by Sonali Dev
She forced herself to turn to the sink and attacked the pile of pots and pans, seeking out each grimy patch of dried-up food and assaulting it as if it were the abomination. When the sink gleamed, each dish propped meticulously in the dishwasher, she turned to the countertops, spraying and scrubbing until her fingers wrinkled up like prunes. Everything gleamed, but nothing felt clean.
I can see right through you.
She stormed to the basement door and pulled it open. But she couldn’t make herself take a step down.
What was the point? What could she say to him? I threw up in Ved’s toilet after you left. And I didn’t stop until I had passed out from it. Letting Ved touch me where you had touched me hurt so much, I’ve never let anyone touch me after that.
She rubbed her arm where the imprint of his skin still lingered. The impotence of her feelings rose and grew from that spot and spread through her.
He’d seen right through her—and he’d seen nothing.
Not the things Ved had made her do once he’d found out about Vikram. Wow, you really broke that boy’s heart! You’re not just a cold greedy little thing, you’re ruthless too. He’d made her kneel in front of him and pay. He’d folded her over and made her pay. But she’d deserved it. For taking the offer: a role in the year’s biggest production for her body. And for having nothing but that one thing to sell and so many things to pay for.
Not that she would survive it if Vikram ever found out about any of it.
She backed away from the door, hating herself for needing to wipe away his touch, hating the hopeless wanting that had no respite. Her feelings for Vikram weren’t the only thing that hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed. The dark sadness spreading too fast inside her proved it, the tears that lurked too close to the surface all the time proved it. In just one day she’d moved closer to breaking down than she’d been in a very long time, losing all the control it had taken her years to gain. She was a ticking time bomb and he was angry enough to be her fuse. And together they were a tragedy waiting to repeat itself.
She pulled the door shut and dragged herself up the stairs, craving the solace of her room, craving the solace of something. Knowing it would never be hers, but wanting it all the same. Wanting it so badly it made her feel like the stark raving lunatic who hid inside her. It had called to her once from the creaking attic above the timber ceiling of the house Baba had banished her from. Now it lived in the tiny particles that barely held her together.
7
Ria threw open the louvered white shutters of her closet. Earlier she had unpacked her suitcase and arranged her clothes in perfectly aligned stacks on the wood shelves. The sequined silk and chiffon looked out of place where ten years ago nothing but shirts and jeans had sat. Ria looked up at the closet ceiling. The small square door leading up to the attic seemed even smaller now. The colored fingerprints had faded, but she could still see them. She went up on her tiptoes and pushed at the thin, painted plywood. It resisted only for a bit, and then flipped back as it had always done.
Stepping on the lowermost shelf she reached up into the darkness. The last time she had done this, Vikram had lifted her up, his arms wrapped tight around her thighs, his chin digging into her belly between her shirt and her jeans. His stubble had scratched her skin and tugged at her most intimate parts, and awakened them.
The memory made those parts clench again as she reached into the attic and found the cardboard box. She tugged it down, kneeled next to it on the floor, and lifted the dusty lid off. Inside sat a box of acrylics, the misshapen tubes half-empty, a few still-sharp 4B pencils, and the dried-up stubs of oil pastel sticks. And two brushes. She picked one up and stroked the fine sable hairs.
In her year without words, a well-meaning art teacher had given her a brush and paints. And for one precious hour, it had set her free. When she’d dipped a brush into the thick silk of the paint, she’d slid into the paper, flown over it, bled into it. All the things she couldn’t say, everything she was afraid of had come pouring out, turned into color and form, into torment, and anger, and pain.
This is what she drew when we asked her to draw a coconut tree, Mr. Pendse. The teacher later told her father as if Baba and not Ria had given the tree a face and limbs and then violently dismembered it with bleeding wounds so grotesque it had made the poor art teacher drop the wet paper as though it were dipped in poison. This isn’t the work of a normal seven-year-old. We strongly suggest a psychiatrist, Mr. Pendse.
