Blue Boy (22 page)

The flicking sound leads me to a section of the woods with more open-air lodges where people can cook out during warm weather. During the day, it is a rustic venue with a pleasant setting of stone pillars and wooden roofs edged by plump evergreen bushes and stately trees. In the night, the lodges are like tombs, the trees and bushes like watchful undertakers. A big knot wells up in my throat just from my being here, and coupled with the cold, which only now gets to me, I have a hard time stifling the occasional hiccup that my mouth ejects. In the dark, it is hard for me to make out where the instigator of my pursuit has gone, but then I hear a cough that—for as little as I’ve known him—I immediately recognize as belonging to Rodney.

I freeze. What if Rodney catches me? The repercussions of that are way too scary for me to bear, considering that he has no school to take me back to but, rather, someone’s home. Good God, I think, what if Cody and Donny are already back home, telling Cody’s mom? But no, if anything, they have snuck back into the house as slyly as they left it, shrugging off my absence and thinking I’ll have to answer for myself when the time comes. Meanwhile, what they don’t know is that I am trapped here now.

The night starts to turn darker, and I blink several times to clear my vision. Just barely, I can make out the tip of Rodney’s ranger hat and the faint gleam of the golden star on his breast. Then I realize what he is doing: he is watching these kids. Not in a critical, law-abiding way, but in a creepy surveillance sort of way. I immediately identify his secretive, hunched posture as the same one I was in while I watched the threesome unfolding below me. Rodney—sweet Rodney—is as much a voyeur as I am.

But my voyeur status suddenly fails as the night becomes darker and thicker around me. It is not until I hear the sound of my own moan that I realize I am having a migraine. It is not until I feel the scratch of the thistles against my cheek that I know that I’ve have fallen. And it’s not until I see Rodney hovering above me that I black out entirely.

Rashmi Govind’s eyes glow at the sight of all the food at her party.

Even though she has the biggest kitchen out of any of the families—a huge island sits like a glacier in the middle—there is hardly enough room for all the potluck treats that people bring. Our gatherings look like they are sponsored by Reynolds Wrap. Foiled dishes cover the counter, spelunk in the sink, rest on top of the toaster oven, cram into the regular oven. The women all chatter except for my mother, who helps Rashmi Auntie go from dish to dish and unfoil. The kids have banded together and demanded that pizza be ordered. The parents often cave to this desire of ours; they know that this leaves more Indian food for them (Rashmi Auntie in particular leads that charge) and that for the mere price of ten dollars a couple, the children can shut the hell up instead of begging nonstop for the pizza. So half of the kitchen is dominated by oversized cardboard rectangle boxes from Little Caesars, each wrapped in paper and bearing the company’s logo (a mess of squiggles that depict a bedraggled Roman spearing a pizza). As my mother tears through more Reynolds Wrap, the kids tear open each box and unleash the greasy smell of the pizza, which just barely outshines the smell from the various curries.

The Govinds are having not just our usual type of party but a Diwali party. While the American kids in this town were gallivanting around for Halloween, we Indian kids were enduring a slipshod
puja
in their den. The pundit and his wife came to preside over this religious ceremony. They seemed strange to me when out of their temple element. Seated between Amit Aggarwal’s enormous eight-ball eyes and Amish Gupta’s limp, demure frame, the pundit looked like a counselor trying to bring two dejected men to an agreement.

Now, the kids take the pizza and head to the basement. The Govinds’ basement is only partially finished. Half of it is extravagantly furnished, and the other half, beyond a demi-wall of vertical wooden beams, acts as a dark concrete home for the furnace. The whole thing looks like the set of a sitcom.

Shruti is holding court again in the middle of the furnished section, and the girls are once again arranged around her like ladies-in-waiting. Just looking at Shruti makes me sad. She has everything. She is wearing a lovely magenta
salwaar kameez
and large gold earrings. Her hair is long and black, and it falls unfettered along her shoulders, one strand resting between the bumps of her fledgling bosom. Even her hooked nose looks pretty tonight, lending to her the sort of exotic gravity that Lakshmi exudes in the religious portraits I’ve been studying. I am in a corner on the other side of the room, a few feet away from where Ajay, Ashish, and Arun are switching off at playing air hockey on a sturdy, expensive table that the Govinds bought from Sam’s Warehouse. I am sitting on a hassock upholstered in Indian paisley cloth. I hold a slice of pepperoni pizza in one hand and caress grooves in the paisley fabric with the other. No one is talking to me, and I am talking to no one. I have learned my lesson.

