Chapter One: The Predictable End to Meera the Good Girl CHAPTER ONE The Predictable End to Meera the Good Girl
No one, no matter how hard they work at it, or how much they want to, can ever—and I mean ever—escape their fate. And, apparently, my fate is to be cursed for eternity.

My eyes blur as I sit alone in the back of a police cruiser, watching a cop put literal handcuffs onto the wrists of my date, Gabe. Not even an hour after my first kiss with him—my first kiss ever.

My grandmother—Nani—has been warning me my whole life about the curse placed on our family four generations ago by a witch doctor in India. Should a girl in Nani’s bloodline choose to romantically involve herself with a boy before her seventeenth birthday, the girl becomes destined for trouble that will haunt her for her entire life.

Mom and Nani gave me a list of rules to follow so the curse wouldn’t ruin me: put my education first, never lie to my family, associate only with people with the same values as me (i.e., high achievers), and most important, don’t date at all until my seventeenth birthday. If I followed the rules, I would be unharmed by the curse and would be the first girl in my family to go to university. I would be the first to be able to live the life that I wanted to live. Of course, I followed the rules with precision—my life goals are way too important for me to risk ruining them.

So, on my seventeenth birthday, when Gabe Bautista, the smartest guy in my grade, asked if I wanted to go for a walk on the weekend, I said yes. I was seventeen—it would be fine. I was tired of being the only one of my friends who’d never been on a date, and I wanted a little escape from worrying about year-end school projects and Mom’s wedding. But to be extra careful I did a ton of research and made an epic avoid-curse spreadsheet, listing methods from around the world of how to stay safe from curses. I zeroed in on methods that are used in South Asian cultures, since this curse started in India, and on the ones that are most practical. (Like, I didn’t think it was a great idea to kill a descendant of the man who cursed my family.) Before my date I ordered a protection talisman online—a black tourmaline bead necklace with an evil-eye amulet on it—then took a bath in salt water and burned a candle while repeating some mantras.

I did everything right.

But on my date, with only one kiss under my belt, I was arrested because of some stupid social media stunt Gabe pulled at a carnival. It turns out that costume jewelry, salt water baths, and waiting until my seventeenth birthday were useless. There was nothing I could have done to escape my fate. This curse has ruined the life of every woman and girl in my family for four generations… Why would it spare me? All the work I did to escape it failed. I wipe the tear on my cheek with the back of my hand.

A back seat door opens, making me flinch, and a woman slides into the car next to me. “I’m Officer Martel,” she says. She’s not in a uniform but in black dress pants and a dark blue collared shirt. She eyes me suspiciously. “How are you doing, kid?”

I’m upset, embarrassed, and angry at Gabe. Mostly I’m furious at the curse. But I don’t say that. I shrug.

“Okay, so your full name is…”

“Meera Parveen Noorani,” I say quietly. I already gave someone my driver’s license (okay, fine, it’s a learner’s permit), so she should know this.

The woman nods. “Your mother’s name is Neelam Noorani, correct? She’s not answering her phone.”

Of course she’s not. “She’s in Italy… on her honeymoon. She’s technically Neelam LeClair now.” I bite my lip. “She’s supposed to be back today.”

The woman’s eyes narrow like she doesn’t believe me. To be honest, I can’t believe my mother got married either, but that’s beside the point right now.

“Where are you staying while she’s gone?” the officer asks. “Can we call your father?”

I shake my head. “I don’t have a father. I moved in with my grandparents after the wedding.” I wince, imagining my grandfather’s reaction to having to pick me up at the back of a police car. “But can we not call them? They’re… harsh.” Nanabapa, my grandfather, will probably ship me off to Vancouver on the next flight. Or ship me farther.

I inhale a shaky breath. Just like I was warned, dating has ruined everything. I want to ask if universities will have access to my criminal record, but I know it’s best to say as little as possible to the police without a lawyer. Do I need a lawyer? How will we afford that?

Another cop sticks his head in the window. “The mother answered her phone. Her flight just landed. She said she’ll pick the girl up at the station in about an hour.”

Officer Martel nods. “One heck of a way to end her honeymoon. You’re going to be apologizing to your mother until you’re fifty.”

I don’t say anything, because really shouldn’t it be Mom apologizing? She’s the one who passed this curse on to me in the first place.

At the station they put me in a little sitting room behind a closed door, telling me to wait for my mother. I put my head in my hands. I cannot believe this is happening to me. I’ve never so much as jaywalked or skipped school, and now I’m worried about a criminal record.

