Chapter Twenty-Three Simi
Twenty-Three
Simi
What I remember about the day my sister brought me home in the rainstorm is knowing I was safe. Even when she fell, even when blood gushed from the back of her head and turned pink as it mixed with the rain and streamed down her white school uniform, I knew she would get us home.
I so badly want to be that for her.
She slept in today. Whatever happened at Suzanna’s hair place yesterday seems to have taken the stuffing out of Rupi.
She’s sleeping a lot. Given that sleep is probably the most healing of our bodily functions, my heart fills with something harshly hopeful, watching her.
Her body is rolled up, folded into itself.
Her delicate bones poke out against fine skin.
The points of her elbows, the angle of her jaw, the ridges on her wrists, the wings of her collarbones.
How someone so seemingly fragile gives out such a sense of power, I will never know.
“If you’re planning to strangle me in my sleep, let me tell you, I’m stronger than I look,” she says with her eyes still closed.
“Curses, foiled,” I say, quoting a comic book from our childhood, and she smiles with her eyes still closed. “I brought you chai.”
She pulls herself up to sitting before opening her eyes and taking the cup. She takes a long sip, then a deeply satisfied sigh leaves her body. “Okay, spit it out, what do you want?”
“Why do you think I want something?”
She holds up the cup. “Chai in bed?” Points at my face. “The fact that I know that face. Either you want something or you’re hiding something.”
I try to imagine her reaction if she finds out that I quit the nannying gig because of Karina. I feel her future disappointment like a body blow. I think about how she let Saj go to Tina, despite her fear.
“How do you do it?” I say. “How are you not scared?”
“Maybe being scared is a choice I never had. I’ve always had to act before I could let fear set in. It’s always been a race toward not losing something important.”
All her choices run in my mind. Suddenly they make sense.
“Will you tell me something?” I say, and she nods. “What happened in India before you left?”
She looks up from her cup and meets my gaze. “I’ve already told you what happened.”
“You haven’t told me what you did to the blackmailing cop before you left.”
“What makes you think I did something to him?”
“Let me think,” I say and point at her face. “The fact that I know that face.”
She looks impressed, and it makes me feel a little too victorious.
After draining her cup, she puts it down on the nightstand. “Get me a brush.”
I grab a hairbrush from the bathroom and sit down in front of her.
She starts brushing my hair. The perfect pressure and pull against my scalp is so comforting, it melts my muscles.
“Ron gave me a cell phone before he left. I used it to record the cop blackmailing me. Before leaving for America, I sent the video to three people: his boss, that journalist who lived in our building, and the cop’s wife. ”
I spin around, not caring that my hair tangles in the brush. “Rupi! That’s brilliant!”
She smacks my shoulder for interrupting her brushing. “Pretty sure it was more stupid than brilliant, but it felt good.”
“Well, I hope they hung him,” I say. “By his privates. So, what happened after that?”
She goes silent for a beat. “I didn’t wait around to find out. He probably handed in that CCTV footage, and we might be wanted by the law. Even if he didn’t, he probably wormed his way out of it and is hunting me all over Mumbai.”
“At the very least, his wife had to have killed him, right?”
Rupi puts the brush away and starts pulling my hair into a French braid.
The familiar confidence with which her fingers part and tug digs up all the things that have been pushing us apart and threads them back together.
“I wouldn’t hold my breath. He was probably making enough in bribes that the wife had a life she didn’t want to give up.
Who kills a goose that lays golden eggs even if the goose preys on another gander?
Doesn’t matter anyway, he’s no longer our problem. ”
She pulls the end of the braid into a hair tie and gives me a nudge. “I need to hop into the shower, and you’ll be late if you don’t head out soon.”
I get off the bed and study my braid in the mirror. “How do you get it to look this good?”
“Because I’m an artist,” she says and goes into the bathroom, but then she pops her head out again.
“Simi, I’m really proud of you for standing up to that witch,” she says.
“Those girls need you, and you need them. I’m so glad you didn’t give in.
” With that, she disappears behind the closed door, leaving a yawning hole of shame inside me.
When I get to the office, the first thing I see is a young woman in a pantsuit leaving Dr. Rai’s office. I know without asking what is going on, but I ask Mary at the front desk anyway. She tells me Dr. Rai had some nurses in for an interview today.
