In Between Days Read Online Free Page A

he’d chosen her as his girlfriend had been a miracle. He could have been with any woman he’d wanted to, practically. Any Indian woman, for sure. And yet, he’d chosen her, a suburban white girl from the South, his Indian parents’ worst nightmare. On their first date together, he had taken her to Tommy’s, the local hamburger joint off campus, and over chili fries and beer, he had told her about his life in Pakistan, then India. How they’d moved around a lot. How they’d never had enough money. How he’d shared a room with his brother and sister. He talked a lot about his father’s jobs, most of which were part-time jobs in the pharmaceutical industry, and how he’d usually get laid off or canned just as Raja was making friends. They were always moving, Raja said, but certain things remained the same, remained constant. His mother’s cooking, for example, the rich tandoori and vegetable curries she made, the flaky
parathta
and roti that she baked in a coal-fired oven. The way he talked about his mother’s cooking made her feel guilty for wanting to eat the chili-cheese fries at Tommy’s, for devouring them so quickly.
    When he’d finally finished, she’d asked him if he thought he’d ever go back.
    “To visit, sure,” he’d said. “But not to live.”
    “Why not?”
    He’d thought about this for a moment. Then he’d said, very earnestly, “That place is dead to me now.”
    She’d asked him what he meant by that, but he hadn’t answered. Instead, he’d taken her hand and reached for the bill. “Would you like to see my room?” he’d asked.
    • • •
    Outside the baggage claim at Houston International, the rain is coming down thickly now, blurring her view. In the distance, she can see a long row of lights, headlights from the cars moving up along the thruway. She tries to imagine Raja’s face, his lips, tries to picture him just as he looked that night at Tommy’s, that first night they kissed, but as soon as she sees his features, as soon as she pictures his face, the image is gone, broken up by the sound of her cell phone ringing. She reaches into her purse and grabs the phone, and a moment later she hears her brother’s voice on the other end.
    “I’m here,” he says.
    “Where?”
    “Look to your right.”
    Craning her neck, she sees her mother’s minivan, and then inside it her brother Richard, sitting in the front seat, waving.
    Later, when they’re on the interstate, Richard looks her up and down evenly, almost like he’s surveying her. Finally, he leans across the seat and pats her hand. “You look thinner,” he says.
    “You think?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    She shrugs.
    “You hungry?”
    She shakes her head.
    “Mom said I needed to feed you.”
    She looks at him and smirks. “Since when am I incapable of feeding myself?”
    “I don’t know,” he says, hitting the gas. “I’m just telling you what she said. I think she’s just kind of freaked out, you know.”
    She nods, looks out the window, straightens her dress. In the distance, she can see the skyline of Houston, looming along the horizon.
    “So I guess you’re going to be staying with us for a while now, huh?”
    “Looks that way.”
    “Any chance you’re going to tell me what happened up there?”
    She doesn’t answer.
    “Mom said it was pretty serious. Something about a political disagreement.”
    “A political disagreement?” She laughs. “Really? That’s what she said?”
    “Yeah. Why? It wasn’t?”
    She looks at him but doesn’t answer. She can feel his curiosity, his eyes on her. There is no one in the world who knows her better than Richard, no one else who understands her like him, and for a moment she feels transparent, exposed, like he can see everything she’s thinking simply by looking at her. It has always been this way, though, their whole lives. There is Richard, and there is her, and then there is everyone else. For most of her childhood, he had been her best and only friend, her sole