Page 19 of Rani Deshpande Takes the Wheel
We spend the next half hour outlining how we want to divide up our time this summer, if I’m aiming for a late August test date. Kush is as organized as me, jotting down notes in his planner as we discuss, handwriting boyish and loopy in the margins.
“I think rewards systems are very effective,” he says. “So every time you master a new skill, we can celebrate with some Wanda’s.”
I slurp what’s left of my latte, watered down but still icy sweet. “A perfect motivation,” I say, and we clink our empty glasses.
In the evening, I slip out of the house before Aai Baba get home and bike to our neighborhood meadow. There’s a grassy pond on the edge of the clearing. It’s serene and secluded and was my quiet space throughout childhood. On warm weekends, families sometimes picnic here, but on workdays, it’s mine alone.
I discovered the spot in elementary school, after I “ran away” from home one night in a fit of dramatics. Sanju and Nabhi were infants then, and having spent eight years as the coddledcenter of my family’s universe, the sudden shift of attention was shocking. In the fifteen minutes before Ajoba discovered me, I imagined making the meadow my new home. Everything could be all about me once more.
Ajoba arrived just as my exhilaration started to give way to fear. The meadow was lovely, but chilly at nighttime, with near-total darkness apart from the distant streetlamps.
I waited for his anger, but it didn’t come. “You forgot your jacket,” he said instead, holding up my favorite pink zip-up.
Somehow, his lack of reaction made my big, bad move seem meaningless. “I’m running away,” I told him, though my voice was weak, like I was convincing myself.
“Ah,” he said after a pause. “So you definitely need your jacket.”
I couldn’t argue with this logic. He helped my arms into the sleeves, then wrapped me in a hug, triggering my tears and hiccupping explanation. I felt ashamed for being jealous of the boys, because I loved them so dearly, and it wasn’ttheirfault everyone was so caught up with them that I’d been forgotten.
Ajoba listened, as he always did. “They’re not more special than you,” he said, identifying the fear at the heart of my hurt. “They just require more time right now.” He wiped my snotty face with a handkerchief. “And regardless, you’ll always bemymaharani.” I giggled at the line in spite of myself, and I allowed him to walk me home.
Ajoba must have prepped Aai Baba in advance, because they also tempered their reactions. In the coming weeks, they made an effort to include me more in the child raising. I adopted the role of extra parent, which perhaps hasn’t been the healthiest thingin the long run, but it calmed my envy as a child, made me feel needed and important.
A lifetime later, the meadow remains a treasured spot. Perhaps not quite in the way eight-year-old Rani imagined, but it is still a place that’s all about me. I come to be alone, escape responsibilities for a moment, process messy feelings in private. I’ve journaled through fights with Simran here, cried about boys too—from Kush in the sixth grade when I learned he was moving away, and more recently, to Kamran over winter break when he would take twenty-four hours to reply to a text. The meadow has seen it all.
Today, all that’s on the agenda is an outdoor nap, much needed after my exhausting shift. I set a timer on my phone for a half hour, then sprawl out on my picnic blanket, the setting sun still warm on my face.
Chapter Ten
Smoke is rising from the oven. Panicked, I clamber to open the kitchen windows before the fire alarm sets off. I toss Simran a dish towel, the smell of burnt chocolate pinching my nose.
“Fan the oven!” I exclaim. When she stands still, amused and lacking any urgency, I whine, “Sim!”
This gets me a couple haphazard flaps of the towel through the smoke. I give her a dirty look, and she accelerates the movements with a huff. “We should have known this would happen.”
She’s not wrong. There’s hardly been a successful baking experiment between the two of us in the last fifteen years of our friendship, and not for lack of trying. Burnt mug cakes and mushy cookies were staples of our childhood playdates. We did manage to assemble a partial gingerbread house one Christmas, though not without Ajoba’s assistance.
“I was so hopeful,” I say, still in mourning. I saved this s’moresbrownie recipe weeks ago, with the goal of breaking our curse. “And what now? We said we’d feed the boys a snack.”
Sanju and Nabhi are playing basketball in the backyard with a few neighborhood friends. My parents and Ajoba are over at a family friend’s place for afternoon chai, and I only escaped the invite under the guise of supervising the boys.
“Slice ’n’ bake it is,” Simran says, already extracting a package of premade cookie dough from the fridge. Not even Simran and I could fumble these instructions.
We work in silent unison for the next fifteen minutes. After scraping the burnt, unsalvageable brownies into the compost, I set the pan to soak in the sink while Simran slides the cookie sheet into the oven. After, we rest on the couch with our Diet Cokes as the sweet smell of snickerdoodles begins to replace the smoke.
“I’m exhausted,” she says with a yawn. “Good reminder not to try new things.” I roll my eyes, and she laughs. “Anyways,” she continues. “I’m not sure if I mentioned, but Steve is visiting Seattle in a week.”
She slurps her drink to avoid my disbelieving gaze. “SteveSteve?” I say. She gives a reluctant nod. “I thought we decided you weren’t going to speak to him anymore.”
It should’ve come as no surprise that the world’s worst college DJ was also the world’s worst boyfriend, but despite all his misbehavior, Steve somehow managed to retain a hold on Simran throughout second semester.
“We haven’t been speaking! This is the first I’ve heard from him in weeks,” she insists. “He’s in Seattle for a gig.” She pauses. “The gig is his childhood friend’s birthday.”
I tilt my head. “So a house party,” I say.
“I think it’s at an apartment,” she says. “But he gets paid and everything.” She pauses again. “In free drinks.”
Silence ensues. We make eye contact and burst into giggles. Sim allows it for a second before reaching over to swat me.