This has happened before. I refuse to be afraid.
For the rest of the morning, I don’t have the time to be afraid. It’s patient after patient. Five walk-ins on top of the appointments. Broken bones and stitches and an endless number of shots. By the time I sit down with my sandwich in the lunchroom, I feel like I haven’t taken a breath all day.
I check my phone. Nothing from Prem. I can’t think about the distance between us right now. Rupi’s out shopping for wedding clothes with Prem’s mother. There’s a text from Saj, checking if my papers have been signed and offering his help again.
Who am I kidding? I’m not Rupi. I’m terrified. If I have to go back to India now, the police probably have the CCTV footage of me walking into the room where a man died.
Without thinking about it, I open the browser on my phone and type the cop’s name into the search box.
Within seconds his ugly face pops up on the screen.
Bulbous nose, thick mustache covering his upper lip, multiple chins, bulging frog eyes.
A shiver starts from the back of my neck and crawls down my spine to my toes.
The memory of his tobacco-laced breath and his violating gaze flashes to life in my head.
The picture is from an article in The Times of India.
“Subinspector PK Sharma Listed Among COVID Deaths in Yerawada Jail.”
I drop my phone. Sweat beads on my forehead and drips down my back. Sweat stains paint my scrubs at my armpits.
I breathe through the nausea that grips me.
The asshole is dead. He was in jail. I pick the phone up again with shaking hands and start reading.
Turns out the man had been blackmailing people with CCTV footage from various crime sites for years. Then I see the name I’ve been dreading: Rupi Naik. She’s listed as one of the victims. The recording of him blackmailing her is public. It has millions of hits. How the hell have I missed all this?
Because I’ve avoided everyone and everything I left behind.
Everyone at home knows what Rupi had to do. Every unsavory name our neighbors ever called us rings in my ears.
My finger hovers over the social media app I’ve curated to avoid everyone from our old life in Mumbai.
I navigate to the group where all the gossips from the neighborhood gather online to spill scalding tea.
Entering the cop’s name into the search on the group page yields a post from a year ago when the man died.
There are a hundred and seventy comments.
Rupi is the topic of almost every comment.
My skin feels hot with rage when I exit the app.
These people . . . They were the people Rupi stood up to. A single warrior against a crowd intent on stoning her to death with their shame stones. With me hiding behind her.
Dr. Rai walks into the break room and stops when she sees me. “We’re short staffed, and you’re on your phone here,” she says.
I’m literally on my lunch break at 4 p.m. I turn to face her. “Did you get a chance to sign my papers yet, Dr. Rai?” I ask instead of acknowledging her comment.
She looks bored. “I told you I’m having our lawyers look at it.”
“That’s not what Dr. Johnson said.”
She’s taken aback at being contradicted. “Well, obviously John would say that.”
Now she’s bad-mouthing Dr. Johnson? Something inside me snaps. “Brianna works for the senior center after hours. Marquis works at the hospice. All the other nurses in the practice have other jobs. There’s no conflict of interest, and it’s perfectly legal for me to work outside of the clinic.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “They don’t let it impact their work.”
“I don’t, either, and you know it. The only difference between them and me is that they don’t need a green card and you can’t lord that over them.”
She gasps. It’s the most satisfying thing I’ve experienced in a very long time.
“If you’re going to fire me, fire me, so I can apply elsewhere. Recruiters have been reaching out to me for years. I don’t want to take their calls, but I will if I have to. I need those papers signed today. And I’m not quitting babysitting for the triplets. Let me know what you decide.”
Her mouth is still hanging open when I leave the break room and make my way to Dr. Johnson’s office. It’s empty. He’s probably with a patient, so I wait. In about five minutes he comes back, Dr. Rai a step behind him.
“Simi,” he says, “everything all right?”
“No, Dr. Johnson. But it will be. Can I change my mind about babysitting? I don’t want to quit.”
“Of course.” He practically bounces on his heels. “I knew you’d see sense. That’s great news!”
“Thanks. Also, can you please make sure my paperwork is signed? Saj Rawal is my new lawyer. If you have questions about the paperwork, please let him know.”