SHREYA CHOPRA 1

Chapter 1

The entire evening felt like a dream from which Norah didn’t want to wake. She arrived back home at midnight, still suspended in a state of shock. Norah was reaching for the front door knob when a glimmer of light caught her eye. The diamond resting on her finger projected the most brilliant array of colors imaginable and Norah indulged herself by modeling it under the porch light for several minutes. She had never seen anything so beautiful. It was the perfect ending to the perfect day.

Norah had always been troubled by the notion that she might wake up some day in her mid thirties with no husband and no prospects. Or even worse, that she would be forced to settle with someone less than adequate under the mounting pressure from her mother. Those nagging concerns were gone now, vanquished the instant Sunny bent down on one knee.

“It’s happening,” Norah whispered, floating through her empty townhome and tossing her purse onto her bed. “I’m getting married!” Norah shouted in a moment of unbridled jubilation.

Norah exchanged an exuberant smile with her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She wiped away the remaining traces of mascara that had run down her cheeks

2 GREGORY POTHIER earlier that evening. “Mrs. Norah Mehta,” she whispered to herself, breaking into giddy laughter. Leave it to Sunny to ask me to marry him on the same night that he has to fly out to visit his family for the weekend, Norah thought, still beaming into the mirror.

If I’ve learned one thing about Sunny Mehta over the years, it’s that he’s always full of surprises, Norah decided. She carefully rested her engagement ring on the counter as far away from the sink as possible. The diamond was too spectacular for someone as clumsy as Norah to take any chances.

Sunny and Norah had been inseparable since the first day they met in freshman biology lab. “Sure I would have preferred meeting on a yacht, or at a wedding, or somewhere more romantic,” Norah used to joke with her friends. “But if finding true love for me means having to meet Mr. Right over the carcass of a dissected frog, then so be it.”

Norah closed the bathroom door and began to disrobe. “Oh God, there’s going to be a wedding. My wedding,” she clarified as tears of joy streaked down her cheeks for the fourth time that night.

Norah stepped inside the shower and twisted the water valve. The images of what her dream wedding might entail flooded through her head as a stream of hot water struck her shoulders and crawled down her back.

“Well the dress is already taken care of,” Norah admitted with a guilty smile. She had sketched out the blueprint of her dream wedding gown in middle school and the design was still outlined in the last few pages of her sixth grade math notebook. But there was the location, the bridesmaids’ dresses, the invitations, the cake, the food, the music, Norah realized with an overwhelming sense of excitement that reached a crescendo when she yelled out

SHREYA CHOPRA 3 into the empty bathroom, “I’m going to be such a bridezilla!”

Just then, Norah heard a slamming noise on the other side of the bathroom door. She lifted her chin up and squinted her eyes, trying to pick up on any sounds other than the water splashing around her.

“Hello? Sunny is that you?” Norah shouted.

Silence. Norah glanced around the shower curtain and double checked that she had locked the bathroom door. She shook off her moment of anxiety and released a drop of shampoo into her open palm. Suddenly the bathroom lights cut off and Norah was surrounded by pitch black.

“If this is some kind of a joke I’m not laughing!” Norah yelled into the darkness. The panic in her own voice intensified her unease. Norah’s skin broke out into goose bumps as she reached for her towel. She felt blindly along the wall, her mind suddenly inundated with terrifying thoughts. Did someone break into my house? Is there someone on the other side of the door waiting for me?

Calm down, it’s probably just a blackout. All I need to do is go to my bedroom and grab my cell phone, she decided with a deep breath. Despite Norah’s best efforts to suppress her anxiety, her adrenaline started to take over and her heart pounded wildly.

Norah slowly opened the door and stumbled down the hallway into her bedroom. She paused every few steps, listening for any noise that might alert her to an intruder’s presence. There was only silence.

After a few minutes of blindly navigated through the darkness, Norah’s thighs finally bumped into the side of her mattress. She reached into her purse and rummaged through her belongings until she felt her cell phone. Norah pulled it out and flipped it open but to her surprise, it didn’t turn on.

4 GREGORY POTHIER

What in the World? Norah wondered. She pressed her thumb against the power key repeatedly to no avail. Why isn’t it turning on?

On the backside of Norah’s cell, her fingers were resting in an open slot that didn’t feel right. She flipped it over and realized in horror that the battery had been removed.

