Silently Falling in Love: Again (Edited)

Chapter 15 - First day of school

Alex–September 2006

I bent down to hug Jasper goodbye on his first day of school at New York Academy.

"Jasper, it will be alight, buddy. This is a great school, and you will meet lots of new friends."

"Yeah, sure dad. I'll be fine, don't worry about me." Jasper hugged me back.

"And Jasper, one more thing, when you get a chance can you see how Leah's doing? It's her first day at school and I'm sure she'd love seeing her big brother checking in on her." Jasper loved being given responsibility.

Jasper looked up at me with a big grin. "Dad. I would do that even if you hadn't asked me," he said with a small smile as he hugged me one last time. I watched him walk into his classroom.

I said the first two verses of Sukhmani Sahib prayer in my head, for the benefit of my son and perhaps for my benefit too.

I felt guilty because I hadn't been to the Gurdwara in years and yet when I needed something I prayed only because I wanted something from God.

I pulled myself together and walked outside of the school after dropping off Jasper and Leah for their first day of school and I saw the Indian woman again outside chatting with a group of other high society women who lunched for a living.

She was a stylishly attractive woman, but not my type. She'd dressed to the nines wearing high-class designer clothes and dripping with diamonds. If I had to guess her earrings were two-karat diamonds at least. Around her neck was an intricately designed diamond pendant. On her wrist was an expensive Swiss watch, whose brand I couldn't discern, but the diamonds around the dial sparkled in the sun when she moved her hand the right way and the wedding ring and band sparkled even more as they weighed her petite hand down. I noticed the accessories too; the designer purse, perhaps Prada, but what did I know. She wore fancy three-inch high heels, which were also presumably a designer brand.

She had on a navy-blue dress; the neckline scooped in a soft circle low enough to show the pendant but not so low to display any cleavage. Her nails perfectly manicured and not a hair out of place, and her eyebrows plucked and shaped symmetrically. She probably spent at least one day a week at the salon making sure she had this look at all times. All said and done, between the clothes and jewelry, she was walking around with $50K worth of stuff on her. And that was just to drop off the kids at eight in the morning. God only knew what she wore when she had to dress up.

She was a high maintenance woman, the type I had never been attracted to. Judging from how she looked, she was from Mumbai or Delhi and came from an elite wealthy family. Her husband was possibly doing a stint in the US and she was along for the ride to see what life in America was all about. I knew plenty about wealthy Indian families, since many of them were Tarun cha-cha's clients. His livelihood was made on the wealthy buying new jewelry for any and every occasion.

I wanted my kids to meet other Indian children, so they identified with something of their ethnic culture, but this wasn't the Indian culture I had in mind.

I walked near the women chatting and I overheard them talking about the tech lab at the school.

"Can you believe they had all summer to finish upgrading it and they still aren't finished?" The tall blonde said.

"You would expect with all that we donate they would add more workers on this and make sure it's complete before the first day of school," The brunette next to the blonde added.

"Michael will be so pissed when he hears about this," another woman dressed to the nines stated.

"They better finish the work on this quickly. I hope they work over Labor Day weekend to finish it because William has asthma and any construction dust would be detrimental to his health," a shorter Asian woman stated.

The bitching continued, but the Indian woman was silent.

As the conversation continued, my stomach churned. Why had I agreed with Chris to send our kids to this god-forsaken school? If this was what they considered a hardship, how spoiled would my kids end up by the end of their time here. I shuddered when I imagined of what lay ahead for me.

The Indian woman's cell phone started ringing, and I watched her fetch it out of her red designer purse. She looked at the number and then said, "Excuse me, I need to take this, it's from overseas." She answered the phone and gave a small wave as she walked away.

"It must be her family from India," the tall blonde said.

"Kaise ho, Rima?" she asked someone named Rima how she was in perfect Hindi.

"Kab ponche re ho?" (When are you getting here?)

"Dus badje! Tu neh bohle ki tum jaldi ahoge! Mai marjanghi. Yeh saab saalian seh bajadho!"

(10am! You said you would be here quickly. I'm dying! Save me from these bitches.)

Then there was a pause as she listened to the other person and started to laugh.

"Rima, yeh saab kamini se ek aur saal kaise guzarangi? Raj ko yeh school kaise pasand atta hai?"

(Rima how am I going to survive another year with these bitches. How can Raj like this school?)

Another pause. I should have left rather than eavesdrop on this woman, and yet I pretended to look busy, so I could hear the rest of the conversation.

"Okay, Rima jaldi aana." Come quickly and she then hung up the phone.

"Toh, vo saab larki saab kaamini heh?" I asked.

The perfectly styled head of hair swirled around and looked at me with her mouth open and stared at me.

"You speak Hindi?" she finally asked.

"Yes, I do," I said, smiling. "So, you were reporting to your family overseas, the women here are bitches."

"I can explain, really, it's just a silly joke, um, you see, it's just a personal joke. The ladies are really nice. You're new to the school, aren't you?" she babbled.

"Yes, we're new. My name is Alex." I extended my hand to shake hers.

She hesitated but moved her coffee mug from her right hand to the left, so she could shake my hand. She shook my hand, but her hand was shaking. "I'm Anjali," she whispered.

"Please don't say anything. I was talking to my sister who lives in New Jersey and we always talk smack, I didn't realize anyone understood what I was saying, or I never would have said anything."

"Is that chai you're drinking in your coffee mug?"

"Yes," she responded nervously. I realized her English was a perfect American accent. I was wrong about her being from India. She'd been raised in the US based on her accent.

"I'll make you a deal, you bring me a cup of chai tomorrow and I won't tell anyone what you said," I said jokingly.

"Yes, I'll bring you chai," she said nervously.

"It was nice meeting you, Anjali. I'll see you tomorrow, don't forget my chai!" I said as I headed home to take a conference call.

I laughed to myself, I would never have considered someone dressed like that would cuss in Hindi and then be so nervous about it.

*If you'd like a translation of the above song check this out https://www.divye.in/2012/07/madari-jamoora-english-meaning-and.html