Page 71 of Only One Tour Bus

I snort. “You really don’t want to spend any more time with the babies than you have to.”

“No.”

“All right. Probably good to test out some new restaurants for your lists and my recommendations, anyway.”

“It’s such a tough job, when you put it like that.” He rolls his eyes at me and gets a tongue stuck out at him in response. That garners even more eye rolls.

“If you keep rolling your eyes, they’ll stick like that one day.”

“And I’ll send you the medical bill.”

“Ha! I’d gladly pay your zero-dollar medical bill, you nationalized healthcare-haver.”

Callum rolls his eyes at me again—oh, how one lives on the edge when one has that sweet free healthcare—and leads us to a restaurant that he’s been wanting to try. He picked a spot in La Petite France, and we scored a table in an outside patio overlooking the sparkling, clear blue water. Very fairy tale location here.

We eat a nice meal where Callum only confuses me by approximately 15 percent more than where I started the meal at (only because I started pretty high on the confused scale).

After a full lunch, we walk around the winding, narrow, cobblestoned neighborhood and take in the beauty, working our way to the cathedral.

Mom texts me to see if I’m free, and I excuse myself a few steps away to take the call. It’s only going to get busier, and it would be awkward calling her back on the bus, where everyone is listening in to the conversation. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, Beta. How is the tour going?”

“Good. Well, okay.”

“Why only okay? What happened?”

“Apparently, this is an extended interview to keep my job, and the group will decide between who is the better guide at the end of it. The other guide is fired.”

“What? You have so much passion and knowledge for this job, I can’t believe they put you in this position.”

Sometimes it’s hard to have this supportive a mother.

I know it’s an absurd thing to complain about, even in my head, and I know I should be more grateful. A lot of my Indian friends growing up had tougher parents, who very much thought there were only three jobs: doctor, engineer, or lawyer. My friends never missed an opportunity to tell me how lucky I was that my parents supported anything I wanted to be.

And didn’t yell at me for the B+ I got in calculus.

Mom was equally enthusiastic when I wanted to be a ballerina, a doctor, a princess, a lawyer, an archaeologist, and a curator. Then a tour guide. In that order.

She didn’t care when I went to school undeclared, or when I declared my major to be art history. She didn’t say anything when I applied to jobs in Europe to lead tours, besides saying how sad she would be to have me be far. Which I get; I miss her, too.

Other Indian friends had parents who were more concerned with their children going into certain careers for the stability they could provide, since all of our parents sacrificed so much to provide us with the lives they did when they were first starting out in America.

And stability is a fair consideration. None of my friends are on a tour with an attractive grump, trying to save their job while they travel through some of the most beautiful sights in Europe, with a group of interesting, demanding people who are having a good time because of my suggestions, for ridiculously low pay.

Well, none of that sounds particularly bad to me, aside from the job in peril and low pay parts.

But I know how lucky I am that Mom and Dad let me pursue my passions, having enough faith in me to know I’ll figure out what I want in life. On the other hand, that much support is also kind of weirdly stressful. I can’t let them down after how much they believe in me, after how much they let me decide my own path. How much they stand up to my grandparents and their friends for me, who still ask when I’m going to grad school and getting a “real job.”

It’s why I’m afraid to push too hard on this specialty tour idea. What if it is a dud? I can’t fail in front of the people who showed up at my college graduation with signs containing giant pictures of my head, setting off illegal streamers and very discouraged horns when they called my name.

I don’t want to see those same faces filled with disappointment. I don’t want to prove all the people they argued with over me right.

“The industry is tough,” I say.

“Beta, maybe this is the time you pursue the specialty tours you’re always so excited about? Maybe now is the time to start your own company like you dream of? You know your cousin just graduated law school and would love to help with the business side of things.”

I hadn’t even thought of asking her. Because then even more people would watch me fail.