Norah’s senses went into overdrive. What moments ago was the happiest night of her life had transformed into a living nightmare in a matter of seconds.

All of the stories on the news of break-ins and people being attacked in their homes had always seemed so far away, so distant. It was something that happened to others but never to me, Norah thought.

But now it was happening to her. And it wasn’t over.

Her fingers slipped back into her purse and located the canister of pepper spray that her father had given her a few years back. She always joked about his paranoia when it came to her safety and yet the spray never found its way out of her purse. Norah pulled off the safety tab and pointed the spray in front of her. She felt her way around the bed, heading towards the nightstand where she kept a large steel flashlight.

A sudden rumbling noise came from the far corner of her bedroom, several footsteps closing in on her with force. Norah dove for the nightstand while releasing a stream of pepper spray behind her. She opened the bottom drawer and grabbed a hold of the flashlight. Something latched onto her ankles and started to pull her away from the dresser. Norah let out a scream and kicked her legs violently. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

Norah lowered the pepper spray and shot it past her feet but the intruder didn’t relent. The spray didn’t seem to

SHREYA CHOPRA 5 have any effect on him. The overpowering fumes drifted back towards Norah’s face and she started to cough heavily, her eyes watering.

In the struggle, Norah managed to turn on the flashlight and aim it at her assailant. A beam of light fixed on the face of her attacker and what she saw sent a chill down her spine. The pepper spray wasn’t working because the attacker’s face was covered in a large gas mask.

Norah swung the steel flashlight with all of her might and it landed across the attacker’s arm with a loud crack.

The intruder growled and knocked the flashlight out of her hand. It spun across the floor and rested several feet away. The flashlight caught the struggle between Norah and the intruder and played the scene across the bedroom wall in shadows. The arm of the intruder cocked back and swung down, connecting with Norah’s face. The final image the flashlight caught was Norah’s shadow collapsing to the carpet, where it remained still.

Chapter 2

It had been three weeks since my breakup with Sahil and as I pulled into the crowded student parking lot, I found myself to be surprisingly nervous about the possibility of a premature reunion.

The campus of George Mason University was buzzing with activity as the first day of summer classes was about to begin and it took longer to find a parking spot than I had hoped. I pulled my book bag out of the backseat of my car as the June sun graced the back of my neck with its warm

6 GREGORY POTHIER rays. It was a cloudless day in the suburbs of Washington DC and the summer temperature was steadily marching into the nineties.

I welcomed the heat. It reminded me of my nani’s kitchen in Delhi. My mouth started to water at the thought of my nani’s daal makhani and I could almost taste the buttery cuisine. The way it melted on my tongue allowing each taste bud to soak up the sweet flavor, while the garlic cloves and fenugreek seed gave the dish the perfect amount of spice.

Shouldn’t have skipped breakfast again Shreya, I thought while glancing down at my watch. It was 8:26 am. Four minutes to spare, I was actually going to be on time for once.

My legs settled into a comfortable stride as I followed the line of students making their way down the forest trail leading from the parking lot to the center of campus. I ran my fingers along the top of my straightened hair to make sure that it wasn’t starting to curl. The humidity of the summer air had the nasty habit of transforming my hair from ‘straight and relaxed’ to the dreaded ‘Frizilla’, and I had just straightened it the night before.

I quietly entered the first floor of the Science building and slid into a second row seat next to the window. Seconds later, Dr. Nancy Berg entered the lecture hall armed with a cup of coffee and a cheery smile.

“So how excited are we to wake up early this summer for biology class?” Dr. Berg asked with a grin that was greeted by several groans from the half awake audience.

“Well I’m glad to see you all too,” Dr. Berg answered. She scanned the class and gave me a wink when she spotted me next to the window. I smiled back.

SHREYA CHOPRA 7

Dr. Berg was my best friend’s mother and we had been through a lot together over the past year. If I was going to have to spend four hours every morning in a lecture, at least it was with her.

I watched her pull out a heavy stack of syllabi. ”Well I thought that I was going to get an assistant for this class, but I guess -” Dr. Berg said but was interrupted mid sentence by a tall man who awkwardly stumbled through the door.

“Dr. Berg, I’m you’re teaching assistant,” the man announced. As he turned I noticed an odd curve running along the right side of his head.

