‘Yeah no, I don’t do drugs. My mom’s a cocaine addict.’ Woah. I peered at her, trying to keep my face free of expression. It was a challenge. Did these crazy Americans just say whatever was on their minds? Was this just how people talked here? Should I just blurt out the fact that I’m afraid I’ve inherited the trait for manic depressiveness from my grand-aunt or that I sometimes spend the whole night pressing drops of blood on to squares of toilet paper, creating a thick pile of little Japanese flags by morning? I decided to wait and continued to listen as she talked about being the mother in her relationship with her mom, and how she had seen shots of cocaine transform the vibrant young woman of her childhood memories into a shaking tremble of a woman. They had taken her for yet another jab at rehab the day Nicole left for college, and the last thing she saw of home was the door of her grandmother’s van closing on her mother, waving goodbye to her in a bright yellow sundress.

No one said anything. Sticks of awkwardness were beating a drum of silence. Ta da dum, ta da dum.

‘Oh no! Um, so was that hard on you? Growing up and stuff, I mean, you know . . .’ I trailed off, feeling stupid. Why didn’t one of the others say something? Ziggy had stayed around, obviously. No guy ever left the room voluntarily when Nicole was in it. I resented their silence, because I was new and didn’t know how to respond to it. The worst secret I’d heard so publicly divulged in India was a classmate saying she had menstrual cramps. And even then, some of the stick-up-their-asses products of my convent school had tittered disapprovingly at that oh-so-shocking admission. Still, I was intrigued. I wanted to hear more, to find out as much as possible about this beautiful crack baby.

3.18 in the afternoon, and the world had been pitched into darkness. The rain drummed a disheartening drone and, struggling through a sodden campus to class, I wondered again why these crazy Americans insisted on functioning normally during such bad weather. Where I come from—that bribed, lazy, communism-stained state of West Bengal—a drop of rain or a squabble amongst political nobodies is enough reason for everything to come to a standstill.