The Girl With Borrowed Wings (17 page)

“Sorry,” he said again. He still wouldn’t look at me.

I went to join him on the floor. It was the most companionable gesture I could think of that didn’t involve touching him. We sat side by side, facing forward. “What I want to know,” I said, “is what brought on all this stuff about chauffeurs and pets. Is the concept of ‘friend’ too complicated for you?”

Silence. Then—“I’m not the most important person in the world to you,” he mumbled.

That wasn’t what I’d expected. “Huh?”

He said nothing.

“You don’t hope for much, do you?” I tried joking.

No smile. His face was all pinched and serious.

“There are lots of people in the world,” I said. “And living is . . . more complicated than that. There can
never
be one person who just comes along and defines you.”

“Yes there can. You named me, didn’t you?” said Sangris flatly.

My heart gave a plunging jolt. “Oh.”

“And it’s not like that for you.” He lifted his head to look at me with steady, ill-looking eyes. “Between us, you’re the free one.”

“Oh . . .” There was a pause, in which I struggled. Finally, I said, “Imagine I met another Free person. Like Juren. Only imagine that I really took to him, and he was wonderful, and sweet and so on.”

Sangris twitched.

“Imagine this perfect version of Juren became my best friend, to the point that I wanted to spend all my time with him.” I hesitated only for an instant. “Well, the amount I liked him would probably be about a tenth of the amount I like you.” And before I could think twice about it, my hand jerked up and pushed aside the hair that fell over his forehead.

His arms slipped off his knees.

“Does that make it any better?” I didn’t specify what I was talking about—the touch, or my dismissal of Juren—because I wasn’t sure myself.

“A tenth?” he said. Uncertainly, he reached up a hand and felt his head, as if there would be some lingering proof of my finger’s passage. I had already turned away and folded my arms back over my knees.

“Almost. Can you live with that?”

“A tenth?”

“Yes.”

“A tenth? Honestly? You promise?”

“Yes
.
”

Sangris touched my cheek and leaned forward, looking at me intently. But having him beside me, with my father’s itch clawing into my back, my fingers shaky because of what I had just put them through, and things beating to and fro, in one direction then another, inside of me, was already more than I could stand. I shrank away.

He studied every feature of my face, especially my mouth, with a fixed, hungry expression in his eyes, while his thumb gently moved over the skin on my cheek. I leaned as far back against the wall as I could go.

Noticing that I was inching away from him, Sangris let go of my face. His eyes went down from my mouth to the loose nightshirt I wore. I’d only put it on because I hadn’t expected him to show up. The sleeves reached my elbows, but the bottom of the shirt didn’t quite make it to my knees. My legs were long and bare in the artificial light. He drew back, eyes glimmering amber, and touched my ankle lightly with his fingers. He cupped my heel in the palm of his hands, lifting the foot slightly. He glanced up at me for permission. When I stared back and didn’t scream, he brought his mouth to the sensitive area on the narrow arch of my instep, and warmth fizzled through it, up my leg. I clutched at the wall as if I could fall through. The waves were reaching too high.

“Okay,” I said hoarsely, “that’s enough.” Something about the dark flushed look around his eyes, and the way he lingered over my ankle, as if wondering whether he could just keep going, set off alarm bells in my head. Some kind of bells, anyway.

“All right,” he murmured into my skin. Delicately, he set my foot back down onto the tiles of the floor. A bit unsteady, hair rumpled, he grinned at me. “A tenth,” he said. “I can live with that.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In Which There Are Spiders

“Why are you dressed like that?” my father said when I came out of my room one morning. It was a few weeks after the foot incident.

I halted, awkward as always when he spoke to me unexpectedly. “It’s Heritage,” I explained. The school had sent out stacks and stacks of newsletters, probably wasting an entire forest, in an effort to keep parents informed, but they’d sent out
so
many, and made so many last-minute cancelations and changes as power shifted from one board member to another, that it was no wonder he wasn’t up-to-date.

“Oh,” he said. His eyes turned back to the computer screen. “I suppose you have to wear the national dress. But keep your shoulders covered. You never know who’s looking.”

“Yep.”

“Say ‘yes,’ not ‘yep.’”

“Yes.”

My Thai dress was basically a purple-and-gold sarong with a light purple, sleeveless tube of a shirt, made of some thin, shiny material, over which I wore a gold-embroidered shawl that draped around my shoulders. I didn’t know what the costume was called. That’s how much of a fraud I was.

During the drive Mom kept staring at me in my outfit. To my surprise and nervousness she almost looked teary-eyed, and by the time we arrived at school I was yelling at myself to maybe pat her on the arm or something. But as I gingerly reached out a hand, she twitched and muttered, “You’re wearing the clothes wrong,” so I pretended I’d been grabbing for my lunchbox.

When I got to the empty soon-to-be Thai room, lugging bags of food and decorations along with me, Anju was waiting there. Her sari was white, floating around her dark form like a snowstorm.

