Rachel’s tiny studio apartment in South Slope was astronomical in price, but the kitchen was wonderful. Adam had joked that she was insane to rent it, with her precious loan money, because when does a culinary school student want to cook at home? But she did. Her hours at the school were long, and the freelance work she had taken on on the side, advising other food companies about their business development opportunities, kept her busy, but still, she cooked, whenever she could. She made Thai curries and Persian pulaos and cut butter into pie crusts. She roasted bones for broth and captured yeast for a sourdough starter and bathed poultry in brines and milk baths, as if each chicken were Cleopatra. She cooked everything she could, everything she had learned and wanted to learn. She failed, and tried, and failed, and knew in her many failures that this, this was what she wanted, a life of effort.
She emailed Dhruv monthly, and told him of her work, and he was confused, and proud of her. Their divorce proceedings would be over soon, and she had asked for nothing from him. She didn’t feel that she deserved it, and he didn’t protest. He told her of his life in Mumbai and described the women he was meeting for an arranged marriage. She knew that when he met one he liked, their conversations would end, but she would feel secure that he was getting what he wanted, the way she already had, and that gave her a deep sense of quiet joy.
All week she took classes, and then, on Sundays, she took another kind of class. Now she sat, waiting for the tinny sound of the Skype call. When it came, she smiled and accepted. As usual, all she saw at first was a nose, then a pair of eyes, and then the whole face emerged.
“Good evening, Swati.”
“Good morning, Rachel.”
They smiled at each other. Rachel thought of her grandmother, decades ago, leaving a place and never going back. Now you could go in any direction and still hold on to something that you needed from behind you.
Swati was wearing a stylishly cut short-sleeved kurta. She looked chic, and vibrant, and Indian, in a modern way. She would show Rachel her purchases sometimes, sending her photos from dressing rooms and asking Rachel to weigh in. She planned her shopping trips around Rachel’s waking hours, and both of them found themselves unexpectedly enjoying the act of shopping together. That first trip, to buy pillows and dal, seemed so long ago and far away to Rachel now.
“How are you?” Rachel asked.
Swati grinned. “Well. I had my kitty party yesterday. They have kicked Bunny out of it.”
“My goodness. What a bunch of cats.” Rachel grinned.
“Apparently no one liked her much. They had been keeping her there for me. Now that I am back, she goes.”
“Bye-bye, Bunny!”
“And speaking of, you’ll never guess. Do you remember Arjun?” Swati blushed when she said his name.
Rachel rolled her eyes. “No. Remind me.”
“Oh, well, he and I—”
“I obviously remember the person you joined with, Swati! What about him?”
“He’s had another affair. An air hostess he met. They say he just has them to throw it in his parents’ faces, daring them to cut him off.”
“Perhaps they should.”
“He is a coward, I think. Waiting for someone else to make his decisions for him,” Swati said, her voice a little sad, a little fond.
“Well. Luckily we’re not like that, are we?” Rachel asked.
“No. We are not.” Swati smiled widely on the we.
“And what else?”
“Same, same. I brought Vinod dinner yesterday. I tried something new, a steamed gourd preparation from Kerala.” Rachel had tried to get Swati to try some of the things she was making in school, but the most Swati would do was things from other parts of India. “He is well. A little lonely. I told him he should try to date someone.”
“Maybe you can give him pointers,” Rachel said. Swati rolled her eyes. “You’re an expert.”
“Hush. Enough of this. What are we making tonight?”
“It’s up to you,” Rachel said. Swati always pretended that she wasn’t sure what they would make, as if she didn’t have a plan and a set of ingredients standing by, as if she hadn’t already told Rachel what she would need at home before their Skype session. Rachel enjoyed it; it was like an interactive cooking show.
“Let’s make some chutneys. They are not all so simple as they seem. They use the scraps of things, and become something better than what they came from. Let’s try a recipe my mother gave me. I do not know how it will be. It is old, but I have never made it.”
“So it’s new, in a way,” Rachel said.
Swati smiled. “New, and old. I do not know if I will do it well. But I will try. You learn as you do,” Swati said.
Rachel nodded. You learn as you do.
And so, mirror images of each other from across the world, they took pieces of other things, other parts of themselves, of their lives, of the meals they had made and the things they loved, and apart, together, they made something new.