Hirsh Sawhney - South Haven

“Why wait?” said Mohan Lal.

Ms. Farber folded her arms across her chest. She peered up at the sky. “Well, the bills for one thing. Insurance, taxes.”

Mohan Lal told her to make a good business plan and take a calculated risk. He said that it was a proven fact that the universe rewards risk takers. Siddharth was dying to tell his father to mind his own business. But he didn’t want Ms. Farber to get the wrong impression about them, so he just bit his lip and stared out the window. He also kept his mouth shut whenever Mohan Lal complained about his own job, which he did with more frequency as autumn turned to winter.

Mohan Lal wouldn’t shut up about his dean, and he even bored Ms. Farber with the details of the dean’s new book. In this book, the man argued that new advertising specifically designed for children would mold them into more productive citizens. Mohan Lal wanted to publish a paper refuting him, one that exposed the corruption of the FCC under the Reagan administration. “It’s the corporations,” he said. “The government used to protect youngsters from the Madison Avenue serpents, but then the corporations got into Reagan’s bed, and poof —everything vanished. Mark my words, Ms. Farber, there will be consequences. These bloody advertisers will undermine the intelligence of an entire generation.”

Having heard these diatribes hundreds of times, Siddharth sat there digging his fingers into his temples. Normal people didn’t use words like bloody or serpent . He wished his father would try to be more normal.

* * *

They pulled in front of Marc’s brick house just before noon, and the mere sight of it filled him with adrenaline. Mohan Lal said he would walk him to the door, but Siddharth told him not to bother. “I’m not five, Dad. Ms. Farber’s a busy woman. Leave her alone.” Kissing his father on the shoulder, he jogged up Marc’s front steps, where a few unread newspapers were stacked in a messy pile. Mohan Lal reversed out of the driveway when Marc came to the door. He gave Siddharth a high five and told him to take off his shoes. “Rachel finally mopped the floors. We don’t want her going ape shit on us.”

“Where is she?” asked Siddharth.

“My mom? Being a loser.”

Marc led him to the family room, which formed one enormous, uninterrupted space with the sleek, modern kitchen. He sat down to finish up a video game, something with guns and jungles. Siddharth didn’t mind video games, but there was no point in competing with Marc. So he just sat quietly, swallowed by the plush leather sofa. He stared at his new friend, who was frenetically pressing the controller’s buttons while jerking, rocking, and swearing. Marc was wearing sweatpants, but the cool kind with zips down the side. His bangs dangled over his eyes, which today seemed red and small. Had he been crying?

Marc defeated the second level of his game and threw his controller onto the rug. “Yo, let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. “I need to smoke something.”

Siddharth’s chest tightened with a mixture of fear and excitement. Marc had talked about smoking before, but he had never actually seen him do it. They walked down the corridor toward the bedrooms. Siddharth sometimes got lost staring at the paintings that lined this wide, carpeted hallway, many of which were Ms. Farber’s creations. Some of her paintings contained just a few splotches of color that had clearly been applied with a sponge, and they looked like something a child could have done. He knew that people considered this stuff art, but he’d never understood why. His mother had said that it was a case of the emperor’s new clothes. When Marc had once caught him gawking at the artwork, he said, “Yeah, Rachel’s a real Picasso. If this stuff starts selling, we’re gonna be loaded.” Siddharth had cocked his head to one side, unsure if his friend was joking. Marc grabbed his arm and gave him a shake. “I’m just fucking with you,” he said. “Dude, you gotta lighten up.”

Marc paused in front of Ms. Farber’s door and knocked. “What?” she said, her voice gruff and tired. Marc pulled the handle down and stepped inside. Siddharth remained in the hallway, his back up against a small patch of the wall that didn’t contain any paintings. He saw Ms. Farber sitting up in bed watching some soap opera. He’d been inside her bedroom a couple of times, when Marc needed money or was looking for a video. It had puffy pink curtains and shiny white furniture. Yet today it was dark. Ms. Farber was usually so neat and tidy, but he glimpsed clothes and papers strewn all over the tan carpeting. The oddest thing was that the room smelled like smoke. He felt like an ass for not having noticed that Ms. Farber was a smoker.

“Twenty bucks, please,” said Marc, the palm of his hand hovering near his mother’s face.

“For what?” she replied.

“To be a good host,” said Marc. “The young fella would like a little ice cream.”

She turned toward Siddharth. “Oh, hi honey.”

“Hello.” He waved and smiled, trying to give the impression that everything was fine.

“You’ll have to excuse me today,” she said. “I’m just a little under the weather.”

“Really, Rachel?” said Marc. He pulled an envelope of bills from her bedside drawer. “What do you got? A cold? A cough? I’m curious about the diagnosis.”

Ignoring him, Ms. Farber turned down the volume. “Sid, honey,” she said, “I need to rest a little. But help yourself to anything. Please — make yourself at home.”

The boys headed out to the garage, which never failed to mesmerize Siddharth. His own garage was disgusting and boring, filled with cobwebs, rusty rakes, and rotting firewood, but this one was spotless and contained numerous cool contraptions. Tools and saw blades hung from the walls, and the ground was filled with neat rows of hockey sticks, volleyball nets, and rollerblades. Marc had two bikes, a fancy BMX that he had built for himself and a ten-speed mountain bike that Siddharth usually rode. Marc started putting air into the mountain bike’s tires but after three pumps paused and gave him a look.

“What’s up?” said Siddharth. Marc seemed annoyed, and Siddharth wondered if he’d done something wrong. Marc opened his mouth to say something but then resumed his pumping. “What is it?” asked Siddharth.

“Nothing.” Marc was shaking his head. “But now you see what I gotta live with.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean my mom. She gets sick almost every single week. She should be in the Guinness Book of World Records —the only woman who gets her period four times a month.”

“Dude,” said Siddharth, “she’s your mom.”

“So? What’s your point?”

“My point?” Siddharth wanted to say so many things. He wanted to tell Marc that it was wrong to talk about his own mother like that — that he would regret it when she died one day. He wanted to know if something was really wrong with Ms. Farber. Was she really like this all the time? But he didn’t want to ruin his sleepover. “I don’t have a point. I just don’t wanna hear about her freaking period.”

* * *

A subtle wind tickled Siddharth’s ears as they rode through the sand-covered streets of Woodford. His nose started to run. He wiped it on the sleeve of his quilted blue jacket, which had once belonged to Arjun. It seemed like his day with Marc was going well. He just hoped he hadn’t messed things up by saying that thing about Ms. Farber’s period. They flew down a steep hill, and the combination of cold and adrenaline slowed his mind. He loved riding through Woodford, which was so much nicer than South Haven. It had more Jews than Italians, and they had much bigger houses. Their yards were the size of entire parks, and they contained trees that were as tall as the Twin Towers. The boys rode by Siddharth’s favorite home, which was separated from the street by a stone wall and remote-controlled gate. Its three stories had five large columns that made it look awesome — like the White House, or the mansion from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air . A few minutes later, they arrived at a deli located in a red wooden building at a large but quiet intersection. They got off their bikes, leaning them against a dust-covered freezer in which bags of ice were stored.