It is not until after I’ve finished my pizza that I realize that Neha and Ashok are nowhere in sight: Shruti looks particularly regal because Neha is not there to steal her thunder; Ajay, Ashish, and Arun have a similar air about them with Ashok out of the picture. Even Ashish, playing games as usual on his calculator, seems stouter without Ashok here.

Why do I go looking for Ashok and Neha? I have already been put in a very awkward situation by catching them in the act and them seeing me in my most extravagant makeup creation. You would think such an embarrassment would be enough to quell my curiosity and make me stay rooted to this hassock, gazing at Shruti and her coterie. But then I envision Ashok and Neha touching each other: I envision her hand around Ashok’s beauty-marked neck, and I need to see it. I have learned my lesson not to speak to the other kids. Why can’t I learn my lesson not to seek out such things? I think it is because I don’t want to learn that lesson. I don’t want to heed the unspoken advice that the world is giving me, in the incident with Sarah and Melissa, in the experience in the park, in the sleepover. Sex
must
be solace.

I leave the basement and go upstairs. All of the aunties are still in the kitchen. My mother and Rashmi Auntie are wrapping up all of the food that took them several minutes to unwrap. It is startling how quickly Indian people eat and how quickly a kitchen goes from expectant and mouth-watering to messy. I endure the usual cheek squeezing from Rashmi Auntie (who apparently has the short-term memory of a goldfish because she did this just an hour ago), as well as an awkward conversation with Anita Auntie, whose squawk is extra high tonight and almost annihilates my eardrums. My mother gives me her usual nod, and I return it provisionally. The anticipation of catching Ashok and Neha in the act wells up in me. I go into the Govinds’ foyer, which is a bit smaller than the Singhs’. Everyone’s shoes are spread out on the marble floor, like baby turtles emerging from the sea. Then I notice two larger patches of marble, where two pairs of shoes must once have lain. And in that moment, I know where to find the lovers.

As I near the Govinds’ poolhouse, I wonder if this is the way that Krishna once approached the
gopi
that He would romance in the forests near Gokula. Did He feel the same flutter up His throat that I feel? Did His stomach feel full of lead, His heart like something struggling to hatch? I imagine Him sweeping through tall green grass, His blue body glowing and imparting to the foliage an eerie but sensual coloring. The
gopi
would see Him the way you see a lightning bug slowly flickering itself closer to you, before you catch it in your hands and watch it glow all over them: Krishna’s tapered, glistening limbs would mist into view before the
gopi
’s red-painted nails and henna-scrawled palms caressed Him. Though a god, the most powerful of beings, He must have still felt somewhat vulnerable amidst a bevy of
kajol
-encased eyes and sensuous whispers. Despite whatever great physical feats He may have performed, despite sending demons screaming back to their fiery hell and vanquishing giant snakes with a patter of His little dancing feet, He must have seen a greater physical challenge in trying to satisfy these women and then picking Radha out of all of them, playing the lover extraordinaire to her.

Not that I am so naïve as to think that romance is the reason Neha and Ashok have snuck out to the poolhouse. I still remember the mischief behind their stunned eyes in that bathroom: their unconvincing acting about what they were up to showed me all the more clearly just how carnal their desires were. I feel all the more regal knowing that I’m about to catch them in another vulnerable state.

Yet all the while, there is the tension, the fluttering in my chest.

The poolhouse is not particularly big, but the embellishments on it are ornate nevertheless. It has a clay tile roof and white stucco walls, evoking a mini-Mexico in the middle of this neighborhood. Its windows are shiny panels of glass intersected into four small squares, and in warm weather there would be an elegant creeping of vines up its side. In the fall, however, the vines are thin brown spines. I creep along the walls lightly, the grass crunching softly under my sneakers. From here, my back against the wall, I can see the back of Rashmi Auntie’s house. All of the windows are lit except for one small square in the top left where the master bathroom is. If this were Harsh Singh’s house and he yelled his usual “What is this—Diwali?!” you could tell him it actually was.

For a second, I wonder if there are other kids fooling around in there. For all I know, given the way things—and people—have been going down these days, Arun and Neelam have begun acting out their freak-child fantasies in the recesses of that porcelain paradise. Below that possible rendezvous, in the bright, large window that crosses the entire kitchen, the aunties are laughing, their
salwaar kameezes
an array of bright blues, reds, and yellows. In the bottom right corner, I can make out the white shirts and crossed legs of the uncles conversing in the sitting room. It will be an hour or two before they break out the cards and the aunties filter into that room to play or encourage.

