Page 8 of Isn't It Obvious?
“Childhood psychological development book,” Suresh interrupts.
“That you gave me.”
“Dada,” Mia says.
“Alright, yes, another. But then we have to take a bath and get ready for bed.”
She claps her hands together once and starts the painstaking process of separating the red pieces from the blue and sliding them across the coffee table. He plays as red now. Her“blue is for boys”comment last week is what got him into this mess.
“I’ll go first,” she tells him, and stands to drop a blue token into the third column from the left. She’s tall enough now that she can reach up from a seated position if she tries, but it’s probably still easier this way. Definitely more adorable.
“You always go first,” he pretends to grumble.
“That’s because youngest goes first,” she says matter-of-factly.
Ravi hums, dropping his red token dead center. It’s an art, playing Connect Four with someone barely out of the toddler stage. He can’t beat Mia every time—that would end up being upsetting for everyone involved—but she’s far too smart to buy it if he lets her win most of their games. Even going every other might raise suspicions. The mental tallying is a lot more effort than the gameplay itself.
Mia drops her token atop Ravi’s, obviously hoping for a diagonal. Ravi bites, occasionally wasting a token to “block”Mia so she can build her way there. She gets this furrow in her brow exactly like Suresh’s as she concentrates. Four going on forty. It’s nice to see him in her, since it’s always felt like so much of her is Margot.
“I did it!” Mia announces as she drops the last token atop Ravi’s stack of three.
Ravi feigns devastation, sliding his legs out from under him and letting his body loll onto the floor. “Not again!” he cries, hands on head.
“I win more than you now.” Her expression is nothing short of gloating.
“I don’t know about that,” Ravi hedges. They’ve each won five of the last ten games; he’s ensured it.
“I’m pretty sure! Tonight you won”—that Suresh crease cuts between Mia’s brows—“twice, and I won three times,” she says.
“I’mpretty sure you need a bath,” Ravi counters.
“One more, Dada?”
“No. Too sad about losing. Up you go.”
She groans, and Suresh turns off the faucet, poking his head out once again. “Should I be in charge of bath time instead?”
Mia bounds up the stairs, shrieking out a string ofnoes.
“Don’t try to get the bubble bath out yourself—Dada can reach it for you!” Suresh calls after her retreating form.
Upstairs, they spend some time negotiating over toys and Ravi lets Mia “direct” him in pouring the bubbles (actual help has resulted in half the bottle gone and roughly the same volume of tears).
Mia settles into the bath, and Ravi pulls the curtain halfway. It gives Mia some privacy but also allows Ravi to make sure she doesn’t drown. Ravi, in turn, settles onto the toilet,props up his chin on his palm, and pulls out his phone. He’s the preferred bath supervisor because he doesn’t rush playtime until it’s dire, but that also means he’ll be here for a while.
Two messages in his inbox from Elle. He finished listening through theFahrenheit 451rough cut on his commute home from Kennedy High School last night—Ray Bradbury turned into one of those “PC culture is the REAL censorship” guys in his old age; how disappointing—and typed out his response at an hour entirely inappropriate for someone who’d given him deadlines in EST. At least he’d belatedly thought better of it and scheduled his newfound appreciation for the tagline, alongside a few options for cover art and a link to the draft website homepage, for a respectable 9:30AMEastern, 6:30 Pacific.
To:Kevin Kissoon
RE:Editor—The Sophomore English Agenda
RIGHT????? Like, you’d think that if you could trust any of these guys (lol) it would be Bradbury. I mean, as I read it, this seems like someone who might’ve spent their youth spray-painting “ACAB” or whatever the equivalent was in the late ’30s. But no. The allure of crotchetiness and deeply ingrained racism and homophobia persevered.
Anyway, the website and all the covers look fabulous. I’m not even sure which is best, but I think my heart is telling me the second one. I’ll have to cede to Sanaa that she was entirely right about the rebrand, which will be somewhat painful but definitely worth it. Thank you.
To:Kevin Kissoon
RE:Editor—The Sophomore English Agenda
