Born Confused (32 page)

—Mom, you’re the greatest cook in the universe. How come I never told you that before? Those
cookies.
Those
samosas.

—They were the frozen ones, she said proudly.

—Well, then, you’re the world’s greatest deforester!

The word hung in the air before me. We all seemed to be examining it, heads cocked.

—So where did it leave off? said my mother.—Did he say anything about next time? About meeting again?

—I heard! He did! He said
See you around,
said my dad.—So it is progressing nicely.

—When will he be seeing you around?

—Well, he wants to check out my pictures sometime, I said.

—We can arrange that, said my father mysteriously, now chewing on a toothpick and looking very mafioso.

—Why would he want to see your pictures when he has the real thing before him? my mother wanted to know.

—Not pictures
of
me. Pictures I take.

—Aha! So maybe it is not so bad we are helping you set up this darkening room, smiled my mother, victorious.—It is the fate.

She stood, and my father stood, like men did when women left the room in old films, and I stood, like drugged daughters did when sober parents did, in order to blend in as best as possible.

—So do you admit you were wrong about him? my mom asked.

I pictured the way he drew the joint to his puckered lips, all the little lines that grooved upon them as he inhaled. I nodded vehemently.

—Oh yes, I admit it, I said.

—You see? First impressions may not always be the accurate ones. Not everything is as it seems at a glance. Laugh at me all you like—but he is a suitable boy! I knew it. Like I know my own daughter.

Little did they realize how lawsuitable this boy actually was.

—You know me better than you know, I said.

—I know, she said.—And no pressure, beta—it is all in the hands of the gods now.

I wasn’t sure why we’d had to arrange that whole meeting in the first place if it had been in the hands of the gods—unless the gods were playing catch with it and she was just giving me the play-by-play.

She took me in her arms.

—Mmm, you smell…strange, she said, pulling back and knitting her brow.—What is that, Daddy?

They sniffed at me like confounded airport puppies. I decided
I better run before the real dogs were called in, and started down the hall.

—Clove? my father offered.

—Cinnamon, my mother argued.

—A touch of asafetida, my father attempted—which is what he always said whenever he couldn’t pinpoint an ingredient.

I was sprinting at this point.

—Ah! I am knowing what it is, I heard my mother saying as I just narrowly made it into the bathroom and spritzed on some pinescented air freshener.—It is bhang!

I lay in bed that night, feeling a funny feeling when I thought about Karsh. In other words, feeling a funny feeling all the time. Even though after tonight I was so sure he and Gwyn were meant to be. Glitter had dusted off him to me and now speckled my pillow. I could still smell him on me, too, the scent of his shirt, but his shirt had been long gone. How can a world change overnight like this? But it was one word that had done it. One word from the mouth of a person I was beginning to realize I had completely misjudged. That
Rani
had gone straight to my heart and made a hole there, a hole like the one he’d left behind when he stood in the room and went to Gwyn, full of his aura but leaving me emptier still.

—I can’t stop thinking about him, Gwyn whispered, picking at her diner salad. It was time for the lunchtime confessional.—I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. For Claude’s sake, I can’t even shop.

—You can’t, I said dully. My triple-decker burger oozed grease, vying for space with a sweet pickle that I was saving for last and an explosion of fries. The fries were mostly on the burnt side, which I liked. I was picking the soggy ones out and making two little piles.

—I mean, he’s amazing, Gwyn went on.—He just
gets
it, you know? He gets
me.
The whole thing about my dad…I’ve never been able to talk to someone like that before. Something about him makes me feel I can open up and he’s not going to laugh and it’s not going to hurt. That he would never hurt me.

There were sixteen fries in the burnt pile and six in the soggy.

—Not to mention how
beautiful
he is. His skin, that color, so smooth—it’s like he has no pores.

This was true—I had noticed it first in the barlight of HotPot, where he’d gone from brown to bronze before my eyes.

—And brilliant—when he talks you can tell he’s really thought about things. He’s not just bullshitting to get in your pants.

