Chapter Eleven
What is this I hear about you putting things on the Phase Book? I knew we shouldn’t have allowed you to go to New York by yourself,” my mother says on the phone. I haven’t told anyone back home about the ring or the video. Not even Druv. Only because he’s been in marathon surgeries back to back, and when we checked in, he was so exhausted and sleepy he was slurring his words.
“That Phase Book is not a safe place. You should know that.” Fortunately Aie is really good at carrying on a conversation by herself. At least when it comes to her children. With everyone else, she’s famed for being a good listener.
“It’s Facebook, Aie,” I say. I’ve never been happier that my parents shun social media and instead prefer to get their misinformation exclusively from WhatsApp.
“What?” she says as though I’ve said something totally off topic.
“Not Phase Book. Facebook.”
“Like your face? The one on your head?”
The very one. “Yes.”
“That makes no sense. Why did I always think it was phase , like going through a phase and sharing it with the world?”
“That’s actually not bad, Aie.”
“Right? Anyway, never mind all those things. What were you thinking?” Apparently, some auntie saw the video (it’s at a million views now) and sent it to my mother on WhatsApp. Which is scary, because once something is on WhatsApp, every single Indian person on earth, across the entire diaspora, which is represented in every nation on the earth’s surface, is going to get it sooner or later. There’s even a half life. When I’m fifty, someone who knows someone who knows me is going to discover it and send it to my mother. She’s right: What was I thinking?
“I just found a gold ring.” I emphasize the word gold , because losing gold jewelry is probably one of my mother’s top-five life disasters. “And I wanted to return it to its owner.”
She gasps. “You picked up something that doesn’t belong to you? From the street? What if they arrest you for stealing?” Ugh, I’ve miscalculated, because having a cop pull you over or even look in your general direction is far higher on her life-disaster scale. “That, too, over there in New York. You know, last year in New York one person pushed a young Indian boy in front of a train because they didn’t like foreigners. Obviously they don’t like foreigners there.”
My head is starting to hurt. I do remember that news story and how terribly sad it made me. Generalized hate toward groups of people for being those groups of people is possibly the scariest thing when you’re a minority.
I take a sip of my chai tea latte . Yes, I’ve done the unforgivable and ordered the carelessly named drink, even though finding it called that on a menu in a New York café knocked down my wide-eyed wonder at the city a few notches. America remains America across America in some ways, I guess. Usually it makes me want to run to all the Italian restaurants and change the menus to read spaghetti noodles . But no, instead I was so homesick for Saket’s aunt’s chai after drinking it once that I ordered chai.
Sidenote: this syrupy concoction does not taste like Saket and Rumi’s Happy Tea. Also, my brother and I are never speaking again, so I’m going to die with this craving. Also, my mother is still talking about her version of New York where I’m about to be arrested for stealing because I’m a foreigner . Side sidenote: I was born in Naperville, Illinois, and have never left the USA, not even to go to Canada or Mexico. Yes, very foreign, I know.
“It was on the street between a lamppost and a garbage can. Why would anyone think I stole it?” As soon as I’ve said it, I know exactly which part she just caught even before she responds.
“Mira! You touched a public garbage can?” My mother has never let me use a public toilet. She still reminds me to make sure that I use the bathroom every single time I leave the house. Even though I’m almost thirty years old. She might sincerely believe that I’ve never had to answer nature’s call by myself in school or college. She carried hand sanitizer and alcohol wipes and wiped our hands down the second we touched anything at the mall long before the pandemic.
“I fell, and it was right there.”
“You fell!”
Okay, this tragedy is building on itself. It’s time to draw Aie back from the edge.
“Everything is okay, Aie. I was carrying wipes, and I’ve sanitized the ring, and I’m going to take the video down because I think I’ve found the owner. As a matter of fact, I have to go, sorry, because I need to take care of that now.”
Before she can protest, I promise to call her soon and disconnect the phone. She immediately calls back. It’s not easy, but I don’t answer.
