look, shrugging his shoulders, before slipping his arm around his wife and guiding her away.
That Simran wasn’t here when Kavitha and Ajay’s engagement broke is one of the biggest sore spots in the litany of bruises between her cousin and her.
Kavitha had called Simran and had a real heart-to-heart for the first time in the months since she’d left, telling Simran she needed her.
So Simran sent Kavitha a plane ticket to Toronto—she’d been sure that it was the right time for Kavi to make the same escape she had.
She’d been dead wrong and, instead, they’d fought, each wanting the other to come to her.
A year later, Ashok peripa’s heart attack sealed the distance that had already crept in between them.
“You okay?” Simran asks now.
“Huh?” Kavitha blinks twice before looking at Simran. “Let’s get out of here, please?”
The entire time they’re standing in the checkout line that’s so long it wraps around the perimeter of the store, Kavi is ashen and silent.
The idea of going right back to Iyer House and Kavitha having to put on a happy face makes Simran feel terrible for her.
Though it won’t make up for all the times she missed, she can be here now for her cousin.
Once they’re in the car, she pulls out her phone, dials her aunt’s number, and puts it on speaker. “Hello, Perima,” Simran says. Kavitha frowns at her, confused.
“Solu, Simi,” Veena perima answers.
“Do you remember our friend Laurel Lee? From high school?” Simran hopes it’s not overkill when she adds, “She was on the honor roll.”
“Haan, I remember. Nice girl. Chinese. Went to Princeton,” Veena perima says.
Laurel Lee did not go to Princeton. Primarily because Laurel Lee does not exist—she was the friend whose academic achievements were legendary and whom Simran totally made up.
She and Kavi would pretend they were studying at Laurel Lee’s house so some of those good grades could rub off on them.
In reality, they remained solid B students spending those few precious hours at the crappy strip mall nearby.
“Yes, her! We just ran into her and she’s only in town till tomorrow. We’re going to get a coffee with her, okay? We’ll come home after that.”
“How long?” Veena perima asks.
“A while! Okay, bye!” She hangs up before her aunt can ask for any more details. “I figure that’ll buy us an hour. Let’s grab a coffee?”
Kavitha snorts. “Screw coffee. Let’s get a drink.”
A little while later, Simran and Kavitha sit on the patio of a dive bar nearby, overlooking the grand view of the parking lot of the strip mall.
It’s hot and sticky and kind of sketchy, but Simran still feels more at ease here than in Iyer House.
“I wonder why parents always mention people’s ethnicity,” Kavitha says.
“Rihanna was on the radio the other day and Amma goes ‘Did you know she’s from Barbados?’ Anyone we talk about, she’s 23andMeing them.
I quit playing Queen in the car because she would keep mentioning, at every song, that Freddie Mercury—”
“Is actually Indian,” Simran jumps in, remembering this clearly.
“Not just Indian.” Kavitha adopts her mother’s accent and says, “‘He was a Parsi, you know? His real name was Farrokh Bulsara.’”
Simran laughs. “Maybe it’s a first-gen immigrant thing. They say where other people are from because they still identify as where they are from.”
Kavitha picks at the label on her bottle, tearing off strips and rolling them into little balls. With the wedding events starting in the next couple of days, Simran knows this might be her one chance to truly talk to her cousin. She sits up straight and leans forward, elbows on the table.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Kavitha takes a sip of beer and puts the bottle on the table. “Sure.” Simran takes a breath. “Do you ever want to move out of Iyer House?”
Kavitha blinks and then laughs heartily, her cheeks rounding. “Of course I want to move out of Iyer House! I love our family but it would be great not to have to make up a person just to have some free time.”
“Then—” Simran stops herself.
“Then why haven’t I?” Kavitha finishes it for her anyway. “Remember how when we were younger, it was always you and me and then everybody else?”
“It was the best,” Simran says.