I would have to agree there as well. Although I wasn’t 200 percent sure he would mind eventually getting into Gwyn’s.

—And talented. Did you even see what he did with the Lillian’s lame old record player? He put magic into it. He put magic into me—I’ve never met anyone like him. Anyone. And do you want to know what he did?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but it didn’t seem I had a choice.

—I was feeling so down after he left with you, she continued, sticking her finger in the dressing on the side and sucking it off.—I know, it’s silly, it must have been only ten minutes. But it felt like an eternity and, I don’t know, after all that talk about my dad, I just felt like he might—vanish into thin air or something. I know, it doesn’t make any sense. But that’s how I felt. And when he came back I told him how I dreamed of the days I would still hear my parents’ footsteps in the house when I went to sleep, when I was little and everything seemed all right, and how every night no matter what, my father tucked me in, chin to toes—and you know what he did? Do you know what he did?

I didn’t, but I had a feeling I was going to find out pronto and I was going to wish it had happened to me. She was eyeing my fries now, her eyes shifting between the two piles as if it were match point.

—He told me, she said, swooping up a good third of the burnt numbers.—That he would stay with me and walk around till I fell asleep if that would make me less scared. And he stayed, and he walked around, and I felt so relaxed I could have slept, but I didn’t want to sleep, I didn’t want to miss a moment. And…guess what he did to me!

I didn’t say anything. I tried to think of what was the opposite of that thing you did on planes to unblock your ears so I could plug mine up against what I was about to hear.

—Nothing! He didn’t try anything!

She crunched through the handful of fries and went for another one. So maybe they could be just friends? I breathed an internal sigh of relief, but it was cut short.

—I mean, what a major turn-on! I never thought I’d see the day! He just came in and pulled the covers up to my chin and down to
my toes and kissed me. It was so gentle, so tender, I could have married him on the spot.

—So you guys sucked face? I said, the burger beginning to convulse in my grip.

—No, no, Dimple—have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? We did not
suck face,
as you so Shakespearily put it. It was even better than that.

She waited for me to ask for more, but I didn’t.

—He kissed me on the forehead! No guy has ever kissed me on the forehead—they always go straight for the mouth or more. It was incredible.

She leaned back, pushing her salad away.

—This could be it, Dimple. It’s not like with other people; it’s really special. I’ve never felt this way before. I know I’ve said that before. But this time it’s different. I know I’ve said that before, too—but really.
Never.
He cares about me—I feel it. I’m so used to looking after everyone and he looked after me. He didn’t treat me like a fool or a weakling or a bimbo. He just took care of me, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He even told me my house was sacred because I’m in it.

—I know. I was there.

—Oh, right. Well this one is special. And I’m saving him for something better—I’m going to play the game differently this time around. I don’t want to mess this one up, Dimple. And I need your help.

—Help with what? You’re doing just fine, I said. All the burnt fries were gone. I poked a soggy one in the side; my fingernail left a crescent there.

—It’s just, he’s so…Indian.

—You noticed?

—You know what I mean. It’s obviously important to him, his
heritage. After all, he agreed to go through with the whole arranged setup thing, right? I know he really likes me and all, but I’m just worried in the big picture that I’m, well, that maybe I’m just not Indian enough.

—Enough? Gwyn, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not Indian at all!

—I knew it, she sighed, slamming a fist into the table. Then determination steeled her eyes.—But I’m not going to let a little thing like that get in my way. Be all that you can’t be, right? That’s what I’m made for.

She opened her fist, splaying her decaled fingertips on the table towards me.

—You’re my best friend in the world, Boopster. You know that.

—You’re mine, too, Rabbit, I had to admit.

—No contest, she said.—I’d do anything for you.

—I’d do anything for you, too.

—Great. Because I need your assistance: I’m recruiting you to help me get Indo—but genuinely so this time.

—But what do you want me to do about it?

I mean, I did okay in biology but I wasn’t
that
good.

