Page 58 of Make Room for Love

Mira laughed. “No, of course not. At least my dad’s parents weren’t. He didn’t even try to win them over about marrying my mom.” There were winces all around the table. Isabel guessed that no one here was a stranger to parental disapproval of some kind. “My mom’s parents were more okay with it. Both the elopement and her choice of spouse. I mean, yeah, he’s not Jewish, but they got over it. Anyway, my dad isn’t religious, and my mom wasn’t as observant back then, and they’re not sentimental people. Also, they were probably broke and couldn’t afford a real wedding.”

Isabel smiled. She’d heard the story from Mira already, in one of their long late-night conversations under the covers, and she’d seen Mira’s photo of a framed photo in her parents’ house: two serious, dorky twenty-somethings in front of Chicago’s City Hall, Mira’s mother in an eighties pantsuit and her father in a lumpy sweater, both with the same curly hair as Mira.

“Oh my god,” Anjali said. “That’s incredible. How did your parents even meet?”

“Well, my dad went to the UK for grad school and got involved in politics, and he was in a student group that would picket with the coal miners during the strike. And my mom was freelancing for some lefty newspaper on her first overseas assignment, and she wanted to know what was going on with the Indian guy out there.” Mira shrugged. “My parents have always been like that.”

“I didn’t realize your parents were so cool,” Noah said. The conversation flowed on. The topic of parental expectations wasn’t exactly Isabel’s favorite, but at least she was among people who understood.

She squeezed Mira’s hand under the table, then passed her the egg tart from her own plate when she noticed Mira eyeing it. Mira smiled. “Thank you.”

“You know, I can see why you turned out the way you did,” Isabel said. She had been taking in every bit of information about Mira, trying to fit it all together. Of course Mira had been raised by radical intellectual types. Very different from Isabel’s own parents.

Mira grimaced. “I don’t know. I think my parents contribute more to society than I do, for one thing. I’m just a grad student. My mom still works as a labor journalist, and my dad quit academia to be a public high school teacher.”

“Do they want you to do something different?”

“Not exactly. They’ve always done their own thing, and I think they expect that of me. Not that my parents don’t have opinions on my life. Recently they’ve been trying to give me advice on union organizing.” Isabel snorted. “And when I came out to them, there was a lot of…Oh, no, not like that. You know we’d still love you if you were gay, right?As though I didn’t think of that myself.” Mira rolled her eyes. “Well, I guess I am. Not in the way they thought.”

Isabel laughed and gave her a sympathetic wince. Mira continued, “It’s fine now. They defended me to their families, which counts for a lot. My dad cut ties with some of his family over it. Although they already weren’t happy with him about a lot of other things.” Mira smiled ruefully. Isabel squeezed her hand. She knew what all this was like, or at least a version of it, and Mira clearly didn’t want to dwell on it. “Not his whole family. I mentioned his sister who gave me that jewelry you like.”Mira was wearing those dangly gold earrings now. “And some things for my wedding, supposedly, although I think those are going to sit in the box for a while.”

Isabel’s heart beat faster. “Too fancy for City Hall? Or you don’t believe in getting married?” Her ex hadn’t, which was fine. Commitment was commitment. But Isabel would be lying if she said she didn’t care about marriage either way.

“It’s not that. I don’t have a problem with it in theory.” Mira paused. “I guess I’ve just never thought of it as a real possibility.”

Isabel wasn’t going to ask what that meant. She didn’t want to give herself away. “Fair enough.”

She relaxed into the atmosphere, talking with Mira’s friends, making sure Mira was well-supplied with sweets, holding her hand under the table. At the end, Mira excused herself and went to the restroom, and they all began to stand up. Vivian walked toward her, followed by Frankie.

“It was nice to meet you today,” Vivian said, smiling thinly. “Mira told us that you’re living together for another year. Is that right?”

“That’s right. Uh, nice to meet you too.” Isabel’s nervousness returned in full force.

“Frankie and I have known Mira for a long time,” Vivian said. “We were worried about her when she was with her ex-boyfriend. I’m sure she told you about him.”

Isabel nodded, fixed to the spot. No surprise that Vivian was a lawyer. Isabel was practically being cross-examined in court.

“She’s had a hard year,” Frankie said. “We’re glad she’s found a good place to land.” Frankie was the friendlier of the two of them, but they were obviously on the same team when it came to grilling Isabel.

“We want her to be happy,” Vivian added. She and Frankie shared a look that was indecipherable to Isabel. But the meaningof their words was loud and clear. They may as well have asked Isabel what her intentions were.

“Understood.” Isabel gripped the chair next to her, trying to keep her composure. “I’m absolutely serious about Mira. And I’m going to work as hard as I can to be good to her.”

The two of them shared another look. Had her answer been good enough? “I’m glad to hear that,” Vivian said.

Frankie nodded. “That’s sweet. She really likes you, too.” That, too, was a warning.Don’t hurt her.

“We’ll look forward to seeing more of you,” Vivian said.

Mira returned. “Some of my favorite people,” she said. Isabel tried to not look as unsettled as she felt. If she ever hurt Mira, she’d never forgive herself.

Mira looked between the three of them. “What were you talking about?”

“Just telling Isabel it was nice to meet her,” Vivian said. “It’s good to see you again. Come over any time, okay? You too, Isabel.”

Isabel did her best to smile. It was good that Mira had friends who were looking out for her. That ought to be reassuring. They said their goodbyes.

“Thank you for coming out with me,” Mira said, on their way back to the subway. “It’s wonderful to get to introduce you to my friends. This means so much to me.”

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