Masi was looking worriedly at me.
“What’s wrong? Do you need gas?” she asked.
I climbed out of the driver’s seat and walked over to her side. She had gotten out, looking puzzled and concerned. I probably confused her even more by wrapping my arms around her in a tight hug.
She hugged me back, and then I was sobbing all over her pashmina wrap. She felt so tiny and fragile.
“You’re okay now, right?” I asked her. “It never came back?”
“I’m fine, beta,” she said. “I’m fine—really!”
I let her go and stood there awkwardly trying to explain.
“Masi, I never thought…,” I said. All these years I had blamed her and refused to communicate with her—and she had just been trying to protect me, while dealing with way more crap than anyone deserved. I may be taller than her but right then I felt about two inches high.
“Silly kid,” she said—her eyes wet with tears too. “It was just a scare. There’s no need for you to worry—I promise.”
Apparently I’m not great at figuring things out. I jump to stupid conclusions and clam up and stop communicating. I had been so wrong about Masi and lost so much time because of it. Could I have been wrong about Vir too?
So this time I called him.
“Mini?” he said. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” I said. I looked down at the notes I’d made to get me through the call.
“I know I’ve been acting strange, but I saw the pictures of you with Koyal and other, um… girls—and I freaked.”
“Understood,” he said. “I should have told you.”
“It was a total shock,” I said. My voice kind of broke at that point. Hold it together, Mini, I told myself.
“I understand,” he said. “But Mini,” and here his voice took on an aggrieved tone, “you should hear me out, instead of just assuming…”
Really?
After all the things he kept from me, this was all my fault? I hung up the phone, my hands shaking.
I could kill that guy!
This was much, much harder than I thought it would be.
The phone rang.
“What?” I snapped.
“Look, I know this is not the best time!” Vir said.
Too right, it wasn’t.
“It isn’t,” I said. “I’m really busy right now, Vir. I want to get through the wedding, we’re having all kinds of problems with the—”
“Weather, I know,” Vir said. “I’ve seen the news reports. And I’d like to help—please. If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”
Wait up. What problem with the weather? But if he was offering to help, I wasn’t going to say no.
“Fine,” I said.
“And when this is over, let’s sit down and talk about this rationally,” he said. “It’s not how it looks—I promise.”
“Sure,” I said.
Could there be a rational explanation?
I hoped so.
For now, I had more important things to deal with. Like looking up the weather forecast.
“It can’t get all the way here, can it?” I swiveled from the Weather Channel reporter on the television screen to look at my dad and back again. “It’ll break up and just turn into rain, right?”
“I expect so.” Dad didn’t seem worried. “What are they predicting?”
“Shhh, listen!” I said.
The reporter was wearing a rain slicker and leaning into the wind, his wet hair sticking to his face. He had to yell to be heard over the storm. “Hurricane Indra has hit Puerto Rico, knocking out power lines and ripping up trees. Computer forecast models showed Indra moving northwest over the Dominican Republic and then heading toward the Florida peninsula, possibly arriving there on Thursday.”
The screen changed to a map showing several possible storm tracks over the mainland. Most of them went over Florida, then took a left overland, heading toward Texas.
“It’s not tracking north.” I exhaled. “We’ll be fine if it keeps going west. But just think about all the people who have weddings planned along its path!”
“I’m sure they’ll manage,” Dad said, wiping his glasses before looking closely at the storm track. “Just relieved it isn’t heading here. I think we’re safe.”
“Not yet,” I said, and made a mental note to review the rain plans for the wedding, just in case. “The storm track could still change.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Hurricane Bob!” Dad said. “That’s the one I’m thinking of!”
We were driving to the airport to pick up Beeji, Bauji, and Bade Bauji. The weatherman on the radio was recapping the hurricanes that had brushed New England in the past—a total of four in the last half century—Hurricanes Donna, Bob, Irene, and Ingrid.
So there had been hurricanes in New England in my lifetime—who knew! I guess you just don’t pay attention when you’re younger. According to radio guy, there was some possibility that the hurricane in the Caribbean could hit New York and even make it all the way to Massachusetts.
As if!
This was the first hurricane of the season and they were all just panicking for nothing. Weren’t they?
“Was the last one bad?” I asked Dad.
“Don’t remember,” Dad said. “It did a lot of damage but on the Cape mostly, not inland. We just got rain and wind. I don’t even think I took the day off work.”
Which isn’t saying much—Dad never takes a day off work for anything.
“So is Bade Bauji going to be wearing jeans and a jacket instead of his khadi kurta?” I asked. It had been ages since I’d seen him.
“He said he didn’t want to risk being frisked by security because of his clothes, so he bought a special outfit for the plane trip,” Dad said.
I couldn’t imagine anyone frisking Bade Bauji. He commanded respect. Granted, the last time I saw him I was only seven—but I’d been very impressed. And I knew his life story,