Dr. Berg sized him up and then glanced down at her syllabus. “It says here that my teaching assistant is a Norah Patel, and no offense but you don’t look like a Norah.”

“Norah couldn’t make it at the last minute so the department asked me to step in for her,” the man answered as he extended his hand to shake Dr. Berg’s. “Thales Tavares, it’s my pleasure.”

“Okay Thales, can you hand out these syllabi and give a quick introduction of yourself to the class?” Dr. Berg asked. She handed him a large stack of papers and headed over to the corner desk where the computer-projection system was.

Thales walked down the aisles with a distinct hunch in his posture. His hard eyes rested atop two dark, overlapping pillows that reminded me of my own sleepless look during exams week. He addressed the class in a slight accent that seemed to drag as it connected syllables in a flat tone. “Hello class, my name is Thales and I will be assisting Doctor Berg this semester. I see many of you looking at the dent on the side of my head…..and to satisfy your curiosity there is five-inch metal plate there as a result of a severe auto accident.”

8 GREGORY POTHIER

Thales handed me a syllabus and I noticed a large tattoo on the inside of his forearm. It was of a cross covered in barbed wire and underneath it read Soldier of God in a large gothic font.

I sat back in my chair and glanced out the window. A branch cluttered with green leaves was slowly dancing in the warm summer breeze. My lips formed a soft pout and I whispered under my breath, “this is going to be a long semester.”

Chapter 3

“I haven’t seen you around the house too much lately, are you having a good summer?” Dr. Berg asked me as we walked down the hallway together after class.

“Yeah, I took too many credits in the spring and I waited until the last minute to start some of my projects. I kind of had to lock myself away during the last few weeks to catch up.”

I was always a procrastinator with school, for a long time I even had myself convinced that I did some of my best work at the eleventh hour. Sahil used to always poke fun at me about it. He’d say, “Shreya, procrastination is like masturbation, you’re only screwing yourself.”

“So how does it feel to be out of the hospital and back teaching again?” I asked, pulling a pack of Twizzlers out of my pocket.

SHREYA CHOPRA 9

“It feels good,” Dr. Berg answered with a smile. She patted the pink breast cancer ribbon on her lapel. “I’m just enjoying life one day at a time.”

We strolled out the front door of the Science building and the sight of Sahil standing on the front steps sent a jolt of panic down my spine. For a fleeting second, my back pulled at me as if offering the chance to sneak back through the entrance unnoticed.

“Hey,” Sahil interrupted one of his friends and turned his attention towards Dr. Berg and me. His eyes moved down from mine and slowly inspected my body. It was as if he suspected that I had gotten a tattoo to commemorate our breakup three weeks prior and if he looked hard enough he might be able to find it.

“Hey,” I acknowledged him through a pair of tight lips and threw a contemptible smile in his general direction. Dr. Berg and I walked past.

My luck, it almost seemed like when I thought about something hard enough, it would come true. Do I somehow will these things on to myself or am I just that unlucky? And if I do have this power to bring thoughts to life, then the real question is…. who should I make appear in front of me, Brad Pitt or John Abraham?

“What was that about?” Dr. Berg asked, interrupting my internal deliberation between the super hunks.

“Ex-boyfriend,” I answered with a groan. “I seem to attract controlling, manipulative liars,” I said biting into a Twizzler.

“Ah I see,” Dr. Berg said with a nod. “Well at least you have a type.”

“Funny,” I grunted.

10 GREGORY POTHIER

Dr. Berg stopped and gave me a look of appraisal. “Shreya you’re my daughter’s best friend. You were there for Stacey when my husband passed, and throughout my treatment over the past year. The least I can do is give you some advice about boys. Something I wish someone would have done for me when I was your age.”

“By all means,” I said, settling into my role as a relationship charity case.

“Shreya, it helps if you approach men like you do food. We all need to eat, but there’s a world of difference between what you might want to eat and what you need to eat. Sure those Twizzlers may taste good as a snack every now and then, but read the label, they’re loaded with fat and calories, no nutrients. You have enough of them and you’ll end up a diabetic with bad teeth. You see where I’m going with this?”

I clutched the Twizzlers into my chest. “But I like my Twizzlers,” I whispered in a soft voice.

Dr. Berg ignored the pleading look on my face, grabbing the pack of Twizzlers and tossing them into a nearby trashcan. “No Shreya, they’re garbage. Do yourself a favor and replace them with this,” Dr. Berg said, fishing a shiny red apple out of her purse and handing it to me.