Baba had wordlessly removed Ria from that boarding school and found another, but he hadn’t taken her back home. Ria had never painted again. At least not until Vikram had caught her sketching on the back of a magazine a few years later. I can’t let anyone see, please, she’d begged him. The next day he’d bought her colors and a sketchpad hidden in brown paper packaging. Don’t let anyone see. That’s all he’d said.
By that time everything inside her was no longer quite so ugly. Especially not when she was here. Her pictures hadn’t been exactly beautiful, and she was sure they continued to not be the work of a normal child. But Vikram had loved her drawings and refused to throw them away. Instead he had helped her hide them in the attic above the closet. Finally, a few years later, she had let the rest of the family see and Uma had gone on a framing spree. But Ria had only ever painted here during the summers, never in her other life at the dungeon.
A few years ago, she had found herself sketching on set on the back of a script, an image of a girl having her head torn off by her hair. The ugliness had been so stark it had been like Ria’s mind had hemorrhaged and oozed out. She had burned the picture before anyone saw it and had become progressively more obsessed with holding her mind together for as long as she could.
She shut the box again, wishing she could shut all the things that were opening up inside her with the same ease, and pushed it back into the attic. Out the window, orange morning light tinged the sky. But the house was still disturbingly silent. The sting of Vikram’s anger still wrapped around her like the too-tight clothes her designer insisted on making her wear.
There was only one thing to do. She pulled on her running tights, a sports bra, a hoodie, and sneakers, and ran down the stairs and out the kitchen door.
Ria wasn’t a natural runner. In fact, she hated running. But other than solving puzzles and following a desperate vitamin regimen that the Internet promised kept the chemicals in the brain balanced, physical exercise was her only hope of postponing her fate. Of all the forms of exercise her trainer conjured up for her, only running numbed her mind. Aerobics was too much like her Bollywood dances. She had to analyze every move to get it right. Yoga made her mind race all over the place instead of centering it, which made all that breathing and stretching pointless. Running was real live work, every muscle, every breath had to be engaged, every ounce of will had to be dredged up.
Today Ria needed to run.
She took off along the DuPage River that snaked through the woods behind the house. Naperville was a lush quiet suburb and the crisp promise of a beautiful day surrounded her. Every mossy rock, every birdsong, kindled memories of long-ago summer days, just as perfect, but far too few.
Ria sped up, willing the pounding in her chest and the cramping in her calves to block everything else out. Sweat poured from her. Warm trickles slid over the barely visible scars on her shoulders, her chest. Memories of ancient wounds that just wouldn’t stop bleeding flooded her mind—the rip of hair from her scalp, the crush of ribs against her lungs.
She sped up until the merciless pace took her breath and her thoughts. Finally, when the towering oak came into view, she knew she was almost home and she let herself slow. The sounds of children playing reached her before she caught sight of young boys playing soccer in the clearing next to the oak. Her heart squeezed at the sight. They must’ve been ten years old, scruffy, sweaty, and loud, and wearing matching football jerseys just like the one Nikhil had worn when he’d played soccer for the park district.
Ria was ab
out to head past the boys when a familiar form shot across the rolling hill. When he saw the boys he stopped and bent over to catch his breath, hands resting on his hips. The movement was so distinctly him, she knew it was Vikram even before she took in the wide shoulders, the jet-black spikes falling across his forehead, and the determined profile silhouetted against the sky.
She slipped behind a thicket of trees.
He was a few hundred feet away, but she could see his bright white running shirt cling to his body, the rise and fall of his muscles making patterns on the wet fabric. Her breath fell into rhythm with his labored breathing.
“Wanna play, Vic?” one of the boys in the group called out, and threw the ball at him.
Vikram caught the ball with one hand, threw it up in the air, and kicked it back at them.
“Not today, guys.” He lifted his shirt and wiped his face, exposing a lean, muscled midriff glistening with sweat.
“Come on, Vic. One game, Vic. Please, Vic.” A chant rose from the mob. They ran up to him and surrounded him, bouncing up and down exactly like the ball they’d been dribbling.
