Lucky T (14 page)

Then Dee broke the awkward silence and laughed, breaking into the wide grin that sent the butterflies in her stomach spinning.

"What?" she asked with a smile. "What's so funny?"

"You! You're kidding, right?" Dee said. "Although it's kind of an elaborate story--coming halfway across the globe to search for a T-shirt. Who would do that?"

Carrie snapped her mouth shut. "Um ... I would."

Dee stopped laughing and took a step back, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "Come on . . . seriously?" he asked.

"Very seriously," Carrie said, starting to grow hot under his gaze.

"So, you came to India not to volunteer, but to track down a shirt that your mother gave to charity and that you want back," Dee said.

"Look, the way Doreen explained it, it all sounds a little weird . . . okay, a lot weird, but I swear there's a really good reason--"

"A really good reason you came all the way here for a shirt or a really good reason you passed yourself off as someone who actually wanted to help?"

Dee asked, the amused expression completely gone now.

Carrie felt as if she had just been slapped. She did want to help. At least she did now that she was here. But she wasn't just going to give up on the idea of finding her lucky T. As far as she was concerned, she could find time for both.

"That's not fair," Carrie said. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yes, for now. What happens if you find this shirt of yours?" Dee asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "What then?"

"Well, then I . . ." Carrie paused. She hadn't really thought about it. If she found her T-shirt tomorrow, would she stay in India or go right home?

"Look, I thought you were a serious volunteer," Dee said. "But if you're not serious about being here, then you shouldn't stay."

"You're kicking me out?" Carrie asked.

"That's kind of up to you," Dee replied. "The moment those girls meet you, they're going to become attached. It's what children do. So if you're just going to up and leave in a couple of days, I'd rather know now."

"I ... I didn't say I was just going to up and leave," Carrie replied. "I mean, before Doreen even brought it up, I had decided that I was going to ask if you could help me look for it."

"Me? Are you joking? I'm sorry, but I have better things to do with my time than search Calcutta for a lousy T-shirt."

Somewhere in the neighborhood the final prayer call of the night started up, but nobody in this room was falling to their knees anytime soon.

"Hey! It's not a lousy T-shirt," Carrie said sharply. "It's very important to me. My--"

"Important to you?" Dee said, his voice rising. Then he looked around and lowered the volume to a harsh whisper. "Do you realize that some of these kids have never even owned a single piece of new clothing? They don't have parents and you're worried about a T-shirt? I'll wager you have a dozen others packed in your huge suitcases. What's wrong with you?"

Carrie's face turned red with indignation. "You have no right to talk to me like that," she snapped.

"Excuse me, but I have every right," Dee said, his handsome face creased with anger. "You know what? I've changed my mind. It's not up to you. I think you should go. I'd rather these girls not have a shal ow, self- obsessed floor monitor to influence them."

"What?" Carrie said.

"You misrepresented yourself to me," Dee said. "You said you were a volunteer."

"I am a volunteer!" Carrie shouted, having entered The Temper Zone in the same way someone is shot out of a cannon.

"No, you're not. You're a fraud," Dee replied.

Carrie was momentarily at an uncharacteristic loss for words, thinking back to the homeless girl in the park--to her realization that until today she had never really thought about how much help was needed here. Was he right? Was she a fraud? While Celia and the others had been genuinely excited about getting to work, she had tried to sneak out. And no matter how moved she had been by that little girl, she definitely wouldn't even be here if it weren't for her T-shirt. Maybe Dee had a point. A really awful, horrific point.

But however right he was, there was no way she was going to let him judge her without knowing much about her. Besides, at that moment she was doing a good enough job of judging herself.

"You know what, if I had realized you were going to be such an jerk, I would have just stayed with the crazy house builders," Carrie said finally. "At least they weren't mean!"

Not most of them anyway, she thought.

"Well, like I said, you should just go back there," Dee shot back while heading out to the hal way.

"Well, fine!" Carrie replied.

"Fine!" he shouted in response.

