Monsoon Summer
Table of Contents
For my beloved parents,
Sailendra Nath and Madhusree Bose
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ONE
Berkeley students basked in the spring sunshine. They were watching a group of Hawaiians hula to the beat of traditional drums. I pushed my way through the crowd, bumping into a display of tie-dyed T-shirts.
The vendor caught it before it fell. “Take it easy, kid!”
“What's the rush, Jazz?” the drummer asked.
I mumbled an excuse and kept going. The hat must be
empty,
I thought. I usually jump-started the giving for the hula dancers by dropping a dollar in the drummer's battered straw hat, but I couldn't stop now. I had big news to tell Steve.
Bad news,
I thought, almost crashing into the barefoot actor reciting Shakespeare.
Finally. There it was. The Berkeley Memories booth, or the Biz, as we called it. Steve was selling tickets to a bunch of tourists, and my stomach started dancing to the drumbeat at the sight of him.
“Hey,” he said, handing me a roll of bills. “Busy day today. Count that, will you?”
I took the money but didn't say anything. Steve looked up and saw my face. “Jazz! What's wrong?” he asked.
“The orphanage won the grant,” I said. “I'm spending the summer in India.”
I heard a cough and turned to see an elderly lady tapping her watch. “Biz Rule Number Three: Customer Is King,” I muttered to Steve. “Meet you at the coffeehouse. Gotta get a latte.”
Not too many fifteen-year-olds are addicted to lattes, but Steve and I got hooked on them while we were planning the Biz last summer. Berkeley Memories belonged completely to the two of usâSteven Anthony Morales and Jasmine Carol Gardner.
But Steve was far more than just my business partner. We'd been best friends since kindergartenâthe kind of friends who never have a fight, the kind who know exactly what the other person's thinking. Or at least we used to.
Until last summer, that is, when something terrible happened.
I fell in love.
Our friendship might have survived if I'd fallen in love with someone else. But no. I had to fall in love with him. Steve Morales himselfâwho'd once been the kid I wrestled every day of second grade.
It was almost impossible to keep a secret from Steve, and lately I could tell he was wondering why I was acting so weird. I'd dissolve into tears while we watched some silly movie, blubbering into the popcorn while Steve stared at me like I was some kind of lunatic. And I'd developed a new habitâone that made him furious. I'd started to put myself down. A lot.
“Are you nuts?” he'd ask, trying not to shout. “Do you
know
what you just said?”
I couldn't help it. All my unspoken passion made me feel like a volcano, and insults about the way I looked or acted came gushing out of my mouth. Part of me wanted him to leap to my defense, but my plan always backfired. He just got mad at me instead.
Now I watched him glumly through the window of the coffeehouse. Why did he have to grow up to be so gorgeous? So out of my reach? Big brown eyes, long lashes, a great jawline, and a cleft in his chin that I always wanted to touch. Not to mention those long legs and great shoulders, which gave him the perfect build for high jump and hurdles. He'd broken several school records already and was about as obsessed with track as he was with the business.
He'd even talked me into joining the team. We were the only two sophomores on varsity who won consistently. My records weren't for running or leaping, though. I made the school paper for throwing a shot put farther than most girls in our districtâand most guys. The school paper printed a photo of Steve and me that someone had snapped from behind us, of all places. TRACK-TEAM TWINS, read the caption. I was wearing two sweatshirts and we looked exactly the same size on top. Farther on down, though, his shape got slimmer. Mine just stayed wide.
But there was more to Steve than met the eye. He was an honor student, just like I was. He was kind; I'd actually seen him leave the booth to help old ladies cross Telegraph Avenue. And he was humble, too. I don't think he had a clue that he was one of the top ten feature attractions at school.
Even as I watched, a group of East Bay High girls joined the line at the booth. One was a small-boned, tiny-waisted girl who reminded me of a Barbie doll. Julia something or other. She was the batting-eyelash type who made guys feel like hulking superheroes. I'd actually seen a few of them flexing their biceps when she passed by. A group of second-rate imitators accompanied her everywhere.