“It may not be as cheap, or pack as much sugar, or come in a flashy wrapper, but it’s good for you. If you want to be happy and healthy in the long run, you’ll go with the apple,” Dr. Berg said with a parting smile.

I frowned at the apple in my hand and whispered under my breath, “Great, now I’m being set up with a piece of fruit.”

SHREYA CHOPRA 11

Chapter 4

George Mason University was voted the nation’s number one up and coming university and it seemed to be in a perpetual state of growth. My ears filtered out the steady sound of construction machinery in the distance as I headed towards the main hub of the campus. It was the $30 million, 100,000 square foot Johnson Center library.

I entered the library and made a b-line towards the spiral staircase in the center of the building, which conjured up images of a double helix as it branched up to the third floor. I dropped my book bag on an empty table positioned next to a large bay window that overlooked the neighboring Science building. Lugging around a laptop and an oversized book was too much for my one hundred and ten pound frame and it took several twists and turns to crack my spine and silence the aching.

My laptop hummed to life and I put my cell on vibrate, resting it on top of a cumbersome book with BIOLOGY embossed in large golden lettering across the cover. Inside the first page of my book was a picture of a horse shoe that I figured my younger brother, Rishi, must have slipped in my bag the night before. I rolled my eyes and crumpled it into a ball. While waiting for my computer to log me into the wireless network, I stared outside at the neighboring windows of the Science building. Most of the offices seemed to be empty, the normal occupants probably lying on a warm beach listening to the waves crashing in from the ocean, I decided with an envious frown.

On the corner office of the second floor, my eyes spotted Dr. Berg seated at the desk in her office. Looking

12 GREGORY POTHIER down on her, I had an unabated view of several stacks of papers surrounding her LCD screen. At least I don’t have to worry about grading all of that. I turned back towards my book and dove into the first chapter.

I was jarred from my sleep by a loud jackhammer sound that reverberated through my arms and travelled up into my ear drums. I lifted my head up and rubbed my glassy eyes, still half asleep. After a few seconds of confusion, I discovered the source of the commotion to be my cell, which had vibrated its way to a resting spot against my left arm. I reached down and shut it off.

A new text message from Stacey Berg read: “CALL ME EMERGENCY!”

I never liked receiving vague messages like this, which almost never turned out to be actual emergencies, but curiosity got the best of me.

“Hey you called?” I asked over my cell.

“Oh thank God Shreya. I dunno what I’m gonna do!”

“What’s wrong Stac-“

“I think she’s dead!” Stacey screamed.

“What?! Who’s dead?!” I asked in alarm.

“Shreya you have to come over!” Stacey shouted almost in tears.

“Okay I’m leaving school now. I’ll be there in a little bit,” I said. I glanced down at my book and noticed that I hadn’t gotten past the second page of the first chapter.

SHREYA CHOPRA 13

Chapter 5

The air conditioning in the campus police building was broken more often than not and the temperature of the Cadet’s meeting room was approaching that of a sauna. Police Cadet Amy Chang sat in the center of the first row and was working through her fourth crossword puzzle of the morning.

“Early as usual Amy?” Cadet Jibs asked as he entered the room and took a seat next to her.

“Yeah, I’m hoping to get assigned to something other than paperwork for once,” Amy answered while filling in a lengthy row of empty boxes in the center of the puzzle.

“I don’t know Amy, as hot as it is outside, paperwork is sounding pretty good to me about now. That is, if they ever get the air conditioner fixed,” Jibs added with a smile that formed creases along the outer edges of his eyes.

Jibs and Amy’s heads turned towards the sound of boisterous laughter that was echoing down the hallway. Cadets Chad Davis, Rick Johnson and Tony Rozelli appeared in the doorway moments later with wide grins.

“No the Redskins are going to make some big moves in the offseason this year,” Rozelli said as the three of them filed into the room. “I’m telling you, next season they’re going deep into the playoffs, mark my words.”

“Yeah the offseason is the best time to be a Redskin’s fan,” Cadet Davis joked while taking a seat next to Johnson in the second row.

