TWELVE Jessie

TWELVE

Jessie

Jessie could not believe a person who looked as sweet and as delicate as Divya would frequent a place like Rothby's. Maybe it looked different in 1971, but in the present day and age, it was a typical diner with worn leather seats, scratched melamine plates, the stale stench of coffee, and a rotating dessert rack that displayed cakes and pies bigger than a human head. She had noticed all the details the first time she'd visited with Ravi, but the second time around, knowing that the place was familiar to Divya, it seemed even more charming.

"Do you think she wore a poodle skirt here?" Ravi asked as they slid into one of the booths in the back of the diner.

"Wrong decade," Jessie replied.

Outside the windows, groups of students walked to the nearest bars and restaurants or up to Greek Hill. It was a welcome distraction from the fact that they were both sitting together, having dinner, and then going to a movie like a real date. Except she wasn't sure if this was a real date.

The corner of his lips curved in the way she'd come to like. "Can I tell you something, Jessie Jaissi Koi Nahin?"

There was a flutter in her belly at the nickname. "Is it the reason why you call me that ridiculous nickname?"

He paused. "I call you the nickname because I've never met anyone else like you, and you do such a great job at hiding how beautiful you are, but I'm lucky enough to see it."

She faltered. "Really?"

This time he looked confused. "What did you think I meant? You're obviously not ugly, if that's what you thought."

The explanation warmed her heart, and she had to work hard at hiding the tremble in her fingers. When did he become such a romantic?

Before the thought finished forming in her head, she knew the answer. He was always a romantic to her. From the very first night he walked her home. "I'll accept that explanation," she said. "If what you want to tell me isn't about my nickname, then what is it?"

He combed his fingers through his hair before he put on his hat backward. "I'm writing this story. It's just for me, something ridiculous that I'm sure will never see the light of day. And I imagine the place where my protagonist spends most of his time is a diner just like this."

"Oh yeah? How far into writing it are you?"

"Maybe a hundred pages."

Jessie watched the excitement play on his face. He loved this project he was working on, and it made him happy. The same way she imagined his parents wanted him to feel with the future they'd designed for him.

"That's amazing! I can't imagine writing a hundred pages of fiction. That's some serious talent. Will you tell me about it? The story, I mean."

"Yeah, I guess," he said. "When it's done, you can read it if you want."

The fluttering grew stronger, because when he beamed at her, she realized that he must not have told many people about his project. "If you're writing stories, I guess that means you don't want to be a big tech genius like your father and brother?"

The smile slipped off his face, and she was sorry to see it go. "I don't think I can," he said. "They're the type of innovators that come around once in a century. Who wants to compete with that? I'm not special like them."

You are.

Jessie cleared her throat and picked up one of the plastic menus, turning to the first page. "If you aren't going to become the next big software engineer, what are you going to do after you graduate?"

The lines around Ravi's mouth deepened. "I don't know."

"Well, if I had your legacy, I know that I would use it to my advantage to get noticed by every internship and job I possibly could."

The corner of his lip quirked. "You would?"

She nodded. "Can I tell you a secret?"

He leaned forward. "Tell me."

She could feel her cheeks get hot at how close he was. "I'm terrible at interviews. I just start rambling, and then I get super nervous. I mean, I overprepare to the point where it should be a no-brainer that I should get the job or internship, but my nerves get the best of me. I don't think I've ever gotten the exact internship I've wanted because somehow I've always screwed it up."

He let out a whistle. "That's a secret I wasn't expecting to hear."

"It's true," she said. "I mean, there was this one time where I was in this interview, and the hiring manager had an elephant statue on their shelf behind their desk. It was one of those things that people buy to take up space. A bargain-shelf buy from Target. Anyway, the hiring manager asked me how my trip was to the office, and all I could talk about was the fact that in certain villages in India, elephants destroyed entire crop fields. That's when a scientist found out that elephants are afraid of bees and started putting speakers that emit bee sounds along a sanctuary perimeter, and now they're called bee fences. He just stared at me after that."

"‘Bee fences'? Wait, are you serious?"

"You don't have to laugh—"

"I'm not," he said. "I can't imagine that's easy to admit. I mean, you're always so ... perfect."

"I'm only telling you my secrets because I trust you."

"You do?"

The sparkle in his eyes was enough to make her realize that she'd probably shared more than she should've. She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat so that she could get some space between them. "Now if someone like you was nervous, I doubt it would matter. Like we've already established, you have a name. And there are enough people in your family who've found success in the tech field. There has to be some sort of Kumar training manual, right?"