This arrest could affect my university acceptances and my chance of getting into the architecture mentorship program I’ve been counting on. And I can pretty much give up on my dream of being valedictorian next year. I will no longer be the first girl in my family to get a university degree. I won’t be the one to break the curse for future generations, like Nani said I would be. If I had my phone, I’d make a spreadsheet of all the ways that this situation will ruin my life forever, but the cops confiscated everything I had on me—including my mirrorless camera that has all the evidence of Gabe’s failed stunt on the memory card. I clutch the amulet on my necklace.

The door to the little room opens, and my mom walks in. Thankfully, her boyfriend, Jason—wait, her husband, Jason—isn’t with her. She’s wearing leggings and a white Italy sweatshirt, and looks very, very angry. Like, imagine the angriest, the most disappointed a person can appear, and then multiply that by one hundred.

“Don’t be mad,” I say quickly before she can speak. “I told Gabe not to use the paint bomb.”

Mom shakes her head. “Meera, I came straight from my honeymoon to a police station. Please, tell me how I should feel?”

I look down, my eyes welling with tears again. I feel Mom staring at my face for a long time.

“I’m not mad. I’m disappointed,” she finally says. “I thought you were better than this.”

Not mad but disappointed. It’s such a cliché thing to say, but right now I’m the most cliché of cliché good girls gone bad. I’m in a police station because I went along with my date’s plan to create a viral video for his socials. I may even have a hickey on my neck, judging by what Gabe and I were doing on the merry-go-round before he set up his prank. And if they drug-tested me, they might detect the secondhand smoke from the joint Gabe smoked, to my surprise, before he pulled out the—double surprise—paint bomb he had stashed in his backpack.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I say quietly. “It’s the curse, remember?”

Mom should know this wasn’t avoidable. With a sigh she sits next to me. She looks a little tan. I wonder if I should ask how Italy was. “Who’s this Gabriel Bautista, anyway? Someone from school?”

“Yes. We were on a… date. He told me his uncle worked at the carnival and he was allowed to hang out there after closing.”

She sighs again but doesn’t say anything.

“I know I’m not allowed to date until I’m seventeen,” I say, “but my birthday was last week, so I thought I was fine. Plus, I took a salt bath and—”

“You didn’t ask me if you could go out with a boy.”

“How could I? You were in Italy.” I try my best to stay neutral as I mention her honeymoon. “The rule was that I could date after I turned seventeen. And I asked Nani, and she said it was okay.” I don’t mention that it kind of stung that she was on her two-week dream vacation with her new husband on my birthday. Even if she did call me from Rome, it’s not the same.

“What’s going to happen to me?” I ask quietly. “Will I be sent to juvenile jail?” Ugh. I’m not equipped for that. I swallow hard.

She shakes her head. “Not likely. Jason already talked to the family lawyer. He may need to call in some favors, but it’s your first offense. You’ll probably be sentenced to community service—after you plead guilty.”

I nod. What if this had happened before Mom had married Jason, who comes from a wealthy and connected family? Would I have had to finish high school from jail?

“That boy will probably never speak to you again,” Mom adds. “He’s already trying to blame you for all of it.”

“The viral video was his idea. I didn’t even know he was planning it.”

Mom shrugs. “The damage has still been done. Now you’ll have to pay for it.”

I blow out a long breath, realizing that this means I am more like my mother than I ever realized. We’ve both been hit with the family curse. And both our lives have been ruined because of it.

My mother, of course, was pretty much right about everything she said in the police station. I have not been sentenced to a juvenile detention center but instead have been ordered to complete one hundred hours of community service. Gabe hasn’t contacted me or spoken to me again. I still don’t know if this will affect my mentorship or scholarship opportunities, but I don’t need to apply for those for a while, so hopefully not.

But the absolute worst repercussion of my short life of crime is that Mom’s brand-new husband (it feels weird to call Jason my stepfather) pulled some strings and arranged for me to complete my community service in the town where he (and now Mom) lives, Cherrybridge. Away from Nani, away from my friends, and away from Toronto—where I’ve lived my whole life.

“I don’t understand why she’s forcing me to go to Cherrybridge,” I say, flopping onto the floral bedspread in the spare bedroom of my grandparents’ house, where I’ve been living since Mom’s wedding. Nani is helping me pack up my stuff because Mom’s driving down from Cherrybridge to get me in the morning. “She promised I could stay here in Toronto with you when she moved in with Jason.”

Nani lets out a soft sigh. “I know, Meera, but she’s your mother. She wants to keep you close so you won’t get into trouble again.” Nani folds a T-shirt and places it into my suitcase. “Don’t forget your sweaters and blouses.”

I get up and head to the closet. “I’m not going to get into trouble again! I’ve learned my lesson now. The curse wins… I’ll die single.” I take all my sweaters down from the shelf and start refolding them. “You said if I dated before I turned seventeen, the curse would ruin my life. And I waited! Plus, I did all that research, and bought the necklace, and even learned mantras!” I sigh. I didn’t break any rules. I took extra precautions.

