Meet Me in Mumbai Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One: Ayesha

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Part Two: Mira

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Sabina Khan

  Copyright

  I stare at the stick, willing the second line not to appear. But my powers of persuasion must have dulled because it shows up, a pretty baby pink, which is ironic considering there’s nothing pretty about this. An avalanche of thoughts threatens to bury me. Suresh hasn’t responded to any of my emails or messages. I don’t even have his home number in India.

  It’s starting to dawn on me that I might be alone in this.

  There’s a loud knock on the bathroom door, and I almost drop the stick. “Ayesha, are you done? You’re going to be late for school.” Salma Aunty sounds anxious, which is nothing new. The woman could win a gold medal if there’s ever an Olympic event on how to worry yourself into an early grave. But she’s sweet, and I hate it when she worries about me.

  “Coming, Aunty.” I quickly wrap the pregnancy test stick in a wad of toilet paper and shove it into the pocket of my Dora the Explorer robe, a gift from my cousin Reshma, who’s only a couple of years older than me and headed back to college just before I arrived in Bloomington, Illinois. Apparently, she thinks I’m seven, not seventeen.

  I open the door to find Salma Aunty smoothing the duvet on my bed. Then she turns around and begins to straighten the things on my desk. She picks up a few sketches that I’ve left on top of my notebooks and puts them together in a neat little pile.

  “You don’t have to do that, Aunty,” I say in protest, mostly because I don’t like her touching my stuff, but partly also because I promised my mom that I would be super polite and always keep my room neat and tidy, so as not to bring shame upon my family back in India.

  Salma Aunty is my mom’s cousin. She settled here in Bloomington-Normal about twenty years ago when her husband got a job teaching physics at Illinois State University. She graciously offered to let me live with them during my senior year of high school so I could apply to college from within the US. It’s a bit complicated because my parents moved back to India soon after I was born here. So, I have a US passport but an Indian accent and brown skin, which is what drew Suresh and me together in the first place. There aren’t a lot of brown people in our school, and it’s nice to have someone else who misses eating pav bhaji and ragda patties at Elco Market as much as I do.

  “Come down and have breakfast before it gets cold,” Salma Aunty says. “I made Bombay toast. It’s your favorite, na?”

  “Yes, thank you, Aunty,” I say, giving her arm a quick squeeze before disappearing into the walk-in closet to get changed.

  The thick slices of fried bread soaked in egg with onion, green chilies, and cilantro are still hot and crispy as I slide into a chair at the breakfast table. Normally I would inhale at least three slices, but today all it does is make the bile rise up to my throat. I’ve been feeling this way for a couple of days now, starting right after I realized I’d missed my period. When I woke up that morning, I just knew.

  I didn’t really need a test to confirm, but I bought one anyway. And now I would kill for a cup of coffee, which I’m pretty sure is bad in my condition. Condition. Is that what this is? I meet a cute boy who feels like home, we hang out, talk a lot, and I end up getting pregnant? It’s like we’ve known each other for a long time, but in reality, it’s only been three months. Though here, far away from my parents and my little sisters, even a week feels like an eternity.

  I have no idea what I’m going to do.

  I met Suresh about three months ago, a month after I arrived from India, when Natasha, my new best friend, dragged me to my first American party. Salma Aunty believed I was sleeping over at Natasha’s because of a late-night group project. Mike Taylor, who sat behind me in English, was throwing the party at his house while his parents were out of town, and he had a cool older brother who supplied beer and an alibi in case their parents called.

  I didn’t really want to be there, but Natasha insisted that I needed to experience a “real high school party.” She deserted me as soon as we arrived to go make out with Brian.

  The basement was pretty crowded, but I managed to find an empty spot on the green couch in the corner. A few people I vaguely recognized from school attempted to dance to Britney Spears’s “Oops! … I Did It Again,” but they mostly ended up shuffling awkwardly on the spot. I pulled out my little sketchpad and pencil and attempted to capture the scene in front of me. By the time I was done, I realized I’d drawn the faces of my friends from back home. I contemplated how Natasha and I were going to get back to her house, because I didn’t really plan on getting into a car with her after watching her chug beer from a hose. I did not understand the appeal of parties like these.

  At home in Mumbai, if I was going to lie to my parents and sneak out, it would be to go to Juhu Beach and walk under the stars with my friends. We would get little plates of bhelpuri and drink fresh coconut water. Some of my friends smoked cigarettes, but none of us really drank alcohol. Later we’d stand around our cars listening to music blaring on someone’s stereo. That felt natural to me. But this basement scene felt strangely artificial.