14 GREGORY POTHIER

Rozelli scoffed at Davis’s comment with a disdainful flex of his eyebrows. He approached the podium in the front of the room and cleared his throat. “Okay everyone, Officer Wendell is on vacation for the next few days so as Cadet Captain I will be in charge in the meantime. Weekly assignments, let’s do this quickly. Johnson, I want you on parking lot duty,” Rozelli said, running down the checklist on his clipboard.

“You got it,” Cadet Johnson said.

“Davis and Jibs, you will be assisting me with campus patrols as well as safety escorts,” Rozelli said.

Davis answered with a nod and leaned back in his chair.

“Amy, I want you taking care of paperwork here in the police building,” Rozelli said and checked off another box on his clipboard.

“Again?” Amy asked in a sour tone.

“Yes, again,” Rozelli answered impatiently. “Meeting is adjourned.”

Amy waited for Johnson and Davis to leave before approaching the Captain. “Cadet Rozelli,“ she began.

“It’s Cadet Captain Rozelli,” Rozelli answered with an air of self importance.

“Cadet Captain Rozelli, this is the third week I’ve been doing paperwork while the others get to be out in the field.”

“Noted,” Rozelli answered through a pair of thin lips.

“And?” Amy followed up, expecting more than just a dismissive one word answer.

SHREYA CHOPRA 15

“And……I will take it into consideration,” Rozelli answered with an indignant stare. He turned around to leave but Amy’s hand grabbed the side of his arm.

“I believe the Cadet rulebook states that duties are supposed to be rotated weekly. For every Cadet, not just the boys,” Amy said with force.

“What exactly are you insinuating Cadet Chang? You are unhappy with following my orders as Cadet Captain? You feel that I am mistreating you because of your gender?”

“I wasn’t saying that-“Amy said. Jibs stepped in between the two.

“Hey Rozelli, if it’s all the same you can assign Amy patrols and I’ll do the paperwork this week,” Jibs said in a diplomatic tone.

“No, I’m in charge and I’ll make the decisions. Unless you want to be on trash duty, I suggest you get going Cadet Jibs,” Rozelli said and then spun back around towards Amy.

“Okay Cadet Chang,” Rozelli lifted his clipboard up and clicked his pen. “You want a change? Then you got it. Down the hallway, second door on the left. You will find a Windex bottle, disinfectant spray and several rolls of paper towels.”

Rozelli crossed out Amy’s previous assignment and made a notation on the side of the paper. “You are now assigned to upkeep of the station. Unless of course, that isn’t gender appropriate enough for you. Are we clear?”

Amy bit her lip and lowered her stare down to the floor. “Yes, Cadet Captain Rozelli. We’re clear,” she repeated through clenched teeth.

16 GREGORY POTHIER

Chapter 6

I parked at the end of the Berg’s driveway around five in the afternoon and despite Stacey’s ominous message, I couldn’t help but notice that there were no ambulances or police cars. I followed the cobblestone pathway leading up to the Berg’s massive English Tudor home, wondering what the emergency was that required my immediate attention.

The front door swung open and I was greeted by a blonde girl with bright blue eyes. “Finally! C’mon I need your help,” Stacey Berg said.

I always pictured Stacey to be the lost lovechild of Cosmo-girl and OK! magazines. Her smile was a half shade away from absurdly white and her lips were always freshly glossed. Stacey was the column in the gossip magazine that I didn’t approve of but couldn’t put down.

“So what was the emergency again?” I asked as I followed Stacey through the Berg’s enormous marble foyer and up a winding staircase.

“Kewpie’s missing! She’s been gone all day and I can’t find her anywhere!” Stacey answered, her voice rising in desperation. Kewpie was Stacey’s fluffy white Pomeranian whose main objective in life seemed to be pooping in places that she wasn’t supposed to.

“You had me rush over here because of your dog?” I asked in annoyance. I reluctantly followed Stacey into her room and sat down on her bed which was littered with every color and style bikini imaginable. “Jeez Stacey how many bikinis do you own?”

SHREYA CHOPRA 17

Stacey’s eyes lit up. “I’m trying to pick out the perfect outfit for Mike’s party this weekend. But every time I decide on a look, I find another outfit that looks even cuter.”

I smiled and shook my head. Trouble with commitment was a recurring theme in Stacey’s academic, romantic, and personal lives.

“Have you decided what you’re going to wear yet Shreya?”