She was twisting a strand of her long hair, gazing up at Steve. I figured she was about to make a move. Sure enough, she fumbled in her bag and “accidentally” dropped a handful of coins. Steve, of course, bent down to pick them up. I winced as he handed her a tie-dyed T-shirt, placed a headband around her forehead, and draped a peace medallion around her neck. This was our usual Biz routine, but she smiled at him the whole time as if they were getting married. Then she followed him into the booth, winking at her giggling friends.
Mentally, I walked with them through the Biz routine, counting the seconds. First, she'd pick one of four picket signsâU.S. OUT OF VIETNAM, NO MORE NUKES, PEACE NOW, or END APARTHEID. Holding it, she'd pose in front of a huge picture of Sather Gate and the Campanile clock tower, two Berkeley landmarks. Steve would snap some photos. In about three minutes, they'd both come out. When she left the booth, she'd be ten dollars poorer, but she'd have a set of a dozen postcards with her picture on the front and a caption that read THE DREAM NEVER DIES. BERKELEY MEMORIES, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.
I took a big swig of coffee. What was taking them so long in there? Even though our main clientele were supposed to be older ex-hippie types, teenage girls visited the booth in droves. What they did with their Berkeley Memories postcards I'll never know. A lot of young female customers might be good for business, but it was terrible for employee morale. One employee, that is. Me.
Julia “Me-Jane-you-Tarzan” finally came out of the booth, smirking and smoothing her hair. Steve processed her order. When he handed her the postcards, she flashed him one last dazzling smile and headed off with the rest of her pack. She turned once to see if he was ogling her, and I felt better as I watched her smile fade. Steve was completely absorbed, tidying things up. There were no other customers in line. He hung a BACK IN TEN MINUTES sign on the booth and headed for the coffeehouse.
TWO
“India!” Steve said, taking the Chair across from me. “I thought the grant was a long shot.”
I handed him his latte. “It was supposed to be. But apparently the funding committee loved the idea of Mom going back to the orphange. You know. Paying back the place that took care of her before she was adopted.”
“What's she going to do?”
“Set up a clinic for pregnant women, I think.”
Steve stirred some sugar into his coffee. “It's just for a summer. Can't you stay with your grandparents?”
“Helen and Frank don't have room in that tiny apartment. Besides, they're going to Mexico to build a school.”
Steve knew I was talking about my mom's parents, who lived a few blocks away from us. My other set of grandparents lived in one of those gated communities in Palm Springs where all the homes looked exactly alike. There was a grocery store, a gym, and a movie theater inside the gates, so people who lived there never had to leave. Basically, Grandma and Grandpa Gardner ventured from their house once a day to walk their tired old poodle around the block. They didn't like coming to Berkeley because of the crime rate, so we borrowed a car to visit them twice a year. I always felt like I was entering a maximum security prison when the gates slammed shut behind us.
Steve banged his fist on the table and the coffee sloshed in our cups. “I can't run the business without you! And what about track? We've got that intense summer training program, and Coach is going to be mad that you're not around.”
“I don't want to think about telling Coach,” I said, chewing on a fingernail. It's hard enough to tell you.
Steve reached over to pull my finger away from my mouth. My stomach put on a grass skirt and left for Honolulu again. Nail biting was one of his pet peeves, but did he have to be so gentle when he touched me?
“Do you
want
to go, Jazz?” he asked, letting go of my hand.
Music's over, girlfriend! I told myself. Slow it down!
“I have to go,” I said out loud. “This is Mom's dream come true, and she wants us to share it. Ever since she left all those years ago, she's wanted to go back and help. Return the favor, I guess.”
“India's such a poor country,” Steve said. “I'm sure they could use the help. What are your dad and Eric going to do?”
“Oh, Dad'll survive. He'll bring along some books. Lay low, take care of Mom, stay home, do what he always does. Eric'll do fine, as usual. He'll probably spend the summer teaching those orphans about bugs. You knowâlove me, love my bugs. His theme song.”
“What about you? Won't your mom want you to do something at the orphanage?”
“I don't think so. It's not like I ever visit her refugee center or volunteer anywhere else. And she totally backed off after the mess I made last fall. She's stopped nagging me
and
Dad; I overheard her telling Helen she was giving us space to âfind ourselves,' whatever that means. I think she's finally given up on me.”
