Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [17]
I flop into his bed and pull his comforter around me. He puts a plate on the pillow. Samosas. The Guptas own ten Indian restaurants.
“What’s up?” he says, sitting down at his desk.
“Can I—” I start to say, through a mouthful of food, but he holds up a finger.
“Yes, ma’am, I tried the press office,” he says into the phone. “They gave me your number. No, I’m not a reporter. I’m trying to get President Karzai to comment on my thesis. I’m a student. An American student. At St. Anselm’s. Um … St. Anselm’s? In Brooklyn? Hello? Hello?”
He takes his headset off. Swears.
“Wow, V, I’m shocked,” I say. “I thought for sure Karzai would tell the Taliban to chill for a sec so he could take the call. Especially when you said you were from St. Anselm’s.”
He gives me a look. I’m about to ask him if I can crash in his room tonight when we both hear it—the sound of footsteps, brisk and purposeful, coming down the hallway. And then a voice, “Vijay? Viiiiijay!”
“Duck and cover,” he says. “Here comes the Atom Mom.”
She’s fearless, Mrs. Gupta. I can think of so many unsavory things a seventeen-year-old boy might be doing in his room after midnight but Mrs. Gupta doesn’t even knock; she just throws open the door and stands there, hands on her hips, eyes blazing—the goddess Kali in a terry cloth robe.
“Vijay! I heard you talking!”
“I was on the phone!”
“I heard two voices! Two! Why aren’t you studying? Do you want to stir curry all your life? Do you think Harvard wants boys who fool around day and night? Why are you wasting your time like this?”
“Gee, thanks, Mrs. Gupta,” I say. Her first name is Rupal. I’ve never heard anyone use it.
“Ah! It’s you, Andi. What are you doing in my son’s bed at this hour?”
“Trying to sleep.”
“What about your own bed? In your own house? How can Vijay study this way? How can you study this way? Life is not party, party, party! You must get good grades. Both of you. Do you know what awaits you if you do not? No? Well, then, I will tell you …”
Vijay leans back in his chair and groans.
“… a life spent making chapatis for every Tanmay, Deepak, and Hari! You’ll be living with ten roommates in some filthy apartment in Jackson Heights because you won’t be affording Brooklyn Heights on the minimum wage. No, no, no! How will you eat? How will you pay your bills? This is not the ATV world you two seem to think it is—”
“MTV world,” Vijay says.
“—where silly people with tattoos play guitars all day and no one ever works!” She pauses for breath, then adds, “You are heartless, you children. The worry you make for your parents!” When she finishes, she gives Vijay the most tragic look imaginable, as if she had a serial killer for a son instead of a Harvard-bound valedictorian.
“Go home, Andi,” she says to me. “Home is where young ladies belong at this hour. Your mother will be anxious.”
To Vijay she says, “Did you try President Zardari?”
“Go back to bed, Mom!” he shouts.
Mrs. Gupta leaves. Vijay says, “Ah, yes, winter break in Mombai. No place I’d rather be. So anyway, why are you in my bed at this hour?”
“Because I want you, baby.”
We both laugh hysterically at that. Vijay dates the valedictorian at Slater, a beautiful girl named Kavita who wants to be a pediatrician. They go running in Prospect Park. I date guys who look like Joey Ramone. They go running, too. Out of stores, mainly. With security guards behind them.
“What happened?” he asks me again.
“Nothing. Why do you think something happened?”
“Something always happens with you. Did you go to Nick’s party?”
“I did.”
“And?”
I wink at him. “It’ll be on the front page of tomorrow’s Post.”
“Seriously, Andi.”
I want to tell him it almost was in the Post. I want to say that I came close tonight. Up on Nick’s roof. The closest I’ve ever been. One step. All I needed was one step. I want to tell him about my father. And my mother. And Paris. That’s why I came here. I want to tell him that I’m afraid. But I don’t. Because looking at him, with his headset and his books and his notes, I know he shouldn’t be