“Mike’s party?” I repeated with skepticism. “I don’t know if I’m going to have time…”

“Shreya, this is going to be the social event of the summer. You have to come, plus there’s gonna be tons of cute boys there so we can finally find you a new boyfriend,” Stacey said as her eyes grew wide in anticipation of playing matchmaker. “Unless you and Sahil are just taking another break and are going to get back together for the, what is it? Third time?,” Stacey asked as she modeled one of her outfits in the mirror.

“No, Sahil and I are over, for good. And I don’t know about this party. I kind of like the idea of being single for now,” I said.

“Okay so we walk into Mike’s party and spot a really cute boy by the pool. What do you do?” Stacey asked, ignoring my last comment as her hands waved around excitedly setting up the scenario.

“Umm, I go talk to him?” I said, giving a simple question the simple answer that it deserved.

“No Shreya!” Stacey shouted. “You can’t just walk up and talk to a boy, rule number five.”

“Rule number five?”

18 GREGORY POTHIER

“Yes rule number five. When you arrive at a party and see a boy with potential, you ignore him. Don’t even let him catch you making eye contact.”

“But if I’m interested wouldn’t I want to talk to him. How many rules are there anyways?” I asked.

Stacey held up five fingers and went down the list starting with her thumb. “The five rules to getting any boy you want. Rule number four, always be smiling.”

“What if I’m standing alone? I’d look pretty stupid standing there with a dumb smile on my face,” I countered, starting to feel like I was getting briefed on proper conduct for some imaginary beauty pageant.

“Rule number three,” Stacey continued with a roll of her eyes. “Never be alone, you always want to be in a group of people. Boys want what’s in demand and standing alone in the corner is definitely not in demand.”

“Rule number two is let him approach you when you’re with your friends. That way you have the upper hand and he is on the defensive. And rule number one, always leave him wanting more. Keep it short and sweet, and he’ll come running back for more,” Stacey said with a tilt of her head as if she could personally vouch for the validity of that rule.

“So I take it these five rules helped you get your boyfriend?” I asked.

“Which one?” Stacey said with a wide grin.

“Which one?! How many boyfriends do you have?”

Stacey leaned towards me, “Actually, I just walk up to the guy and tell him that I think he’s hot.”

“What?! Then why did you fill my head with all of these stupid rules?”

SHREYA CHOPRA 19

“Shreya, there’s the right way and then there’s the Stacey way. And you aren’t ready for the Stacey way yet, someone might get hurt.”

Chapter 7

I glanced at my watch, “Shouldn’t we be looking for Kewpie?”

Stacey’s bottom lip protruded and her eyes dimmed. “Aww Kepwie, c’mon let’s go see if we can find her.”

I followed Stacey down the hallway to her older brother Jay’s room. “Kewpie, are you in here Kewpie?” Stacey shouted while searching through his closet.

I didn’t feel comfortable going through Jay’s things, so I just scanned over the clutter along the top of his desk. I noticed four sets of casino cards and a briefcase full of chips. “He really likes playing cards,” I said.

“He goes to Vegas like once a month because he’s all into poker. I heard him and my mom get in a fight over it a couple nights ago. You know how they are, two type-A personalities so when they butt heads nobody in the house sleeps,” Stacey said with a chuckle.

There was a photo propped up on the corner of Jay’s desk of the Berg family from a few years ago. Jay, Stacey and their older sister Nicole stood in the front row while their parents, Robert and Nancy Berg, posed behind them with their arms wrapped around each other. Stacey made her way to the desk and peered over my shoulder.

20 GREGORY POTHIER

“The original Berg clan, before the accident,” Stacey whispered nostalgically. Robert Berg had passed away two years prior during a skiing accident in the French Alps with Jay and Nicole. Stacey was deathly afraid of airplanes and their mother couldn’t get the week off from the university, so they both stayed behind. Stacey always felt guilty that she hadn’t been there for her father, but the reality was that there was nothing she could have done even if she had been there.

“He was a handsome man, your father,” I said.

“Yeah, Jay looks more and more like him each day. You can really see the resemblance in the eyes.”

Stacey set the picture down and on our way out she stumbled over a canister of protein powder that had been lying on the floor.

“Oops, Jay’s going to be pissed if he finds out that I was in here,” Stacy said as she tried to rub the powder into obscurity between the carpet fibers. She picked up the protein powder and put it on the bottom shelf of his bookcase in between several canisters of workout supplements labeled “creatine”, “glucosamine” and a white powder in a glass canister with no identifying label. “I don’t think he’ll notice,” she whispered.