“You look interesting,” she said, which was the first proper compliment I had ever received from her. “I need to be in the Indian room or they’ll yell at me. Farzeen is being all bossy, and she’s not even Indian.”

“Oh. I’m staying away then. You come and visit later. Any good food?”

“Lots.”

Anju left in a swirl of silver sequins.

Strange to see her dressed up like that. She was so quiet and studious that everyone assumed she must be ugly, without bothering to look at her. But in her own clothes, with her kohl and henna on, she was actually quite pretty. Not that I’d ever admit it out loud.

I got the room organized on my own. The hand-painted parasols with the silk fringe went at the front, in the hope that they’d take up lots of space. They’d been made in China, but they looked kind of Thai. On the door I stuck a poster of an elephant. It was clearly an African elephant, but I doubted anyone else would notice. And I put out a statue of the Buddha, which, unfortunately, I’d got in Cambodia. I was standing on a chair, stretching to drape the Venezuelan flag over the windows (I didn’t own a Thai one, but there were no other Thais in the school to know the difference), when a couple of students wandered in. They had probably finished setting up their own rooms and were now searching for food before all the best stuff got taken.

“Not yet,” I said, looking back at them over my shoulder.

“Wow,” one of them said. I vaguely recognized her. Younger than me, curly haired.

“Reem, right?” I said.

“Yeah. You look cool.”

Just then, people wearing nothing but their belly-dancing outfits (daring, but it was traditional, so that made it all right) stopped and told me how exotic I looked. That was always the word:
exotic
. It made me feel as if I ought to be locked up in a cage.

“You should put your hair up,” said Reem, once they’d left.

“Oh . . .” I pinned the last of the posters in place. “I don’t know. I thought leaving it down would make me look more ethnic. Because people always associate straight hair with Asia, right?”

She fiddled in her pocket and drew out a cheap rubber hair band, handing it over to me. “Here. This way your hair won’t hide your clothes.”

Maybe she had a point. My hair did sheet down to my waist. I took the hair band. “Thanks.”

But I didn’t have a chance to put it on for the first few hours. In the poky assembly room where half the lights didn’t work and the doors screamed every time someone walked in, the new head teacher gave a long and pompous speech that nobody listened to. Then the younger kids were forced to parade past in their native clothes. Someone from Fiji danced onstage. Finally, we were allowed back to the secondary school building. Students rushed to get at the food.

They
could dash around and eat until it was their turn to man the stalls, but, because I was the only one in the Thai room, I had to stay. I watched as people strolled in, grabbed some food, and strolled back out again. I didn’t mind. I even encouraged it, talking loudly about how great the other countries were. If people started looking around, they might realize that my room was about as Thai as I was.

But after a few hours I had reached my breaking point. All the sticky rice my mother had cooked was gone, and visitors had started asking me where the rest was, as if they thought I might be hiding some. I opened my lunchbox and started handing out my own food in desperation.

“Veggie hot dogs?” said someone. “With ketchup?”

“It’s very popular in Thailand, all right?”

If the principal walks in, I’m in so much trouble,
I thought, looking around once I was alone. All my lunch was gone and word had spread that the Thai room was out of food. Fewer and fewer people were trickling in. And that was good, because I’d just realized that my Venezuelan flag, for some reason, had a conspicuous tag saying
Made in Italy
.

“Made in Italy?” said someone.

I jumped.

“Sheesh, relax.”

It was Sangris.

“Took you long enough to show up,” I said, recovering.

“I was getting you these,” he said, holding out a bunch of orchids innocently. “Thai orchids. From the actual country.”

“You didn’t steal them, did you?”

“No. They’re wild.”

“In that case, thanks.” I took them from him. “Just as well we have something genuine around here. Next year I’m not doing this. I’ll sit in an empty room and when people ask me where I’m from, I’ll answer in gibberish.”

Some little kid stuck his head in through the door. His eyes widened as he saw the girl with dead-straight, waist-length black hair and the feline, yellow-eyed guy handing her flowers. He took off at a run.

“I think we’re scaring people off,” I said to Sangris, feeling rather pleased about it.

“You look incredible,” was his irrelevant answer. “Like a princess from the rainforest. You have no idea how big your eyes are.”

“Sangris, I don’t think that this dress affects the size of my eyes,” I said.

He ignored me. There was no stopping Sangris once he began waxing lyrical. “Purple and gold and bronze and black. You’re the colors of a sunset.”

Ew. “What’s bronze?” I said.

“Your skin.”

“I’m not bronze. Sheesh. Sounds like some macho body builder with a spray-on tan.”

“What are you, then?” he said. He went closer to my face and touched my cheek, as if trying to figure out the color. I thought it was just an excuse to touch me. He’d been doing that more frequently lately—ever since the foot incident. And nowadays, I didn’t shove him aside.

“Thais are
gold,
” I said, lifting my nose in the air.

“Ah,” he said, beginning to smile. “Sorry. You’re right. I see now that you are gold. Purple and gold and black, then.”

“Black would be my eyes?” I said, for something to say. He was standing too close. I looked at the clever, high-cheekboned face that had grown so familiar.

