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peace and quiet. Bhushan was sitting there, in the same white wooden chair we still have. He was drinking Limca. Then out you came, crying because the pink icing from your cake was all over your pretty white lace dress.”
    I laughed a little now. This was my favorite part.
    “Vikram put a handkerchief to his mouth,” my father continued. “He licked it and tried to wipe the stain off your dress, telling you, ‘ Na roh , don’t cry.’ You stopped immediately. He took your hand and led you back to the party. It was then that Bhushan turned to me and suggested it, that we should pledge you two to be together in marriage. I was very surprised. Even in our tradition, it rarely happens like this anymore, when two people are so young. But it made sense. It would have happened anyway. Vikram’s father and I simply decided to take matters into our own hands.”
    I smiled. To me it was the most glorious fairy tale.
    Suddenly, my mother put down her newspaper. “Well, I didn’t think it was the best of ideas,” she said sternly. I sat up straight. She had never told me this before.
    “On that day I told your father, ‘Girish, what are you thinking? They are just children. Maybe they are friends now; but who knows what they will be in ten or twenty years, where their lives will take them, what fate has in store?’”
    My father was quiet. Sangita looked up from the bare-bones beginning of her tapestry.
    “Don’t misunderstand me, Shalini,” my mother said. “I love that family. Vikram is like my son. I just didn’t think we had the right to make that decision for you. But I had no choice. I had to accept it. The men had decided.” She stared at me for a second. There was an emptiness in her eyes.
    “Look at you now,” she said. “Your heart is breaking because you are so far away from him. It is not fair to put you through this.”
    “Asha, no need to be so dramatic,” my father said, brushing away my mother’s fears now just as he no doubt must have done thirteen years earlier. He stood up and stretched. “The children are strong. They will survive.
    “And, Shalini,” he said, turning to me. “Please don’t feel sad. You and Vikram are destined to be together. It is written in the stars. In the meantime, there is always Skype.”

Chapter Six
    THE PHONE RANG very early the next morning. I jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs to answer it, knowing it would be him. My Vikram.
    “Hi, Shalu,” a boy’s voice said gently. I felt a little flip in my belly. “How are you? How was the flight?” he asked. His soft, steady voice made my heart hum. I pressed my lips close to the receiver.
    “It was okay.” I paused. Tears flooded my eyes now. “I really miss you,” I sobbed. Talking to Vikram for the first time since I got here drove home the fact that I was so far away from him. I clutched the phone tightly, afraid to drop it as if doing so would sever my connection to him. I thought back to the last time I was with him, at the airport. Thousands of people surrounded us, but for those few moments it had seemed as if it was just he and I alone in that large, chaotic space. Our hands had touched. He had wanted to kiss me, but that was something not done in public in my culture, especially not between two teenagers. Tears had streamed down my face. He had wiped them away, the way he had done since I was a little girl.
    “What if you forget me, Vikram?” I had asked him.
    “As if you’ll let me!” he’d joked. “And it’s you who might forget me, being in exciting America. Maybe you won’t want to return.”
    “That will never happen,” I had said. “Never.” I had looked down at the ruby ring he had given me, an identical one on his finger. We had exchanged them a few days earlier in front of a shrine at Vikram’s house. His mother had insisted on it, said it was “high time.” I remember my mother being quiet, withdrawn from the proceedings.
    Now I pressed the phone hard against my