Born Confused (36 page)

—That is so untrue! What do you mean?

—No—what does
she
mean, this Upma? Gwyn demanded.—It sounded to me like you both were actually just saying the same thing over and over.

—Likewise, said Kavita.—Did you even conclude anything after all that?

—That’s not the point! cried Sabina.—Shame on you, Kavita. But if you must know, we did in fact continue our discussion well after the debate, and we did indeed come up with a conclusion. But since you all are obviously so unreceptive this evening, I suppose I just won’t bother sharing it with you.

No one begged for more.

—Is that why you were so late meeting me? Kavita asked finally. She was looking very pouty and there was a pepperoni stain on her nightgown already.

—I lost track of time, Sabina sighed.—It’s just, when Upma gets talking, she’s so
passionate.
And she’s read everything under the sun. I mean
everything.
She really knows her shit. It was the first time I ever felt challenged like that—it was a buzz, pushing my limits, pushing the envelope. That’s all.

—Oh,
now
I am feeling much better, said Kavita, but she didn’t really look like she was.

—What’s the big deal? Gwyn piped up. She was sitting like a frog, legs splayed out behind her. I could see Sabina was pretty irritated with her from the way her features thinned still further, pursing in on themselves.—Personally, and no offense, but that part of
the debate was cake. It wasn’t pushing
my
envelope. I mean, duh, everyone knows that fashion is a shared thing. Indian, American. In today, out tomorrow. You’ve got to go a little ahead of the flow, that’s all.

—Come on, Kavs. It’s just an intellectual high, a mental connection, said Sabina, ignoring Gwyn completely. I could tell Gwyn was getting annoyed now.

—But that’s everything, isn’t it, Kavita replied. She was looking bleary- eyed, sitting there with her knees up, nightgown pulled tight down around them, arms holding it all together like a small mountain. I wondered if she was stressed from all that studying.

—Don’t be so territorial, said Sabina, tweaking her nose affectionately.—My mind is expanding. You shouldn’t be afraid of that.

She nudged her mischievously.

—Would a little henna help?

—I’d love some! cried Gwyn, all slights forgiven.

Sabina looked surprised for a moment to see us sitting there.

—You know what: You’re right, she finally said, clapping her hands as if to wake herself.—What’s say I henna us all up so we are so stylin’ly family-I-got-all-my-sistahs-with-me for the wrap tomorrow?

—Oh my scrod, I’ve never been hennaed before! Gwyn exclaimed.—I mean, I’ve seen the kits and stencils and all, just lately I haven’t had the time to go through with it—the drying takes so long. But tonight would be perfect!

—Kits? Stencils? said Sabz indignantly.—This is no shopping mall temporary tattoo kit we’re talking about, missy. Weren’t you listening to a word we were saying today?

—It’s not temporary? Gwyn said hopefully, and me despairingly, in stereo.

—Of course it’s
temporary—
though it should last you a couple
of weeks. What I mean is this is freehand, freestyle. The real thing, my dear. Straight from…

—Edison, New Jersey, said Kavita, falling back and laughing as if cheered by the thought.—And via Africa, as
Upma
pointed out.

—Two weeks! cried Gwyn.—Is that all?

—Okay, Miss Thing. These two, I’ll do right now, said Sabina, kicking Kavita gently in the hip.—But
you
I will deal with later.

—Is that a promise? whispered Kavita impishly.

This was turning into a very odd dialogue. And it was definitely a dialogue: The two spoke to each other as if they were the only two in the room, the only two anywhere, in fact. And the way Kavita was looking at Sabina, up from under her lazy lids, it was sort of like the way Gwyn looked at Karsh. Or Dylan. Or most boys: flirtatious. I couldn’t imagine ever having this kind of exchange with Gwyn.

I was getting a jittery, slithery feeling in my gut, or rather, was starting to pay attention to an instinct I guess I’d had for a while now; why did it always take me so long to do that? And I must have been staring because Kavita turned to me. For a second she looked startled to be out of the world of two, but then, watching me intently, her face filled with affection, almost as if it had taken a moment for her to recognize me and it was a relief when she did. She nodded slightly, that Indian side-to-side move that could have been a yes, a no, a maybe, a dunno, or a little of all, depending where you were watching from.

—And shouldn’t that be
Ms.
Thing? Gwyn had just asked. But Sabina was already heading into the bathroom.

