Chapter 1 Simi #2
All the wholesomeness that comes with the Guptas is something I’ve only ever seen in the movies and soap operas I grew up watching. It would be stupid for me to not know that a girl whose mother “settled down” five times with five different men isn’t who the Guptas are expecting Prem to bring home.
He reaches across the table, navigating the wineglasses, and knocks one over.
My hand moves faster than my brain to save it. Prem gets clumsy when he’s nervous. It’s a good thing I have the reflexes of a martial artist, especially under stress. This makes us all the more perfect for each other.
He picks up my hand like he wants the connection to suck up the hurt he sees on my face.
“My family is going to love you, Simi. Preeti already can’t live without you.”
As her nanny I want to say, but something about that thought makes me sick to my stomach. What am I even doing? I don’t know how to do this.
No. I’m not broken. Prem is not getting a raw deal. I know what broken looks like. And I’m neither Ma nor my sister. I swore long ago never to be them. Nonetheless, I can’t ignore what this looks like from the outside.
“What if they think I trapped you?”
“You have. You have trapped me quite thoroughly . . . in the greatest amount of happiness I’ve ever experienced. I never want to be free of this trap. Please tell me you don’t doubt how I feel.”
“I don’t. But we have to be realistic. What if your family sees it differently?”
I hate sounding so pathetic. I’m usually a great proponent of faking strength till you actually feel strong. The first lesson my sister ever taught me was they will only know what’s happening inside you if you’re idiot enough to show them.
“When I said family is the most important thing in my life, I didn’t mean just mine.
” His voice wobbles with emotion. “I meant us, too, Simi, you and me.” He taps his chest. “In here you’ve been my family from the first time I met you.
If my family has doubts, I will make their doubts go away. I swear.”
I used to be a crier as a child. I’ve worked hard to put away that part of me, but despite years of practice holding my emotions in check, fat tears roll down my face.
Prem stands, moving his chair next to mine.
I look around. This isn’t the kind of restaurant where you can just move chairs around willy-nilly.
The napkins are folded into fans and swans.
A few people turn to look at us, discreetly, of course, because in folded-napkin places, people are classy like that.
Prem wipes my cheeks with the napkin, which feels soft despite its crisp appearance.
Naturally he doesn’t notice that there is olive oil infused with pepper on the napkin.
My cheek stings, but it’s so sweet and absurd that my boyfriend just smeared spicy oil on my cheek in the middle of this romantic moment that a laugh hiccups through my tears.
“I’m totally messing everything up,” he says when I wipe the oil off my cheek.
“You’re not. Everything is perfect. I’m only crying because”—I stroke his jaw—“you keep making me fall more and more in love with you. Tell me what’s on your mind, Prem.”
“I want us to take the next step.” His eyes are fierce with hope. “So, what do you say, Simi Naik . . . You ready to meet my family and go public with me?”
A tangle of emotions clogs my throat. It isn’t just that I work for his brother-in-law and I could lose my job if something goes wrong between us.
There’s also the fact that I’m in the last stages of getting my green card, and losing my job would put an end to the process.
I’d have to start it again elsewhere, which could take another ten years, if anyone even employs me without one.
Going back to Mumbai is not an option. I will never go back to what awaits me there.
I will never again be the person I was there: helpless and dependent.
The person I am now doesn’t want Prem because I need him but because I have a right to how happy he makes me.
I want all the parts he comes with. I want his cute rom-com life: the doting parents, the indulgent siblings, even the casual way in which they take one another for granted and then whine about it without fear of retribution.
A real family. “Okay,” I say, pushing past every misgiving. “Let’s do it.”
The sheer size of his relief makes me feel like an awful person. “I want to tell them before the big birthday party.” The triplets’ first birthday is going to be one of those two-hundred-guest shindigs that’s straight out of a Bollywood movie. “I want you to come to the party as my fiancée.”
“Fiancée!” My heart races in my chest. “Aren’t we jumping steps?”
“I think I jumped all the steps the first time I saw you, Simi.”
