We had left the heavy smell of sweet-and-sour chutney and spicy air behind. The sand was cool, and the breeze was as soft as a caress.

That night in bed, I played the walk over and over in my head until I’d memorized every single moment on the beach. If I studied like this for my exams I’d get excellent marks, I told myself.

A week later, when Sarina was visiting, Mummy told her, “I don’t know what art you have, but you’ve certainly transformed Jeeta. Her tongue is not dipped in honey yet, but it isn’t biting and hissing all the time. It satisfies me. It will serve her well.”

“In her in-laws’ house,” I said under my breath, because I knew that’s what Mummy meant. But of course she wouldn’t say that to Sarina.

Sarina answered, “My family and I enjoy Jeeta as much as she enjoys us.” Then she served a delicious slice of her smile.

From head to heart, Mummy was hers.

Of course I hadn’t mentioned Neel to Mummy, but I wished I’d told Mohini about Neel before she left.

Once February ended and March had rolled to the middle, the sun was as bright and harsh as a shaved scalp. The heat was becoming unbearable now, and it was such a relief to go to Sarina’s house and have an air-conditioned place in which to study. Around six in the evening the breeze from the ocean would begin to blow, and it felt wonderfully cool on the veranda.

It was the height of the green mango season, and Mummy made sour-and-hot mango pickles with a paste of mustard, fenugreek, and Kashmiri red peppers: and sweet mango pickles with sugar, ground cumin, and cinnamon sticks. I tasted the hot ones as if they were dabs of the fiery sun, and tasted the sweet ones as if they were rivers of honey with the logs of cinnamon floating away. After dinner I sucked on the cinnamon sticks that had simmered in the pickles. They were milder and softer.

The following weekend Mummy sent two jars of pickles with me to Sarina’s house.

As exams got nearer Neel came over more and more. He had a unique way of learning. He studied something, then closed his books, shut his eyes, and sat like a statue. When I asked him what he was doing, he replied, “After I finish, I have to think about what I’ve read.”

“Why?”

“It helps me digest it.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“My brain gets stuffed up.”

The closer it got to exam time, the less he studied.