Nani knew about my avoid-curse spreadsheet. She even gave me some suggestions to add to it. “I don’t know why it happened, sweetie. I thought you’d be fine too. The curse always hits girls before they turn seventeen. Your mother was sixteen when she got pregnant, I was sixteen when I tried to run away, your aunt—”

“I know the stories, Nani.” I’ve been hearing them my whole life.

The curse started when my great-great-grandmother, then a teenager, pulled a gun on her fiancé to try to escape her wedding. The dude’s uncle was a witch doctor, and he cursed her and all of her female descendants with “lifelong problems” if they were with a boy before they turned seventeen.

And the curse has been consistent. Nani apparently almost ran away with a clown when she was in high school (that’s not hyperbole—the guy was literally a clown with the circus), but Nani’s parents interjected and sent her to Nairobi, where she met Nanabapa. And my mother’s disgrace was getting pregnant with me when she was sixteen and then being abandoned when the “sperm donor” booked a one-way ticket to India the day after she told him. The only women in my extended family who’ve escaped the curse did so by waiting until they were seventeen before they went on a date—or even spoke to anyone they were romantically into.

“Maybe it was because you were born premature?” Nani wonders aloud. “Technically your seventeenth birthday should have been six weeks later.”

I groan, dropping the pink cardigan I was folding. “So my entire life is ruined because of a cosmic technicality? I’m an honor student—I’m supposed to graduate valedictorian and get scholarships. I’m not a juvenile delinquent.” I pause, worrying my lip. “How am I going to get into the BEAD program now?”

I’ve known pretty much since I was thirteen that I want to be an architect one day, and have been planning to apply in grade twelve to an architecture mentorship program through the University of Toronto called BEAD, for “BIPOC Emerging Architects and Designers.” I’ll get paired with a real architecture student, go to lectures on campus, and do a real architecture project assessed by a professor before I even finish high school. It’s pretty competitive, but to help my application stand out, this summer I was supposed to work for a local interior designer that my friend Adanna knows.

But now I’ll be in Cherrybridge.

Is there any point in applying to BEAD anymore, without relevant work experience? Or with a trespassing-and-mischief charge on my record?

“Your life isn’t ruined, sweetie,” Nani says, sitting on the bed and patting the space next to her. I sit and put my head on her shoulder, and immediately feel a little better. I’m going to miss seeing Nani every day. Why would Mom separate me from the only family member that really gets me?

“It’s one summer,” Nani says. “Yes, you will have more problems now because of the curse, but it’s nothing that hard work and guidance from your family can’t manage. Look at me. My life wasn’t completely ruined because of my mistakes as a teenager. And even your mother—she’s been so blessed! She’s married to a successful man now and lives in a huge house. We struggled because of the curse, but we’re not ruined.”

I sit up straight. There’s a way to manage the curse? “What kind of guidance?”

Nani takes my hand. “If you want to date a boy again, get your mother’s approval first, no matter how old you are. My parents approved of Nanabapa, just like we approved of Jason. Be good—no more breaking rules. Don’t lie, and work hard too. You’re the smartest, best-behaved girl this family has ever seen. You can get through this.”

I raise one eyebrow. “Even as a grown woman I’ll need my family’s approval to date?” Does my mother believe this? She’s always talking about women’s rights and feminism. Asking for permission was never Mom’s style.

Nani shakes her head. “This is to help you, sweetheart. Your family only wants the best for you.”

Mom certainly has a funny way of showing it. What’s best for me is to stay in the city with Nani and my friends.

I sigh. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not planning to date ever again. Getting into BEAD, then into the U of T architecture program, is all I care about.”

The door opens. It’s Nanabapa, and he doesn’t look happy, not that he ever does. “Why are you just sitting there? Meera, your mother will be here to pick you up in the morning. This room needs to be back to normal by then. Vacuum and dust, too.”

“I know. I will,” I say.

He’s still scowling. “I expected more of you, Meera. You’ve turned into your mother.” Nanabapa leaves, keeping the door wide open.

“That’s the most he’s spoken to me since Mom brought me back from court,” I say to Nani. My grandfather can be strict, but for the most part he leaves me alone, so I’ve never minded living with him. It’s worth it to be with Nani. I really don’t understand Nani and Nanabapa’s relationship, though. They’re nothing alike.

She smiles and pats my hand. “Don’t worry about him, sweetheart. Keep wearing your necklace and be good. I have no doubt in my heart that you’re going to accomplish all of your dreams, despite the curse.”

I put my head back onto Nani’s shoulder. I’m not as confident as she is, but I am determined. I am not going to let Gabe Bautista, my mother, or this evil curse get in my way.