She came back, clearly excited, and immediately broke out her materials. She set to work on Gwyn first, rubbing eucalyptus oil on her skin for the color to come out richer. The room began to smell like a sauna as she started squiggling Om symbols in the center of her palms and then a vinefest of leaf and thorn from foot top to mid
calf. (Gwyn didn’t want to bother with the soles, since she had a great pair of Candies to wear the next day; legs were cool since that would show up faboo with her sequined mini.) Sabina worked efficiently, and with surprising steadiness of hand for someone who waved them around so much to speak.

Kavita watched for a minute, but seemed to have her mind on other things.

—Dimple, could you give me a hand? she asked, suddenly standing and beginning to clear the remains of our picnic. I joined her in the kitchenette where she was tying up a mostly empty bag of garbage.

—Come with me, she said, unchaining the door.—I’m just going to go leave this on the sidewalk.

I wasn’t sure what she wanted help with since she refused to let me carry the single sack. We stepped out into the hallway and then the stairwell, door clacking metallically shut behind us.

—Man, I’m stuffed, I said as we descended, just to say something.—I must have eaten half that pizza.

My voice echoed in the stairwell, sounding for some reason unnecessarily dramatic. Kavita spun around to me, stopping abruptly on the landing.

—Don’t, she said softly, her voice tremoring as if she were about to cry. She was staring at me so openly I dropped dead in my tracks, speechless. But for all the intensity of her gaze, the rest of her was fidgeting like a little kid, and the bag slipped with a hushed thud to the floor.

I took both her hands in mine to still them.

—Dimple, listen. I know you’ve probably already figured this out by now, but Sabz and I. We’re. You know. Together.

Her speech seemed to steady as she spoke, as if simply hearing
her own words in her own voice, resoundingly confirmed here in the echoing stairwell, made her more sure of them.

—Yeah, I said.—That’s cool. Don’t worry, I knew.

This wasn’t exactly true. I felt far from cool, and of course I hadn’t figured it out. But I wasn’t completely shocked, either—it was as if all the pieces had been accumulating in my mind and heart and now they fell together to create the full picture. Still, it was a whole other thing to be hearing it straight from her mouth.

—So…you’re not completely shocked or anything, is it?

—You know, I told her slowly, truthfully.—I think I’m most shocked by how brave you are. Does anyone…?

—You’re the first in our family to know, she said.

—Wow, I said.—I’m. Well, I’m honored, Kavita. So you two are really—?

—This is it.

I didn’t know what to say, how to even begin to understand it all, so I began to babble instead.

—I mean, wow. That’s great. It must be, like, totally cool to be with your best friend. Right? Like, if I were with Gwyn but in a guy. I guess. Being with a girl must be so much…easier.

—Easy is hardly how I’d describe Sabz, said Kavita. She rolled her eyes, but fondness shone in them, too.

—Okay, that’s true, I smiled.—But you’re in love. That’s great.

—Thank you, Dimple, she said quietly. And then, as she settled her arms around me, she let out an exhale so prolonged I wondered how she’d been breathing all along. I could feel the buried shudder as she set loose a small sob on my shoulder. When she pulled back, her face was shining.

—There now, she said.—That wasn’t so hard, was it.

I didn’t know if she was speaking to me or herself.

I felt we’d been gone a year. But when we exited that epic stairwell, I wondered whether we had even had that whole exchange. And when we got back to the room, semi-normalcy resumed with the comforting sight of Gwyn lounging across the couch, legs dangling off the armrest to dry; she looked like a starlet relaxing between takes.

—Where were you two? asked Sabina.

—Just throwing out the trash, smiled Kavita, winking at me.

It was my turn, and in the palms of my hands Sabina created a jungle of twisted text. It tickled a little as it went on. I couldn’t look her in the eye right away; for some reason I was the one feeling self-conscious, and I was glad to have something else to focus on. The henna dripped on mahogany, a thin stream cool to the touch and stiffening, growing cooler still.

But not enough to stop the surge of emotions and questions stewing inside me. I dropped cross-legged on the floor, palms up to dry—you could say in a yogic pose, but it felt more to me like the hands-thrown-up-in-despair asana. This day had delivered me more than I could process.

