Usually, she was the one who’d helped him with schoolwork. Mostly because he refused to go to anyone in his family with it, ever. But that day Yash was supposed to help her memorize a monologue, and he’d been busy. She’d been struggling with the grammar. Vansh, barely in school, and zipping around the Anchorage on his skates, had told her to focus on the story and not the words. It had worked. She’d gotten an A.

Vansh told her mother she looked beautiful as always in his unaccented Hindi, and Mummy blushed from head to toe.

Naina’s own Hindi was all mixed up with Punjabi and English and barely recognizable. The rest of Vansh’s siblings didn’t speak but understood Marathi. Ashna and Esha had spent their early years in Sripore and spoke Marathi too.

“Hello hello, Vansh beta,” Mummy said, tittering with delight. “Sorry, I got too swept up in how beautiful my Naina is looking. Very beautiful, no?”

Vansh grinned at Naina as if to say, See! Then, turning to Mummy again, he said, “You’re right. She’s exactly Deepika in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. Same-to-same.”

Naina stomped his toe, which was easy to do without her mother’s noticing under her full floor-length ghagra. To his credit, he hid his wince well and treated her to the abundant force of his dimples.

She was immune. How many times did she have to tell him that? She was immune.

“That is what I am also thinking.” Her mother plucked a piece of thread hanging from the short blouse on Naina’s bare waist. A remnant of Naina’s last-minute DIY alteration by ripping the too-tight blouse’s seams open. “When you really do get engaged, I will have another one made that will slap this one in face. It will, in fact, slap in face all ghagras all brides have ever worn.” Mummy slid a meaningful look at Vansh. As though he were responsible for the fact that Naina’s sagai ka joda had never made it to her sagai, completely ignoring the fact that Vansh had nothing to do with the engagement’s never taking place.

Naina smoothed her hair even though there was enough product on it that not a strand had budged. She’d pulled it back into a French braid and tucked the short ends under. She missed her long hair and couldn’t wait for it to grow back. How stupid was she that she’d thought cutting it to match India’s and trying to pass as her in the pictures the paparazzi had taken of Yash and India kissing in public would help save Yash’s campaign?