“That’s how it starts, you know,” she scolded.

“That’s how what starts?”

“Lafra, affairs, scandals.”

“You have it all wrong. You’re the pretty one and the smile is for you.”

“I wish you could see your face right now.”

“My face? What’s wrong with it?” I said, wiping my cheeks.

“Everything is bright and beaming about it.”

I could feel my ears turning red. “Don’t you think he was something?” I asked.

“I guess so.”

“You guess so? Tell me five men you know that are better looking than him.”

“How about Ishan?” Last summer Hema Auntie’s brother, Ishan, had come to visit her. He had stayed for a month in the summer, but I had completely forgotten about him. I was surprised Mohini remembered him.

“He was good-looking, but too old.”

“For you, maybe,” Mohini said. Her eyes were all dreamy, as if Ishan were standing right in front of her.

“You mean he is the right age for you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You can have Ishan and I’ll have this new boy.”

“We’re not going to have either one of them. Like Nimita, we’ll have to choose from the ones Mummy picks out.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

I wondered what other boys Mohini had liked in all these years. Did Nimita and she talk about Ishan? Had they met any other boys when they walked to college?

The first boy I liked was Kunal, who lived in our building. Even though I had known him all my life, right before my thirteenth birthday, something happened to me. From then on, when I saw him my heart started pounding as if I had run up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. Every afternoon I stood by the window when it was time for him to come home from school. I dreamed about what I would say to him if I accidentally met him on the stairs. This lasted for two years until Kunal moved to another city to attend college.

For the last couple of years there had been a few boys that I’d liked, but no one had stood out like Kunal, until today. On the way home I kept thinking, was the boy that smiled as handsome as I thought he was? Would he be there tomorrow? And if he was, should I smile at him first? If I saw him at the pool every day, then swimming was going to be my most favorite thing to do, for sure.

The next day, and the day after, and the day after, Mohini didn’t scold me for smiling at the stranger.

On the weekends the pool had other activities and we didn’t go swimming. Those days were as bleached out and colorless as the summer sky.

“Do you want to see a movie?” Mohini asked.