Read Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up Online

Authors: Mark Peter Hughes

Tags: #General Fiction

Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up (7 page)

If my parents aren’t admitting what’s really going on here, then why should I be the one to drop the bomb?

Just before she went to the car Maa abandoned the innocent act and gave me the evil eye. “You will not be rude to him,” she said. “Rajeev is our guest. You will show him
courtesy
.”

“Yes, Maa,” I said, unable to look at her.

Now I want to scream. For my whole life I feel like I’ve been forced to walk the tightrope between showing respect for my parents and pushing back on their old-world expectations. None of my friends have to deal with stuff like this. Other than me, I don’t know anybody who does.

They’ve been gone more than an hour now, and I’m trying not to think about my parents, or Rajeev, or any of that. I’m focusing only on the Eccles piece, concentrating on nailing each rapid-fire note. This sonata is perfect for venting frustration—lots of left-finger action and quick, stabbing bow movement across the strings. It’s working too. For a while I feel a little better.

It’s then that I hear commotion on the front steps. Mid-phrase, I stop playing. I stand totally still, listening.

The front door opens. Baba and Maa are talking in the entryway, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. There’s another voice too—Rajeev’s, obviously. Madhu giggles.

“Monu!” Baba calls up the stairs. “We’re home! Come down and say hello to your old friend!”

I don’t move. I know it’s silly and that there’s no getting out of meeting him, but I can’t bring myself to do it just yet. My pulse is racing. I can picture him down there, a prune-faced, closed-minded boy with nothing in common with me—a kid raised in a world where it’s perfectly normal for parents to pick spouses for their children. He’s probably expecting me to be thrilled to meet him. At this moment I can imagine him thinking he’s about to be introduced to his future wife, an obedient girl who’ll be happy to spend her life wrapped in saris and serving him luchi every day with his afternoon tea.

If that’s what you’re looking for, Rajeev Kumar, you’re in the wrong house
.

“Monu!” my father calls again.

I take a deep breath. Okay, time to get this over with.

Everyone is already seated in the living room. When I appear on the stairs, the conversation stops. Maa looks disappointed. I’m wearing an old T-shirt, a pair of plaid Bermudas and my favorite faded Red Sox cap. My hair is down, not up. As ridiculous as it sounds, a part of me can’t help feeling bad for my parents. I don’t want to hurt them. Really, I don’t. But I also could never be exactly who they want me to be, so it’s better for them to realize it now than to spend a lifetime trying to turn a hummingbird into a magpie.

I see Rajeev for the first time. He stands when I appear, and I’m surprised at what I see. Broad-shouldered, with thick, curly black hair and deep-set eyes, Rajeev is undeniably good-looking. He’s also taller than I imagined—maybe even taller than Baba, who’s six foot one. Not that it matters to me what he looks like. Still, I keep my expression blank while he and I take each other in—I’m sure he’s doing the same thing I am—both of us trying not to be too obvious about it.

“Hello, Mohini,” he says with a shy smile. “It is nice to meet you.” He looks a little rumpled and scruffy, but then it must have been a long flight, and this introductory chat with my family can’t be easy on less than a good night’s sleep. But I keep my sympathy in check. I remind myself not to let pity soften my will to detest this boy.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Rajeev,” I say as coolly as I can get away with. My parents are still smiling, but I know that Maa, especially, is watching my every move. She sends Madhu into the kitchen to make tea, and then for a few minutes we
all sit around and talk about nothing. Rajeev’s flight. How his parents are doing. How he’s changed since the last time Baba and Maa saw him. (No surprise there—the kid was barely out of diapers at the time.) Rajeev is polite. He smiles a lot and speaks with a thick accent, but his English is good.

I sit with my arms crossed, hardly saying a word.

After a while Baba clears some of the empty teacups and takes them back to the kitchen. Maa gets up too. “I need to attend to the tarkari,” she says as she collects the rest of the cups. “You two stay here. Sit and talk. You have a lot of catching up to do. Madhu, come with me.”

Madhu looks annoyed. She’s hardly taken her eyes off Rajeev this entire time. “What? Why can’t I stay too?”

“Because,” my mother says, “I need your help.”

I shoot my mother a glare. I can see what she’s up to, but there’s nothing much I can do to stop her. Madhu is already heading out of the room all pouty. Fighting panic, I flash Maa one last pleading look. I don’t want her to go! I don’t want to be left alone with him! Just before she disappears into the kitchen Maa secretly gives me the evil eye again, the one that says
You will not be rude to our guest. You will show him courtesy
.

And then she’s gone. Rajeev and I are alone.

There is a long, awkward silence. We’re sitting on opposite ends of the sofa and I’m staring at the coffee table. All I want is to run back up to my room and shut the door. Rajeev seems just as uneasy. His thumb keeps tapping on the arm of the sofa and his knee keeps bobbing up and down.

“So …,” he begins, “my parents tell me you play the classical bass, and that you are in a band. They say you are thinking of going to medical school.”

Okay, so this is how he’s going to play it. Cards on the
table for all to see. But two can play at that game. “Is that so?” I ask casually, pretending to pick an invisible speck of dust from my shorts. “Well, parents say a lot of things. What mine told
me
is that your grades are excellent, and that you’re a lovely boy from a good family.”

There. Right back at you.

