“Dad’s tougher,” Ajay added. “Or he puts on a good front, anyway.”
We arrived in the ICU overflow unit to find Shumi’s father on his laptop in one corner of her spacious curtained area, phone to his ear as he dealt with some issue at his workplace. His voice was a discreet murmur.
When Ajay mouthed the word “coffee,” he shook his head and waved us off.
I waited until we were near the elevator to say, “Must be hard for him to have to handle work even when he’s so worried.” The other man hadn’t actually looked worried to my eyes, but I knew a certain age and personality of male tended to shove all emotions down deep. Even more so in a patriarchal culture like my father’s.
Still, there seemed something…not quite right about Shumi’s family. Another case of one favored child, one ignored one?
If so, Ajay was a lot more likable than Raja.
Or I was projecting my own issues onto the Kumars. Might be Shumi just wasn’t close to her family, far preferring to nest in with the Prasads as another way to make herself the perfect wife for Bobby.
“Dad’s so senior.” Ajay pushed the button for the elevator. “Theyrely on him and I think he feels guilty not being available even at this time.” He rubbed his face. “The immigrant work ethic is sometimes the immigrant sense of guilt at being forever grateful for the opportunities afforded us. Your dad the same?”
“Yeah, he’s a workaholic, but I think he’s just wired that way,” I said, thinking of how happy my father had always looked tucked away in his office. “I’m third-generation. It was my grandparents that immigrated from India—so I’m now the slacker Westernized grandson.”
Ajay’s smile was startled. “Trust me, if you’re in finance, you’re no slacker.”
So, Shumi had spoken enough to her brother that she’d told him about me. “Actually,” I said, “do you mind if we walk to the café? I’d like to stretch my legs.”
“Sure.”
We were already descending the stairs by the time the elevator dinged to announce it had arrived.
“What’s it like, having such a famous mother?” Ajay asked, his tone a little hesitant. “If you want to talk about it,” he added in a rush. “I mean, people must ask you about it all the time.”
“It’s definitely…interesting,” I said with a practiced laugh. “Especially when I was eleven and she was doing the action movies where she was in a string bikini half the time?” During those peak years, she’d been one of the few actresses who could command serious award-winning roles alongside those of a sex bomb. “Icould notgo into the bedrooms of my friends without needing eye bleach. They all had posters of her on the walls.”
As always, the funny anecdote made my audience laugh and relax. I never mentioned the rest of it—the posed photo op where she’d hissed at me to “fucking smile” as she kissed me on the cheek, the way she spent long hours “going over lines” with her buff malecostar, the argument I’d overheard between my parents where she’d suggested I’d do better in boarding school.
It was one of the only times in my life when my fatherhadstood up for me, but these days I wondered if Audrey had been right. At least at boarding school, I’d no longer have been an outsider inside my own house.
“How was the trip to Fiji?” Ajay asked, instead of pushing for more as most people back home tended to do—it wasn’t as bad now, Los Angeles a city obsessed with youth, but Audrey Advani still cut a sexy and striking figure even in her late fifties.
“Tough.” No point or need to hide that. “Diya always said she’d take me, show me around the family home. Going there without her felt wrong.” I paused on the stairs, a busy member of staff passing us with quick feet. “I spoke to their neighbors. A former police officer named Kamal, and his wife and son.”
Ajay frowned before snapping his fingers. “Oh yeah, Uncle Kamal. We haven’t visited since I was fifteen, but he was a crusty old man even then. Can’t imagine he’s improved.”
I chuckled at the apt description. “No, exactly the same. He mentioned that your sister’s always been fond of Bobby.” The present tense just came out, both my conscious and subconscious mind ever more convinced that Bobby was alive.
It was the only thing that made sense.
“Man, isn’t that the truth. I was about five when the Prasads moved to New Zealand, but I remember how she shut down at the thought of not seeing him again. Biggest crush I’ve ever seen, and she was only, like, eleven.”
“She must’ve been happy when your family got to come, too.”
“Oh, it was like fireworks inside her when our dad told us that our application had been accepted. But for that one year after they leftand we were still in Fiji, she was a ghost, just drifting around. Wrote so many letters to both Diya and Bobby.”
The hospital café was quiet this near to closing time, but the staff hadn’t yet started cleaning their machines, so we were both able to grab coffees. I also ordered a large filled panini from the cabinet and was told they’d bring it to the table once they’d toasted it in the oven for me.
“Shumi ever date anyone else?” I asked once we’d taken our seats.
The barista started making our coffees while chatting to her coworker, who was taking my panini out of the cabinet.
“She wasn’t interested in anyone else,” Ajay said. “Happiest day of her life was when Bobby asked her out.” He took a little serving sachet of sugar from the small pot of sweeteners on the table and began to turn it around by the edges. “Before they became a couple, and after our family moved here, we all used to hang out. Me and Diya and Bobby and Shumi.
“Aunt Sarita and Uncle Rajesh were deep into studying for their local certifications, while my dad was working long hours, so Mum used to babysit us all when we weren’t in school. I think they were glad when we immigrated, too—we were familiar, you know? We even had rental houses down the road from each other.”
