25
Meeting the Parents
POTENTIAL SCENARIOS WHEN MEETING YOUR NEW GIRLFRIEND’S PARENTS:
“We heard you kissed our daughter in a public school pool; prepare to die.”
“We heard you kissed our daughter in a public school pool; we just wanted to take your measurements for the wedding attire.”
“Who are you and what are you doing in our house?”
When Norris had finally capitulated and asked Aarti for a translation of the mysterious emoji that she’d sent him at the McElwees wedding, her answer, while straightforward enough, had opened a whole new slew of questions for Norris. Enough for him to reach out for a trusted second opinion.
“What does it mean?”
Maddie had glanced at his phone in the middle of the staff-wide process of unbundling the wedding lights.
“Well, the words are pretty straightforward.”
“‘My parents want to have you over for dinner. Free this weekend?’” Norris read aloud again. Hoping to unlock some hidden meaning.
“So?” Norris wondered. “That’s good, right? I mean . . . that’s . . .”
“Boyfriend territory,” she’d agreed, looking vaguely annoyed at the fact that he was texting instead of helping.
Liam had later concurred by text.
So had Eric. Norris had briefly thought of reaching out to Patrick for his fire-bad-tree-pretty type of simple jock wisdom, but thought better of it. They were now on texting terms according to the slew of random hockey factoids that Norris’s phone occasionally buzzed with.
Apparently, the takeaway was that Aarti’s parents wanted to meet Norris, which was how Norris found himself on the Puri doorstep, ringing the Puris’ doorbell.
“You’re wearing a tie,” Aarti noted when she opened the door. She stared at Norris for a moment, unsure of what she was actually looking at.
“What, were you expecting a black T-shirt again?” Norris asked, surreptitiously adjusting his sleeves by pulling down on the cuffs with his forefingers.
“I mean, I’ve literally only ever seen you wear one thing,” she admitted as she stepped aside to let him in, closing the door behind her before giving him a quick peck on the upper lip. “Like you’re Fred Flintstone or something.”
“I Windsor knotted this sucker too.” Norris grinned, straightening his tie. It had taken a few different online tutorials, but he had managed a pretty good one, all things considered. Aarti’s hair was down and pitch-black this time around, an artificial shade of her natural color.
“Thanks for doing this.”
As if he would ever say no to her. She had told her parents Norris was important enough to meet; there was no way he was passing on that.
“You’re nervous,” Norris teased as he stepped into the small but impeccably appointed house.
Despite a deceptively large entryway, the rest of the house was smaller, almost on the cramped side. Every piece of furniture was carved and heavy, as opposed to his and Judith’s suite of Swedish assembly-line particleboard.
“Hardly,” Aarti said. “I just don’t like these dinner engagements.” She turned and abruptly yelled down the hall, “He’s here!”
Some Hindi-language show on television or on the radio that Norris hadn’t consciously realized was playing from the kitchen was instantly lowered but was not shut off. The trial of meeting Aarti’s parents would apparently be a musical.
It wasn’t long before Aarti’s parents appeared. Mr. Puri had a . . . contradictory appearance. Half of him was casual and laid-back, but there was a stiff undercurrent of foreign propriety. It came out in the details: dress shirtsleeves crisply folded, hair obviously dyed and carefully slicked back, the fact that his house slippers were made of leather. This was someone raised to believe that the role of a host carried certain responsibilities. Norris’s dad had the same mannerisms; his took the form of a gold watch he always slipped on when the doorbell rang. It was something specific and proud that this new life would never shake out of them.
Norris had been instructed to linger in the parlor while the table was being set. Apparently, arriving fifteen minutes early had not been the sign of respect he intended, but a scheduling inconvenience. Shit.
The Puris’ shelves consisted almost exclusively of religion and science fiction. The lowest shelves were stuffed with trinkets and thick rubber-banded manila folders wedged between reference books: basic English, Webster’s dictionaries, not one but two editions of Immigration and Citizenship. These were the foundations of the higher shelves but still worth displaying. Books were clearly a source of pride in this home.
Norris found himself lingering on the two shelves that contained fourteen hardcovers of all seven Harry Potter novels. The cover art grew from cute kid to lanky grown man in both English and Hindi, charged with saving the world on Hermione Granger’s coattails. He didn’t know that Aarti was a Potterhead.