For a moment he’s quiet, but then he breaks into a nervous smile. “Sounds like your parents have been giving you the same kind of selling job about me that mine have been giving about you. I have been hearing for weeks about how accomplished your family is, and about how beautiful you are.”

“You have? They said that?”

He nods, his face reddening a little.

His honesty surprises me. I like that he actually blushed too—it’s kind of sweet. For an instant I find it hard not to like him just the tiniest bit, but then I get ahold of myself. I gather my courage. “Rajeev, let me set things straight so there’s no misunderstanding.” I look directly at him for the first time. “I love and respect my parents, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let them control my life. I’m not interested in an arranged marriage. Not with you or anybody else. I’m sorry if this hurts you, but when I’m ready to get married it’ll be with somebody
I
choose, and that decision won’t come for a long, long time. You and I are just kids.”

There is yet another pause as his eyes seem to study me. After a moment, though, he leans back in the chair and it’s almost as if I can see a weight lifting from his shoulders. “Oh thank goodness!” he says. “I was so worried! I thought you were going to be …”

I wait. He doesn’t finish. “What?” I ask, confused. “What did you think I would be?”

“I don’t know … like … like my parents, I guess. Oh,
don’t get me wrong, Mohini—I love and respect my mother and father too. They mean well. It is just that they’re very old-fashioned, and sometimes it’s like they keep expecting me to be just like them. They seem stuck on the idea that I will get married young and spend my life doing something academic, like they both did. They told me that when I go to college I should study the same field as them—economics. They don’t seem to get it when I keep telling them I don’t want any of those things.”

I stare. “So … what
do
you want?”

“I want to dance,” he answers without hesitation. “It’s my passion. It’s what I love. Do you know Shiamak Davar?”

I shake my head.

The next thing I know, he’s reaching into one of the luggage bags near his feet and pulling out a DVD. He hands it to me. It’s a Bollywood movie called
Vriksh Ghar
. On the cover a crowd of people are dancing on the roof of what looks like a gigantic tree house.

“Shiamak Davar is a famous choreographer. He’s brilliant. I got to work with him two summers ago as a background dancer in this movie. It was only a couple of days, but it changed my life. When I go to college in two years I’m going to continue my dance studies. I’m going to be a choreographer.”

“And your parents?” I ask slowly, still trying to take this in. “They don’t want you to do that?”

He shrugs. “It’s not that they don’t
want
me to, exactly. They want me to do whatever makes me happy. It’s just that this is not what they expected. They’re still trying to warm up to the idea. I’m sure they will come around eventually, but for now I think they’re still having a hard time.” He looks up at me again. “Breaking from tradition is an adjustment for everybody.”

I’m speechless as he tucks the DVD back into his bag. All at once I’m struck with the realization that what I was thinking before—that I don’t know anyone else who has to deal with the kind of stuff I do—is no longer true. In his own way, Rajeev has obviously been balancing on a tightrope a lot like the one I’ve been on for years. He smiles at me again, and it’s clear to me now that it’s not the smile of a boy who expects me to be his wife someday. It’s just the nervous smile of a kid who’s far from home, a little scared and hoping to make a friend. If I were in his position I’d feel the same way.

I realize I can’t make myself hate him. I just can’t.

Despite everything, I smile back.

WEN
An Unforgivable Weasel

It felt like our world was on the brink of change, but for me change couldn’t come fast enough. Even though we were working on our new album in a real studio, even though Mr. Decker kept telling us we were about to rocket into the pop stratosphere, my dad still needed me to wear that stupid hot dog suit for him whenever I could. “It helps get the word out,” he said. “People see you on the street, a friendly frankfurter waving at them, and it makes them curious. Starting my own business is a big deal for me, Wen. I know you don’t love the suit, but I want you to know how much I appreciate your help.”

What was I supposed to do? How could I say no when it meant so much to him?

Of course I wanted my father’s business to succeed. Everyone in my family did. After all, my dad had quit his
job for this. So we all pitched in. Sydney—whose original idea for the summer was to take a family vacation and see the country—was spending her time putting ads in the local papers and assisting my dad with the bookkeeping. George helped hand out the hot dogs as my dad prepared them. (George
loved
riding around in that crazy van. He’d ring the bell and talk to the customers and wave when people stared as they passed. He even came up with a name for it—Penelope—as if it were a pet or something. He and my dad had started to say things like, “Honey, we’ll be back in a couple hours. George and I are just taking Penelope out for her lunchtime trip to the beach.” It was weird.)

But for me the hardest thing about Wieners on Wheels wasn’t that van or even that I had to wear that stupid costume. It was Scott Pickett. He was becoming a regular fixture in my summer. Whenever I saw him around my father, he was always acting sickeningly polite. “Yes, Mr. Gifford. Right away, Mr. Gifford.” My dad ate it up too, which was infuriating. It was like a bad joke.

Even if my dad couldn’t see through Scott’s act, I sure wasn’t fooled.

Scott’s job was to take over the wiener van driving duties in the late afternoons, cruising Penelope along the beaches and shopping areas in search of anyone with the munchies. As it turned out, the job wasn’t a bad fit for him. With his spiky blond hair and quick smile, he was something of a high school heartthrob, and even during the slower times he had a way of attracting customers. I know for a fact that girls from Opequonsett High would sometimes gather at the roadside waiting for that giant, rusting yellow van to appear just so they could flag it down and hand Scott their money.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why my dad liked him. Scott was good for business.

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