“What, you afraid we’ll kick your butt?” the biggest one said with impressive swagger, given that he was exactly half Vikram’s size.
Vikram laughed, ruffled the boy’s hair, and stole the ball from under his foot. “Only if you can catch my butt first, squirt.” He ran the ball down the hill. “You men up for some five-on-one?”
“You’re on!” All five boys raced after him. But they couldn’t catch him or steal the ball away from him. He faked moves, skipped the ball backward, across, forward, controlling it with such deft grace it was as if the ball was connected to him by invisible string. Every now and again, he let one of the boys take it, then stole it back. They followed his moves, mimicked him. Before Ria realized what was going on, the game turned into a coaching session.
“Jack, back at Josh . . . There, keep passing it.... It’s a team sport, Sahil, don’t show off. . . . Awesome. Slow down.... Speed up. . . . Don’t think about it, Sean, just run with it.”
She pressed her cheek into the prickly bark she was hugging. Despite the deep shade that hid her, every inch of her warmed as though soaked in sunshine.
One of the boys finally managed to get the ball away from Vikram and dribbled it all the way to the goal. He whooped in delight and did a cartwheel. Vikram doubled over laughing, joy emanating from him like a live thing.
“You should put these moves on V-learn, Vic,” one of the boys shouted, imitating Vikram’s dribble and kick.
Vikram froze. He lost track of the ball and it struck him square on the head. The boys collapsed laughing. Vikram kicked the ball up, bounced it on one knee, and grabbed it in his hands. “You’ve been on V-learn?”
“Sahil’s mom showed us.” The boy pointed to the Indian boy. “I just aced my pre-algebra test from it. Thanks!”
“What unit?” Vikram’s tone was suddenly serious. His body radiated so much eagerness he looked almost as young as them.
A car honked. “That’s my mom,” someone said, and the mob ran across the hill toward the street, signaling Vikram to throw them the ball.
“What unit?” he shouted after them.
“Simultaneous equations.”
Vikram kicked the ball through the air at the boys just as they disappeared over the hill. He didn’t really whoop for joy, but he might as well have.
Ria had no idea what they had been talking about. She didn’t know if it was playing soccer with the kids or what they had said, but whatever it was, it lifted a veil and gave Ria a glimpse of her Viky—unencumbered, buoyant. The way he used to be.
It didn’t last. Just as suddenly his shoulders stiffened again. Slowly he turned around and stared at the oak. For a long while he didn’t move, then he broke into a run and headed full tilt toward the massive trunk, springing at the low-hanging branch and heaving himself onto it.
Their bridge.
He reached for the branch above him and pulled himself to standing. Then with the ease of a tightrope walker he strode across the branch to where it stopped over the gurgling water. His body leaned forward as if he were about to dive in, clothes and shoes and all. Ria bit her lip to keep from crying out. But he didn’t jump. He just stood there, the morning sun setting him on fire, tension coiled in his body like an arrow slung into a bow and pulled tight.
It wasn’t until a wisp of breeze caressed Ria’s cheeks that she realized they were wet. Again. She pulled away from the tree, away from the heart-wrenching sight of him. She wanted to go back home. She wanted to stay right here and spy on him forever. She wanted to be on their bridge again, by his side, with her hands on his sweat-slick skin.
But more than anything else she wanted to see him smile like that again. She pushed away from the tree and ran toward the house.
He had always loved being around kids. Even when he had interned at their uncle’s pediatric practice for two summers, he had been excited about every child who came into the clinic. He’d known every child’s name. What a brilliant pediatrician he must be. Even better than Vijay Kaka, if that were possible, but only because he was Vikram and he was always the best at everything.
She, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with kids.
Giving birth to her had triggered her mother’s psychosis. A month after giving birth to her mother, her grandmother had thrown herself into a well and killed herself. Genetically the doctors had pinned Ria’s chances at thirty-five percent. Never in a million years would she put a child through that numbers game. This was going to end with her.
