Chapter Two
Simran’s return home demands an outing. After sharing every aspect of our entire girlhoods together (quite literally—we even got our first periods on the same day), going to college on opposite coasts was a disruption to the routine.
Among various other disruptions. I spent so much of my freshman year feeling unrooted in her absence, never quite finding that sisterlike bond in my new environment.
So our time together this summer is of particular importance to me, and I intend to make the most of it.
On Sunday, we grab brunch at our favorite café in downtown Seattle.
It’s cozy, chic, and (crucially) centrally located, walking distance from both my metro stop and the Sinha art gallery.
Simran arrived only just yesterday, and the two of us have much to discuss.
We sit at our favorite corner table, laptops out, our shared Google Doc pulled up.
I highlight the heading Simran’s typing and wrinkle my nose. “Times New Roman?”
“It’s a classic,” she insists.
“It’s a bore,” I correct, switching the font to Average. Simran sips her iced latte and doesn’t press. I’m the English major in our friendship, after all.
We’re early in the process of curating our official joint summer checklist. For our many differences, Simran and I are united in our type A, list-making tendencies.
Underneath it all, we are still the girls who presented (performed, really) twenty-slide PowerPoints to convince our parents to let us have double sleepovers.
Crafting detailed plans has always provided us both with a comforting illusion of control.
Our checklist is divided into three sections: personal, professional development, and R Simran wants to prep for the LSAT while networking with superiors at her labor rights law firm, and I want to make the most of my time at Gilmore Public Library, where I’m doing education policy research as a children’s reading assistant.
The personal section, however, is where things get, well, personal.
When I add a bullet point to Simran’s half of the list that reads no more dating losers, she reaches over my lemon ricotta French toast to slap my wrist.
“I’m just looking out for you,” I say, rubbing my arm. “Your track record is deeply alarming.”
“They haven’t all been losers,” Simran sniffs, and I raise a brow. Neither of us dated much in Gilmore, so our freshman years of college served as our very first romantic landscapes. For Simran, that meant oscillating back and forth between a stoner and an out-of-work DJ from her floor all year.
“I thought they only let smart people into Dartmouth,” I’d said when she first debriefed me on her tragic little love triangle.
“That, or you have generational wealth,” she said. There was a pause. “Darshan and Steve are obviously from the second category.”
I stare at her without saying anything.
“Fine,” Simran says, faltering under my gaze. She straightens in her seat. “I’ll accept your feedback.” She frowns. “But what if he has a neck tattoo?”
It’s my turn to swat her. “Doesn’t cancel out.”
“Kinda cancels out,” Simran says, a smile starting, and I roll my eyes, returning to the screen. I’m fleshing out my bullet point on getting my driver’s license when Simran interrupts.
“I think,” she says slowly, “that you need to date more losers.”
I snap my gaze up to meet hers. Simran’s face is bright like she’s had a Eureka! moment.
“You’re too picky for your own good. It takes you ages to have a crush, and where’s the fun in that?”
“I’m not picky; I have standards,” I say, affronted, and Simran snorts.
“And Kamran met these standards?” she says, referencing basically the only boy I talked to all of last year, who Sim has aptly dubbed “an emotional terrorist.” We had a poetry workshop together in the fall, and I developed an obsessive crush after he posted a picture of All About Love by bell hooks to his story with the caption: all men need to read fr.
Unfortunately, I soon learned his concept of a date was sloppy makeouts on his dorm room floor while How I Met Your Mother played in the background.
We made it to season three before I finally found the self-respect to call it quits.
I say the only thing I can think of in my defense. “I’ll have you know he had a perfect GPA.”
She ignores this. “You’re picky and you pick wrong. So instead of just one loser, date five. Like, instead of just Kamran, you should have asked, ‘And who are his friends?’”
A giggle escapes me in spite of myself. “This feels like a blind leading the blind conversation.”
She ignores this too. “Put yourself out there more, is all I’m saying. Build a roster. Rani’s Sex and the City summer.”
“Gilmore’s hardly a city.”
“Set your Hinge location to Seattle.”
I decide against telling Simran that I’ve yet to make an account and take a bite of French toast. Something warm settles in my chest as I look over our document.
