How to Escape From a Leper Colony (21 page)

“You don’t have to,” he said and turned a page. Smiled at a cartoon.

“But you’ll be alone for a few days.”

“No, I won’t.”

Pinky pursed her lips and walked out into the living room.

But without looking up from his magazine he said something unexpected. “Mrs. Delroy will be here.” Mrs. Delroy had just started coming on weekends.

That night Pinky wore a dress to match her name. A magenta dress that wasn’t even hers. “The sluttiest thing I own,” said Leslie, laughing. But Pinky didn’t laugh. She looked at herself in the mirror and thought of her mother in her red wedding sari. In the picture her father wore a European suit and had thick sideburns. Her father looked like a child of an era; her mother looked era-less. She was not sure which was better. Now she looked at herself in the mirror and puckered. Her dress was a spandex that stuck and stretched. It was open at the back and ended above the knee. There was a slit at the left thigh. It was indecent. Pinky thought to herself that she would never look like this again. But in the next instant she said out loud, “This is what I always want to look like.”

Vive was not the hot smoky place she had expected. There was a huge balcony for the smokers and no one could smoke inside. “So your hair won’t smell bad afterward,” shouted Leslie as they walked around the loud dance floor. Leslie had taught her the screw face. The club was about attitude. First they walked. Scoped out the club. They kept their backs straight. They flipped their hair. Keep a screw face. Don’t smile unless you see someone you know and then hug and air-kiss, and if it’s a guy wait for him to offer a drink. Never say no to a free drink. It was a masquerade. They were pretty. They were desirable. Everyone was supposed to know it. When you dance make sure you’re not next to a girl who can dance better than you. Make sure you make eye contact with a good-looking guy, but let him come over to you. Dance even when you’re tired. Dance even if you’re sweaty and tired. Take off your shoes if you need to; you can keep them behind the d.j. booth. Only stop dancing if a guy offers you a drink. And then ask for something good. What’s good? Get like a sex on the beach. Or a fuzzy navel. Or a blow job. No, don’t get that. That’s taking it too far. Get a painkiller. Never get what he’s having. Man drinks taste nasty. Like Long Island iced tea. Disgusting. That’s a get-drunk drink. You just want to look good when you’re drinking. In fact, stick to sex on the beach. It matches your dress. And me. I’ll get blue lagoons all night.

Outside on the deck they drank their colorful drinks and cooled off. Pinky’s hair was plastered onto her face. It wasn’t hot but they had been dancing and so they had been sweating. The d.j. had played dancehall and hip-hop but not calypso yet. Pinky didn’t really know how to move to hip-hop or dancehall. She was waiting for calypso. “They play it last,” explained Leslie.

“I can’t believe I’m wearing this dress.” Pinky felt exposed out on the deck. On the dance floor she had felt hidden by the other bodies. “No Mateo,” she said out loud and felt relieved, and then disappointed by her own relief.

“No Mateo yet. You just wait.” Leslie lit a tiny black cigar with a plastic tip to protect her lips. She blew out over the balcony.

The bells and knocking of calypso came on. They left their drinks and moved inside. Leslie flicked her cigar over the side of the balcony. Inside the dance floor was wild. Women had their skirts hoisted up and men had their hands in the air. People were dancing on top of the tables and on top of the couches. Women leaned on the back of chairs to steady themselves. Leslie and Pinky didn’t look for an empty space. They walked in and danced where they ended up. Pinky felt good now. She didn’t need Mateo after all. She swung her hips and her heavy wet hair. And then just like that Mateo came up behind her, as though it was something he did often. He had that rich musky smell and he held her hips in his hands as he pulled her body closer to his. Her first thought was that this was not right. Then her next thought was that this was very right. People in the club were screaming the words to the song. Peolpe were knocking their hips into one another. The bass beat twice and people stomped their feet twice. Pinky put her hands over Mateo’s so she could follow his rhythm. She looked around realizing that Leslie was not beside her. But then there she was. A white girl was hard to miss in the dark club. Leslie had her palms flat on the wall, her arms straight and stiff, and her backside rolling on the crotch of a boy who had graduated from school two years ago. Pinky wanted to laugh. It seemed so funny, all of this. All this display. All this. And on Monday they’d all be back in school in their uniforms, and perhaps that was its own kind of pretend. Mateo turned her around and now they faced each other and though this was less vulgar, because less of their bodies touched, it seemed so much more intimate. He leaned his face into her neck and she felt his lips on her wet skin as if he had tapped directly on her spine. She shivered and pulled back. And left the dance floor.

Mateo stood on the dance floor for a moment before following her. “You okay?” he asked once they were outside. “Yeah. Are you okay?” “Yeah.” They were quiet for a long time. “I wanted to kiss you in there.” “I know.” “Can I kiss you now?” “I don’t know, actually.” “Can I try?” She nodded. He leaned forward and she turned to give him her cheek. “If we get married,” he said, smiling, “we’ll be doing a lot more than kissing.” “What?” And then he kissed her open mouth and she felt his soft lips and his wet tongue and she jumped back. And she smiled and then she backed away some more and then she ran away, back into the cavern of the club, her heels clinking on the deck like knocking bones. She had had her first kiss and it had been with Mateo, and had he asked her to marry him? This was like a Bollywood movie, except with real kissing. She needed to talk to Leslie.

