Chapter 5 Simi #2
Prem makes a strangled sound.
“Rupi, please!” I say. “This is Prem. He’s .
. .” I hate the term boyfriend. It sounds so childish, like we’re playing house or like we’re off to prom.
Partner is for people far cooler than I’ll ever be.
I want to say the man I love, but it sounds absurd and nothing at all like it should. “He’s my boyfriend,” I say.
“How cute,” she hisses. “You found yourself a boy who doesn’t keep his word. Why am I not surprised?”
“You fainted,” Prem says to her, not unkindly. Then he looks at me. “I had no choice.”
She snarls at him. “I was clear about what you needed to do before I fainted. You had the choice to listen!”
“Stop it, Rupi,” I say. “It’s not his fault.”
“Oh my god. You sound just like Ma!”
“Don’t ever fucking say that to me!”
“But it’s okay for you to say it?”
Prem’s eyes have gone round as saucers. He’s never heard me swear. I feel like we just leaped out of a Disney movie and crash-landed into a Tarantino film.
Rupi ignores him and turns to me. “Stop glaring at me like a soap opera mother-in-law, and help me get this IV off.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Really? What do they teach you in nursing school, how to milk cows?”
“Can you be quiet for one minute and let me think.”
“Oh, I think that might take more than a minute.”
“My god, Rupi. Stop talking!”
For a moment, everyone is quiet. But she’s right. I seem to be unable to think. My brain is racing around like the mice that used to get into our kitchen and not know how to get out. One of our stepdads liked to smash them with a frying pan while we watched.
I start pacing. What happens when someone who’s applied for a green card is caught harboring an illegal relative? Does it make you an accomplice in a crime? Holy shit. I’m going to be deported. We’re both going to be deported. If they send us back to India, I’ll lose everything.
“Do you at least have a Social Security number?” I ask after taking a breath.
“No. But I can make one up,” she says without a hint of irony.
“Oh god. How many times have you done that already?”
“I love your faith in me, but never before has an idiot disregarded my wishes and admitted me into a hospital against my will, so the opportunity never came up.”
“You literally passed out in front of him. What did you expect him to do, leave you there to die? Stop being mean to him.”
Before I can say more, there’s a knock on the door.
Two women dressed in scrubs walk in. I’ve never seen one of them before, and she’s carrying a clipboard with forms. The other one makes my heart stop.
Holy.
Bloody.
Shit.
It’s Anagha Rai, Dr. Karina Rai’s daughter. A monstrous pain starts to push behind my eyes. Anagha is a dietitian at the hospital. Her eyes skim past me like I’m invisible and light up when they land on Prem.
“Prem!” she says breathlessly, batting her eyelash extensions so hard, I’m afraid she’ll be airborne soon.
“Hi, Anagha.”
They hug as though they haven’t seen each other in years.
I can feel Rupi’s eyes on me. My urge to leave the room is so overwhelming, it’s a miracle I don’t teleport out of here from sheer will.
“What are you doing here?” Anagha asks Prem instead of introducing herself to the patient first like a professional.
“I brought her in,” Prem says, stepping close to me and pointing at Rupi. “How are your parents?”
A side conversation starts where Anagha fills Prem in on the health, well-being, and general schedule of her extended family.
At least the woman with the clipboard introduces herself. “I’m Sheena. I take care of registration and billing. We’re missing some information on your chart.”
I love how she worded that. Good job, Sheena. Behind Sheena’s head, Rupi glares accusingly at me, but it’s the panic that lurks behind the glare that jumps out at me.
“What information do you need?” I ask, buying time. Why on earth did I put Prem down as my emergency contact?
“If you give me your ID, I can get most of what I need,” Sheena says, holding out her hand to Rupi.
“My bag was stolen on my way here. My driver’s license was in there,” Rupi says. Rupi doesn’t drive.
Sheena gasps dramatically. “You were robbed? I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.”