A man in a black hoodie and workout shorts just walked right past me where I’m sitting at a bistro table on the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue and went into the coffee shop. To be fair, I ducked behind my phone and my hair, which is twice the size of my head today and works handily for hiding.
I’m not sure he’s the person who messaged me this morning, but he did say he would be wearing a black hoodie. I had almost given up on anyone legit reaching out and was about to take my video down when his message came in. After what Rumi said to me yesterday, I stormed out of his home. I wasn’t able to stop crying as I took the train back to the 9/11 Memorial and then walked all the way across Manhattan to my hotel.
I’m so angry with him I can barely breathe when I think about it, but not calling Krish felt like cutting off my nose to spite my face—one of my mother’s favorite sayings. So, after getting back to the hotel, when Saket texted me to make sure I was okay, I asked him for Krish’s number. He sent it to me and then asked me to come back and have a conversation with Rumi. I can’t. Not after what Rumi said. I’m not spineless. I hate when he says that when I’m the only one here trying to hold our family together.
I get why he had to leave, but how can he not get that both of us can’t abandon our parents? Not only am I the only family my brother has left, but I’m also the only child my parents have left. I’m basically stuck overcompensating in both roles because no one else will give even an inch.
Just as I started to type a text to Krish last night, the message from Rajesh Pandya came through.
Hi Mira,
I hope it’s okay to reach out to you like this. I’m sure you’re inundated with messages from all sorts of creeps. I happened to come across your post about the ring and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That’s my ring. My grandmother gave it to me when I left India to come to New York. My Naani practically raised me. She died last month and I dropped it on Broadway across from the Empire state building the day I found out. I was heartbroken. It felt like a sign. Like punishment for not going to see her before she was gone. Please please if you’ve found it let me have it back. I’ll pay you whatever you want for it. It’s my last memory of her. She died before I could see her and losing the ring means I’ll never forgive myself.
Thank you so so much for finding it,
Rajesh Pandya
I had tears in my eyes reading the message. After all the creepy messages, this one was jarringly normal.
I messaged back immediately, thanking him for reaching out and telling him how sorry I was to read about his grandmother. I never met my grandparents. My father’s parents died before I was born. My mother’s parents lived in Dombivali, outside Mumbai, back when it was still called Bombay. They died when I was in elementary school, before my parents had enough money to visit them or have them visit us. I’ve never been to India. I only ever knew them through letters that my parents read aloud to us. My mother made Rumi and me write to them twice a year, once for Diwali, to wish them happy Diwali, and once on our birthdays, telling them how our year had been.
Rajesh’s message hit a nerve already raw from my fight with Rumi. I was tired and vulnerable, but contrary to what Rumi might think, I’m not an idiot. I went through Rajesh Pandya’s social media to hunt for signs of assholery but found none. Just selfies all over New York, most with plates of food. His greatest social media sin seems to be that he’s trying a little too hard, which makes him like everyone else.
When I asked him about the inscription, his response had been Those may seem like just some random lines, they may be meaningless to you, but to me they mean everything.
He knew about the lines etched into the inside of the ring and that they were seemingly without meaning. The curiosity to know what they meant has been overwhelming. Now I would find out.
After all that due diligence, I sent him a message asking him to meet me at the coffee shop across from my hotel and deleted my text to Krish Hale, incredibly grateful to be saved from the fate of apologizing to a man who seemed far too certain that I couldn’t do this without him.
I study the black-hoodie guy, who’s obviously looking for someone. He’s stocky, with hairy bowlegs, and his orange sneakers are scruffy and worn. I usually work hard not to judge people based on their appearance, but there’s something about the quick, jerky movements with which he’s peering at tables that sends a little frisson of discomfort through me. Before I can decide if I should get up and leave, he catches my eye through the glass and rushes out to the sidewalk.
“Mira?” he asks. There’s an odd squeak to his voice.
I’m tempted to say “No, I’m not her.” I don’t even know why. “Who’s asking,” I say instead, surprising myself with my calm tone.
He smiles a plaque-y smile and sits down. An odd feeling I haven’t felt in a very long time nudges at the back of my neck, where my body meets my brain at the top of my spine.
