Page 51 of Devil in Disguise
Pavani and the woman who had to be her mother were sitting in the dorm’s lounge. Pavani looked like she’d been crying, but they weren’t in Pavani’s room, even though it was in this dorm. Why not?
Oh, no. Her mom had better not be doing something dramatic, like ordering Pavani to move home. What, just because she’d helped her friend?
Owen was there, too. Sitting still, looking down at the hat in his hands. He’d be hurting, though, and he’d be exhausted, because Monday was the worst. He shouldn’t have been sitting all this time in that uncomfortable chair.
Pavani looked up, and Dyma hesitated, then walked over and asked, “Could I talk to you both for a minute?”
Pavani looked at her mother, and she nodded. Not in what you’d call a real friendly way. More in a Queen-Elizabeth-gives-approval-to-chop-off-her-head way. Dyma said, “Hang on justonesecond,” and hurried over to Owen.
He didn’t look up, because he was already looking up. Already watching her. She sat down beside him and asked, “Would you come over there with me? Could you just … help me a second?”
He took a moment, and she held her breath. She wanted to say,Please don’t stop loving me.She wanted to say,I’m so confused.But she couldn’t say that yet. She needed to be alone with him, but where? How? It was sohardto be alone here.
He sighed and said, “Yeah. Sure,” and stood up, because he was Owen.
She held his hand on the way over to Pavani and her mom. Maybe he didn’t want her to, but she needed to. She stood in front of them and said, “Hi. So. I’m Dyma, and this is my boyfriend, Owen. You must be Pavani’s mom, Mrs., uh …”
“Banerjee,” the woman said.
“Right. Mrs. Banerjee. Could we sit down, maybe? And talk to you?”
Pavani’s mom was probably a little bit like Dyma’s, because it seemed she couldn’t actually be face-to-face rude. Dyma had counted on that, because Pavani was like her. Maybe she was prejudiced, but she’d noticed that people she liked tended not to have snobby parents. At any rate, the answer was, “Please.”
Dyma and Owen sat across from her in one of the lounge’s casual-group seating arrangements, so it was cozy, except not.
“I’m sorry that was the way I almost-met you,” Dyma said. She had zero plan of how to do this, so she’d better just plunge on in. “I guess you figured out that my roommates don’t like me.”
“I told her,” Pavani said. “That they’re …”
“Yes,” her mother said. “We heard. You told everybody.”
“Well, no,” Dyma said. “I mean, I heard some words, but I didn’t know what they meant. Thanks for standing up for me, though,” she told Pavani. She had to say this, even if it meant that Mrs. Banerjee hated her even more. “Nobody’s ever done anything like that for me. Oh. Except you,” she told Owen.
“Yeah, that’s OK,” he said. “It’s my job.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant,It’s my job as your boyfriend,or maybe,It’s my job as a lineman.She hoped it was the first one. She wasn’t going to ask now.
“I didn’t say anything that bad,” Pavani said. “Just some low-level swears.”
“You called herkutta,”her mother said, like it pained her.“Chutiya. Randi.”
“Dog,” Pavani helpfully translated, with a little bit of relish, like she still couldn’t believe she’d done that. “Idiot. See? They just sound worse because you don’t know what they mean.”
“Whore,” her mother added.
“All right, so I got a little carried away,” Pavani said. “The rule of three. Saying things in threes is more powerful, and I couldn’t think of another one!”
“I didn’t think I’d raised a daughter who would say things like that,” her mother said.
Pavani sighed. “Mom. Where do you think Ilearnedthem?”
“Inprivate,”her mother said. “Not inpublic.”
“But nobody knew what they were!” Pavani said. “Except Netta Bakshi, and she probably agrees with me.”
Her mother waved a hand. “Never mind.”
“Anyway,” Dyma said, “it was great. Thanks. That was …” Now that it was all over, the stupid tears were welling up, and she had to take a breath. “That was kind of awful, you know?”