Ravi scoffed. "Yeah, it's called listening to my parents and doing what I'm told."

"Oh, you don't like that," she said, scanning the menu.

Ravi curled two fingers over the top of her menu and pulled it down to the table so they could see each other. "What do you mean?"

The lines around his mouth deepened. Paired with the shadows in his eyes, he looked distracted and so, so tired. Jessie put down the menu.

"I mean, you're determined to figure out what you want to do with your life on your own, no matter how messy and complicated your path might be. We may not know each other well, but in the time since we've met, you get up at 7:00 a.m. to block out specific days in our studying room. You've walked me home every night, and you point out the flaws in all of my arguments because you still don't believe in happily ever after. That tells me you're just as stubborn as I am."

He was smiling again. The lines were gone. "I think it's hard to be as stubborn as you, Jessie Jaissi Koi Nahin."

Their waitress, a woman older than Father Time, stepped up to their table. She had a helmet of white hair that reminded Jessie of one of the Golden Girls and wore a faded yellow uniform with a white collar and white apron. "Can I get you kids anything to drink first?"

Jessie looked over at Ravi, who gave an imperceptible shake of his head. She ignored his warning, then glanced down at her name tag.

"Hi, Ms. Sylvia. Yes, I think we're ready with our drinks, but I have a question for you first, if you don't mind?"

"Sure, honey," Sylvia said, cocking her hip to the side.

"How long have you been working at Rothby's?"

She let out a low whistle. "Since the sixties at least. I was sixteen when I got my job here. Thirty-five when I bought the place."

"You own the diner?" Ravi asked.

Jessie almost expected him to sound condescending, but there was only excitement and interest in his voice. A small part of her seemed to relax at the realization that he wasn't going to judge Sylvia.

Sylvia nodded. "I do own the place! Love it. I pitch in when I need a bit of exercise. Went to the university. Are you students?"

"Yes, ma'am," Ravi said. "We're actually taking this class together on nonfiction writing, and I think we want to write about the library fire in the seventies."

Jessie didn't know if she was imagining things, but something seemed to flicker across Sylvia's face. Maybe it was just an awareness or acknowledgment that the story had become legend. Or maybe, Jessie thought, it was something more.

"I'm sorry, kids, I don't know if I can help you there. That was a long time ago."

"We think that there was an Indian woman who was involved," Jessie added. "There were so few back then. Nothing like how it is today. She probably came here."

This time Sylvia smiled. "And what makes you think that?"

"Besides the excellent truffle fries? It's the best place to bring a date if you're trying to be secretive about it. All you would have to do is take your textbooks out and put them to the side. Then people would think that you're just studying. It's close enough to campus that it's completely plausible."

Sylvia nodded. "I guess you're right." She looked back at the counter, at the booths filled with couples and crowds. "I'll tell you this, and you can quote me as Sylvia Robertson in your papers. After the fire, there was a group of official-type folks who came into the diner, showing pictures of a bunch of different kids who were missing from their dorm rooms that night. I recognized them. One or two of them were Indian for sure. But those official types never came back. I assumed that everyone was accounted for after that, ya know?"

Jessie sighed. It was clear Sylvia didn't remember Divya, and it was even less likely she'd know the man she had dined with all those decades ago.

Jessie looked at Ravi, who shook his head. He didn't want her to press anymore, either.

"Ms. Sylvia? I'll have tea if you have it. Black, preferably. And definitely a plate of those truffle fries."

"I'll have the coffee, thank you," Ravi said.

Ms. Sylvia left, and Ravi leaned over the table so that they were close enough for their breath to mingle and she could see the rich, dark brown of his eyes.

"That wasn't very subtle."

"I think with a story that's over fifty years old, subtlety is overrated."

Ravi looked like he was thinking about it for a moment before he said, "I guess it was effective. Now can we try to enjoy our date?"

Her arms tingled as a stretch of goose bumps formed. "I thought the whole purpose of this was to re-create the date that Divya and Christian had when they came to Rothby's and went to the movies."

"It's also because you've never been on a date before," Ravi replied. He crossed his arms and leaned on the table. "And now you're on a date."

"Ravi," she said, knowing that her laughter sounded fraught with nerves. She was just going to be straightforward, so they both could keep their expectations low. "You don't have to take pity on me. You're a third-year and someone who will probably have a great relationship with a woman who makes just as much money as you will. I'll eventually date. We'll just call this what it is. Research."

