Chapter 24 #2
At the thought, she glances down at the checkered tablecloth.
She’s got no pen, but she has her imagination.
She mentally lays the letters out. One letter per square.
The long string of letters runs off the tablecloth.
She rearranges them, breaking the string into several lines so it can stay contained in a grid next to her plate for easy viewing.
Pleased, she picks up where she last left off.
Eons later, TJ’s mom says, “Well, let’s eat some of that ras malai Simran brought.”
Simran, who has gotten nowhere with the cipher, immediately rises. “I’ll get it.”
She doesn’t realize she’s been followed to the kitchen until TJ grabs her arm.
“TJ, I’ve got it—”
“Stop for a second.” TJ searches her eyes. “Is everything okay?”
Simran stills. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because you’re somewhere else. This whole time.” TJ gestures to the dining room. “You’re nodding, you’re smiling, but you’re not really here. I knew I wasn’t just imagining it on the phone.”
Simran’s silent. She thought she was doing an excellent job acting okay. What about her performance was lacking?
TJ goes on. “Did anything happen while I’ve been gone?”
Everything. Everything.
“My grades weren’t as good this semester as usual,” Simran says. “I didn’t get the academic award.” She spins another believable lie. “My parents weren’t happy.”
TJ winces. She gets what a big deal grades are to Simran. Well, were. “What did they say?”
“I’m grounded. I barely got out for this.
” It’s not the first time she’s used the strict-parents excuse.
Although she feels guilty painting them that way, especially when her father’s currently home caring for her sick mother, it’s the perfect way to get TJ off her back.
“Don’t expect to see me much for a while. ”
“What the hell?” TJ looks outraged. “Your parents need to chill out. No one tries harder in school than you. How long are you grounded?”
Simran shrugs. TJ looks even more indignant, but luckily, at that moment, her father pokes his head in. “Everything okay?”
TJ snatches the ras malai before Simran can. “Yep.”
They return to the dining room, but as TJ sets the bowl of ras malai down, she looks sharply at Simran again. “Oh my god. I totally forgot. Chandani told me you and her ran into—” she glances at her parents—“you’ll never guess—Rajan Randhawa a few weeks ago?”
Simran sits slowly. Honestly, she’s surprised this didn’t come up before. Of course Chandani told her. “Yes.”
“Randhawa?” her masi asks curiously. “I remember his mother. Shame, what happened to Arshdeep. No wonder her boys are so lost.”
Finally, someone granting Rajan leeway. But TJ waves it off. “Okay, but did you hear what he did? Chandani told me.”
“Well, yes,” her mother says. “That part is horrible.”
Simran’s heart sinks. Charlie, meanwhile, sets down his spoon. “Why? What did he do?”
TJ turns to him with glee. “Apparently he killed somebody.”
Her mother tuts. Her father, who’s been helping himself to ras malai, pauses to shake his head.
TJ continues. “Plus he got charged with weapons possession and stuff. I heard he’s in a gang. He’s got the tattoo and everything.” She jabs her finger at Simran triumphantly. “I knew there was always something deeply wrong with that guy.”
“Yes, because you’re the most well-adjusted of all of us,” Charlie says. TJ rolls her eyes.
“Well, I haven’t killed anyone yet, Charlie—”
“He didn’t,” Simran says.
All eyes turn to her. Simran seals her lips, but it’s too late.
Even Charlie looks somewhat bemused. Why did she say that?
How can she explain knowing the true story behind Rajan’s arrest?
To give herself time, she takes off her glasses to polish them with her shirt.
“I mean,” she mutters, “I’m pretty sure it was an accident, what happened. ”
When she puts her glasses back on, everyone is giving her strange looks.
“An accident?” TJ scoffs. “Simran, I know you’re a softy, but puh-lease. You don’t get that involved in a gang without doing horrible things.”
Simran says nothing. As usual, she can’t deny the facts. Rajan is not innocent. Even if he didn’t kill Jai, she knows what he used to do for the Lions. Her stance is objectively naive. And yet.
Surprisingly, it’s Charlie who speaks up. “Why can’t it have been an accident?”
TJ rounds on him, thankfully taking her intensity off Simran. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that no matter their background, people deserve to be innocent until proven guilty.”
“He was proven guilty,” TJ scoffs. “In court. That’s literally why he went to juvie.”
Simran suppresses the urge to correct TJ about the plea deal. Know-ing that level of detail would only make her look more pathetic. Luckily, Charlie again comes to her aid.