“I’m Rajesh. Rajesh Pandya?” he says as though we’re old friends and I’ve had the nerve to forget him.
I continue to look confused. I have no idea why I’m pretending to have no idea who he is, but it just happens. He’s obviously watched the video and knows what I look like.
Four hundred thousand people know your name. That’s how viral posts work.
“You have the ring?” Rajesh Pandya leans forward in his chair. “My ring.”
My reptilian brain shivers again, ever so slightly. Am I being paranoid? All my life I’ve been taught to ignore my feelings and instincts on one hand, and then taught to trust nothing and no one on the other. Until this moment I’ve never processed quite how much I’ve been trained to be dependent. I’ve developed no instincts that could help me rely on myself. I’ve been equipped only to follow, never to lead.
The ring is clutched in my hand, and I tighten my hold. The end of the chain is dangling from my fist. I should have put it away until I’d confirmed that I’d found the owner.
His eyes drop to it, and suddenly I feel naked. “May I see it?”
I study his eyes—something I’ve always considered my superpower—and open my fist a little. Just enough for him to glimpse the ring. There should be grief in his eyes at worst and recognition at least. Instead there’s something else. Something I recognize only too well. Greed.
Before I can pull back, he snatches the ring from my hand.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he says and squeezes it against his chest, making the effort to soften his eyes and to smile. Until he realizes that I haven’t let the chain go.
I pull the ring back, and it starts to slide from his hand. He tightens his hold. Now we’re playing tug-of-war with the chain and ring, and I know I’ve made a terrible mistake. My reptilian brain might be stunted, but it’s not dead.
“What do the lines on the inscription mean?” I ask. It comes out a whisper.
His answering breath sounds loud because we’re a little too close over the bistro table. His eyes widen, but he attempts another smile. “It’s something that was very special to my daadi.”
“Let the ring go,” I say and throw a quick look around. No one is paying any attention to us, but the rest of the tables are occupied, and there’s a substantial amount of pedestrian traffic passing us.
“What’s wrong?” he has the gall to say.
“I thought it was your naani,” I say.
In the message he sent me, he said the ring belonged to his naani. There’s a linguistic distinction between how paternal and maternal grandmothers are addressed in Hindi, as I know from being engaged to a man whose family is from New Delhi. My heart is starting to beat faster now.
He grips the ring tighter, and the chain digs into my fingers.
Shock flashes in his face. He’s surprised that I’m holding on so tight. Before my eyes, he transforms from greasy and simpering to stone cold.
“Two things are going to happen now,” he says quietly. “You’re going to let go, and I’m going to walk away.” His grip tightens even more; his nostrils flare as though he can smell my fear. Déjà vu fills me. “If you don’t let the ring go, I’m going to pull out the knife I have in my pocket and stick it in your gut under this table. Or maybe I’ll hold it to your back and take you with me to the alley behind the building, and then I’ll make you regret posting that video even more than you’re doing now. You’re even softer and juicier than I imagined. Also dumber, if you don’t let go.”
There’s something so ugly in his face, horrible memories hiss at the edge of my consciousness. Dark shadows dance before my eyes. I’ve pushed these shadows away too many times. Today they paralyze me. I gasp for breath, but I can’t get one in. My hand goes limp.
In that second he stands up while shoving me with such force my chair topples back. I land on the sidewalk, and my head hits something with a whack. Pain, sharp and bright, steals the breath from my lungs. Lights flash before my eyes.
I hear screams and scraping chairs as the crowd grasps what is going on. I force myself to focus. He has the ring. He breaks into a run, just as a tall, lanky figure in a leather jacket flies at him out of nowhere and grabs his hoodie, stopping him midair. We’re suddenly in an action film with choreographed fight scenes. More screams erupt around us as both men tumble to the pavement.
Explosions of pain are still going off in my head, but two things strike me at once. This is the second time I’ve been sprawled on my butt on a New York sidewalk. And the person who just attacked my attacker is Krish Hale.