She looked over his shoulder and saw that there was a group of Desi kids glancing their way. They served as her reminder that this moment in time with Ravi was a fever dream. It would be something that she could tell her family in twenty years when his name would appear on the board of directors of some tech conglomerate. And after she'd shared the memory, she'd think of this moment where he wore his backward hat, a gray sweatshirt with the university logo on the front, and slight scruff on his jaw. That visual would be just for her.

"First of all, this isn't pity," Ravi said. "I'm considering this a real date. I'm taking a pretty woman out for dinner and a movie."

If she could blush, she would. "I don't think this is about how much of a snack I am—"

"And second of all, what's so bad about dating? Are you planning on just holding off until you get that career you want? What about all the experiences you'll miss along the way?"

Jessie tried to relax, tried to pretend that the compliment didn't affect her the way it had. "Sometimes you have to make sacrifices in order to get what you want in the long run. I have my books and my labs and my work-study job at the information desk. I need all of that to get the best job I can possibly get. I have to be better than most in this economy, and because I don't have connections."

She didn't mean to poke at his family name again and hated herself for the way he winced at the word connections.

"I understand sacrifices," he started, "but what if you don't have to make them? What if you're just telling yourself you have to make them because it's easier that way instead of opening yourself up?"

Her heart started to pound. He was close, too close to the truth. A truth she wasn't even sure she was willing to admit to herself, let alone vocalize. Because if she was honest with herself, she'd have to confront the fact that she had been avoiding emotional entanglements, choosing to focus solely on her schoolwork. It was a protective barrier she had built around her heart to shield herself from potential pain. As a teenager, she'd been captivated by romance novels and movies. It was thrilling to be swept away by these fantasies, but she couldn't ignore the undercurrent of caution that ran through each story—the inevitable heartbreak. "I can choose not to date if I want to."

Ravi shrugged. "Yeah, absolutely. But you still chose to go out with me."

"Here we are," Sylvia called out as she brought their drinks to the table. "Did you two have some time to think about what you want to eat? Other than the fries, of course."

Jessie looked down at her closed menu. "I'm so sorry, Ms. Sylvia. We were chatting. Do you think you can give us a minute so we can figure it out? We promise we'll be quick."

Ms. Sylvia waved a dismissive hand. "Take your time, dear. You two are so adorable. I'll tell you what, after years of experience: the dates where you just can't tell time and you're just gabbing away are the good ones. Hold on to each other."

After she left, Ravi gave her a smug look.

"What?"

He reached out and took her hand. The touch of his fingertips against hers had her jolting in her seat. The soft skin of his palm, the rough pads of his fingertips. She held her breath as he looked at her in the eyes.

"Ravi?"

"What's so bad about going out with someone like me?" he asked.

Her ears were ringing now. She slowly pulled her hand away from Ravi's grasp. "Because we're living in a pressure chamber. One that has kaleidoscope colors and makes us believe that anything is possible. College is not the real world. It's a fantasy."

He scoffed. "I know fantasy, Jessie, and this is more real than anything I've ever experienced."

She shook her head, and her heart pounded like a drum. Ravi wanted this to be real. He wanted their date to mean something. Why couldn't he see how different they both were? "Look, after you leave in a year, you're going to be as legendary as Divya Das. Students will be talking about you for decades and how you once walked these halls before you became a big shot in the tech industry. Literally. And me? I'll be an engineer. A corporate drone who works hard and tries to chase a promotion every few years."

"I don't think that you would ever—"

"I can't risk falling for you," she snapped. The truth tumbled out, more dramatic than she'd ever intended, but she didn't know how else to get through to him. How else to stop the ... attachment she was beginning to feel toward him. The jealousy she had whenever he smiled at someone else, and the softness in her heart when she went to sleep thinking about how she was safe because she knew Ravi would make sure of it. "My roots are too shallow, and one strong storm in my life, my entire future will topple to the ground."

The deep grooves along his mouth were back. "We can build those roots while we're in school. Let's—"

"No," she said softly. She shook her head, causing her hair to slide over her shoulder. "Let's focus on Divya Das. Once we find closure for her, we'll find our closure, too."

He looked like he wanted to ask her more. A part of her wished that he would so she could just put it all out in the open—the tension that existed between them and the fact that they belonged to two completely separate universes.

But all Ravi did was lean back in his seat and cross his arms over his chest. "Okay," he said.

"Okay?" she asked.

"Okay," he repeated. "Hey, do you eat meat? The bacon cheeseburger is good."