Chapter 6: The TP Episode

Rohit caught the 6:00 bus home from school on Tuesday. He could have taken the 3:30 bus, but he was nervous about seeing his mother before she had time to digest the news that he wouldn’t return to Horton Academy in the fall. He did half-hearted research on his Ancient World project from the time classes ended at 3:15 until the bus left campus. The “late bus” didn’t take a direct route to Orange Heights, but meandered through Short Hills and Livingston before dropping off Rohit and traveling onto Newark. Rohit had stayed on the bus before, when he was visiting his friend Jono, who lived in Newark, just a block from where the first cornerstone of the school was placed two hundred years earlier. That time, Rohit and Jono had stared out the bus windows first at the enormous houses and few people and then, as the bus reached its last stop, at buildings wedged close together teeming with people.

“I like places with a lot of people around like this,” he told his father, when Neil picked him up from Jono’s house. “It’s kind of weird when you don’t see any people. Like near school,”
“That’s because you’re Indian,” his father said with satisfaction, a comment that Rohit was certain his father had made on every possible occasion with the sole aim of driving Rohit crazy.
“What does that even mean?” he had asked his father that time, staring at Neil across the front seats of the Prius. “I never know what that means when you say it.”

“You’ve been to Mumbai and Juhu Beach. You know how it is there,” said his father, paying attention to traffic rather than to Rohit’s outrage.

“I don’t know how India is. All I ever see there are aunts,” muttered Rohit, in a voice so low his father could choose not to hear him.

Rohit remembered this conversation with embarrassment, as he stepped off the bus at his corner. He saw that his father’s car was parked in the driveway, a certain sign that he was home and that the garage was full of luggage. Eager to see his mother, Rohit ran along the block, pausing only to wave at the kid next door. Dylan was dressed in a tae kwon do uniform, counting the cement squares that made up the Belgian block curb in front of his house.

“Your mother is home,” Dylan said when he reached his driveway. “She has another one like her and 14 suitcases. One of them is this big.” Dylan raised his hand above his head. “I saw 28 zippers on 14 suitcases, but some had one and others had three.”

“Cool,” said Rohit. “Let me catch you later, okay? I want to see my mom.”

And as he walked into the house through the garage, Rohit realized how much he truly did want to see his mother. Her trips to India, though infrequent and well-planned, changed the household. She left the freezer full of food and even the garbage cans had extra liners -- one for each day of her absence -- stored underneath the current bag, but the house smelled different. Once when he visited an aunt in Malabar Hill, Rohit knocked a glass jar from a table. The white cream inside spilled and filled the air with its scent.

“That smells like my mother,” he had said aloud in surprise.

“Of course,” said his aunt Megha. “That’s Nivea, the kind we buy in Europe, not in America.”
Rohit thought about his mother as he charged up the eight steps to the first floor.
“Ssh,” his father greeted him, tiptoeing into the living room from the kitchen. “They are all asleep. Long flight.”

Before Rohit could ask his father what he meant by “all” – his two grandparents would correctly be described as both, and his father spoke with great precision – his mother, Sarita, embraced him.

“You’re taller, Rohit. And your hair is long,” she said tearfully. Rohit hugged her back and then hugged her again. He smelled Nivea and the odd smell that attached to clothes worn on a long plane ride.

“You are too thin,” she scolded him. “Neil, did this boy eat while I was gone? There’s nothing in the freezer,” she continued, darting to open the top and bottom sections of the refrigerator. She dashed down the half flight of stairs to the area they called the “pantry,” where shelves and a large chest freezer held more food.

Rohit grinned at his mother and at his father. He was used to her darting and charging around after she returned from long trips, touching items in each room of the house as if the reestablish her claim on them. For the moment, he didn’t care where he went to school next year; he was simply happy to have his family at home.

Returning to the kitchen, his mother looked horrified. “Look,” she ordered her son and husband. They gazed at the cardboard tube in her hand. “This was the last of the loo rolls. We don’t have another square of toilet paper in the house.”

Rohit and his father exchanged a look, neither sure how to respond.

“We have tissues, Surya, many boxes of them. And I can assure you that they work equally well for the purpose,” said his father.

“No,” said Rohit’s mother, shaking her head from side to side. “That won’t do for guests. They have traveled a long way to visit us and I am certain that they expect toilet paper.”

Rohit was less certain; toilet paper wasn’t a universal need, as he knew from his own experiences traveling. “We have napkins, too,” he reminded his mother. “And there are paper towels on the counter right behind you.”

“Those will clog the pipes,” said his father reprovingly. “We must never flush those. They are too thick.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Rohit. “I guess I forgot that these last few days.”

His mother crossed the room and dialed a phone number from memory. She murmured into the phone for a moment before she hung up.

“The problem is solved for this evening,” she announced. “Rohit will run across the street and borrow toilet paper from the Atkinsons. Cole will be waiting to hand it you, so go now, quickly, Rohit, before someone wakes up and needs to use the lavatory.”

Rohit felt as if his feet and hands had turned to jelly. Walk across the street holding toilet paper? Ask Cole Atkinson, a junior and cool, for toilet paper? Let the neighbors know that they ran out of – or even admit to using – toilet paper? He couldn’t find the words to express his horror, but his mother didn’t wait. She nudged him towards the front door. “Rush, rush,” she said, pushing him a little harder towards the street.

“Is it dark out?” he asked.

“A big boy like you, going across the street,” she scolded. “It’s not dark.”

“I want it to be dark,” he muttered. “Do you have a bag?”

“Go now,” she said, closing the door behind him.

Rohit had no choice now but to cross the street and ring the Atkinsons’ doorbell. After a long moment, Cole answered, greeting him through the screen door. To Rohit, Cole looked even taller than usual. Rohit was suddenly aware that he was still wearing his school uniform, which could be described as dorky on a good day.

“Hi,” said Rohit. “Um, my mother called your dad.”

“Dad?” called Cole back into the house. His father’s reply was garbled, and Cole stepped away from the screen door to better hear him.

“Here,” said Cole, looking puzzled when his father handed him four rolls of toilet paper, each individually wrapped.

Rohit opened the screen door and tried to grab all four at once. Inevitably, they fell and one rolled into the bushes beside the door. Cole helped him pick up the three rolls on the porch and then watched Rohit dive into the bushes for the fourth. As Rohit fumbled with the rolls once again, Cole stacked them in his arms.

They’re not all for me, Rohit wanted to say. I saw your team beat my school’s team this year. You play lacrosse really well. I don’t usually borrow toilet paper from people. But he was too embarrassed to say anything but a muttered “Thank you.”

Cole looked as if he might laugh. “Use it in good health,” he said instead, and watched Rohit walk back across the streets arms full of Scott toilet paper, the double rolls of 1000 two-ply sheets, in powder room pink.