I don’t know why he chose me to be Aja’s guardian. I do, in the sense that I was the only logical person, geographically. His wife Kate’s parents, with whom she wasn’t all that close to begin with, still live in Liverpool, and Dinesh and Kate wanted Aja to be raised in America. And Dinesh’s parents didn’t let the modern metropolis of their home in London influence their belief that Dinesh should marry the Indian girl of their choosing. They stopped speaking to him soon after he informed them of his engagement to Kate.
Dinesh and I met in college, when we were put on a group project together in a business management class. I was already married to Stephanie, and I was taken, as most people were, by his devil-may-care attitude toward life in general. Maybe I was jealous of it. But I also became quickly annoyed at his propensity to debate every opinion that arose in the course of our project. We got into a blowout argument over the correct branding strategy for the fake cereal company we were managing together, and just when I thought I was going to explode in anger over his irrationality, he started laughing, chucked me in the arm, and said, “You win, mate. Let’s go get a pint.” It was all a game to him. Debating. Being the devil’s advocate. Getting people ruffled and then just as easily smoothing things over. And getting a pint was his solution for everything.
Four years later over another beer, he told me Kate was pregnant and joked that having been the best man at his wedding, I’d inherited the role of godfather to his soon-to-be-born son, with the responsibility of stepping in if anything ever happened to him. We clinked glass mugs and I promptly forgot about it, because what would ever happen to Dinesh? He was invincible.
Until he wasn’t.
“What are we having for dinner?” Aja asks me when we get in the car. For a second, I swear I can hear Dinesh’s voice in his. Aja only has a trace of a British accent—a small part of his dad that he carries with him like a coin in his pocket. And he sometimes interjects words like “quite” and “actually” into his sentences, making him sound even older than he already does with his advanced vocabulary.
“Dinner? We’re not talking about dinner, Aja,” I say. “You’re in big trouble.”
“Why? I didn’t do anything,” he says.
“What do you mean you didn’t do anything? You threatened to blow someone up!”
“Not someone, a book bag,” he says.
“Fine, a book bag. You can’t do that, Aja. And now you’re suspended for three days, and I have to go to work. You’ve got to stop with all this telekinetic explosion stuff.”
“Destruction.”
“Whatever, destruction. Either way, it’s got to stop.”
Instead of nodding in agreement, he just stares at me with his large eyes. “But it didn’t work.”
“It doesn’t matter. You can’t talk about it. It’s like at the airport. You can’t say the word ‘bomb.’?” I put the car in reverse and start to back out of the parking spot.
“Why not?”
“Because bombs are dangerous,” I say, putting my foot on the brake and turning to look at him. “They can hurt people. Lots of people. And when you talk about it, or say the word—especially at the airport—people get scared and think you want to hurt them.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone,” he says.
I sigh and rub my jawline. “I know. I know, bud. You just can’t say it, that’s all.”
I slide the gearshift into drive and press the gas. We ride in silence for a few minutes and then Aja says, “But what if I’m talking about a video game?”
“No! Aja, no. You can’t talk about blowing things up. That’s the rule. Period. The end. Got it?”
“OK,” he says, staring straight ahead at the glove box.
That settled, I run through my mind the things I need to do when we get home. Call Connie, for starters, and see if she can take a few days off work to hang with Aja, while I’m at work. I know it’s asking a lot of her, but I don’t know what else to do.
When we pull into the driveway, I notice that Aja is still looking at the glove box.
“Aja?” I say.
He doesn’t respond.
“Aja, we’re home.”
He doesn’t move.
“Aja! What are you doing?”
He turns, and in a quiet voice says: “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
“Oh my god—are you trying to blow up the car?”
“No,” he says. And then: “Just the glove box.”
“No! No more telekinetic explosion! It’s done.”
“Destruction, not explosion,” he says.
“Whatever! You need to go back to just trying to move things with your mind. Got it?”
Nothing.
“Aja?”
He opens his mouth: “Can we still get a dog?”
five
JUBILEE
AS I SUSPECTED, the lack of gas wasn’t the problem with the Pontiac. After I put a few gallons in the tank, it still wouldn’t turn on, which is why I find myself riding my bike to my first day of work at the library. And once I get used to the cars whooshing by me, and the terrible feeling that I’m going to die at any second, I kind of start to like it. The wind. The feeling of freedom.
I pass over the Passaic River Bridge into downtown, mesmerized by the light reflecting off the water, and pedal a few more blocks to the library. A block off Main Street, the Lincoln Library is a small, squat brick building sandwiched in between a bank and an old house that now functions as a day spa. I ease off the bike and roll it into the bike rack, threading the lock I ordered online through the spokes of the bike and the metal bars of the rack. Then I stand up, straighten my skirt, and tug at the edges of my gloves. And that’s when I start to panic.
I complete a round of tapping from my skull to my wrists, take a deep breath, and walk up the sidewalk to the single glass door adorned with black sticker lettering announcing the library’s hours of operation. I open it and step inside.
“You must be Jubilee,” a woman says when I approach the main desk in the middle of the library. She has wispy salt-and-pepper bangs and a lined face, and when she stands up, I see that she’s thin everywhere except her hips—her body looks like a snake that’s just swallowed a rodent.
I nod in response to her question.
“I’m Louise, the circulation manager.” She sighs. “That’s really just a fancy title that means ‘librarian that’s been here forever.’ Welcome to the library.”
“OH DEAR, SOMEONE ripped the last three pages of this book,” Louise says a few hours later, holding a copy of If You Give a Pig a Party. It’s the third time she’s said “dear” since I got here.
To me: You didn’t bring an umbrella today, dear? It’s supposed to rain this afternoon.
On the phone with someone I assumed was her daughter: Oh, it was so dear. Little striped tights and yellow wings, and I can just hear her saying “bzzzzz” in that cute little voice. I can pick it up on my way home from work today.
But she also said “shit” under her breath when she dropped a large-print volume of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and it landed on her toes, and I’m not sure why, but it made me smile.