“What happened with Mona wasn't your fault, Jazz. Your mom knows that.”
I shook my head, remembering. Mona had been a Telegraph Avenue panhandler, wearing layers of unwashed clothes to stay warm at night on the streets. I used to give her a dollar here and there but always worried that she didn't spend it on food. One cold October day, I'd gathered my courage and invited Mona to join me for a cup of soup. She poured out the story of her life: how she'd gotten married too young to the wrong person, had children and lost custody of them, and eventually ended up on the streets. “I'm in trouble, Jazz,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “Can you help me?” Since Mom had always bugged me to take a risk, and I'd already befriended Mona, I decided to go one step further. Impulsively, I offered her a job.
The Biz had begun to take off, much to Steve's and my delight. We were banking our profits until our sixteenth birthdaysâSteve had his heart set on a used red jeep, but I was going to buy a minivan for our family since my parents had never owned a car. Business was so good on weekends that Steve and I wanted to start opening the booth on weekdays during lunch, when people liked to stroll along Telegraph Avenue. We needed to hire somebody to run things because we had to be in school. Mona had seemed like a good choice.
She worked three days before disappearing, taking all our money with her, along with some expensive photography equipment. A week later, the police told us she was in prison for selling drugs. They couldn't recover any of our stuff, so we had to buy it all over again, this time making sure we got insurance. After some discussion, we decided not to press charges. She was in enough trouble already.
“Maybe Mom finally gets it,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee. “Some of us just aren't cut out to do good deeds.” Steve was getting an exasperated look on his face, so I made a huge effort to be positive. “At least I'll finally get some use out of those Hindi language classes. And see India for the first time. I am half Indian, you know.”
Mom's side of the family had this thing about “preserving our Indian heritage,” even though she was the only full Indian in the family. We ordered take-out curry all the time. My grandparents took us to see every Indian-made film that came to the Bay Area. And two evenings a week, rain or shine, since I was ten years old, I'd conjugated verbs with an ancient Hindi tutor. He was the same guy who'd taught Mom when she was growing up, and I had to admit he was good. Now that my brother, Eric, had turned ten, he'd started after-school Hindi lessons, too. He was always bugging me to help him remember which nouns were masculine, which ones were feminine.
Steve ignored my familiar grumbling about Hindi. He was studying me closely, as though seeing me for the first time. “The funny thing is, Jazz, you don't look Indian. Eric's got dark skin, like your mom, and they're both small and sort of delicate, but you're tall and strong, like your dad. And your skin's lighter, like his.”
I scrunched down in my chair. Dad was six four. I'd been five ten since the sixth grade.
Amazon woman,
I thought. “I know,” I answered glumly. “I got all my genes from Dad, and Eric got his from Mom. Sort of a crazy gender switch in the Gardner offspring.”
“Will you quit talking like that? What has gotten into you lately, Jasmine Carol Gardner?”
Passion. Unrequited love. Desire.
I didn't answer. I was relishing the sound of my name on his lips. Jasmine Carol Gardner. I'd never understood why my parents named an enormous ten-pound baby after a fragile, sweet-smelling flower. By the time I was a stocky toddler, somebody with better eyesight than my parents shortened my name to Jazz. Steve was the only one who ever used my full name nowadays, and only once in a long while. I always felt a secret thrill when he did.
Oh, well,
I consoled myself.
It's probably better to go
away this summer. It was getting harder and harder to hide my feelings from Steve; I'd do a better job keeping them secret halfway around the world. Besides, he'd figure out soon enough that the girls who followed us around weren't interested in getting to know me better. He might even fall for one of them this summer. I certainly didn't want to be around to watch
that
happen.
Steve broke the silence. “Let's go, Jazz,” he said. “The line's getting long out there. Biz Rule Number Six: Customer Never Waits. Remember?”
When we got back to the booth, I could hear the Hawaiian music still playing down the street. The beat sounded slower, as though the musicians were losing steam. “Be right back,” I told Steve, grabbing a dollar out of my wallet.
I rushed back to the dwindling crowd, dropped the money in the empty basket, moved to the back row, and started clapping. As everybody joined in, several passersby piled bills on top of mine. The drummer winked at me before I slipped away.