  I watched my classmates having drink after drink and getting more and more “frisky,” as my dad would say. It was as if they needed the alcohol to enjoy each other’s company. I got up to grab a soda and was trying to decide what I wanted when someone held a red Solo cup out to me. I looked up to see a boy, about half a foot taller than me, smiling down. He was kind of cute, with thick curly hair and a dimple on his right cheek, his skin a slightly darker shade of brown than mine.

  “Don’t worry, it’s just a cold drink,” he said.

  Here in Bloomington, other than Salma Aunty and Hafeez Uncle, I hadn’t heard anyone use the words cold drink for soda.
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  When I still didn’t take the cup, the mystery boy set it down and reached over the table behind us. He pulled out a can of Sprite and handed it to me.

  I tucked my sketchpad and pencil back in my purse and took the can from him with a smile.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m Suresh.”

  I pulled the tab and took a long swig.

  “Ayesha.” I didn’t recall seeing him around the hallways at school … and I was pretty sure I would have remembered him if I had. Judging by his accent, he didn’t sound like an ABCD—an American-Born Confused Desi. In fact, he sounded like a Mumbaiite. As far as I knew, there wasn’t anyone else at my high school who was from India, which made me really excited to meet someone who was. But I didn’t want to give him the wrong impression, so I played it cool and basically ignored him while casually taking sips from the can he’d just given me.

  “So how long have you been here?” he finally asked.

  “I just got here half an hour ago.” It was hard to hear over the music, so I moved a tiny bit closer.

  “I meant, how long have you been here in Bloomington?” he said.

  “Oh, about a month,” I said. “What about you?”

  “I came here in August of last year,” he said. “I take it you don’t go to school in Normal. I mean, I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered if I’d met you before.”

  “No, I go to Bloomington High. How do you know Mike?”

  “I don’t really,” he said. “I came with my friend Rick. You’re from Mumbai too, right?”

  “What gave it away?” I asked with a grin. “My tapori accent?”

  He smiled back, a really wide smile, showing off very white, straight teeth.

  “Obviously. And can I just say how great it is to meet someone else who even knows what that is? I don’t know a single person here from Mumbai.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. We Mumbaiites had a unique way of speaking; our vernacular was heavily influenced by dialogues from Bollywood movies. Or maybe it was the other way around; I couldn’t be sure. It was hard for me to explain, but the sound of my mother tongue here in Bloomington, half a world away from home, touched me in a way nothing else could.

  “So where do you live? In Mumbai, I mean,” he asked.

  “Chembur. You?”

  “Bandra. Did your whole family move here?”

  “No, just me. I live with my aunty.”

  “Same,” he said. “I mean no aunty, just me,” he added hurriedly. “And my dad’s college buddy. That’s who I stay with.”

  His nervousness made me smile … and I was glad that I wasn’t the only one.

  He cleared his throat. “It’s a bit loud down here. Want to find somewhere quieter to talk?”

  I nodded, not giving it a second thought. Anything to get out of this space, which was becoming more and more suffocating by the minute.

  We walked up the stairs and out of the house into the starlit night. The patio was empty except for one couple making out on a chair in the corner, but they were too oblivious to notice us. I sat on the steps and took a long deep breath of the night air. It smelled like lavender and faintly of pot, but it was way better than downstairs. Suresh leaned against the wooden post and smiled down at me.

  “So, is this everything you thought it would be?” he asked.

  “This party?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Or America in general?”

  “Both, I guess.” He plonked himself down beside me, and I got a faint whiff of his aftershave. Something woodsy and fresh, unlike Hafeez Uncle’s Old Spice, which forced me to breathe through only one nostril whenever he was around.

  Suresh’s shoulder brushed against mine, just a glance, but it was enough to make me very aware of him.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say everything,” I replied. “I think it’s so weird how people ask what’s up and then, when I start to tell them, they don’t really seem to care.”

  Suresh grinned at me. “I know exactly what you mean. When I first got here, I was so surprised that everyone wanted to find out how I was doing. And then I realized, it’s just something they say.”

  I nodded. “You know, I used to think that I was so familiar with all this just because I watched Dawson’s Creek and Friends back home, but honestly, it’s been really hard.”

  I had no idea why I was talking so much to a guy I’d just met a few minutes ago. It had to be a combination of seeing someone from back home and the loneliness I’d been trying to keep at bay for weeks now. Either way, it was embarrassing. But when I looked up, he was smiling.

  “I get it,” he said. “I’ve been here for a while now, and it’s still hard sometimes.”

  “Do you miss your family?” I leaned back against the wooden post and took a sip of my soda.

  He nodded. “Yeah, we’re really close. And Dad’s not been doing well lately. He has heart issues.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I hate being so far away. Every time my phone rings in the middle of the night, I panic.”

