Coffee? Tea? Jairaj?

 

Sorry about the delay; I had no working A key on the computer.  It forced me to use complex locutions to spell words without the letter (as in that sentence), but it's not a great way to tell a story.

 

Early on Thursday morning, Surya sat down heavily at her kitchen table and drank what she thought was coffee from the mug in front of her.  Still warm, the liquid in the coffee was dark brown as if her husband, Neil, had merely splashed the brew with skim milk.  She nearly spit out the mouthful of coffee mixed with chocolate and what?  She tasted a sharper flavor as well and sniffed the cup experimentally.  Was it alcohol?  She didn't know for certain; as a non-drinker, she wasn't familiar with the flavors and tastes of liquor.  There was plenty in the house, however; each year, at holiday time, Neil's clients and even grateful patients who wanted to share the wealth of recovery sent bottles and fruit baskets to the house.  Surya unpacked the fruit, which the family ate, and bagged the chocolates, salted nuts and cookies that came in the baskets.  She dropped the bags at Our Lady of Sorrows food pantry, where, a volunteer told her, the Godiva chocolates and Ghiradelli cookies were gone in minutes.  The church food pantry, however, didn't accept alcohol.  Surya usually gave it away to neighbors, but some always remained in the downstairs pantry. 

 

Surya rose, then sat down again heavily in her chair.  "It's jet lag," she told herself firmly, seeing her reflection in the metal bowl of a mixer on the counter.  "Or I might be a little under the weather," she admitted. 

 

What she didn't want to tell her reflection was the truth, that she had bitten off more than she could chew by inviting three family members -- all accustomed to considerable household help -- to stay while she was preparing for the Orange Heights Artists Studio Tour on Sunday.  In fact, that wasn't the whole problem.  Her parents were fine, easily entertained and busy visiting relatives and friends who were happy to pick them up for the day and sometimes keep them overnight.  And the studio tour wasn't a problem either, on a practical level.  Over the past year, Surya had begun to consider her art differently, as a passion or calling rather than a hobby.  She drew in black, white, and shades of gray, sometimes with a tiny splash of pastel color, the scenes of her childhood.  And when Surya had finished with Bandra, the suburb of Mumbai where she had lived as a child, she would begin representing Orange Heights in ink.  Her studio was prepared for visitors, though she made a note to provide some refreshments.  Samosas, she thought, scribbling the ingredients on a list in front of her. 

 

No, it was Jairaj and Rohit who were overwhelming her, separately and together.  Somehow, when she was in India, visiting her sister, Surya had forgotten the antipathy between the boys.  Even if she had remembered this, she felt it was good for Rohit to know a cousin well, and to live with him as a brother.  What she hadn't expected was Rohit's decision to change schools, nor the impact of a longterm houseguest on the discussion of that decision.  Indeed, Jairaj was a handful.  Surya thought about her sister's complaints about servants, a convenient way to remind others of the ten people who worked for her. 

 

"The servant problem," said Surya aloud, imagining herself talking about this on Orange Heights Avenue. But the servant problem existed; it was Jairaj, who didn't know life without them, and had few household skills and even less sense of finishing what he started.

 

Surya stood and looked out the window.  Under the gray sky, the hole in the sideyard looked like a raw cavity.  Jairaj and Rohit had begun building a cricket pitch, a project she applauded at first.  But Rohit didnt' care, and Jairaj couldn't be bothered once the project became complicated. The little boy across the street had helped with measurements, but Surya fretted. 

 

"Where exactly is the property line?" she said aloud. 

 

Even so, the cricket pitch was a small problem, one that could be fixed easily.  Surya turned from the window when she heard the creak of the stairs.  Rohit greeted her, hair tousled and wet from the shower.

 

She kissed him and offered to make breakfast.

 

"Cereal's good," he replied, pulling a box of Count Chocula from a cupboard.  She frowned disapprovingly, but handed him a bowl and a spoon.   She sat down across from him at the table and took a flake of the cereal from his bowl.

 

"Just checking it for you," she said, when he looked at her.

 

Surya cleared her throat, once Rohit was settled in his place at the table. 

 

"Do you have an announcement?" he asked her, grinning.

 

"It's time to discuss your cousin," she began formally, undeterred by Rohit's grimace.  "I realize that it's not easy right now."

 

Rohit stared at her.  "Not easy?" he repeated.  "That's the understatement of the year. He's impossible."

 

Surya began again.  "I realize that you and he are very different."

 

"Different?" exploded Rohit, standing for a moment.  "He's so loud and messy and big.  And he's just, just always talking, and he's..."  Rohit searched with his hands for an adjective.  "He's so red.  He's always like bright and red and craving attention, even from me, when I'm studying.  He's just red."

 

Surya laughed.  "The name Rohit means red, as you know," she said.  "But I do understand. What I want, though, is to make sure you understand why he's hear."

 

"To bug me," muttered Rohit, and his mother pretended not to hear him.

 

"Jairaj has a few tendencies that make school and family life a bit difficult for him right now in India," said Surya formally, as if she had rehearsed this speech.  "He needs to be somewhere that is a bit more accepting."

 

Rohit started at her in utter incomprehension. 

 

"He's hugely messy," Rohit said at last. 

 

"That's true, but that's not what I mean," said Surya.  "Right now the teen years are hard on Jairaj and his parents.  So he is here to have a good experience, live abroad, and think about who he is."

 

Rohit exhaled, and looked at the clock.  "Okay," he said finally.  "But I wish he would keep his mess out of my room and stay off my computer.  He's on Facebook and chat boards all the time, all the time,"  He stood.  "The bus..."

 

Surya nodded, and saw her son to the door.   She added a new worry to her list, as she wondered what Jairaj knew about internet safety.  She considered waking him -- he had already been awake today, still on Indian time, and then fallen asleep again -- but stepped downstairs to the pantry to see if she had supplies to make samosas.

 

As she lifted a bag of durum flour, she saw that the bottle behind it had been opened, the decorative paper covering the cap torn roughly all the way around.  She sniffed the liquor.  Yes, this was in the coffee.   Clutching the bottle grimly, she walked to the kitchen and placed it on the table. 

 

Jairaj was awake again, leaning on the stove waiting for a kettle to boil. He looked a little frightened when he saw his aunt, though the expression on his face was fleeting.

 

"Your uncle will be most upset," began Surya, and then lost her train of thought.  What could she say to this troubled child?  What power could she have to change his ways?  She took a deep breath and shook the bottle in her nephew's direction, and said the first thing that came into her head.  "This, this is called Bombay Sapphire Gin," she said.  "We don't call it that now.  Mumbai.  It's Mumbai, and you should know better."