Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
I look like my mother. There’s no question about it.
We have the same honey-toned skin and jet-black hair. The same nose, the same bow-shaped lips. The same almond-shaped eyes. Mine are gray, though—I get them from my father—and hers are dark brown. They border on black when she looks at me, however.
Because her gaze fills with displeasure.
Always.
No matter what.
When I was young, it was hard for me to understand why my mother was like that. Strict and stern and always unamused by me. No display of emotions. No overt expressions of love. Just a bunch of rules and annoyance about me being too loud or too rambunctious. As I grew older and started to know more about where my mother came from, I realized that maybe it was because she grew up in a different culture. A culture that values traditions and obedience and structure.
I mean, if we think about it, Aarti Arora Holmes—Arora is her maiden name—has never done anything unconventional. Well, except marry my dad—an American—and move from Punjab, a state in the northern part of India, to a different country. But even that was because my dad’s family had been friends with my mom’s, and my grandfather—he’s deceased now—thought it was a good match.
So since I was none of the things that her culture valued, my mother just didn’t know how to deal with me except be angry and reprimand me at every turn.
But then I grew up more.
And realized that’s not the case either.
It’s not the culture that has made my mother the way she is. It’s just her.
Because my biji, my mom’s mom, is exactly like me. Or well, I’m like her. She’s free-spirited and fun. She doesn’t care about the rules or being good. So maybe that’s the problem. That I’m like her mom. Whom she doesn’t like very much either.
“Are you sure?” my mother asks after a few seconds of silently and suspiciously studying me.
I fidget. “Yes.”
Another few seconds of tense silence. “Let’s go over it again, shall we?”
And my gut clenches.
Because even though my mom will never love me, I love her. I want her to approve of me.
I want her to accept me for who I am.
Just like the dream of becoming an actress despite my mother’s wishes, it’s a dream I’ve had since I was a little girl. That one day my mom will realize how much she loves me, despite me being the way I am, and we will live happily ever after.
I wave all these thoughts away and reply, “Yes.” Then, “Uh, only one drink.”
She eyes the glass in my hand. “Just one.”
I swallow, clutching the glass tighter. “No dancing on the floor if no one else is dancing.”
“Good.”
“No laughing too loud or talking too loud.”
“What else?”
“No”—I clear my throat—“making a scene like I usually do. No attracting attention to myself.”
“You’re not an animal in the zoo,” she reminds me. “You don’t want a bunch of people staring at you.”
Even though this isn’t the first time my mother has said something like this, my cheeks still burn with embarrassment. In her defense, though, I have done every single thing on her list of rules.
I have gotten drunk at parties.
I have danced when no one else was dancing. One time, I actually got up on the table and started slow dancing. But only because everything was just so boring and lifeless, and I wanted to have a little fun. I have also laughed too loud and talked too loud. And yes, people have stared at me and the next day, I have ended up in gossip magazines and websites.
Embarrassing the shit out of my mother and my father.
“Keep going,” she says. “There’s more.”
I know there’s more.
This last one is somehow harder to say.
Because it’s also the one I’m the most famous for.
Or infamous for.
But I know my mom won’t stop looking at me like I’m a criminal if I don’t say it. “No other m-men.”
Her jaw moves back and forth.
Of course in displeasure.
While my mom can still tolerate me being all brazen and inappropriate, too unpredictable for her liking, what she absolutely cannot tolerate is the reputation I have with men.
The reputation I’ve more or less cultivated myself.
This time, though, I have a defense for myself.
And it’s that I didn’t know.
I had no clue that I was cultivating a reputation for myself if I flirted with my bodyguard to go to a party. I was just thinking about the party at the time. I had no idea that if I batted my eyelashes a little at the bartender so he’ll let me taste whiskey for the first time, I was painting a target on my back for being too easy; I was just thinking about the whiskey and how I wanted to try it even though I was thirteen. Or the time when I was failing my science class, so I thought why not be nice to Mr. Sanders. Why not smile at him and laugh at his unfunny jokes so he’ll give me a passing grade. Which he did. He also tried to get me alone in a classroom one day and when I refused, he went to the principal about my inappropriate behavior.