I was on a mad dash for a samosa when Sanjay walked into Aunty Roma’s, a pudgy, red-haired girl in tow.

“Hey, Sheels,” he said, clumsily embracing me. “This is Gayle, she’s a resident from Moscow.” A red-haired Russian resident in Reston—who would have thought!

“I haven’t ever been to Thanksgiving, so Sanj was nice enough to invite me,” Gayle piped in with less of an accent than most of the people present. Strange—Sanjay always told me that, aside from his mother, I was the only person allowed to call him Sanj. “And I’m just so thrilled to finally meet you, Sheila.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” I said, confused by her use of the word “finally.” Why hadn’t Sanjay ever mentioned Gayle? I thought I knew all of his friends. “Is Gayle a common name in Russia?” I said, blurting the first innocuous thing that came to mind.

She giggled. “Oh no, no. It’s short for my real name.” Full stop.

“Oh, what’s your real name?”

“Ludmila.”

“How nice,” I responded, bypassing the obvious question. “How long have you been here?”

“Twenty years.”

Twenty days, twenty weeks, twenty months, even, and I’d have understood the “from Russia” introduction—but twenty years?

“Mrs. Kapur!” Ludmila said, leaping at Sanjay’s mother and leaving the two of us alone.

“Look, Sheels,” he started.

“Don’t call me Sheels,” I interrupted. “We are currently not friends and only my friends call me Sheels, Sanj.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Sheila. Look I’m sorry about last night. You just have to understand the life of a physician.” Just as I despised when lawyers referred to themselves as attorneys, I found it equally repulsive when doctors called themselves physicians. It felt like an undeserved promotion. “It’s just that—”

Matthew joined us, extending his hand. “Hey. You must be Sanjay. I’m Matthew.”

“Oh, hi,” Sanjay replied awkwardly. “It’s nice to meet you . . . finally.”

Aunty Roma shrilled—saved by the bell. It was time to eat.

The three of us passed Charlie, who was holding court with a pack of bejeweled aunties.

“At Harvard . . .” Giggles all around. He was playing the Ivy League card, a pathetic move even for Charlie. Indians, like Jews, Koreans, Lithuanians, and every other immigrant community, worshipped the Ivy. Don’t get me wrong—WASPs love Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as much as their immigrant compatriots, but given how common it is for them to make it into the Ivy, it’s more expected than adulated. Just then, Charlie popped a chutney-laden pakora in his small mouth, took a sip from his piña colada (all the aunties drank them), and proclaimed: “Then, my second year at Harvard, I got really into Hinduism.” Charlie beamed. The aunties cooed their way to the dining room.