“Were you in that courtroom?” He tilts his head at TJ. “We don’t know what discussions were had there. What if it was full of people as quick as you to judge based on heuristics?”
“Are you seriously building a case off of Simran thinking it was an accident?” TJ’s nostrils flare. “You literally found out about this thirty seconds ago and you’re already playing devil’s advocate, this has to be a record. You don’t even know what happened. There. Are. Facts.”
“And you’re choosing to read the facts a certain way,” Charlie retorts. “A familiar way—”
As their voices rise, TJ’s dad shoots Simran an alarmed look. Simran shakes her head. She knows TJ and Charlie well enough to recognize the difference between their serious disputes and flirting. And they’re both definitely hot under the collar right now.
But Charlie...she hadn’t expected that. She’s never heard anyone defend Rajan. Ever. Her respect for him grows. Even if it was a theoretical exercise for him, he made a good point.
Her eyes fall back to the cipher she’s mentally drawn on the tablecloth. The letters continue to rearrange themselves as Charlie’s words from a second ago echo. You’re choosing to read the facts a certain way. A familiar way.
She pauses. Wait.
She runs her eyes over her letters—the way she always automatically does. Left to right. But with the letters stacked on top of each other, in grid format, she realizes something very important: There’s more than one direction to read them.
Meanwhile, TJ is saying, “Simran can handle him? Do you hear yourself? He ran somebody over! On purpose!”
Simran stands abruptly. “I’m going to the washroom.”
No one seems to hear; TJ’s parents are clearly engrossed in the argument before them. So Simran excuses herself down the hall to the bathroom.
Once she locks the door behind her, she takes a long strip of toilet paper and lays it on the edge of the bathtub, then digs through the drawers.
In her haste, a few items clatter to the ground.
She ignores them, pausing to select a dusty eyeliner pencil.
Then she kneels next to her makeshift paper to write.
There are forty-eight letters. She needs a grid with forty-eight cells. But what dimensions for the grid? Forty-eight has so many divisors.
One and forty-eight are automatically disqualified. She decides to skip two-by-twelve, and starts at a three-by-sixteen grid.
No sensical message when she looks top to bottom, vice versa, or diagonally. Undeterred, she next draws a sixteen-by-three grid. Then four-by-twelve.
Someone knocks on the door.
“Just a minute!” Her feet are starting to cramp from her squatting position.
“Simran, are you all right?” It’s TJ’s mom.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” A pause. “There’s pads under the sink if you need them.”
“Thanks.”
“Also a plunger behind the toilet.”
Now this is getting humiliating. “I’m just washing a stain off my shirt.”
“Oh, is that all?” She sounds surprised. “Don’t worry. You can take one of TJ’s.”
“Thanks,” Simran says without taking her eyes off the grid. “I’m going to give it one more try.”
Her masi’s footsteps fade, and Simran takes a deep breath. She’s so close. She can feel it, the frantic energy of an approaching epiphany, gripping every cell in her body.
With trembling fingers, she draws a six-by-eight grid. Runs her eyes over it, column by column.
Her breath catches.
TJ knocks on the door. “Simran, I’ve got—”
Simran stuffs the wad of toilet paper into her pocket and opens the door. “I have to go.”
TJ stares. She’s holding a blouse in her hand. “What?”
“I just remembered something I have to do.” Simran brushes past her, to the door.
TJ follows. “Where’re you going?”
Simran’s so frazzled by her own discovery, she can’t even think of a lie. “I’ll tell you later.” She shoves her shoes on. Distantly, the conversation between TJ’s parents pauses in the kitchen. Soon they’ll come too, and Simran can’t handle more questions.
“But—you said you’d stay.” TJ sounds bewildered.
Simran pauses. Right. She promised she’d stay overnight. And yet...
“I can’t.” She finds herself rationalizing it as she goes. The dinner’s going well. Simran staying would only delay the inevitable, big questions TJ’s parents want to ask her. Well, TJ can’t avoid the big questions about life all the time. Simran’s never had that luxury.
“You forgot your jacket!” TJ shouts as Simran flees out the door, but Simran doesn’t turn back. She half jogs to her truck, ignoring her masi calling her name. She starts the vehicle.
While turning out of the cul-de-sac, she calls Nick.
He answers after a few rings. “I don’t have time to babysit right now. This better be good.”
“It’s better than good.” Simran swerves onto the main road, causing a passing truck to honk. “How do you feel about intercepting that huge shipment the Aces were talking about tonight?”