Pinky
Pinky couldn’t believe his total cluelessness. “They were all staring at us!”
She walked closer to him so they were just a foot apart. The door was open, per her dad’s “rules,” and she didn’t want to mess with that. They needed to see Samir as someone they could trust, and by association, Pinky as someone they could trust. “Why would you make up that convoluted thing about us meeting years ago when you dropped off a book, anyway? Just stick to the basics! We were both at the Memorial Day party in May. Why couldn’t you just say that?”
“Because!” Samir said, throwing up his hands.
“Because why?” Pinky insisted. “It makes no sense.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t!”
Samir glared at her. “Yes, it does, because that was the first time I saw you.”
“You—” Pinky stopped. A breeze from the open window blew a strand of purple hair in her eyes and she brushed it back. “What?”
“The first time we met was in seventh grade. I had ridden my bike over to drop a comic book off at Ashish’s house, and you happened to be there.” He rubbed a hand along his jaw, his slight stubble making a scratch-scratch noise.
Pinky felt like a slowly deflating balloon. “I don’t remember that.”
“Well, I do,” Samir said. They looked at each other for a long moment, not speaking.
“Hey, Sam—oh!” Pinky’s mom raised her eyebrows and looked between them, a big, fluffy stack of towels in her arms. “Am I interrupting?”
“What? No!” Pinky said, leaping away from Samir. Which, come to think of it, probably wasn’t the best idea if the plan was to convince everyone they were madly in love. She tried to move back closer to him, but her feet wouldn’t obey.
Samir, apparently thinking the same thing, stepped close to her and easily took one of her hands in his. “Of course not, Ms. Kumar. Please come in.”
Pinky could smell his annoyingly preppy, J.Crew-worthy aftershave; he was that close. She forced her shoulders to relax. How was he so good at this, anyway? She knew for a fact that he’d never had a girlfriend, thanks to his Black Hawk helicoptery mom, and yet right then he was the one who was completely at ease and she was all bunched up like an anxiety-ridden accordion.
“I just wanted to make sure Samir had towels,” her mom said, handing the stack over.
He untangled his warm hand from hers and took them. “Thank you.”
“Mm-hmm. Do you think you’ll be comfortable in this room?”
Samir smiled. “Yes, of course. It’s beautiful!” He gestured out the window. “The lake is just stunning.”
“Thank you. All the bedrooms have at least a partial view of the water.” Pinky’s mom smiled. “We should go paddleboating soon.”
“That sounds great.” Samir sounded like he meant it. Weirdo.
“Pinky, can your dad and I speak with you a moment?” Her mom turned to her, and although she was using that fake-casual voice she used when she tried to find out if there’d be drinking at the party Pinky was going to, Pinky could smell the agenda on her breath.
“Um, sure.” She turned to Samir. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Sounds good.” He raised his eyebrows, a secret message that probably meant good luck, and walked to the bathroom with his towels.
Pinky’s mom led the way back to her and Pinky’s dad’s room. “So, I’m missing a yellow cardigan, and I wondered if you’d taken it by accident?”
Pinky frowned. “What?” A yellow cardigan? As if she’d ever take something like that even by mistake. She followed her mom into the master bedroom and shut the door behind them.
Her dad was sitting at a little table in the corner, reading a newspaper. Her mom went to join him.
“Oh.” Pinky crossed her arms. “This is an ambush.”
Her dad looked up over the top of his reading glasses. “What?”
“Relax. Dad didn’t even know I asked you to come in here.” Her mom crossed her legs neatly. “So. Samir.”
Pinky shrugged, like, Yeah? What about him? But inside she was a ball of ice-cold anxiety. Was this where her mom said she didn’t believe the story an iota and did Pinky think she, a Harvard-educated lawyer, was an idiot?
Her mom smiled. “I like him.”
Pinky waited for a “but…” but there didn’t seem to be one coming. She dropped her arms. “Seriously?”
“Oh yes, me too,” her dad said, setting his newspaper down. “Much better than that fellow before Preston. What was his name? Cashew?”
“It was Pistachio.” Pinky sighed.
“Right,” her mother said, pinning her with her gaze. “ ‘Pis’ for short, as I recall.”
“Anyway,” Pinky said, eager to get off the subject. She walked farther into the big room and sat at the foot of the canopied bed, which was made up with peony-patterned sheets. “You like him, huh? You actually like one of my boyfriends.” She savored each word as she said it, sure she would never be able to say them in that order again.
“We do,” her mom agreed. “Good choice, Pinky.”
Whoa. She actually looked like she meant it. Pinky felt a thrill go through her—this was what approval from her mom felt like?—quickly followed by a hollow thud of guilt. She was no stranger to deceiving her mom (wouldn’t you deceive your captor if she forced you to live in a corset and you were more an Empire-waist kind of girl?), but this… this was on such a grand scale. Still, it was all for the best in the end. Samir would get his internship and she’d get the modicum of respect that she deserved if her parents finally began appreciating her accomplishments and decisions. “Okay, great. Well, I’m going to go make sure he’s getting settled in.”
“And tonight I’m making pork belly bao!” her dad put in. “Hope Samir brought his appetite.”
Pinky smiled at the both of them and slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Phase 1: infiltration, complete. She heaved a sigh and walked down the hallway to her room.
Samir
An hour and a half after Pinky left his room with her parents, Samir was all finished ironing and putting his clothes away (they were wrinkled from the suitcase, and he found ironing them before putting them away helped cut down the time he spent ironing before he wore them), taking a shower, and calling his mom for a quick check-in (the internship’s going well, I’m on a break, gotta go). He walked down the hallway with the extra towels that wouldn’t fit in the tiny linen closet in the bathroom and knocked on Pinky’s door.
There was a scuffling sort of noise. “Who is it?” she called, sounding distracted.
“It’s me. Um, Samir.”
More scuffling. “Come in!”
He walked in. “Hey, your mom gave me too many towels. These don’t fit in the linen closet—” He stopped, looking at the shoebox on the floor. Pinky sat cross-legged beside it. “It still hasn’t woken up?”
Pinky smoothed the opossum’s fur. “She hasn’t woken up yet. I checked. Definitely female. Besides, this could take up to four hours.”