She swiped at the tears with the cuffs of her hoodie. Letting herself cry yesterday had been a mistake. Now the bloody tap just wouldn’t turn off and the worst part was how absurdly good it felt.
“Good God, beta, did you go running? You were as exhausted as a dead rat last night, have you no sense at all?” Despite the scolding tone, seeing Uma at the kitchen table with that look on her face made Ria go to her aunt and wrap her arms around her and hold on.
Uma pressed her cheek against Ria’s. “Great, now how can I be mad at you?”
“How is it she gets away with anything with just one hug?” Nikhil looked up from the newspaper he was reading over his father’s shoulder.
Her uncle, Vijay Kaka, smiled one of his twinkling smiles. That smile alone could heal a sick child merely by its presence. She let her aunt go and wrapped her arms around her uncle. He patted her cheek and pointed to the two familiar faces next to him. “You remember Matt and Mindy, Ria?”
“Of course.” Matt was Vijay Kaka’s roommate from his residency days. And Matt and Mindy’s son, Drew, had been Vikram’s roommate at Northwestern.
Mindy stood and pulled Ria into a hug. “How wonderful to see you, Ria,” she said. “Uma, how lovely to have the entire brood under your roof again. I’m so glad we decided to stay the night.” They had driven up from Indiana last night for the engagement ceremony just the way they had done a few weekends every summer.
“I’m so glad you stayed.” Uma poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Ria. “It’s a lagna ghar, a wedding home. It has to bustle, overflow with people. Otherwise what’s the point?”
Ria took a sip and smiled at her aunt. “Speaking of lagna ghar. It’s close to noon and all this looks a bit relaxed. Don’t we have a wedding to plan? Where’s the panic? The bustle?”
“Well, we were all set to panic this morning, but elves visited last night and cleaned up.” Uma made her typical admonishing eyes at Ria. “Now we don’t know what to do with ourselves.”
Ria gave her a sheepish smile. “So you made idlis instead.” She leaned against Vijay Kaka’s chair and peered into the steamer stacked with fluffy white rice cakes and the most delicious smelling lentil sambar. Her stomach gave the most unladylike growl. Before Uma could launch into a lecture, Ria picked up a plate and helped herself to an idli. Uma reached for the sambar.
“You need a dropper for that, Aie?” Nikhil grinned his m
ost annoying grin.
Ria smacked his shoulder.
“What? We can’t have fat starlets running around.” He looked far too amused with himself. Ria glared at him, but everyone else laughed. The traitors.
“Oh, this is just like old times,” Mindy said. “I wish Drew were here. You remember our son, Drew?”
Ria nodded. Drew had called her “Mrs. J” because Vikram’s last name was Jathar and it had turned Ria all shades of red. Which had made Vikram adopt the name anytime he felt the need to make her blush. “How is Drew?” she asked.
“He’s psychiatry faculty at U of M and he has his own private practice in Ann Arbor,” Mindy said, and then proceeded to fill Ria in on every detail of Drew’s illustrious career and wonderful family at length, which inspired Nikhil to make gagging faces behind her. Ria spooned rice cake into her mouth, her straight face a testament to her own illustrious career. But she was going to kill Nikhil if she choked.
“Of course he’ll be at the wedding.” Mindy was still talking about Drew. “He won’t pass up an opportunity to see Vic, and they’ve been working on that project of theirs,” she said to Uma with such pride that her eyes misted over.
“I know! Isn’t it just wonderful what they’re doing?” Uma said, her eyes just as proud, and Ria had a hard time swallowing.
Suddenly Uma turned to Nikhil, all the pride on her face turning into worry. “Where is that boy? I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”
“Your thirty-one-year-old ‘boy’ is fine, Aie. He just had his hands full last night,” Nikhil said, grinning so suggestively that the graphic visuals of Vikram with Mira wrapped around each other sprang back to life inside Ria’s head. “He’ll show up. Don’t worry, he hasn’t disappeared into thin air again.”
Blood drained from Uma’s face. Her hands tightened around her cup until her fingers turned white. The idli stuck in Ria’s throat.