“These are mine,” Mr. Puri said, suddenly materializing behind Norris with a smirk. Goddamn leather slippers. Norris had no idea how long he’d been standing there, watching his reading habits be scrutinized.
“Really?” Norris choked on his own breath.
“We have to hide them when Aarti’s grandmother visits from Calcutta. Western sorcery, blasphemy, blah, blah . . . I get where she’s coming from, but that doesn’t stop me from delving back into Azkaban on nights I can’t sleep.”
“We’re ready!” echoed from the kitchen.
“I’m a Gryffindor,” Mr. Puri added on their way out, pointing to a red-and-yellow scarf neatly folded over the second row of fantasy books, which Norris now understood to be his.
“Um, yeah, same. Gryffindor too.” Norris smiled.
Slytherin, actually, according to the last online quiz he had bothered to take. But he wanted to impress Aarti’s father, not become the Draco to Mr. Puri’s Harry Potter.
He bit down the thought as he followed Mr. Puri into the dining room, where everything was set out.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Norris.” Mrs. Puri smiled at him, pouring water into small copper cups.
Mrs. Puri, for her part, was definitely Aarti’s mom. A few specific touches, like her earrings and gold bangles, confirmed to Norris exactly where Aarti got her talent for accessorizing. Her hair was longer and knotted twice over, but a few wrinkles and lines aside, she was basically Aarti’s slightly shorter carbon copy. This also made her kind of stunning. MILF would be gauche, but “Mother I Would Like to Read with Under a Tree” might qualify. She was elegant and contained in a way Norris imagined that only women who had once lived in London were elegant and contained.
“What does your father do?” Mr. Puri asked as they settled into the meal. “Is he an engineer? I’ve been meeting a lot of Haitian engineers lately. Austin’s tech boom, they say.”
“Dad—” Aarti started.
Oh please, Norris thought. No daddy issues to sidestep here. Bring it, Mr. Puri.
“My dad’s a medic, actually,” Norris replied. “He’s back in Canada, though. My parents have been divorced for a few years. I still see him fairly often. It’s a very friendly situation.”
“Right, right, sorry about that. Aarti had mentioned that. Your mother is a professor, is that right?” Mrs. Puri asked, staring at him with her daughter’s focused black eyes. Her accent was a smidge heavier than her husband’s.
“Um, yes.” Norris nodded. “Antilles literature and Haitian diaspora are her main jam. She just started at UT. That’s why we moved here.”
What do your parents do? Why did you move here? Norris had decided to include the answers to three questions he knew were coming in every one of his replies, in order to expedite the interrogation portion of dinner.
“How are you liking Austin?”
“It’s very hot, but I’m learning to like it,” Norris said between bites. “Aarti introduced me to a few cool spots, and then I started working at the Bone Yard, the barbecue restaurant, and there’s a hockey rink where I occasionally play with another friend from Anderson.”
How did you meet our daughter? What do you do with your time? What are your academic aspirations? Boom, boom, boom. An air of approval passed between the Puris, but Norris wasn’t done yet.
“This food is really delicious,” Norris added as a finishing blow. “Thank you for inviting me.”
Put me in the family will and grant me your daughter’s hand in marriage, bitches.
“Thank you, Norris.” Mrs. Puri smiled earnestly. “It’s chicken tikka masala.” She sounded out each syllable, probably unaware that it was a staple of every Indian takeout menu Norris had ever glimpsed. Part of him suspected that it wasn’t something that was served often in this house, the same way Judith always made a few specific Haitian dishes whenever they had non-Haitian guests over for dinner back in Canada.
Norris leaned in to Aarti and whispered, “Beginner’s Indian food, right?”
“Can’t you taste the training wheels?” she whispered back, causing both of them to chuckle.
“So, Norris, do you plan on going to college here in the States as well?” Mrs. Puri broke in from across the table, signaling that this wasn’t the sort of table where two out of the four participants could engage in any lengthy side discussion.
“Which college would that be?” Mr. Puri quickly asked.
“Aren’t you leading the witness there, Dad?” Aarti rebutted calmly. “Just which college? Like there’s no alternative.”