I’ve missed this, Simran and her nonsense advice that I listen to anyways, because it’s Simran, and there’s no one whose opinion I care about more.
Under R&S, Simran writes: CELEbrATE OUR FIFTEEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY! (We met at our local day care exactly fifteen summers ago.) I highlight the text in hot pink and add a heart.
“And how shall we celebrate?” Simran asks when I finish.
“Another worksheet?” I suggest.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she says, and I laugh.
Baba’s in the backyard when I return home from the café, tending to his flower beds. He’s got on a visor and the gardening apron Aai got him for his birthday last year, and the look is so endearing I want to snap a picture. He stands when he notices me.
“Hi shona,” he says, brushing dirt from his gloved fingertips. “How was brunch with Simran?”
“It was lovely,” I say. “I missed her.”
“Good,” he says. He takes off his visor and uses his forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Are you all ready for your first day tomorrow?”
I start my job at the library in the morning, and some nerves are settling in.
“I think so,” I say. I’ll get my official training soon, but from my understanding, I’m helping revamp the children’s section and leading storytime sessions for early readers alongside my academic research this summer.
I plan to teach elementary school postgrad, so this is a perfect preparatory opportunity. “I’m sure I’ll love it there,” I say.
“Excellent,” he says. “When you’re all settled in, we can send the boys to participate in your programs. Get them off their video games.”
“Of course,” I say, even though I already spend most of my time babysitting Sanju and Nabhi. I’m not really dying to supervise them during my work hours too. But I don’t want to contradict Baba now, not when I’m about to ask for a favor. “Anyways, I wanted to talk to you about my driver’s ed.”
He nods. “Did you register?”
I twist my hands. “Not exactly,” I say. The sales representative for Gilmore’s sole driver’s education company actually laughed when I called to book lessons for the coming weeks.
They’d filled their summer slots months ago.
Everyone and their mom learns how to drive in the summer, apparently.
I clearly missed the memo. “They’re unfortunately all booked up.
So I was hoping you might be able to teach me. ”
He’s shaking his head before I can even finish my sentence. “I’m sorry, shona. We’ve been short-staffed at the hospital, my on-call shifts have increased, I have hardly any free time. This is the first I’ve been in my garden in days.” He gazes mournfully at his blooming zinnias.
Baba is a pediatric surgeon in Seattle, and while normally I worry about the stressful hours on his behalf, his work troubles could not be more inconvenient for me right now.
“I’ll work around your schedule,” I insist. “Whenever you have a spare moment, we can practice.”
“That’s not how driving works,” Baba says, tone insufferably patronizing. “You need routine, you need consistency. Especially for a beginner like you.” He gives me an amused look. “Do you even know the accelerator from the brake?”
“Obviously,” I huff. “Right foot accelerator, left foot brake.”
There’s a pause. “You use the same foot for both, Rani.”
My cheeks flush. “Whatever,” I say. I clear my throat.
“Look, they don’t have any openings till October.
” I’m moments away from stomping my feet, and I can hear the whine entering my voice, but I’m too desperate to care.
Getting my license is the first, most urgent matter on my summer to-do list. “Please, Baba.”
I hear Aai’s voice call out from behind me. “What’s all this tamasha?” She’s walking up the driveway to us, hair swept back and face gleaming with sweat, home from her evening class. Aai owns a small yoga practice on Main Street, and Sundays are one of her busiest instruction days.
“No tamasha, Aai,” I say, stung. I’m hardly making a fuss.
“Rani doesn’t have a driving teacher,” Baba explains.
“Ah,” Aai says. “What else is new? Every summer, same story.”
It’s classic Aai to make light of sensitive situations, definitely a trait she inherited from Ajoba, but my stomach still constricts at her allusion.
The last time I seriously contemplated driving lessons was almost a year ago to the day, and Ajoba had offered to be my instructor.
But he had a stroke in July, and driver’s ed fell off my radar while I spent the summer devoted to his recovery.
He’s much better now, if still a little too weak to drive, but his health is always a concern in the back of our minds.
It’s why celebrating Ajoba’s birthday was of particular importance to Aai this year.
“But not to worry,” Aai continues, reaching an arm around me to squeeze my shoulder. “I can help you, Rani.”