“Don’t forget to close the lights,” I reminded her from the hallway.

“Close the lights?” Stacey repeated with a laugh.

“You know what I mean,” I groaned. My Hinglish, or mixture of Hindi and English, never seemed to escape Stacey. She always caught when I mixed ‘on’ and ‘off’ with ‘open’ and ‘close’. Or God forbid I made the mistake of mixing my v’s and w’s. I’ll never forget the time I was helping her clean her room and I mentioned that “her

SHREYA CHOPRA 21 vacuum was vibrating very badly.” She called me Elmer Fudd for the next three weeks.

The search for the dog went on for a good hour and finally ended with the conciliatory notion that Kewpie would turn up sooner or later. Upon leaving the house I ran into Dr. Berg in the driveway and gave her a hand with her groceries.

“Hey Shreya long time no see,” Dr. Berg said with a smile. “We’re having spaghetti tonight if you want to stay for some dinner.”

“Oh thank you for the invitation but I have to be home by ten or my family will eat my head,” I answered.

“Okay hon, well we don’t want that. I’ll see you tomorrow in class,” Dr. Berg said. She started towards the house but paused at the front door. “Shreya your family is from India’s capital right?”

“Yes, Delhi,” I answered.

“If you have a few minutes after class tomorrow I have something I’d like to show you, it’d be nice to get your feedback.”

“Oh, sure. I don’t know how much help I can be though, I haven’t been there in so long. I also have to study at the library and then have bhangra dance class after that so...”

“No problem. I’m keeping the items in my teacher lockbox on the top floor of the library so we can go there together after class. Have a good night Shreya.”

“You too.”

22 GREGORY POTHIER

Chapter 8

I walked into my house around nine and upon opening the door was greeted with the overwhelming smell of curry and spices. My mother’s voice called out from the kitchen, “Hey Shreya, can you help us out in here?”

I dropped my bag at the front door and took a seat at the kitchen table. My mother, Lakshmi, and Neeru auntie were in full busy mode. They were preparing for the arrival of my older brother, Arjun, who was scheduled to take a break from his medical school studies at Stanford to visit over the Fourth of July weekend. Arjun was the gifted one of the family, he was everything my parents could ever want in a child and I almost questioned if they had him genetically engineered while still in the womb.

“Look who came home early tonight,” my mother said. She pulled some garam masala out of the cupboard. “What were there no parties going on or anything?” she asked sharing a smile with Neeru auntie who was laying out peppercorns and bay leaves on the counter.

“Mummy I don’t go to parties every night,” I answered sarcastically. “I was at Stacey’s house, she lost her dog and I was helping her look for her.”

“Stacey’s house again? You are spending a lot of time with this Stacey girl,” my mother lectured.

“Mummy today was the first time I’ve seen Stacey in like a month,” I said.

SHREYA CHOPRA 23

“Well can you make use of yourself and grab two onions out of the fridge and start chopping? Your brother’s flight lands early Thursday morning and I expect you to come with us to the airport.”

“Mummy we’ve been over this already, I have class Thursday morning and I can’t just skip it to go to the airport.”

“Oh do you hear that Neeru, she can’t afford to skip one class now. Since when did you become the scholar, I take it you come home so late because you are in class all day right?” My mother asked as she scrubbed her hands with lavender scented soap in the sink.

Too tired to argue, I just rolled my eyes and started slicing the onions on the table. I was always given the task of onion duty as I was the only family member immune to crying from the strong smell.

In the pooja room positioned across the kitchen, I saw Krishna smiling at me from his perched position. After dropping the sliced onions on the counter and washing my hands, I made my way into the living room. My father was reclined on a lazy boy chair watching television and my little brother Rishi was seated on the neighboring sofa.

“What’s up with the horse shoe picture in my book bag?” I asked as I plopped down on the sofa next to Rishi.

“The lizard was facing your bedroom this morning,” Rishi said, his eyes never leaving the television set. Rishi had a small frame, but his imagination was limitless. A few years back he started to focus on various superstitions like performing tasks an even number of times. At first it seemed like a phase that he would grow out of but over the years Rishi seemed to fully embrace his practices, and the list of them grew almost daily.