“There isn’t.”
Norris caught something passing between Aarti and her father, untold previous arguments squeezed into a glance.
“Um, maybe I’ll go back to Canada,” he answered slowly. “McGill was always the plan. We’ll see now. I mean, I don’t think college was ever not an option. My mom would kill me.”
Mrs. Puri smiled approvingly at Norris with a mouthful of chicken. She seemed to agree with the sentiment he had expressed. Aarti, not so much.
“Hear that, Aarti?” her father prompted.
“I want to see the world, Dad,” Aarti shot back. “Isn’t it hypocritical for you of all people to say no to that?”
“You see the world by studying, dear daughter,” her father answered. “Me, your mother, Norris’s mother, how do you think this happened? We studied, we got visas, and doors opened so we could come here.”
“And I want to see the rest of this America you all worked so hard to reach,” she stated in a way that sounded half-rehearsed, half–sudden realization. “We’ve been in Texas all my life. There are forty-nine other states right here!”
“We were in Chicago until Aarti was two,” Mrs. Puri corrected to Norris, as if they were watching reruns of a show she had seen before and felt the need to point out plot points.
“Object permanence was kind of a game-changer, Mom,” Aarti retorted. “We’re citizens of this country, not tourists. You two worked so hard to get us here—for me, yes, I know—and we’ve seen one tiny corner of it. Isn’t that insane to you?”
Um.
Despite her words, Aarti’s voice was earnest, not angry. Mr. Puri’s expression was neutral, but he was listening to what Aarti had to say. It was weird to see a calm disagreement where neither party seemed to be getting angry.
“There’s so much right here,” Aarti continued. “I want to see the Appalachian Trail, New York, California, Salem, Alabama . . . fuck it, even Canada! It’s all a train ride away!”
“Thank you,” Norris whispered to no one in particular.
“You want to go to Alabama?” Mr. Puri asked as if trying to formulate a diagnosis.
“Why not?”
I mean, brown skin, Norris thought but did not say.
“Alabama is not going anywhere, Aarti,” her mother reassured her, and Norris remembered his own mother’s words about Canada when they first arrived: “You can see all of these things with a degree in your hand.”
“After that, it will probably be graduate school, and then finding a job, and then giving you both grandchildren.” Aarti glanced to a wall with dozens of golden framed photos containing brown-skinned, crooked-toothed babies, smiling women in beautiful iridescent saris, and proud men with gold watches. It created an unspoken altar. Their apartment had one as well, Norris realized. The wall of relatives—not the ones who had fallen off the map or been arrested for possession, but the ones you were supposed to compare yourself to and aspire to overthrow.
Aarti’s back was so tense it arched, and her face was doing that thing Norris had noticed where—as far as he could tell—she was individually licking each of her top row of teeth looking for the right words.
Seeing her like this was somewhat unsettling to Norris. Sure of herself was Aarti Puri’s default setting.
“I want to be a photojournalist,” she finally declared on the exhale. The silence that followed implied that this was a new episode and not a rerun after all. “I don’t want to be pre-miserable in premed.”
Norris watched Mr. and Mrs. Puri share a look.
“Concerts, protests. The country is a political mess these days: plenty of websites pay a lot for photos of people on the ground at rallies, demonstrations, and—”
“God,” Mr. Puri exclaimed after a moment to take in the information, turning to his wife with a weak laugh. “Darling, we raised a white girl!”
Mrs. Puri shook her head in weary affection. Let the record show that Norris did not snort. Not one bit.
“Dad!” Aarti gasped, genuinely frustrated and losing some of the untouchable maturity that had slipped into her voice moments prior. “That is such a prejudiced—”
“Guest,” Mrs. Puri interjected. The silence that fell confirmed once and for all who really sat on the Iron Throne in this household. The topic had to be changed, period.
Conversation redirected itself to discussing the intricacies of bringing out the tikka without overpowering a four-person serving. Aarti still looked vaguely annoyed, but her back was loose and she’d given Norris a weak, if victorious, smile. She’d said what she wanted to say. That was something to celebrate.
He reached under the table and gave Aarti’s hand a light squeeze before returning to praising her mom’s use of herbs and spices.