The Latte Rebellion Read Online Free Page B

short-cropped dark hair. We were in the living room watching one of my father’s favorite movies, a documentary called Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room . Dad was absorbed, as usual, in the sordid white-collar drama of a huge corporation imploding; meanwhile, I was taking mental notes on what not to do if I was ever on the board of a multi-million-dollar company, and lamenting the fact that other people’s fathers (normal ones) made their kids watch Star Wars or James Bond movies, a fate I would happily endure given the choice . Not that anybody gave me one.
    “I need you to work on the guest room before Nani comes tomorrow,” my mom continued doggedly. “I’m giving parent-teacher conferences and won’t be able to leave until four.”
    “Nani’s coming tomorrow ?” I stared unseeingly at the TV, frustrated. “But it’s the middle of the week.” My parents were very into “quality family time,” so it wouldn’t be easy to extricate myself in order to hang out with Carey and start our publicity blitz.
    Crap, crap, crap.
    “Your Nani misses you,” my mother said, trying a different strategy—one involving guilt and wheedling. “She said she’s looking forward to spending some time with you, helping you practice your Hindi. And she wants to teach you how to cook your favorite chicken biryani.”
    I groaned. My dad looked up briefly from the TV. “She really wants to teach you about your culture, Asha. I wish I’d had that at your age. Your Grandma Bee didn’t even try to teach me Spanish.” He gave an ironic laugh. “If only she’d known how useful it would be in the business world.”
    Useful. Har. My knowledge of Hindi would get me about as far as a five-year-old looking for a bathroom. And my parents had clearly forgotten Nani’s disastrous attempt to teach me traditional dances when I was in junior high, which ended abruptly when I was trying the dandia raas for the umpteenth time and one of my sticks went flying and broke a vase.
    Still, Nani insisted that it was in my blood. “ Arré , it is your culture,” she’d say mournfully, at least once a visit. But it wasn’t that simple. Indian culture—well, it didn’t feel like it was my culture, not any more or less than my dad’s Irish and Mexican heritage. I was just me. Whatever that was.
    Incidentally, “whatever that was” turned out to be a more-than-apt way of describing the results of my sad attempt at chicken biryani, despite Nani hovering and issuing imperious instructions at every turn.
    “ Nahi, nahi— not like that! Let the onions get brown but don’t burn them,” she exclaimed, as I rushed to turn off the screeching smoke detector before we all went deaf. Meanwhile, Nani tucked the billowing, bright-magenta folds of her sari safely out of the way and rescued my slightly scorched onions, still sizzling in our biggest pot. I heaved a sigh and opened the kitchen windows to let out the smoky onion smell.
    “Okay, Asha beti , not to worry,” Nani said, rummaging in the back of the cupboard and pulling out an array of spices only my mother ever used. “It won’t matter. Next step: we finish the gravy, all right?” She turned to me, an expression of concern on her plump brown face.
    “Fine,” I said, swallowing my pride in the face of her obvious—and understandable—fear that I’d never be able to fend for myself in the kitchen. I picked up an unlabeled jar of brown spice powder. “So, a teaspoon of cinnamon, right?”
    Nani tsk ed. “An inch of cinnamon stick.” She pointed at the jar I was holding. “That’s the garam masala. Three-quarters of a teaspoon. Remember?”
    I set the jar down with a thunk. This was hopeless. It didn’t matter if it was my culture, it didn’t matter if Nani measured everything out for me and wrote it all down in neat cursive on a sheet of scrap paper from the printer. I was not innately able to channel my Indian heritage at will, any more than I could become an Iron Chef after a