I’m in over my head,
I thought, but I hardly heard myself. I had thought it so often over the past few weeks that the words didn’t have much meaning anymore. When he’d just been an accessory, a pair of wings, then I hadn’t minded shoving him aside, but now, when he stood like this, I didn’t know what to do. Things were unraveling. I felt that. But I didn’t want him to go away again. Everything was a mess.

“Yes,” he said softly, “black would be your eyes.” The hand on my cheek brushed against a strand of hair. “And your hair. Have I ever told you that it feels like silk?”

“Yes. Several times.”

“It’s very long,” he said dreamily.
Way over my
— I pulled back, leaving his hand extended in midair.

“You’re just stating the obvious,” I said. I folded my arms and took another step away. His fingers were making me nervous, and I absolutely refused to seem dizzy in front of him. “Do you think I should put it up? Reem said I should. Though I don’t suppose it matters now, because nobody’s coming in here anymore.”

“Put what up?” he said, hazy-eyed.

“My hair.” I resisted the urge to add: “You idiot.”

Then, to my relief, Anju came in.

Her eyes went straight to Sangris. Understandably. It was hard not to look at him, he was so out of place wherever he stood. There was always the impression that the universe had just blinked and overlooked him, because there shouldn’t have been anyone standing there, and Sangris must be a mistake. He didn’t fit.

I saw Anju do a double take. She looked at the thin eager line of his cheek. She looked at the mouth, which was also somehow wrong, because smiles shouldn’t be so wicked and so earnest both at once. Finally she looked at the curve he made as he leaned back against one of the display tables. Then she blinked and dropped her gaze. Weird-looking or not, he’d passed inspection; she’d decided it would be immodest to stare at him.

She was only able to take the time to assess him because he wasn’t paying any attention to her. He was still watching me.

“Hey, Anju,” he said without looking at her.

She blinked at least seven times in quick succession. Then she turned to glare at me.
How does he know my name?

I adjusted my face until it beamed innocence in her direction. She’d probably faint if she knew that he was the cat she’d once stepped over in the hallway. “Anju,” I said, “maybe you can help us. Do you think I should put my hair up?”

“Uh. Yes,” she said, “just because you never do.”

“Now
that,
” I said to Sangris, “was a good, solid, useful answer. Take notes, will you?”

“Anju’s the secretary,” he said in mild indignation. “She can do it.”

“How does he know that? What else have you told—”

I pretended I couldn’t hear the hiss of words. “So, Anju,” I continued in a loud voice. “What’s up?”

Sangris was watching. She had to answer. “There was a riot when our room ran out of food,” she said, still slitting her eyes at me.

“Well, this Heritage is going well,” I said brightly.

“The new head teacher was fired.”

I shook my head. Even by oasis standards, he hadn’t lasted very long: about two weeks.

“And the Emiratis’ camel got into the primary school building.”

I laughed out loud at that.

“So,” Anju said, with another nervous glance at Sangris. “I’m going back to the Indian room.” She backed out.

“I’ll visit soon,” I said.

Sangris’s attention snapped back to me as soon as Anju had gone. And I felt my smile slip. There was the telltale darkness beneath his eyes again. I had yet to find a cure for that. I wondered if pouring a bucket of cold water over him would help. Or maybe I should run to call Anju back. Preparing to leave, I grabbed the hair band that Reem had given me. But before I could pull my hair up, Sangris stepped behind me and took the band out of my fingers.

“Uh,” I said. “I could do that, you know.”

But he didn’t answer. His hands, a little clumsy through lack of practice, fumbled through my hair, lifting up the length of it and revealing the bare skin beneath. The room began spinning strangely. I felt the A/C blow across my exposed throat and the back of my neck. Sangris twisted my hair together into the band. He took an unnecessarily long time, letting the strands slide through his fingers.

I fidgeted. “Done yet?” I said.

“Almost.”

And then his mouth was on the place between my shoulder and the curve of my neck.

I died. My eyes blacked out. Jolting, I jumped away from him. My hands flew up to clutch that spot on the side of my neck. It felt as if he’d—no, there’s no other way to put it, because nothing could be worse than a kiss—so intimate, and stolen. “You . . . What was that for?” I yelped. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t help it. Are you okay?”

“No! No, I’m not!” My face stung as if I’d been slapped there. This, I could not close my eyes and allow. This was the line, this was the boundary of that other country, and I felt my father’s finger twanging taut behind my back, straining, and Sangris didn’t seem to realize that he was standing in a place where I could not go. “You’ve never done anything like that before,” I said, when I could speak again.

“But I’ve wanted to.”

Sangris looked at me. I couldn’t see shame, or contrition, or surprise in his face, though those were what I had expected. There wasn’t even that soppy, shadow-eyed expression I’d grown used to. Instead there was a look I couldn’t recognize. It frightened me more than anything else I could have seen there. His eyes were burning with something worse than madness; it was a bright, hot sanity, like the death of a thousand stars.