They wind through Manhattan for several blocks this way, getting closer to Hell’s Kitchen, which makes Sheronda nervous, and she asks “Where are we going?” to which Pathik, who has been beaming the whole time, gives a confusing answer that has something to do with an Indian restaurant, his sister, his brother-in-law, his brother-in-law’s brother, cumin, and a fire escape. Sheronda nods along skeptically, catching only every two to three words of the story, wondering when they pass a subway stop if she should bail right now and head back uptown.
But — and you can call it fate if you want, but I just call it fucking curiosity — she follows the wiry little man until he stops on the sidewalk and points excitedly and says, “Bhaswar’s. This Bhaswar’s restaurant.” She follows his jabbing finger and suppresses the puckered lemon-face look just in time, because the place is an utter dive. Greasy spoon, Indian style, probably with cockroaches clinging to the underneath sides of the tables while patrons’ elbows rest on the sticky tops.
She opens her mouth, feigned headache speech already prepared, but Pathik waves his arm down the sidewalk. “Other side, fire escape,” he says, like this is some sort of explanation.
She follows a few steps behind as he rounds the corner into an alley, eyes alert, ears scanning for danger as she grips her handbag tightly against her chest and prepares herself to fight. She’s pretty sure she can take shrimpy little Pathik — he only comes up to her chin — as long as he didn’t bring any friends to this party.
But when she steps into the alleyway, Pathik has stopped a few feet ahead of her, that idiotic, gap-toothed smile still plastered on his face, and he points up and behind him. Sheronda follows his finger for the second time, eyes climbing the brickwork, snaking up black iron fire escapes and around laundry lines, and finally, she sees it. A round table with a pristine white tablecloth that flutters in the wind five stories up, a glass vase on top filled with bright red roses, two chairs on either side.
Pathik pulls down on the whining, screeching bottom stairs of the fire escape, his smile faltering a bit. “I sorry so far up,” he apologizes to Sheronda. Then he points down at her feet. She’s still in her work shoes — ugly black sneaker-like things with thick rubber soles. “I glad safe shoes,” he says.
Sheronda hesitates for a moment. Moment of truth. Go through with it like she said she would, or turn back around.
(“It was my smile that won your mother over that night,” my father says to me a couple decades later, his English perfect and most of the accent gone. “She couldn’t resist my good looks and my charm.”
She slaps his arm, clucking her tongue at him. “That’s what you think. Truth was, I’d been at work all day and I was just hungry.”
He arches a black eyebrow at her, and crow’s feet crinkle around the folds of his dark eyes. “Whatever you say, my darling.”
And I roll my eyes because I was fifteen when I heard that story, and by default, their love story was impossibly maudlin, impossibly fucking dorky.)
Whatever the reason, Sheronda walks up the fire escape. Pathik follows a few steps behind her.
And she surprises herself by having a good time. When Pathik can make himself understood, he’s funny. He regales her with stories about growing up in Kathmandu, making up for his limited English with wild hand gestures, miming, and sound effects. He tells her about the time he and his friends released the grumpy old elephant from the man who used it to give rides to American tourists; he shows her pictures of his aging mother and his dead father, his five siblings, his tribe of nieces, nephews, cousins, aunties, uncles, and on and on. And Sheronda laughs at the right moments and gasps in surprise at the other moments and leans over the faded, dog-eared photographs, and the rows of smiling faces remind her of East Harlem before it was that bad, and when he walks her back to the subway stop just before nine o’clock, she says to him, “You bringing me flowers tomorrow?”
His brow clouds, probably thinking his English is failing him. “Flowers? I promise, no more flowers.”
She repeats her question, slower. “I know I said that. But I’m asking: Are. You. Bringing. Me. Flowers. Tomorrow?”
Finally, he gets it. His face splits into a trademark broad smile, and he says, “Yes. Flowers tomorrow.”
Chapter 6: Since I don’t like the YMCA, maybe we should do brunch…?
My story keeps Amy occupied for the rest of the trip. It’s not that long of a story, but then again, it’s not that long of a trip. She sighs with relief when we finally touch-down, and I try not to laugh or bust her chops about it because, frankly, it was a really awful fucking flight.
She shakes my hand one last time when we finish taxiing to our gate. “Anika Singh, you’re even more charming in person than you are in Coach Woods’s book. Thank you for keeping me from focusing on what was going on up there.”
I grin. “Thank you for…” I start, but I don’t really know how to finish my statement. Saying “Thank you from distracting me from the fact that my mom has cancer, from the fact that I’m about to have to deal with my neurotic siblings for an indefinite period of time, and from the general horror show that is returning to Ohio” doesn’t seem particularly… well, you know. I try again. “Thank you for being an interesting seat mate.”
When the aisle opens up, I help her get her bag down from the overhead bin and wave goodbye. I wave to her again while I wait for my gym bag at the edge of the exit ramp with the handful of other passengers who had to check their carry-ons at the last minute.