I could just run back into the house right now. I could leave Neha and Ashok to their dealings and learn from my mistakes.
I could learn from the sleepover
. But I can’t. Or don’t want to. I don’t know which reason is the real one. And not knowing makes me flutter more. I turn around and kneel down, then slowly rise and peer into one of the windows.

Despite whatever scandalous scenes I’ve envisioned, it still surprises me to see Neha and Ashok doing pretty much what I expected. Somewhere deep inside, I think I expected to be disappointed, to have attributed to them a raucous sexuality they didn’t really possess. But even in the dark of the poolhouse, I can still make out the tangle of their bodies. They are full-on making out, with Ashok’s shirt so unbuttoned and opened that it’s pretty much off and the front of Neha’s
salwaar kameez
also unbuttoned, the sliver of her training bra showing through. The thing that stuns me is how passionate their embrace is. There is no air of experimentation, the sort of detached, mechanical movement that I saw with the kids in the park. Even though Neha and Ashok are not moving nearly as fast as those kids, there is still something important in what they are doing. There is something emotional about it, as if they have been longing for each other since last weekend’s party. Their embrace is—dare I say it?—
loving
.

A potent feeling of jealousy comes over me. My eyes practically burn looking at these two. The flutter in my chest transforms into a hard pounding. Why do these two get to be the ones who have all the fun? Why does Ashok get to hold Neha and embrace her? And why does he also get to do so passionately? Why does Neha, who has no regard for anyone but her-self, who struts around like a queen and gets whatever she wants, get Ashok, too? They don’t have to put up with people like Sarah and Melissa and John Griffin. They don’t have to sit in the middle of a field and call it solace. They don’t have to sneak around their own houses to do the things that make them happy. They don’t have to address their fathers with heads downcast, afraid to be themselves.

Looking at Neha and Ashok, I feel, for the first time in my life, absolutely ashamed of who I am. In the past, when I’ve made myself up, dressed up, and played with my dolls and danced, I’ve always felt happier, freer. I’ve felt like I was really myself. But in this moment, I truly realize how different, how
weird
those things are. It is as if I am a fly on the tall white walls of my parents’ bathroom: I see this little boy smothering his face with sticky pastes and prancing around, and the view disgusts me. How does a boy like that ever get to be a boy like Ashok? He doesn’t. There is no intersection. Ashok gets to be Ashok and gets romance and sex. Kiran gets to be Kiran and gets nothing but Kiran. Kiran doesn’t even get to be the girl in the mirror.
Neha
gets to be the girl in the mirror.

But perhaps Kiran can be a tattletale.

My march back to the house is as fast and ferocious as my trip to the poolhouse was slow and luxurious. I enter the front door and almost forget to take off my sneakers. The house is full of laughing. The men are howling, talking over each other, each uncle trying to add to the hilarity by telling another zinger. The women are howling, too, each auntie slapping one hand against the other every time they double over with laughter. The sounds of Ajay and Arun’s air hockey paddles on the metal table waft up through the vents and provide counterpoint tinkles to the women’s high-pitched wailing. In short, everyone seems comfortable. But I am determined to upend that comfort. It’s time for me to be the one laughing.

Nisha Singh is sitting at the kitchen table sipping from a delicate porcelain cup, holding the saucer under it with one of her perfectly manicured hands. She is wearing a beautiful passion-fruit-colored sari, and two large, sunlike gold earrings hang from her ears. Her eyes are calm with snobbery. My resolve strengthens just looking at her. Neha gets everything she wants because Nisha gets everything she wants. This is another one of those pivotal moments, like the one when Mrs. Goldberg prepared to give me her verdict on my drawings. There is so much contained in this moment, so many possible outcomes, and like Mrs. Goldberg with me in that instant, I have the power to make or break Neha and Nisha Singh.

“Kiran
Beta
, what is it?”

I am so focused on Nisha Auntie that I almost forget that my own mother is also sitting at the kitchen table. Her lavender
salwaar kameez
looks very plain compared to Nisha Auntie’s bright sari, and her teacup sits empty on the table, a crinkled napkin bearing crumbs from various desserts next to it. The puzzlement in her face tells me how unconcealed my own face is. I have not disguised my devilish intent.

“Nisha Auntie,” I say, ignoring my mother. “I have something to tell you.”

“Kiran, vhat is it?” my mother repeats. She can sense that something is up. Nisha Auntie looks at me with the same calm expression, lowering her cup and saucer as if they’re getting in the way of our interaction.