The Taste of Ginger(67)

She managed a small smile for a fleeting second. “Okay.”

I sat for a few more moments in silence with her and longed for her and Neel to make it through this awful ordeal by learning to lean on each other and come out even stronger together.

Watching them go through this had taught me so much about them and about relationships in general. Maybe most important of all, I was learning how much I still had to learn.



When I went to Happy Snaps after leaving Dipti, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was too embarrassing to tell Tushar that my family didn’t want me associating with him in public.

I took a deep breath and pasted on a smile that Carrie would have immediately known was fake before I walked through the door. The chimes echoed in the small shop. When Tushar looked at me, I could tell he had received the same lecture from his family.

“Good morning, Preeti,” he said, turning the page in his book. “I should stay in front today, but please let me know if you need help with anything.”

He had resumed his polite, formal demeanor from when we first met. My heart sank when I realized we were going to have to rebuild the openness upon which I’d come to depend. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing that.

I marched up to him and grabbed the book from his hands. Especially after my talk with Dipti, I couldn’t go back to fake conversations.

“Did you have fun yesterday?”

He looked startled. “Excuse me?”

“I asked if you had fun yesterday,” I said sternly, as if cross-examining him.

He nodded, looking amused by my straightforward manner.

“Good.” I smiled. “So did I. We should be able to hang out without throwing the societal balance off its axis. We like spending time together, and there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

He shook his head, a smile creeping onto his face.

I extended my hand to shake his. “Then it’s agreed. We’re friends, and no one can change that. We will respect our families and not flaunt it, but within these walls”—I gestured around the shop—“I want it to be like it was twenty-four hours ago. Joking, laughing, all of it!”

He clasped my hand. “Yes, madam.”

I smiled, knowing we were okay.

“You were quite a good lawyer, I suspect,” he said.

“I wasn’t bad.”

“Certainly better than you are at photography.”

I pretended to bop him upside the head with his book before setting it onto the counter. With a coy smile, I said, “Fine, wise guy, why don’t you teach me your skills?”

“To be truthful, I saw some of your photos from yesterday when we were walking the streets. They are quite unique.”

“Really?” I felt my cheeks warm at his praise.

He nodded. “They offer a different perspective. One that we Indians would not see.”

I focused on his words. We Indians.

He must have seen my face change, because he quickly backtracked. “You know I mean we resident Indians. You are Indian, too, of course.”

“I know what you meant,” I said.

And while he’d meant nothing by it, it still stung. I didn’t know what it felt like to walk on the street and feel like I belonged as much as the people passing by me. Not since I was a seven-year-old kid living in India, and I could hardly remember that girl now. Maybe Neel and Dipti had worked together because they understood the other’s loneliness. Alex could never understand that part of me, and I had just assumed it was because we had different ethnic backgrounds, but I now realized it was more than that. Tushar couldn’t have understood it either, and he was as Indian as they came. But he was an Indian who had always belonged in India. No one questioned his place in this country like they did mine.





30


Shortly after sunset, Biren and I walked along the stalls making up the perimeter of the Law Garden on our way to meet his crush. I hadn’t been to the area since my last trip to India but knew that the colorful lights and merriment were something I wanted to try to capture on film, especially now that Tushar had taught me some better settings to use for night photography.

“My friend from work will meet us near that corner,” Biren said.

Law Garden was a small and crowded public park where people often came to shop or eat at the hawker stalls that lined its perimeter. It was nothing like the grandeur of Grant Park back in Chicago, but large by Indian standards. The smell of frying oil filled the air rather than the scent of nature. My family had spent many hot summer evenings here when we had been visiting from America. Tonight it looked no different than it had fifteen or twenty years ago. There were families walking around talking and laughing while licking shaved-ice popsicles. NRI kids were still sporting Christmas sweatshirts even though the holiday had just passed.

“So, you’re still calling him your friend?” I said.

“Isn’t that what you’re calling Tushar?” he shot back.

“Touché,” I said.

He laughed. “Anyway, that’s what he is. We’ve never crossed that boundary. Besides, he’s more into this scene than I am. I’m not sure if he’s single or even interested in me as anything other than a friend.”

“Well, you won’t know unless you try! I’ll see what I can find out.”