—Numero uno: Desicreate—you know, that NYU identity thing next weekend. I figure that’s a great place to get the DL.

—You’re going to that? I said.

—We’re
going, Gwyn replied firmly.

—Oh no…I mean, HotPot was one thing, but spending a sunny summer weekend cooped up in a college auditorium?

—Come on, supertwin! What better place to figure out how to be Indian than an identity conference? It’ll be good for both of us. And besides, I’ll look like an idiot without you.

This was a twist on the norm. But still, I had enough on my hands with my own identity crisis, thanks very much.

—Karsh will be there. Not only be there—he’s doing a DJ workshop.

—You’ve got to be kidding, I said, but my interest perked and I poured too much brown sugar into my coffee. It nearly turned to gur, the jaggery palm-sap pabulum my mother said only love could beat for sweetness. I didn’t know he’d be going. I mean, he was a DJ; I’d sort of assumed he’d have DJ things to do—gigs to play, clubs to check out, things to spin, ‘zines to pose for.

—He says it’s important to engage in a dialogue about these issues.

—Why do you have to go to a conference to have a dialogue? We’re having a dialogue and we’re not at a conference.

But even as I spoke, the idea of being cooped up in a college auditorium was starting to seem slightly cozier to me.

—I don’t know. I didn’t really get it. But I think you need more people to
engage
in one. Or something. In any case he lit up when he talked about it. It’s really important to him—he wants more people to be exposed to all of these issues, to bhangra, to the music.

Well, then I wanted to be there.

—And it’s really important to me.

Make that a double.

—Okay, okay, I said.—I’ll go with you.

—And step two: I need to be transformed into a suitable girl by then.

The drugs were definitely still in her system.

—Try a self-tanner, I said.

—No, no, Dimple—being Indian isn’t just skin deep. I’m serious. I can’t change my color. But I can change everything else.

—Gwyn, I have a feeling he likes you just the way you are.

—But he’ll like me even more just the way you are.

This was food for thought.

—Really, Dimple. The way he talks about you—it’s almost too much.

—What do you mean? I said, my heart lifting in spite of my logy state, in spite of myself.

—Oh, I don’t know. He says you have a great personality, that there’s more to you than meets the eye.

Meaning I was ugly with the potential to say interesting things? Yay.

—And he says you’re like family to him.

Like a sister. An ugly sister? An ugly sister.

—Oh. Okay. Well. So what exactly do you want me to do?

—Well, I’ll need to borrow some more of your clothes for the conference. If that’s okay. And your dad’s records—you said they have all the same records, right? I’m actually getting pretty good at the beat-dropping thing, but I need to be better. Oh, and at some point, cooking lessons from your mom—hello. He mentioned how much he loves her stuff.

—In other words you need to borrow my whole family.

—I want to be the real thing, Dimple. You’re the only one who can help me.

—Yeah, I can relate to that, I said.—I’m sorry—I guess I’m just kind of moody today.

It was true, much as it irked me. I could relate. Who was I to scoff, after all? I hardly knew how to be Indian myself and I even had race on my side. I remembered my vow to try to be a better friend to Gwyn. And after all, I couldn’t like Karsh—I hardly knew him, right? He was The Boy, right? Besides, he’d already resoundingly hinted that he thought of me as a relative at best, so unless we both turned out to be on the Pakistani side of South Asian, where cousins could still intermarry, there was little hope that this could lead to anything of a romantic nature. So all this potential romancing between him
and Gwyn—why should it bother me? So what if he’d turned out to be slightly cooler than I’d expected; then I should be even happier Gwyn was digging him. After all she’d been through with her family, and with Dylan and who knew who else. I should be overjoyed that she might be leaving the days of the nasty boys behind and riding off into the DJ booth with a bona fide bed-tucker-inner.

—And put in a good word for me, if you get a chance? she said now. What would have normally been a command ended in a tremulous question mark today, and made it abundantly clear if there’d ever been a doubt: This was no game; she was so earnest it seemed she hadn’t blinked this whole time.