Did Maasi and Kaka have any idea? Perhaps they knew in the back of their mind but not the front, like the gnawing peripheral feeling I’d had. It occurred to me that maybe that was the reason for all the sudden pressure on Sangita. Had Dadaji known? Had Kavita even known in those days? She had always been so much a part of my life I’d stopped thinking about her, stopped questioning the outdatedness or inaccuracy of my perception. And now she was close enough to ask. But though nothing had really changed in these last moments—except that Kavita did look visibly more relaxed, and kept smiling at me—and she clearly wasn’t even trying to hide anything, I still felt she’d just slipped on out of the tidy mostly untended room I’d set aside for her in my mind, leaving the door ajar.

Sabina was darkening the lotus on the nape of Kavita’s neck,
which I now realized was what I’d seen the night she’d slept over. Kavita was sitting Indian—South Asian?—style, one hand on her knee. With the other she held her baseball cap in place, neck stretching taut to keep the flower intact, which left her navel-gazing. We looked a bit like we were at a séance, and Gwyn was the vision we had conjured up, levitating there between us. Only Sabina was free to move around at the end of it all—every now and then administering a mixture of sugar and lemon water onto our hennaed sections to further deepen the hue—and I had a feeling she probably liked it that way. I didn’t want to imagine what that translated into with Kavita. So don’t imagine, I told myself. Merely observe. Take a lesson from Chica Tikka.

The hush while Sabina and the wine worked slowly through us had chilled everyone out a bit. Now when Kavita spoke it was poutlessly, thoughtfully.

—I’m sorry I was so touchy before, she said.—I suppose it was just a bit odd for me, all this talk of India. Sometimes it feels like it’s not even my country you are discussing, isn’t it? I am of course happy that it is stimulating such concern and interest. But much as it thrills me, somehow it makes me feel far from home.

My thoughts exactly. In a way it did for me, too. It was as if with every step I took towards the place I got pushed back two.

—Strange, said Sabina.—I’ve never felt
such
a sense of belonging as I do now.

—Yeah, it’s funny, Gwyn agreed.—For me—I know you’ll say I’m crazy, but I feel like I’m really finding myself in this crowd.

—Have you considered you might just be appropriating it? said Sabina, striding around the room now, cleaning up.

—What do you mean? I don’t get all this appropriate/inappropriate stuff you were all obsessed with, by the way. Is there some kind of etiquette handbook to being Indian?

—Appropriate: making it yours, Sabina translated.—Have you considered you might be doing just that?

—Yes, exactly, said Gwyn, smiling at the ceiling, oblivious to Sabina’s irked look.—Yes, I feel I’m making it mine. And you’re letting me.

—You
are
the one who hennaed her, Sabz, Kavita commented to her lap.

—See then? said Sabina.—I suppose my mind really is expanding, then. And anyways, the guest is goddess in a South Asian household.

I was examining my hands, staring at the new lines in my palm.

—You know, I said slowly.—This pattern reminds me of Zara’s.

—Of course it does, smiled Sabina.—I did her myself. Even though hers always seems to come out even better than everyone else’s.

—Why do you call her a her? I asked now. The wine had loosened my tongue.—You know, you were right—the balls in Bollywood and all that. She’s a he.

—No way! cried Gwyn.—Impossible! We were with her in the ladies’ room today.

—Come on, Gwyn, haven’t you seen the size of her Adam’s apple? Sabina scoffed.

—Of course not. Anyways, she’s always covered in chokers and scarves and stuff.

—Yeah, it’s never in view, I said.

—Exactly, said Kavita.

—Dimple, this can’t be true, Gwyn insisted, lifting her torso and legs and holding a V shape there.—I mean, take that guy she’s with. I saw them looking all lovey-dovey after the workshop today.

—And he was with her at the club, too, I joined in.—I mean, he
must know by now, no? I think they might even be sort of unofficially married. She’s got a mangal sutra and all.

—You can’t hide your Thing forever if you’re in a relationship, said Gwyn solemnly.

—Of course he knows, laughed Kavita.—That’s why he’s with her.

—But he’s always in a suit, said Gwyn.—Like a banker.

—And she’s in a sari, said Kavita, now inching closer to Sabina.—You never know what’s going on under all those layers, isn’t it?

—But a
sari.
I mean, she’s
Indian,
I said. Recalling the evening’s stairwellian confession, I immediately felt foolish.