Everyone who works at a hospital is trained to commiserate with patients. Sheena obviously trained well.
“Do you have a picture of your ID on your phone? That would work too.”
“My phone was also stolen.” Rupi hams up the tragedy, big sad eyes dripping with helplessness.
She’s moved from a flight response to a fight response.
I can see the cogs in her brain turning ferociously.
I’ve seen this more times than I can count.
She’s in a corner, and the corner is folding in on her.
I was usually in the corner behind her, with her arms shielding me.
The thing that scares me now is that she always got us out of the corner, no matter what it took.
“Okay, then let’s start with your insurance information, your Social Security number, and your address,” Sheena says with the calm of a monk and the focus of a shark.
Rupi starts coughing. I go to her. Prem hands her a glass of water. Her eyes are watering.
Anagha stands there like a statue. Sheena waits with her shark-monk patience.
“I don’t have health insurance or an address,” Rupi says finally, but she doesn’t stop there.
“Yet. I quit my job and, um . . .” She looks around the room, the desperation for a solution dilating her pupils and darkening her hazel eyes.
That’s when her gaze settles on Prem. An expression too close to relief floods her face.
It sparks terror in my heart. Rupi reaches out her hand to Prem.
To his credit, he takes it and tries to compensate for his confusion with a smile.
Rupi gives him the most angelic of smiles in return. “But I will have both when Prem and I get married and he puts me on his insurance.” A loud ringing starts in my ears. “Until then, you just have to send us the bill so we can take care of it. Right, honey?”
Sheena blinks. She obviously had no idea they were together. Well, same here, lady.
Next to me, Anagha slaps a hand to her mouth and gasps.
Her lips form the word Prem! but my hearing is still nowhere to be found.
Her gaze slips from Rupi to Prem, then pings back from Prem to Rupi, and then gets stuck in that loop.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Commiserating with her shock was not on my bingo card today, but here we are. “You got engaged?”
Prem looks at me. All of me feels frozen. I’ve never fainted in my life, but now feels like a great time to give it a shot.
“Congratulations,” Anagha says, finding her manners like a right proper lady. Her voice is a little too high pitched, but at least it brings my hearing back. She throws her arms around Prem. Can she please stop doing that?
“Thanks.” Prem pats her back. I feel like someone just shoved me off a cliff and I’m hanging by a wiry branch growing on the edge.
“It’s been such a whirlwind courtship,” Rupi says.
Great! She’s doing our bit where we slip into the soap operas of our childhood to help us navigate real life.
She manages to sound exactly as coy and chirpy as the heroines in every one we ever watched.
“We barely had a chance to catch our breath.” Her chest heaves bashfully—another skill picked up breath for breath from the heroines of our childhood.
“That’s probably how all this happened.” She waves a hand around the room, eyes wistful and sparkling at once.
“With all the excitement of seeing him, I totally forgot to eat, and then I think I ate something bad. It must’ve been that burrito we got in Nashville, right, honey? Good thing you didn’t eat any.”
“Good thing,” Prem says. The glance he slides my way cries help! He struggles to conceal his shock while also trying to gauge how I want him to play it.
Hell if I know, honey.
“Where’s her ring, Prem?” Anagha asks. Why is she still batting her lashes when she knows he’s an engaged man?
Oh dear.
“I’m Indian,” Rupi says to Anagha in her sweetest voice. The and unlike you, I haven’t forgotten that, witch remains unsaid. I want to groan. Rupi has that look she gets when she’s getting ready to charge at someone and knock them over.
“Sorry?” Anagha takes a step away from Prem.
“Where I come from, engagement rings are only exchanged in the presence of family, no?” Now Rupi is exaggerating her accent. She makes a bashful face. “Prem might be American, but he gets that. How can you not love a man like that?”
Prem makes an impressive effort not to wince and pats the hand Rupi is gripping him with.
“We still need some information,” Sheena says.
