The Rearranged Life (29 page)

“It’s not funny, James!” I protest, but the way he clutches his stomach makes me laugh too. “They’re going to be really upset when it sinks in!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” He doesn’t look it. “I’m not laughing at them being upset. Just you. You’ve worried about this for months, and I mean, you really hammered it home.” He holds back another chuckle.

“Ahh, what did I do?” I moan and hide my face in my hands.

“Do you regret it?” He turns serious.

“No… Yes. I don’t regret dating you. But it’s always hard when you know someone’s going to be upset.”

“They aren’t though. Not as far as you know. You said they were really calm.”

“They were.” I sigh. “But the storm is brewing.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m really proud of you.” He kisses my forehead.

“Thanks. I’m just…”

“Nervous?”

“Scared.”

“Why scared?”

“Because this is new to me,” I admit. “Upsetting my parents and having a fallout from something I’ve done… It’s all something I’ve never done before, and you know how I am with changes.”

“Terrible?”

“Thanks, weeny,” I say, playfully.

“Okay, A, I haven’t heard anyone call me ‘weeny’ since second grade. And B, anyone would be a mess, but you’ve handled this so well, Nithya. I wish I could tell you how proud I am of who you are and of all you’ve done. You just blew through two major hurdles. You’re stronger than you think.”

“I needed to hear that.” I kiss him softly and then with more urgency. His hands wrap around my waist and his weight shifts on top of me. His long fingers play with the top of my jeans, and my skin tingles until goose bumps form.

My arms wrap around his neck, pulling him as close as possible, and our tongues lightly circle the insides of our swollen lips, and along the tips of our teeth. All the while, my hands are reaching underneath his t-shirt, feeling the smooth skin near the back of his shoulders. His muscles are taut as he moves against me. Our lips meet over and over until we taste the same.

James starts to slide my shirt up, his long fingers leaving a trail of electricity up to my bra. As his hands slide underneath my shirt, I put my hand on his chest.

“James,” I say breathlessly, not sure I’ll be able to get it out.

“What?” My leg hitching around his waist distracts him. He’s so turned on against me.

“We can’t. I don’t want to go too fast.” It comes out like one word.

“We’ve been dating a few months,” he says gently.

“It’s just one rule I want to leave unbroken.” I remain firm, fighting the urge to let him do what he wants. He looks at my face for half a second, before he kisses me again.

“Okay…” He sounds defeated for a second. “But can I still do this?”

His hands move up my back and trace circles that make me arch toward him.

“Mmm.” I groan, letting him know it’s okay.

“And this?” he murmurs, kissing my neck. I bite my lip in response, and he sees it, giving me a mischievous grin.

“And one more thing…” He kisses my collarbone to the skin at the very edge of my t-shirt where my breasts begin. I breathe in a sharp intake of air, and my hands grab fistfuls of his hair as his tongue flicks against my skin, inches from where I want them to go. As his hands reach for my face, I know he can feel me turned on as he rests his forearms against my chest.

“That’s not fair,” I whisper. “You’re teasing me.”

“All’s fair in love and war, right?” he asks, and with his steely eyes on me, I can’t help but think he’s right.

i, Nithya.” The phone call from Amma begins harmlessly enough.

“Hi, Amma, what are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing. Just making dinner. So, have you broken up with this James yet?”

I frown. Did I hear her correctly? Her levity irritates me, but I tell myself to control my temper. If she’s in the mood for war, one side needs to hold out a peace flag.

“No,” I tell her, as gently and honestly as I can. “I’m not going to, Amma.”

“What do you mean, no? I was very clear on Friday, Nithya. Break up with him.”

“Amma, he is a good person. He makes me really happy.”

“What about your family’s happiness, Nithya? What about your grandparents? Do you know they ask every time we call about whether we’re getting you married? How are you going to get married to an Indian if you’ve already disgraced yourself by dating around?” Her questions are rapid-fire and each one of them hurts more than the last.

“Listen, Amma,” I say, as softly as I can manage considering I want to scream. “If you met him, you’d be happy. He is so smart. He wants to be a lawyer. He gets such good grades. His family is really close, just like us.”

“You’ve met his family?” she shrieks, sounding hysterical. “How serious are you?”

“No, I didn’t meet them–” I backtrack, but she’s already firing on all pistons.

“How am I supposed to tell Nishanth’s family you have moved on? We are throwing a great match, family friends, out of the window!”

