Free Serving Crazy With Curry by Amulya Malladi Page B

“Don't talk to strangers. If you do, your picture will show up here and we won't know where you are.”
    “Did the bus for San Jose leave?” the man asked politely, and Devi shrugged. She didn't have an answer to his question and she didn't want to talk to him.
    “Where are you going, young lady?” the man asked.
    Devi wondered if she should tell him and then decided against it. If she told him, he might follow her and then what? She didn't want her face to show up on the back of a milk carton for everyone to see.
    “Do your parents know where you're off to?” the man asked, and this time Devi all but bolted.
    “They know,” she said a in a low voice, looking at her sneaker-clad feet.
    “I'm Father Velazquez, what's your name?” he asked.
    Devi bit her lip hard, contemplating whether to tell him who she was or not. She looked up at him and he had a kind face. His skin was almost as brown as hers and he wore thick glasses. His black coat and white collar didn't look threatening the way she imagined Father Thomas's would look.
    “Shobha,” she lied after a while.
    “Shobha,” Father Velazquez said and nodded. “So, Shobha, where are you going?”
    “Away,” Devi confessed finally.
    “Where?”
    “I don't know,” she told him and then licked her dry lips. “Are you a father from a church?”
    “Yes,” he said. “Do you go to church?”
    “No,” Devi said, shaking her head. “Mama says that only Christians go to church. We go to the temple. We're Hindus and Mama does
puja
at home.”
    “Do you like going to the temple?” he asked then.
    Devi shrugged and after a pause asked the question burning on her tongue. “Do you know Father Thomas?”
    Father Velazquez screwed his eyes and waited for her to continue.
    “Dylan told me that Father Thomas called me a brownie slut…” she stopped speaking because her lips were quivering. She could feel the bubble of humiliation rise inside her and spill out of her eyes.
    “Shobha,” the reverent priest began, “it's a very bad thing to lie. You know that, don't you?”
    “Yes,” she sniffled.
    “Then Dylan did a very bad thing,” Father Velazquez told her. “Father Thomas would never call anyone that ugly word.”
    “Really?” Devi could hardly believe the man.
    “Really. I know him very well and he would never ever say anything like that,” he assured her. “Is that why you're running away from home?”
    Since he knew that Father Thomas hadn't called her a brownie slut, Devi didn't see anything wrong in telling him how Saroj slapped her and then starting fighting with Vasu as they often did.
    “Your mother was just worried and anyway, you're too young to kiss boys,” Father Velazquez said. “Now, tell me where you live and I'll walk you home.”
    Devi shook her head tightly. She was horrified of what Saroj would do, what Vasu would say, what her father would say when they found out that she ran away from home.
    “They love you, Shobha. No one will be angry,” Father Velazquez promised her.
    Hand in hand, they went home. Once they got there, Father Velazquez told her to go in and if there was a problem, he'd be waiting right here and would talk to her parents if necessary.
    When Devi went back inside, Vasu and Saroj were still bickering in the kitchen. When they saw her, they ignored her and went back to arguing, this time about Devi's grandfather who committed suicide.
    She dropped her bag in her room and tried again to be noticed, but her mother and grandmother were too busy dissecting the past. Devi waved to Father Velazquez from her doorstep, not wanting to go out and tell him that even though she came back home, no one seemed to be happy to see her.
    All day Devi waited for someone to say anything about her brief runaway episode, but no one did. It was business as usual in the Veturi household.
    She never saw Father Velazquez after that and neither did she run away again. The next time Devi kissed a boy, she was almost fourteen and when