Rupi returns her attention to Sheena. “I’ll have to apply for a replacement passport. In the meantime, will Prem and my sister’s contact information work?” She lets out a giant yawn that’s so well executed, even I believe that she’s ready to fall asleep.
The worshipfulness with which Rupi looks at Prem is so real, it almost makes me jealous, which is absurd, because I can also feel her loathing for him. It’s going to be impossible to convince her that this isn’t his fault.
“Sure.” Sheena looks a little lost. There’s nothing on her script to help her deal with newly engaged bliss covering up for missing patient information. “Thanks. We’ll use that as the billing address.”
Sheena doesn’t care about anything else. I give her my address, and she leaves. The problem is Anagha. She’s still here, disappointment making her fight hard to hold the smile on her face.
“Have you guys set a date yet? I’ll bet your mother is excited for another wedding, Prem. The last in the family.” She turns to Rupi with all the regret in the world burning in her eyes. “Prem’s mother is the sweetest person on earth. You’re going to love her.”
“I know I will,” Rupi says sweetly. “It’s going to be love at first sight. Just like with Prem.”
“Love at first sight,” Prem repeats. “We haven’t set a date yet. Everything happened so fast. We weren’t planning on it, but one look at Simi, and I just knew this was it.”
My cheeks warm.
“Simi? You mean Rupi,” Anagha says, suspicion folding between her brows.
“Huh?” Prem says, waving his arm and knocking over a cup of water from the table next to him. Naturally, I catch it mid-fall. “Rupi,” he says a little too loudly. “That’s what I said. Rupi. I met Rupi, and I knew. When you know, you know, you know? With Rupi I knew. Rupi. Rupi and I knew.”
God, can he stop saying Rupi? Actually can he just stop saying anything.
“Yes, it’s true. I knew,” Rupi says angelically.
“I don’t usually like people that fast. In fact, I hate people.
People-ing is the worst. Except Prem, of course.
Love him. Love you, honey.” She winks at Prem.
“But when strangers talk to me, I just want them to leave.” She mimics Anagha’s eyelash batting.
Anagha does not take the hint. “I thought he said Simi. And I was like, ‘Who’s Simi?’” She smacks her forehead. She hasn’t looked at me once. It’s like I’m not even in the room.
“Prem did say Rupi. You must’ve heard Simi because that’s my sister’s name.
She’s the one who introduced Prem and me.
Everyone should have a sister like that, no?
Maybe you thought you heard her name because you meant to say hi to her since you work together and all, and she’s been here this entire time. ”
Anagha finally looks at me. She can’t seem to settle on a response.
“Oh, have you two not met? Well, this is Simi,” Rupi says, then turns with utter boredom to Anagha. “And this is . . .” Another yawn. “What did you say your name was?”
“Anagha. Anagha Rai. Prem and I grew up together. We used to be best friends.”
“In fifth grade,” Prem says and drops his phone. When he bends to pick it up, he knocks over the garbage bin.
I hand him the phone and help him straighten the bin.
“I think I need rest,” Rupi says. “Did you need something, Anita?”
“Anagha,” Anagha says.
“Yes, of course. Did you need something?”
It takes her a moment, but she finally seems to remember why she’s here.
“I’m the dietitian on duty. I was here because Rupi’s blood tests show mineral and vitamin deficiencies.
I recommend you take these supplements.” She pulls out some sheets of paper from her folder and puts them on the bed.
“There’s also some recommended foods to include in your diet on there.
I’ll let you get some rest. Let me know if you have questions.
Prem has my number. And, well . . . I’ll see both of you at the triplets’ birthday party.
Sorry, I’ll see all three of you there. You’re still their nanny, right? ”
“I am,” I say and watch as something like amusement floods her eyes, if amusement can be ugly.
“Well, it was nice seeing you, Prem.” She’s about to hug him again, but Rupi clears her throat aggressively, and she stops in her tracks.
Then she nods quickly at the room in general and leaves. Even before she’s all the way out the door, she has her phone out.