  “My mom can never remember the time difference,” he said with a laugh. “And that’s not even taking into account—what do they call it? Daylight savings time?”

  I shook my head. “What’s up with that anyway? I swear only Americans would try to manipulate time just to make themselves feel better.”

  “Last year I missed a test because I forgot about it,” Suresh said. “Luckily, my teacher let me take it after school.”

  We didn’t say anything for a while, just listening to the muted sounds of music coming from inside.

  “Do you ever feel like you’re on National Geographic?” I said when the silence became too much.

  Suresh let out a loud laugh, startling the couple making out in the corner behind us. They looked up to glare at us briefly and then went back to what I could only describe as an attempt to inhale each other’s faces.

  “Are you kidding?” Suresh said. “I’ve only been asked a million times whether we ride to school on elephants.”

  “I can do you one better,” I said. “My social studies teacher asked me how it feels to finally be liberated from the burqa.”

  “No, she didn’t.” Suresh narrowed his eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, but I am. It was right after our unit lecture on world religions, which lasted a whole half hour.”

  He shook his head slowly. “That’s so stupid. What did you say?”

  “I didn’t know what to say. I mean, where would I even begin?”

  We sat in silence again for the next few minutes, lost in our own thoughts. There was something about his presence that comforted me. It didn’t make sense, but I felt like I knew him even though we’d just met. The cadence of his speech, the way he used his hands and face when he talked, all felt like home. I’d been pretending to myself that I wasn’t completely alone in a sea of strangers for hours every day, longing to be around desi people my age who could understand what I was going through. But I knew I had to be cautious. I had a history of getting too attached too quickly, and I couldn’t afford to make that mistake again.

  The chill in the air made me shiver, and I got to my feet.

  “I should go and find Natasha,” I said. I was a bit worried about how I was going to be able to spend the night at her house if she wasn’t even okay to drive. I couldn’t exactly go home at this hour without making Salma Aunty majorly suspicious.

  “I’ll come with you.” Suresh jumped to his feet, and soon we were weaving through the crowd in the basement. I found Natasha all tangled up with Brian on the pile of coats that had accumulated on a futon in the corner. I did not want to unwittingly see anything I wasn’t supposed to, so I closed my eyes and tugged on Natasha’s sleeve.

  “What?” Natasha lifted her head from Brian’s and looked at me with sleepy eyes.

  “Umm, can we go home now?” I asked, trying to figure out if Brian was awake or not. His eyes were half open, but they weren’t moving, so I couldn’t be sure. I was very sure t
hat I wanted to get out of there, though.

  Natasha unwrapped herself from Brian and stood, swaying slightly. This did not look good.

  “I can drive you both home if you like,” Suresh said.

  “Who’s that?” Natasha mumbled sleepily.

  “Suresh, meet Natasha. Natasha, this is Suresh,” I said perfunctorily. “I think it would be best if he drove us home, right?”

  Natasha threw a disdainful look at Brian and nodded. Soon she was safely ensconced in the back seat of Suresh’s car while I slid into the front passenger side. We exchanged phone numbers when we got to Natasha’s house, and he promised to come back in the morning to drive us to get her car.

  We snuck inside and tiptoed to her room, careful not to wake her parents. I was about to doze off when Natasha turned to me.

  “He’s really cute, isn’t he?” she asked. “Do you think you’ll see him again?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I just met him, Natasha.”

  “Ayesha, c’mon, you know what I mean,” she said, nudging me under the covers with her foot.

  “He’s okay, I guess,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. “He was pretty nice.”

  “Nice … Sure, let’s go with that,” Natasha said. “I saw how he was looking at you.”

  “He was driving, so I’m pretty sure he was looking at the road,” I said. “Speaking of which, he’s coming by in a few hours to drive us back to Mike’s to get your car, so I think we should go to sleep now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Natasha said. I could hear her smiling in the dark. “Sweet dreams.”

  * * *

  I woke up to the sound of a very loud bird chirping outside the window, and it took me a few minutes to remember where I was. As the memories of last night washed over me, I looked over at Natasha still fast asleep, one leg sticking out from under the covers. A quick glance at my phone reminded me that Suresh was going to be here soon. I gently shook Natasha awake and went to get ready.

  By the time I went downstairs, Suresh was already pulling up, and soon we had retrieved Natasha’s car. Since Natasha had to go to work, Suresh offered to drive me home. He wasn’t at all surprised when I asked him to let me out a couple of houses down. It was Saturday, and the last thing I wanted was for Hafeez Uncle or Salma Aunty to see me coming home in a strange boy’s car.