I take my phone out of airplane mode while I wait. Nothing new from Gerry, so I text him.
Just landed.
No reply. I decide to try Dutch.
Gerry says he’s stuck at the restaurant.
Any chance you can pick me up?
And why is he at the restaurant?
Sorry, can’t, Dutch answers.
I’m with Nathan at karate, the babysitter’s home
with Sherry, and Matt’s working late.
At least I’ll get to see my nephew and niece this trip. I guess there’s that. Except… Seeing Nathan and Sherry means I’ll probably have to see my brother-in-law, too.
I grimace.
The light-hearted mood from chatting with Amy is already evaporating.
What about PJ? I ask Dutch.
Not here yet.
Still in Philadelphia.
I figured as much. PJ owns a string of high-end restaurants in Philly. Getting him to come home for anything, even a parent’s major surgery… I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
Marty McFly appears at my elbow. “Makes sense,” he says, apparently referring to PJ. “He’s always responded to stress by working harder. At least you two have that in common.”
“I’m not a workaholic. Not like he is.”
McFly scoffs. “No? You don’t spend every minute you can in a weight room, on a track, or on a basketball court?”
“That’s different. Physical movement relieves stress,” I say. “It’s a scientific fucking fact.”
“Stress and basketball. Reminds me of high school.” He gazes up, looking pensive. “Reminds me of the time — ”
“Oh, no you don’t,” I say quickly. “No more trips to the past today.”
“It’ll be short,” he says. “I swear.”
#
Ready for another road trip in the time-traveling DeLorean? No? Well, too fucking bad.
Back to the future: Twenty-one years ago, junior year in high school. Marcine, Ohio.
I’m stressed out, so I’m out on the court, despite the fact that it’s only thirty-four fucking degrees outside. I shoot from the key, miss, chase the ball as it clangs off the rim and threatens to bounce away into the slushy mixture of melting snow and mud. I snatch it just before it can land, but then lose my balance when an unexpected “Hey” comes from behind me. My right foot lands hard in the mud, splashes some of it up into my face.
I wipe off the speckles of mud from my cheeks, take a breath, and turn around to
face the owner of the “Hey.”
It’s what I thought. It’s her.
“Hey,” I say, nervously spinning the ball between my hands.
Jenny tilts her head up toward me, and the blonde hair that cascades out from under the stocking cap whispers against her parka. It’s a conspiratorial kind of noise, like her hair has a secret to tell.
“What are you doing out here?” she asks. “It’s so cold.” And as if to prove it, she wraps her arms around her midsection, hugging herself against the chill air.
“Practicing.”
“Aren’t you guys on break from basketball?”
“Yeah.”
“So shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, resting or something?” She pauses. “Or at least playing inside. I hear the YMCA is free with a student ID.”
Now is probably not a good time to mention to her that I practice out here in part because I know she walks by it every day on her way to school. And even though school’s on winter break, this neighborhood court is still the best place to be if I want to “accidentally” bump into her.
But she doesn’t need to know that I know that. Not after what happened last night.
“I like practicing out here,” I say. “It’s quiet. The fucking Y is fucking loud, filled with little fucking kids running around all over the place. They’re like fucking cockroaches or something — stomp on one, five more appear to take its place.”
“Anika,” she says. I love the sound of my name in her mouth, the way she says it like I’m about to get scolded for something. Still, a smile plays at the corners of her lips. “Do you really have to use the f-word multiple times in every single sentence?”
“Do you really have to say ‘f-word’ instead of fuck?” I shoot back. “What are you, ten? Just say it. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Jenny shakes her head. “I have a broader vocabulary than just curse words,” she informs me in an uppity tone, but the smile’s still there.
I palm the basketball I’m holding. Drop it to the pavement. Catch it when it bounces back up. She tracks the ball with her eyes.
“Listen,” she says, and all the uppity is gone from her voice, replaced with something more hesitant. “Do you want to go get brunch? I thought maybe… I thought maybe we could talk about what happened last night.”
“What’s there to talk about? You already told me. You had too much to drink; you got carried away; you didn’t mean to kiss me.” I shrug, all casual nonchalance as if it makes no difference to me. “I get it — people do crazy things on New Year’s Eve. No harm, no foul. End of story.”
The arms around her midsection tighten; her gaze drops to the pavement at my feet.
“That’s what I wanted to talk about. Maybe — maybe it wasn’t so crazy after all.” She lifts her eyes to meet mine. “What would you say if I told you that I don’t think kissing you had anything to do with how much I had to drink last night?” She pauses, waits for me to answer, but I’m so thunderstruck that I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to. So she drops another bomb on me: “What if I told you that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since?”
I dribble the ball a few times so that I have an excuse not to look at her. Looking directly at Jenny? It’s like staring straight into the fucking sun. You can only do it for a few seconds at a time.
Still feigning nonchalance, I ask, “Are we talking hypothetically what if you said that? Or are you actually saying that?”