24 GREGORY POTHIER

Our parents never outwardly condoned or challenged his behavior but I was suspicious that my little brother might be exhibiting early signs of obsessive compulsive disorder. Any opportunity I may have had to confront my parents about it was snuffed out thanks to one phone call two years earlier.

On the night of July 7, 2007 our house phone rang and Rishi reacted by performing a new ritual that was supposed to give great wealth to whomever the call was for. He ran to the phone and before our father had a chance to answer, Rishi snapped his fingers in the air above the receiver and then to the left and right of it. Our father looked at him with an inquisitive smile and Rishi explained that he just ushered in an opportunity for wealth that could only be performed on 7/7/07.

Sanjay picked up the phone and to his surprise, his attorney on the other end informed him that a medical malpractice suit that he was involved in was being dropped. Our father’s jaw hit the floor at the sound of this and so did the receiver to the phone. He looked down at his son in amazement. Rishi just stood there with a knowing smile on his face as Sanjay leaned down and lifted him up into the air and shouted, “Lakshmi! We have a special boy here!”

From then on, Rishi was allowed, and often encouraged, to exercise his ‘gift’.

My father paused as he flipped to the Bollywood Movie Channel and motioned towards the television screen. “See Rishi, in the background? That’s Feroz Shah Kotla. I played a cricket match there when I was about your age.”

Feeling tired and a bit like the third wheel, I headed upstairs to my room.

SHREYA CHOPRA 25

Chapter 9

I logged onto my computer and checked my email. There were 30 notifications on my facebook account and I went through the daily routine of sorting through the spam. My friend Tandeep was asking what my plans were for the Fourth of July. Another message from my cousins in Houston saying they missed me. There were eight more requests from random people, mostly boys that I didn’t know, and the final message was from Sahil. I let out a groan.

After our breakup, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to delete Sahil from all of my friend’s lists. My initial reaction to discovering that he cheated on me was to erase all communication with him, and it probably would have felt emotionally liberating to just ‘x’ him off forever. A bold action proving that I was moving on with my life.

But it was more complicated than that, we had so many friends in common and I didn’t want to be the one who started a tug of war between them. I also didn’t want to seem like the spiteful girlfriend who was spending all of her time deliberating on what to do about him, because as long as my thoughts were on Sahil then it felt like he still had control over me.

I finally decided that the best course of action was to keep him as a friend and move on with my life as if he didn’t matter enough to elicit an action. I was starting to regret this decision however, as I was being bombarded on a daily basis by his news feeds, his photo posts and his comments. I always thought that technology was supposed

26 GREGORY POTHIER to make life easier, but in many ways it just seemed to complicate things.

I immediately moved the cursor over the ‘x’ to delete the message from Sahil but something made me stop. After a few seconds of deliberation, I allowed myself to succumb to my own curiosity and my finger double clicked the mouse, opening the message.

Inside was a photo taken of Sahil and I on the last Fourth of July in DC under the fireworks. The picture itself was classic Shreya-Sahil, both of us were sporting exuberant smiles as he playfully tugged on my shirt from behind.

My gaze trailed off into the wall and my eyes filled with tears as I remembered how happy he used to make me.

Chapter 10

Norah’s eyes squinted open in the darkness and she was immediately besieged by the worst headache of her young life. With each passing pulse, it felt like a nail was being hammered deeper into her temples.

Norah suddenly recalled the struggle in her room, the lights going out, and the attacker wearing the gas mask.

I’m still alive, she realized in a transient daze. My God, he didn’t kill me.

Norah felt overwhelmed by the urge to get out of her house and seek help, but when she tried to sit up her forehead slammed into something hanging just above her.

SHREYA CHOPRA 27

Her head fell back to the ground and she let out a moan, her mind swirling between dizzy spells and pain. Norah extended a hand into the darkness above her, trying to identify what her forehead had collided with. To her surprise, her fingers brushed up against a flat panel resting just a foot above her.

“What in the world?” Norah whispered. Her hands traced their way along the flat board that hovered over her in the darkness. She tried to extend her arms on either side of her, but discovered in horror that she was boxed in by two flat panels.

Norah’s heart started to race and she pushed her hands forcefully against the paneling, desperately searching for some way out. Norah’s whispering cries turned into screams when she realized that she wasn’t in her room at all.

She wasn’t even in her house.

She was lying in a coffin, she had been buried alive.