“Amma, Nishanth and I would be really good for one another, but he doesn’t understand me the way James does.”

“What’s there to understand?” she snaps. “You are a student who is close to her family. What more can there be to understand?”

“There’s more than that… What I see for myself, what I disagree with, why I like what I like.”

“Nishanth can learn all of it! What am I going to say to Aunty and Uncle?”

“We decided we weren’t right for each other,” I propose. “I don’t know, Amma.”

“This is what happens when you give too much freedom to your kids. I knew we should have sent you to U. Penn where we could keep an eye on you. Your father pampers you too much. It’s his fault.”

“It’s not his fault, Amma. Nanna’s not an idiot, he knows what he’s talking about.” I jump to his defense.

“No, Nithya, we are both idiots. You made fools out of us by not telling us earlier that you were having an affair with a boy when you should have been focusing on school. We didn’t send you to college for boys, we sent you to get an education. Is this why you did not get into medical school?”

“That’s a low blow,” I snap. I try to understand her feelings, but this dig is below the belt.

“No, a low blow is cheating your parents out of college money!” She belts out over the line.

“What are you talking about?”

“When you asked at Mohini’s wedding if we would stop paying for college, is this why? Because you were already seeing him? You wanted to cheat us out of knowing the truth so we would pay for school and then you could do what you wanted!”

“Of course not! That’s crazy!” I am flabbergasted. Does she really think so little of me? She is piecing together every conversation to back her own hypothesis. “How could you think that?”

“How can I think anything else? You did everything you should have done, and you didn’t get in. You suddenly became very curious about breaking the rules. The only factor that does not fit into the equation is this boy.”

“Don’t you think I replay all of this over and over in my head? Do you really need to say things like that to make me feel bad?” I slam my books shut.

“Maybe you should feel bad. Maybe you should have focused more on school and less on boys.”

“Shut the hell up, Mom,” I say and hang up.

I shake so violently, the phone slips out of my hands. I don’t bother to pick it up, and it lies on the hardwood floor. I put my hands on my head, trying to breathe but instead, the bile starts coming up. I run to the bathroom and get there just in time to throw up.

I’ve never disrespected my mother that way in my entire life. Even my teenage years were filled with
That’s not fair!
and,
I hate that!
, but blatant rudeness wasn’t something I resorted to. The fact that I couldn’t say ‘Amma’ and reverted to ‘Mom’
tells me I didn’t have the guts to own my words. I’m a phony–a petulant child who couldn’t control her temper.

Two hours go by, and I finish some homework, before I restlessly get up and start on laundry. I throw in a load, violently shutting the door before going to wash all the dishes in the kitchen. My frustration is being taken out on an unfortunate baking pan when my phone rings in my bedroom, and I make a beeline for it. I’ll open with an apology before attempting a rational, calm conversation with Amma. To my surprise, Nanna’s name comes up on my glowing screen.

“Hello?”

“Did you tell your Amma to shut the hell up?” He doesn’t say hello. For the first time, the calm tone terrifies me. He seethes with quiet fury. The waves of anger travel through the phone line.

“Did she tell you that she said I should have focused on school more?” I ask bitterly, still trying to defend myself and armed only with my pride.

He processes what he’s going to say next.

“She shouldn’t have gone so far with such an untrue statement. But you didn’t have a right to be so rude, Nithyapriya.”

The use of my full name is deliberate, intended to illicit the same fear anyone else experiences when their parents bust out their middle name. It also serves as a reminder that my name comes from my mother’s… She gave me life, and I don’t have a right to insult where I came from.

“I’m sorry.” I choke back tears. “Really. I am. She just kept harping on me like I was a failure at everything, and I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Okay,” he says, simply. “I will tell her you are sorry. And put the comments out of your mind, you shouldn’t remember what people say in anger,” he adds as an afterthought.

“She didn’t have to go there, Nanna. Like I don’t beat myself up every day anyway.”

“She didn’t have to, Nithya, but you should have handled it with grace.”

“How do I handle it nicely when she says something meant to hurt me?” I snap. Again. What is happening to me?

“You cannot tell us to handle things nicely if you don’t show it by example,” he says sternly. “You sprung this on us, Nithya, in a moment where we were determined to help you. You haven’t even given us a week to process what has been going on, I assume, for months. Yet you expect us to bounce back quickly, on your time and not ours.”

He’s right. They have been given the shock of their lives, and they need time to process it. But I want to scream, “Don’t hate me!” all the same.