Lovetorn by Kavita Daswani Page B

clipboard next to him. He put the flyer down on his desk on top of a pile of papers and tapped it as if indicating that he was done with that portion of homeroom.
    Before leaving, I stood by his empty desk and picked up the clipboard. There were no other names on it. I took the pen attached to the clipboard but held it momentarily above the first line, where I should have been scribbling down my name. I really couldn’t do this now. I had chores to take care of at home, a mother who needed tending to—the drugs hadn’t worked, and she was no better. My father still had to be cooked for, and I had a fiancé thousands of miles away whom I missed. I had even offered to take home some of Charlie’s math papers to look over after our weekly tutoring sessions. Charlie had said that polynomials and trig equations almost made sense now. Sometimes we would talk a little on the way out of the library. His father had found a new job, and things were better at home. At school, he’d mumble a “Hey” as I walked by. My father had seen the pressure I was under and briefly considered hiring a housekeeper. But he quickly changed his mind, realizing he wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone he didn’t know in the house all day and his wife too depressed to oversee what he would describe as “the running of the household.”
    Things were crazy enough. I needed to just bide my time for the next couple of years, not spread myself too thin.
    But I loved the whole idea behind Food4Life. I liked what they were trying to do. I was reminded about how charity was such a big part of our home life in India. Dada was always willing to help out a struggling family, a cause, an organization that did good. It gave him immense satisfaction, and I had grown up seeing the value of being of service to others. Right now I remembered Renuka’s advice to me. If I wanted to squeeze any joy out of my time here, I couldn’t sit on the sidelines anymore.
    I wrote down my name, email address, and phone number.
    That evening I received a text from a girl named Amina, telling me that the first meeting was scheduled for the coming weekend at her house.
    At eleven on the following Saturday morning, I nervously rang the doorbell as my father waited in the car until he saw that I’d been let in.
    “Hey.” The girl smiled, opening the door. “Shalini, right? I’m Amina.” She wore big glasses that covered half her face, and her frizzy hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. “Everyone else is already here. Come on in.”
    I followed her down a set of carpeted steps to a basement that had been transformed into kind of a den/study; there was a TV in one corner, a laptop computer in another, a minifridge, books everywhere, family pictures on the walls. It was cozy and welcoming, and I instantly felt at ease.
    Three other people were seated around a coffee table. I found a spot and settled in.
    “We were just about to get started,” Amina said. “Let’s quickly go around the room and say a little about ourselves and why we’re here. I’ll go first.
    “Okay, so I’m Amina,” she started. “I was born here, but my parents are from Bangladesh. I started Food4Life after reading an article about famine in Bangladeshi villages. I realized those families didn’t need a handout but rather a way to make sure they were never hungry again. With this program, I want us to raise money to help women in as many underdeveloped countries as we can.”
    She turned to look at a pretty strawberry blonde next to her.
    “Hey, I’m Justine,” she said. “I’m on the cheerleading squad, I organize the regular school blood drive, and I am on the yearbook committee . . . so yeah, I really need to be doing something else.” She rolled her eyes. We all chuckled. “But this seems really worthwhile, so I’m in.”
    Patrick, a tall, brown-haired boy, was next. He said he had already decided on a career with an NGO and thought this would give him a little hands-on