“No, wait, Manu, you won’t believe this either—”
Prachi had inherited our mother’s love of gossip as we grew up. For us it was safe territory, untarnished by my views on her work in Big Tech （which I found repugnant, reminiscent of the inequality I studied） or hers on mine in academia （which she saw as a kind of performative hunger strike）。 Each time we saw each other, we ran through roll calls of acquaintances. So-and-so had become an angel investor, so-and-so a gastroenterologist, so-and-so a federal judiciary clerk. Many were engaged; some were spawning biracial, caramel children. This was what we had in common now, the general web that had formed us.
“Anita!” Prachi was shouting. “Total throwback, right?”
I swallowed my cheese too fast, began to cough, downed half a sparkling water, burped. Avi wandered into the kitchen, having finished his phone call.
“Anita-Anita?” I said.
“Anita Dayal?” Manu said.
“That name rings a bell,” Maya said.
“This is our old neighbor,” Prachi said, updating Avi. “Pranesh Dayal’s kid, actually.”
“Pranesh Dayal?” Chidi looked up suddenly. “That guy who sold the smart devices company last year for a fuckload?”
Avi and Chidi struck up a side conversation about Pranesh Uncle, which Keya joined. I heard her say, “Wait, do you think he’s investing now?”
“Neer, you in touch with Anita at all?” Manu asked.
I shook my head. San Francisco is a small town, as is upper-middle-class Asian America. I’d been reencountering Hammond Creek transplanted into the Bay Area for years. There was Manu, and old Ravi Reddy, once expelled to Hyderabad, who’d resurfaced as a back-end engineer and was vocal about his “ethically nonmonogamous lifestyle” whenever I bumped into him. Wendi Zhao—whom I’d dated intermittently in college—headed west after graduating Harvard Law, logging time as a patent troll. I’d even swiped right on Melanie Cho on a dating app once, to no avail. Though we’d grown up in a no-place, the privilege and ambition incubated in that no-place had driven many of us to the place where so many with privilege and ambition flocked. But Anita, who I knew had attended Stanford and stuck around out here since, had remained steadfastly hidden, as though she did not wish to be found.
At least, not by me.
“I’ve seen her a few times,” Manu said. “She was working at Galadriel Ventures for a couple of years, doing PR or marketing or events. I ran into her at a demo day she was organizing. She seemed, I don’t know, different.”
“Different how?” I asked.
“Calmer, maybe?”
Manu’s mouth was still open, considering, when Hae-mi snapped her fingers and pointed at Maya. “She was a few years below us at Stanford, dated Jimmy Bansal! Ooh, I bet he helped her get that Galadriel job—”
“Didn’t they break up?” Maya said doubtfully.
“Mm, yes, they totally did, at least once, but weren’t they on and off?” Hae-mi said. “I remember one of the breakups because it was our commencement and she just kept calling Jimmy over and over, freaking. I think she dropped out after that, actually.”
“Anita dropped out of college?” I inhaled sharply, now turning from Manu, who still hadn’t answered my first question. “Like, the way start-up people drop out?”
Hae-mi looked at me pityingly. “No, not like the way start-up people drop out. I put her down as a case of classic duck syndrome.”
“Duck what?” Prachi said.
“Duck syndrome,” Maya said. “You know, someone who looks all calm and crushing it above water, but really they’re paddling like crazy underneath to stay afloat?”
Prachi shrugged, as though the concept were foreign; school had come easily to her, and professional life welcomed her gracefully. If she’d suffered trauma （I still remembered the sporadic bulimia on which I’d eavesdropped through high school） she generally refused to reflect on it. I’d always thought time eventually forced even the most practical people to introspect. But my sister had cheerfully attenuated her inner life with each year.
Everyone else hmmed in recognition, though.
“You didn’t talk to her at all?” I asked Prachi.
“Took me a second to place her. And I was covered in all these fabrics. Anyway, if she’s wedding shopping now, she must be doing okay,” she said. Which was, of course, so like my sister’s particular understanding of happiness. “Don’t give me that look, Neil, I just mean, that’s an expensive store, so she must be doing well for herself.”