“Oh, I don’t watch much television,” Mrs. Jha said. “But we should be heading home in any case. This has been such a wonderful evening.”
Of course Mrs. Jha didn’t watch Indian Idol, Mrs. Chopra thought. Mrs. Jha probably never did anything enjoyable. Everything probably had to become an issue with her. She did not like the way Mrs. Jha was sitting upright in her simple sari and gold chain looking around the Chopras’ house. Mrs. Chopra knew the type—the so-called intellectual ones who come into money and then buy up homes in the fancy neighborhoods but think they’re too good for the others. They think there’s some moral code to how you spend your money. Mrs. Jha was just this type. She would be the kind to put her arm around a homeless person to make a whole production out of it and then look down her nose at Mrs. Chopra simply because Mrs. Chopra had no desire to get lice herself.
As the Chopras were standing at the door saying good night to the Jhas, Johnny pulled into the driveway in his new Honda Civic. He stepped out, beeped the car doors locked, and walked over to the house.
Mr. Chopra looked at the silver car and worried for a moment that he had given in to his wife too easily. Perhaps he should have ignored her and splurged and bought his son a Lexus. It wasn’t just his wife’s fault, though; he himself couldn’t justify the cost given the import taxes. It would have felt wasteful.
“Johnny, young man,” Mr. Chopra said. “Where have you been? Come meet our new neighbors. These are the Jhas. They have just moved in next door. This is Johnny, our son.”
Johnny said hello and walked straight past them to the coffee table to pour himself a whiskey on the rocks.
“Like father, like son,” Mr. Chopra said, laughing. “Johnny, no drinking and driving. At least not when your mother sees. He’s just got a new car and now his mother is forever nervous. You know how it is.”
Mr. and Mrs. Jha smiled at Mr. Chopra.
“And what do you do, Johnny? Are you studying?” Mrs. Jha asked.
“Studying!” Mr. Chopra said. “Oh, that’s rich. Tell them, Johnny. Tell them what you do.”
“I’m a poet. Well, I want to be,” Johnny said.
“Oh, how nice,” Mrs. Jha said. “A poet. That’s lovely.”
“Lovely for him that I can support him,” Mr. Chopra said. “Johnny, you should learn from their son. He is studying in America, doing his MBA. From Cornell University, no less. It is a top university.”
“They will meet soon. Rupak will be back for his winter break,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Not Cornell University,” Mr. Jha said. “Ithaca College. Near Cornell University. It isn’t very good. But so expensive! I don’t know how most people can afford sending their children. We are lucky. Anyway, let’s see what he does next. If anything.”
Mrs. Jha looked over at her husband. What was he doing? He was the one who had always whispered the word near when saying Cornell University. Maybe he had had too much to drink. He wasn’t used to drinking whiskey.
“It’s a good university,” Mrs. Jha said. “It’s a lot of hard work.”
“Hardly working is more like it,” Mr. Jha added with a laugh.
“Well, Johnny, hopefully you will see him and learn that some young people have to work,” Mr. Chopra said, shaking his head toward the Jhas and laughing. “Chalo then, we will see you again soon.”
Despite it being a Friday, Rupak had been studying at the library until nearly midnight, ignoring text messages from both Serena and Elizabeth. His parents had booked their tickets to New York, and he was supposed to book their bus tickets to Ithaca. He was at risk of failing two classes already, and that, combined with his academic probation from the previous year, meant he was at risk of not getting his degree. He had to focus. He was not the kind of student who started excelling in any one subject. There were no professors who wanted to take him under their wing. Some of his classmates had become friends with the professors. The young professors were practically the same age as the students themselves, but Rupak felt embarrassed to befriend any of them. He thought it was because he was fully dependent on his parents for money. He wished, in a way, that he could be like his American counterparts and work a part-time job as a bartender or a barista to make money, but, first of all, his parents would not want him having a job like that and, second of all, he would have to work far too many hours to make an amount that his father could easily transfer to him. But maybe he would have worked harder if he had to pay for it, or if he knew his parents were struggling to pay for it. No, of course not. How did that make any sense? If he were working part-time to make money, he’d have even less time to study. He just had no explanation.
Rupak left the library and decided to return Elizabeth’s text message first. He was beginning to feel guilty about keeping the relationship with her going when he knew it was not a reasonable option at the moment, at least not until after his parents’ visit. And he needed to talk to her honestly about it. Which he could do tomorrow morning after he spent the night with her, because he just wanted to relax tonight. He did not want to talk about India, or Delhi, or his parents. He did not want to have to think more about how to face them and how to tell them about his life. They knew almost nothing about his life in Ithaca and he preferred it that way. But now they had booked their tickets. Rupak was going to go to New York to spend two nights with them and then they would all come to Ithaca for three nights. He had not told Elizabeth they were coming but was keen, instead, on convincing Serena to come to dinner with them. It was all exhausting and he knew he had to be more honest with Elizabeth, but first he wanted just one night to relax.
So at around midnight, he left the library and went to Elizabeth’s apartment and when she opened the door, the familiar, comfortable smell of her lotion and her skin and her life drifted out from behind her and absorbed all his other problems. He dropped his bag on the floor and pressed his cold face into her warm neck.
“Your nose is freezing!” Elizabeth said.
“It’s really cold already,” Rupak said.
“How was the library? Did you get everything done?”
“Stop. Please stop. I don’t want to talk about work. I don’t want to talk about the library. Do you have anything to drink?”
Rupak sat down on Elizabeth’s sofa while she went to the kitchen to get beer for them both.
“Why are you in such a mood?” Elizabeth asked.
“What did you do tonight?” he asked.
“I went riding at the equestrian center. I told you. You should come with me some time. You’d enjoy it. You seem tense. Do you want to smoke?”
Rupak nodded, and Elizabeth pulled out the wooden pencil box from the drawer of her bedside table. She sat down cross-legged on the brown threadbare carpet of her apartment and opened the box in front of her.
“This is such a useful box. How would your mother react if she knew we used it for pot?” Elizabeth asked, laughing, dropping a small marijuana bud into her open palm.