Hita - Anita Claire Page 0,20
drive back to work all nervous. I feel like a teenager that just got their license. It’s my first car and the first time since I left home, almost six years ago, that I have a car at my disposal. At ping pong I tell Colin about it.
He puts his paddle down and says, “Hey, show me the new ride.”
When I walk out to the parking lot I’m all excited. My car looks so pretty and shiny. I show it off like I’m some model on a game show. Colin pulls out his phone and takes a picture of me.
“Hita, I’ll send this over to marketing. Maybe they’ll give you booth duty at the next trade show.”
“Yeah, they never let the engineers in front of the customers. They’re afraid we’re going to be too blatantly honest.”
He nods as he says, “Get in, and give me a ride around the block.”
Before we start driving we sit in the front seat playing with all the different buttons programming my Bluetooth and radio.
***
On Saturday, I want to drive someplace fun. Jennifer and I head for Santa Cruz. On the ride down she starts telling me what’s going on in her life.
“Things aren’t going so well with Carter.”
This is surprising, so I ask her, “How so? You looked happy when I saw you heading off to one of your croquet parties.”
She gets a pinched look on her face. “He treats me like an accessory. You know, pretty girl, dresses nicely, went to the right schools, as he hob nobs with the other elitist young VC’s and entrepreneurs.”
“He’s dresses very meticulously. I guess he would want his girlfriend to look nice,” I reflect.
“We both like to dress up. That’s not what bothers me,” she says with a sigh. “It’s deeper than that. He actually told me that if all I wanted to be was a teacher, I should have saved a lot of money and gone to some state school. Like state schools are to be looked down on.” Shaking her head, she continues, “Even worse, he actually said I wasted my Leland education on becoming a teacher.”
I respond by gasping. Jennifer replies, “Exactly, I told him that teaching our next generation is one of the most important things we can do.”
She’s quiet for a bit as I can feel her anger rising.
“He then arrogantly said, how much can a teacher actually make?” She grits her teeth and continues. “He was dissing teachers because the financial upside isn’t grand, like for financiers and entrepreneurs.”
I’m not sure what to say as Jennifer looks out the window. After a bit of a break, she says, “His other favorite thing to do is to rail against lazy government workers living off his taxes.”
Briefly looking at her face I can see her teeth are still clenched. She then continues with, “I’m student teaching in a San Jose public school. It’s a community with a lot of hard working parents, many of which have two or three jobs. The teachers are wonderful. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t care about the kids. No one is calling off their job. They’re all working nights and weekends, correcting papers and creating education to inspire kids. It really pisses me off when some guy who hasn’t been near a classroom since he graduated calls us lazy and living off the dole.”
I nod in response. Rethinking Carter, he looked pretentious when I first met him, but he seemed nice and friendly, maybe my initial take was correct.
As we stroll down the boardwalk Jennifer asks me, “What’s going on with you and Anil?”
“I have no idea,” I glumly respond.
“What does that mean?”
“He asks me out for dinner on a Saturday night. We never do anything but dinner. He never tries anything. I feel like I’m his cousin. I’m not sure what he’s thinking and I’m afraid to ask.”
“The whole Indian three dates and you’re married thing?”
Relieved that she gets it, I respond, “Precisely.”
“Maybe you should change the venue. Ask him to your place for dinner. Remember the meal you made last year for us, with your grandmother’s recipes?”
Nodding my head she continues, “Make it a night when Kristi is out. Since you have no idea what kind of movies he likes, play a Bollywood movie or something like Slumdog Millionaire or Million Dollar Arm. You know, something with an Indian take on things. It will give you a chance to sit on the couch together. It might be a way to talk about your culture