Carrie whirled around and slammed the door to her room. She was about to grab her stuff and hoof it back to Help India when it hit her. She didn't know how to get back there. And if she called Celia right now to come and get her, the woman would freak, considering she had probably sent Doreen out in the auto-rickshaw so that she could give Carrie the list that she had "left behind." Plus Carrie would look like a doofus, changing her mind so fast.

She sat on the bed in the single room. She thought of how quiet and peaceful it would be to fall asleep there. Her back ached, her feet throbbed, and she was eyeing that mosquito netting like it was made of diamonds.

Carrie zipped back over to the door and opened it quickly. Dee was out in the hal way pacing and muttering to himself. She cleared her throat to get his attention. He turned toward her and threw her a nasty look.

"I'll just crash here for the night and I'll be out at the crack of dawn," she told him.

"Whatever you say," he replied, walking down the hal way to the stairwel . "Nice knowing you."

He took the stairs to the third floor, where the boys stayed, and Carrie stood in the hal way for a moment, feeling angry and stung and shocked. She couldn't believe this was happening. She had thought that Dee was intel igent and mature and giving and chivalrous and kind, and while she was afraid of how he might react if he knew the truth, she had no idea he'd be that bent out of shape about the whole thing. If it weren't for Dor-mean, Carrie could have gone for months without seeing Dee's imperfections. Oh, she'd have to get that girl back with a vengeance. Too bad Piper wasn't around to help her hatch a master grudge match.

Carrie groaned under her breath and headed back into the dormitory. So much for summer romance--and so-called friends--and luck.

Something was pulling on Carrie's hair. She woke up, startled, and found that the mosquito netting had been pushed away. Standing over her was a slim girl about ten years old with huge brown eyes and curly black hair. With a look of intense concentration, the girl tied off a braid that she had worked into Carrie's hair, let it drop, and then started on another.

Carrie sat up straight and the little hairdresser took a few steps back. Behind her were two more girls about her age, pulling clothing out of Carrie's open suitcase at random. One of them had Carrie's 49ers basebal cap covering half her face. The other was wearing her favorite turquoise necklace and the flowered shirt she had bought at BCBG just before leaving on her trip.

"What're you doing?" Carrie blurted, still blinking the sleep from her eyes.

The little braider girl shrugged her small shoulders. "Playing," she said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Carrie."

Two of the girls eyed her, trying to size her up. The third couldn't because her eyes were effectively blinded by the red-and-gold basebal cap. The silence was deafening, and Carrie felt the distinct need to break the ice. She reached over and pushed the cap back on the girl's head to reveal light, almost golden eyes looking back at her uncertainly. Carrie's heart warmed and she smiled.

"Playing dress up, huh?" Carrie asked. She and Piper had done the same thing many times themselves, raiding their mothers' closets for costumes.

The thought of Piper instantly made Carrie's heart squeeze with homesickness. It was so odd to think that the person who she had shared almost everything with since kindergarten hadn't talked to her in weeks.

The little girl nodded. "You have nice clothes."

"Well, I'm sure we can find you something more glam than that hat," Carrie said, trying to distract herself. It was too early in the morning for serious thoughts.

She pulled a light blue, brushed-cotton sweater out of her bag, took the cap off the girl's head, and pulled the sweater on. It fit her like a muumuu, the V-

neck reaching down to her belly button and the sleeves and hem trailing almost to the floor, but the girl hugged herself and grinned.

"What's your name?" Carrie asked her.

"Asha," the girl replied with a shy smile. She thrust out her hand with the sleeve hanging down and pointed at the braider. "That's Manisha and that's Trina," she said, jabbing toward the other girl.

"Nice to meet you," Carrie said with a quick nod. "Here. Let me help you with that," she said to Trina, who was trying to shove her arm through the neck hole of the flowered shirt. Carrie gently maneuvered her arms through the right places and pushed the girl's straight hair behind her ears. "It's very you,"

she said.

"I want to wear something too!" Manisha announced, clutching her hands together.

Carrie laughed. "Okay, let's see." She pawed through the tangle of clothes the girls had created and came out with a red tank top that had colorful beads sewn all along the neck and straps. "How about this?" she said, holding it up.

