When Prachi’s eyes landed on me curiously, I felt hot.

“There’s one woman at my office,” my mother said, poised above the dal ladle, too enraptured in her story to interrogate me. Her mangalsutra swayed from her neck, that gold chain signifying her status as sturdily married. I thought of all that was invested in that necklace, of the artisan who had made it, shaping it to be a blessing conferred upon the wedding, and of all the signifiers of domestic security that had agglomerated upon it through my parents’ long union. I imagined Anjali Auntie unclasping it and coiling it onto her tongue.

“Katherine,” my mother continued. “American lady. Says she’s a Christian-only but she’s lived with three men. Meets them at bars. Can’t keep one around. Then asks me so sweetly so innocently if I had one arranged marriage like she should feel so sad for me.”

“Anita won MTI southeast,” Prachi put in disconsolately. “She’ll be prepping for nationals now.”

My sister was eternally gloomy these days, having had her early application to Duke deferred; she’d been hanging in limbo since winter, and was terrified the definitive rejection was coming in a matter of weeks. Prachi now made a habit of tallying up other brown girls’ victories in her own personal loss column: Anita had a shot at MTI nationals; Imrana Ansari, one of Prachi’s frenemies from the dance team, had won a national essay-writing competition. Worst was Gita Menon, the former Scripps National Spelling Bee runner-up from Northview High School, who had gotten her Duke acceptance in December, taking the one slot Prachi was sure had been hers.

“Aloo,” my father said, reaching for the mushy potatoes.

“Let Anita Dayal prance about. Nothing to be jealous. We are very proud of you,” my mother said.

Preparation for the national pageant—to be held in New Jersey in April—was, as Prachi surmised, keeping Anita busy. Plus, this spring, she was playing tennis and tutoring English as a second language, while also finally turning the chicken biscuit sales into Habitat for Humanity houses. All this kept her late at school and brought her inside the perimeter on weekends.

Sometimes I held the hoops I’d taken from her nightstand in my palm. I wondered what they—she—would taste like. If I could smelt down her powers and mysteries and take them as my own. But for now, I stowed the earrings in my wallet, behind my learner’s permit, where they would remain for a long time.

STUDENTS ON THE HONORS TRACK met with the college counselor once at the start of their sophomore spring. I plodded over to Mrs. Latimer’s office on the ground floor of Okefenokee High School one morning and sat in the hallway, waiting for her to finish another meeting.