“Do you really have to make this difficult?” She pauses. Maybe waiting for me to answer a question again. But it’s obviously rhetorical. “Yes. I’m actually saying that.”
“Then what I’d say is, ‘Where are we going for brunch?’”
Chapter 7: SAT questions and first kisses.
I sit across from Jenny, twitchy. Her hands are still, neatly laced on top of the table; my own fingers fiddle with the white wrapper of my straw.
“We should eat black-eyed peas and collard greens,” I tell her, breaking the silence.
“Why?” she asks, genuinely confused.
I shrug, still not looking directly at her because it’s still like staring straight at the sun. “It’s what you’re supposed to do on New Year’s Day. For prosperity and good luck. It’s a southern thing.”
“Southern? Your dad’s Asian, and… didn’t you tell me your mom’s from New York?”
“Yeah, but my mom’s Grandpa Geronimo, he was from Alabama. Moved to Harlem during the Great Depression. And he was the one who taught my mom to cook. So I guess it comes from him.”
There’s a long silence emanating from Jenny’s side of the table, and finally she says, “Are you talking about black-eyed peas because you don’t want to talk about what happened last night?”
“I never said I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, defensive. “I’m here, aren’t I? If you want to talk about it so bad, talk. I’ll listen.”
She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth to speak… and is immediately interrupted by the waitress.
Fucking hell.
“You girls ready to order?” asks the fifty / sixty-something lady with dyed red curls. She looks tired and bored and like she’d rather be just about anywhere other than here, waiting on a couple of high school kids who don’t have the good sense to still be in bed like everyone else their age.
I get how the waitress must feel. Ever since my parents opened their crazy Nepalese soul food fusion restaurant last year, I get roped into waiting tables almost every weekend, plus a lot of weekdays after school — basically anytime I’m not at basketball practice or a basketball game. Waiting tables is a shitty job that leaves you with sore feet, too many one dollar bills, and clothes that never quite stop smelling like kitchen grease and garlic.
We order some food and a couple of sodas, and once the waitress walks off, I go back to fiddling with my straw wrapper. Waiting for Jenny to speak.
In the ensuing awkward silence, my mind flips back to the SAT prep class my dad’s been making me take. I’ve told him about the college scouts coming to watch me play ball, even though I’m still just a junior, but he doesn’t seem to get it. I’ve tried to explain that these schools aren’t after me for my brain, and they don’t give a crap about what kind of score I get on the SAT as long as I pass all my classes. But Dad won’t listen, yammers on about not taking my education for granted, and so I’m staying up late at night after ball practice, after waiting tables, and after homework with my fucking SAT verbal workbook putting together analogies like
Anika is to Jenny as
(A) A mountain gorilla is to Dutch
(B) Frankenstein is to a Disney princess
(C) The future crazy, crotchety old cat lady is to the future Miss Ohio
(D) All of the fucking above
“Anika…” Jenny starts, lamely saying my name because maybe, after what seems like three fucking hours of waiting, she can’t think of anything else to say. And although her clasped hands don’t move from their spot on the tabletop, I can see the knuckles going white. When she speaks again, her voice is so low that it’s practically a whisper. “I shouldn’t have manipulated you into kissing me last night. It was wrong to use you like that, and I - I’m sorry. I’ll understand if you never want to speak to me again after this.”
My brain freezes up like an old computer with too many tabs open, because I’m not capable of processing what just came out of her mouth. I rip the straw wrapper up into itsy-bitsy bits.
She manipulated me into kissing her.
She… used me?
Not possible. It was the other way around.
I shake my head slowly, finally look up and meet her eyes. “I don’t get it. How did you manipulate me? The way I remember it, I’m the one who got you under the mistletoe last night right as the clock hit twelve.”
I’d had a few drinks the night before, true, but with a frame as big as mine, it actually takes a lot for me to get good and drunk, and between that and the fact that I don’t have that many opportuni
ties for teenage debauchery anyway, I rarely get drunk.
Jenny, on the other hand, drank almost as much as I did, but she more-or-less comes up to my kneecaps — when she’s wearing heels (which she was last night). Arguing that she was the one to initiate the kiss didn’t make any sense. She was too drunk to do any manipulating.
I was the one who’d put my palms on the wall on either side of her head when the kids started yelling, “TEN! NINE! EIGHT!…”
I was the one who’d leaned forward and down when they got to “TWO!,” the one whose eyes had skittered down to Jenny’s smirking smile, lips half-parted already, at “ONE!”
I was the one who had kissed her at “Happy New Year!”. She was the one who’d mumbled, “I’m sorry; I can’t do this,” and ducked out from underneath my outstretched arms ten seconds later, just as a drunken knot of jocks by the TV started singing their own off-key version of “Auld Lang Syne.”
But now, Jenny shakes her head, mouth twisting into an irritated grimace.
“No, Anika. You don’t get it. I set you up last night. Think about it — who invited you to the party in the first place?”
Anika takes the long way home up soul mountain: A lesbian romance (Rosemont Duology Book 2) Page 4