Before I can react, our waiter stops by with dessert. Two types of cake, one mousse, and crème br?lée. Another thing that ties Prem and me together is our unfettered love for sugar. Even so, four desserts is overkill, and I restrict myself to one bite of each.
Prem is his usual self, unbothered with anything but the love in his heart. In this moment, his love for sugar.
“Can we please see how meeting your family goes first?” I say.
“Of course. But that’s actually not what I wanted to talk to you about.” He scoops a forkful of carrot cake and offers it to me. I take the sweet support, because my heart is skittering in panic again. What now?
“Before we make it official, I want to talk to your sister. Ask for your hand properly. I’d like to invite her to the party.”
The bite of cake goes straight down the wrong pipe, and I go into a coughing fit.
Prem stands again to come to me, but I stop him with a raised hand. I’m fully capable of stopping myself from choking, and I do.
The way he watches me makes me feel naked. I take a sip of water and force in a breath. The desire to get up and leave is so strong, I grit my teeth against it.
“That’s not necessary,” I say finally.
I have no idea where my sister is. The last time we spoke, almost a year ago, she sounded like she was in trouble again.
I wanted to ask her to come here, but how could I?
I have too much to lose now. She promised me she’d take care of things.
She made me promise not to look back. That’s why I ran.
I can’t have her bring danger and destruction back into my life now.
“I thought you and your sister were close,” Prem says in that way he says everything, as though it’s something he cares deeply about, but only if I do too.
I doubt there’s anything more complicated on this earth than my relationship with my sister. My earliest memories involve thinking she was my mother. She’s just five years older, but she was always more my mother than our mother ever was. Which means I had a mother and she never did.
I have no idea what to do with the person she is now: as sharp as she was soft, as cold as she was warm, as destructive as she was nurturing. None of this matters, because the truth is that I have no idea where she is.
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“You sound like you miss her.”
“I do,” I say. I miss her so very much. Even though I don’t miss anything about our childhood. Not even the part where I never had to worry about anything because she was there to take care of everything.
Prem looks like he sees the storm inside me. He’s plotting to make me happy. It strikes terror in my heart. So much of what keeps my sister and me apart now is exactly this. Her need to rescue me.
The idea of Prem meeting her makes me want to hyperventilate.
“But that doesn’t mean I want her back in my life.” There’s a note of warning in my voice and an entire symphony of terror inside me.
“She’s your sister.”
“All families aren’t created equal, Prem. Some families don’t have your best interest at heart.” It’s not a lie, technically. My family included our mother too. It’s the only answer that will keep Prem from going in search of my sister.
“Wasn’t she the one who helped you come to America?” He’s determined to heal this painful wound he imagines tearing me up.
“It wasn’t that simple. I might have said some of that so you didn’t have a bad opinion of my family. She’s the only family I have left.”
“You still love her,” he says, as though he’s parsed my words and landed on some great insight.
Oh god, he is going to try and find her.
“The last time we spoke, she threatened to kill me, Prem!” It comes out with some force. I haven’t escaped into lies to save myself in a very long time.
The last thing my sister ever told me rings in my ears. Someone can only know what happened if we speak of it. If we never say a word, it never happened.
Lies are the only way I know to protect myself. “And I believed her because she was the one responsible for our mother’s death.” I double down, but that’s not technically a lie either.
Prem reaches across the table, horrified. “Oh baby,” he says. He opens his mouth to say more, but I let my tears flow.
“I can’t, Prem. I can’t talk about it. It’s too painful.”
That’s all it takes. He squeezes my hand. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up all this pain for you.”
“It’s okay. It’s important for you to know where the girl you’re in love with comes from.” It is so not okay. Nothing about this is okay. Prem’s reality is so removed from mine, I would have to destroy his view of the world to share my history with him.
“I don’t care,” he says, eyes filled with generosity. “All I care about is that you’re happy and that we’re together.”
I know him, and I know that he will never again bring up getting in touch with my sister after what I just told him.
“I know you want my family to be part of our life together, but we’re going to have to make do with just yours.” Finally I get to speak a truth, and it hurts far more than any of the lies.