“So, you’re defending him?” I asked.
“I’m explaining his point of view,” Vir said.
“Hey, what’s your dad like?” I asked.
“He’s… fine,” Vir said.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Actually, he’s a genius in his field.”
“Really?” I said, trying and failing to imagine a genius in the field of farm equipment. “How?”
“It’s too boring to talk about,” Vir said. “Wanna get lunch?”
I saw him nearly every day while walking Yogi—and that dog was such a strong swimmer now, he was fetching sticks with the Labradors!
We hung out with Shayla, and Rachel, and everyone at Panera Bread (half my AP class was working there that summer). I took him to Westbury High School even though school was out. WHS was brand-new—well, nearly four years old. We were the lucky class that got to start freshman year in the new building.
“It’s awesome,” Vir said. “I can’t get over how this is a government school, and it’s so amazing. It’s at least as nice as Nobles.”
Government school? That was funny!
“It’s called a public school,” I said.
“Public school in England means an exclusive private school,” Vir said. “Like Eton, where my mum wanted me to go.”
“Why didn’t you go there, then?”
“Dad went to Mayo in India, so I did too,” he said. “That way we will always have that connection, see?”
“I get it,” I said. “I like that Mom had a role in the new Westbury High even though she never saw it finished.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I glanced around the familiar campus. It looked so deserted and peaceful in summer, not teeming with people as it usually was.
“I’ll show you,” I said, and grabbed his hand. “Follow me.”
The front doors to the school were open because of the summer camp—I steered Vir through the lobby into the quad, the heart of the school. It was surrounded on three sides by the main building, and the back was open to the town lake.
“Okay, we’re here,” I said, and took a deep breath and pointed. “Look down there.”
The brick pathway was made up of carved bricks with names, dates, and messages. “What is this?” Vir asked.
“Commemorative bricks,” I said. “When they were building the school, you could buy a brick for a hundred bucks and put a message on it. Dad bought five bricks, one for each decade of her life, even though the last decade wasn’t finished.”
“For your mom?” Vir asked.
“Yes,” I said. Usually, I walked the other way during school and only came here alone—when I stayed late at school for something, or on the weekend—never when crowds of people were stomping all over the path. “Look—it’s these five bricks,” I said. “So this entire section of the pathway is in memory of my mom.”
“This one is yours.” Vir knelt down and touched it with his fingers. “How come it says Mini and not Padmini?”
“Because I was ten, and no one called me Padmini.” I sat down cross-legged on the grass by the pathway. “It didn’t feel right to Dad, it didn’t feel right to me—so we stuck with Mini. And I insisted we put Yogi on my brick too.”
“That’s cool,” Vir said. “And it’s such a beautiful spot too.” He looked over to the town lake.
“Yeah,” I said. “We don’t have a gravestone to lay flowers on, like other families, so I put them here sometimes. Just a single flower, but it makes me feel close to her.”
“Let me guess—she spent a lot of time helping out at the school?”
“She did—even volunteered while she was ill,” I said. “Lots of people didn’t want to raise taxes to build a new school, but the old one was totally falling apart, and it would have cost nearly as much to fix it. Mom was really into spreading the word, convincing people, getting the vote out—you know.”
“Did she know how it would look when it was done?” Vir asked.
“Yes,” I said. “She saw the plans. She knew what it would be like, and that even though Vinnie would have graduated, it would be finished in time for my class.”
Vir slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in for a long hug.
“What was your school like?” I asked him. “The one in India?”
“Mayo College?” he asked. “It was really regimented—uniforms, strict rules, divided into houses—very old-school. But I loved the campus. It’s full of historic buildings—the first students were maharajahs, you know, and they each built their own house just for them and lived there with a whole bunch of servants. That’s why the architecture is so interesting and each schoolhouse is named for a princely state… Jaipur, Jodhpur, Ajmer… But what I liked best was the horses.”
“You had horses on campus?” I asked.
“Yeah, fifty horses,” Vir said. “We had a great polo team—I was captain, actually. I still miss my horse, Sultan. He was the best.”
“You know, I think my grandfather went to school there,” I said, an old memory surfacing. “My Nanaji, Mom’s dad. It’s in Ajmer, right? We’re Rajput on my mother’s side.”
“He’s a Mayoite?” he said. “That’s a random connection! Hey, my mom wants to meet you—tomorrow, if that’s okay?”
“What!” I said, totally panicking. “I mean, yes, of course, I’d like to meet her. But what if she doesn’t like me, or something?”
Vir smiled. “She’ll love you.”
Behind him I could see a bunch of kids canoeing in the lake—and pointing at us. I went red.
“I’m not comfortable with public displays of affection, Vir Chabra,” I said, pulling away.
He frowned slightly. “What did you call me?”
“Vir Chabra,” I said. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“It sounds nice,” he said, grinning. “But I use my dad’s last name.”
“Oh, that explains why nothing showed up on Google,” I said. “Only some pediatrician in Texas and a guy in Jabalpur who collects pool tables.”
“You Googled me?” Vir raised an eyebrow. The warmth died slowly out of his eyes—weird. In fact, he looked kind of worried.
“Standard procedure according to my friend Shayla,” I said. Why was he so surprised that I’d Googled him? “So, what’s your Facebook handle?”
Vir ran his hand