"Ooh. What is it made of?" Manisha asked.

"Cotton mostly," Carrie said with a shrug. "Here. Lift your arms."

Manisha did as she was told and Carrie slipped the tank top on over her faded blue T-shirt. Manisha looked down and ran a fingertip lightly along the beadwork.

"I like this shirt. Where did you come from?" she asked.

"Uhhh . . . California?" Carrie said. "It's in the United States."

"Oh, we know California," Manisha told her. "It's where the movie stars and the models live. Are you a movie star?"

"No," Carrie said, laughing. This girl was big with the questions. "And I'm not a model either. But you guys are ready for a fashion show." Carrie leaned back to admire them. "Can you walk like models?"

"Like this!" Asha announced. She put her hands on her hips and then sashayed around in a circle, knees high, hips wagging back and forth. She even pursed her lips in a haughty expression and raised her chin.

"Nice!" Carrie said with a laugh. The moment she approved, Trina and Manisha broke into their own catwalks, copying Asha's poses. Carrie was almost doubled over with laughter and the girls were dissolving into giggle fits as wel . It was like a pre-breakfast fashionista party.

A sudden rap on the door caught them all by surprise. Carrie looked up to find Dee poking his head into her room. She saw his eyes go directly to her chest and she grabbed her sheet off the bed, holding it over her thin tank pajama top. Her face flushed crimson while Dee let out a few coughs and began rubbing his eyes frantically. It was as if had gotten a whiff of some strange pollen, but Carrie knew all too wel he was trying to distract her from the fact that she had just caught him checking her out.

"Training them for a life of consumerism?" he asked after he got his composure back.

Carrie's eyes flicked to the graphic on his T-shirt. "You're one to talk, Abercrombie boy," she said.

She tried not to grin too widely when her comment wiped the condescending smirk right off his face. So much for the high-and-mighty, "I'm so self-sacrificing, I must be a descendant of Gandhi" act. Dee straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest, hardly covering thebigAF.

"She has better clothes than Rasheeda did," Trina said matter-of-factly.

"Thanks," Carrie replied.

"And she's prettier," Asha added, grinning.

"That's nice of you to say," Carrie said, smiling right back. Rasheeda must have been a substandard floor monitor.

"Well, I just came to tell you girls that you're late for breakfast," Dee said. "Let's give Carrie her things back and head downstairs."

The girls quickly struggled out of their costumes and tossed everything toward the open suitcase. Carrie clutched the sheet to her and looked at Dee, at a loss for what to do or say. She had told him she would be out of there at the crack of dawn, and from the brightness of the sun streaming through her window, it was way past that hour.

"I arranged for Raj to give you a ride back to the Help India hostel," Dee said, his expression unreadable. "You can have breakfast with us and then he'll be here to pick you up."

Somehow Carrie was stung by this news. Her indignation from the night before had been slightly quelled by a good night's sleep and the impromptu fashion show. But clearly Dee was still angry and really wanted her out. Well, if that was the way he was going to be, then she didn't want to be here either.

"Fine," Carrie said, lifting her chin defiantly.

"Great," Dee said gruffly. Then he turned and was gone.

Carrie threw down the sheet and stood up. How did I ever think he was sweet? she wondered, tossing her things back into her bag with frustration.

He was totally and completely infuriating.

"So, you're one of those fickle American girls, huh?" Raj joked.

"Hey, it's not just me," Carrie said. "Your cousin doesn't want me here either."

"Dee? Yeah. That boy has had a point to prove since the day he was born," Raj said, reaching down from the dirty flatbed of his old, semi-rusted truck to lift Carrie's bags.

Carrie laughed. "Real y?"

"Oh, yeah," Raj said. "Heaven forbid you should step one foot out of line in front of the golden boy." He paused, dusting his hands off on his colorful Hawaiian shirt, and looked down at her. "He told me about your fight."

Carrie flushed. "Did he tell you how shal ow and self- centered I apparently am?" she asked.

"No, but he did tell me he felt bad for freaking out," Raj said.

"He did?" Carrie was shocked. This guy had a conscience? Go figure.