The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(57)

She rose with a start when she realized someone was next to her and then relaxed when she saw the familiar face.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Making sure you’re all right.” Simon offered her his arm to steady herself so they could begin walking away from the building. “And making sure you are staying at my place again. This is no time to prove how much you can handle on your own.”

Nita was lost for words. She simply nodded while they walked down the street toward his apartment.

They had gone a couple blocks in silence before Simon softly said, “You really surprise me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was pretty sure he’d convince you to stay. You wouldn’t have been the first that he’s managed to charm.”

She looked up at him while they continued down the street. “Then why were you waiting?”

He smiled at her. “Because I had hoped you wouldn’t.”



Back in Simon’s apartment later that night, he poured a couple glasses of red wine and handed her one. The two of them walked back to the couch and sat down.

“I’m guessing tonight you’ll trust me and take the bed,” he said with a grin.

Nita laughed. “I would still hate to impose on you more than I have. I can manage here.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist. My mother would slap me silly if she knew I’d let a lady spend even a single night on this sofa, let alone two of them. Careless mistake for sure. She is a force to be reckoned with, so you’re saving me the grief if you just say yes.” He raised his glass, and Nita did the same.

“What are we toasting?” she asked.

“Your resilience,” he said as he clinked her glass.

Embarrassed, she politely took a small sip. “We should be toasting your kindness.”

He shrugged off her praise. “This wine needs some cheese.” Simon went to the refrigerator and retrieved a wedge of comté and a small plate and knife. He cut a few slices and handed her the first one.

“Your mother did raise you well,” Nita said. “Not like what we heard about in India.”

“What do you mean?”

“My parents always warned me that people in the West always put themselves first. Not like the collectivist community mentality we were raised with.”

She felt like an impostor, suggesting she was included in the collectivist mentality. Her selfishness had been unparalleled, so maybe that’s why she had felt the strong need to leave India, and those values, behind her.

She let the saltiness of the cheese linger on her tongue. “Never mind that my parents had not left India to know for themselves. Such a detail did not stop them from being an expert on Americans!”

“Not having the facts doesn’t stop any parent from acting like they know everything!” Simon laughed but then grew more contemplative. “I suppose there are different types of people everywhere: some good and some bad.”

“It’s true. You’re the first American I’ve ever met, though, so you have set a high standard for the rest!”

Simon swallowed his cheese. “No pressure. And you? How is a girl like you raised in India?” He refilled their empty wineglasses.

“If you ask my parents, I’m afraid they’d say not very well.”

He laughed. “Somehow I doubt that. I’ve never—make that almost never—seen you act out of sorts.”

She sipped from her wineglass, enjoying the taste of the smooth liquid that had once burned her throat on the way down. “It’s a different place with different expectations. You’d be surprised how obedient girls can be. Raised to dote on their husbands and rear perfect children, all without ever having a single sari pleat out of place.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m packing up and moving there tomorrow!”

Now it was Nita’s turn to laugh. “I somehow think you wouldn’t be so thrilled with an arranged marriage. And with you not having a place in the caste system, they wouldn’t even know what to do with you! Sure, vendors want American money, but marrying their daughters . . . that’s something else entirely!”

“Fair enough. Guess I better stick to where I am.”

Simon opened a second bottle, and with the wine flowing, they talked for hours, sharing stories about growing up in their respective countries and trying to explain things to the other person, who had never set foot in it. He couldn’t believe how straitlaced Indian children were meant to be, and she couldn’t believe the brazen behavior American children engaged in. If she had done half the things Simon said he and his sisters had done while growing up, like skipping school to go to the beach and drink beers with their friends, her papa would have swiped her straight across her bottom with his belt. She may have had her knuckles rapped with a ruler in school, but even she knew the limits to avoid the belt. She couldn’t believe that Simon’s mother would let such behavior go with simply a warning and a promise to never do it again, though he assured Nita that they never kept those promises and were just more careful not to get caught.

Simon picked up the bottle of wine from the floor next to the couch and stared into it as though he were looking into a telescope. “Seems we’ve gone empty again. Time to replenish the supplies.”