But inside the dance floor was a living mass of its own. It was hot and steamy now. And sticky. And the people were not concerned about the expensiveness of their dresses or the intricacies of their hairdos. And the floor was sticky and difficult to walk on in Leslie’s heels. Mateo had kissed her and now Gita did not know what to do. It had felt animal-like. It had felt slutty. She didn’t want to see him again. But she wanted to see him every day for the rest of her life. And that was silly. Did she really believe that Mateo Parone was the kind of boy who kissed a girl and then married her? Was he? He would want sex first or at least dating a little. He would want to go to college and all that. Wouldn’t he? Would he? Was he playing a game? Why would he say something so serious if he wasn’t serious?

She felt sick. Her head felt sick. She thought she might throw up. She wandered to the bathroom. “Are you plastered?” someone asked. She shook her head but felt as though she must get away from the crowd. “Man, Pinky Manachandi is plastered.”

She hiked up her pink dress without care for ripping her nylons and sat on the toilet until she felt as though the kiss and the drink were gone from her. When she emerged she felt better and more stupid. Had she even kissed Mateo? And had she run away afterward?

“Where have you been?” Leslie’s voice was hoarse from shouting song lyrics.

“In the bathroom.”

“Were you puking?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Mateo just tell me he kissed you and then you ran away.”

“He’s lying.”

“Oh man, Pinky. Now what you going do? Do you like him like that?

“I going marry him. My dad will let me. He’s screwing the maid tonight.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you boyfriend and girlfriend now?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You should find out.” Leslie paused. “Do you even have his number?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Pinky, what the hell? Let’s go give him yours.”

They walked around the club, which was now playing its jazzy theme song. People were leaving. The lights would go on soon and no one could look good under those lights. Some stood around and waited. Others talked loudly about heading out to Smitie’s. No one was dancing anymore. The dance floor looked like a sad dirty place. Mateo wasn’t there. Outside they walked over the gravel to Pinky’s car. In the floodlights Pinky noticed the ream in her stockings. “Bound to happen,” said Leslie. “Take them off. I’ll drive.”

“That’s okay,” said Pinky. “I’ll take them off right here.” She sat in the driver’s seat of the sedan that had been her mother’s and ripped the stockings until they were little pieces of silk. Afterward she felt cooler and less restrained. She started the car and rolled down their windows with the automatic buttons.

“Hey, Pinky. Stop running away from me.”

“Whooo,” whispered Leslie from the passenger’s seat. “He’s good.”

Pinky put the car back in park and told her heart to stop. She wanted really to drive away. She wanted really to wave and honk her horn like others were doing and then go to school on Monday and wait to see if Spelman or Wellesley had accepted her in regular admissions. “Can I get your number?” She nodded but just gripped the wheel. Mateo leaned into the car window, nodding at Leslie just briefly. “Gita, girl. I’m not messing with you. I know this has to be on the down low ’cause of your pops. I’m for real. However you want it, girl. Hey, give me your cell.” She kept her hands on the wheel. Leslie dug through the little magenta purse and passed him Pinky’s cell phone. He typed his number in. “I put in ‘Mary.’ That can be my code name. That way when I’m calling no one knows it’s a guy. Cool?” And then he backed away a little. “Good night, Les. You take care of my girl.” Leslie smiled and waved and reached over to honk Pinky’s horn. “Now drive away, Pinky,” she said under her breath.

Pinky put the car in gear and drove down the hill. “I have a boyfriend,” she said as the air whipped around them. They turned onto the waterfront, which was empty except for the few other clubgoers who had driven this way.

“You have a man, Pinky. Now what you going do with him?”

“I have no idea.”

Pinky had not thought of her mother all night. Really, she had done all she could to not think of her mother at all. And when the tourists who were coming from a night at one of the touristy clubs turned into her lane, forgetting the left-hand traffic, Pinky still did not think of her mother. She swerved and their sedan went into a tailspin, then hit the sidewalk and flew, upside down, into the water. Pinky was delirious. She thought only
Mama will be so disappointed.

Leslie was thinking
are we really upside down?
The car slammed into the water like a boulder and sank as rapidly as a stone. It was dark and they were underwater and they were in a car and they were upside down. It was unusually warm but there was no time to notice such a thing. Leslie released her seat belt. She reached out for Pinky who was facing her. They were looking at each other—Leslie could tell that much. She tugged at Pinky’s seat belt. Pinky did not tug back. Pinky only looked at Leslie with her eyes wide open as though she were breathing the water and surprised at her new magic. Leslie’s body filled with the burn of the saltwater in her chest but she was a child of the islands and she knew how to hold her breath. She tugged at her friend’s seat belt. She pulled at Pinky. This seemed like forever but maybe it was only a few seconds. Five seconds maybe. Leslie’s chest hurt and her eyes hurt and she was more afraid than she had been at birth. Five eternal seconds and then she turned to open the door but the door would not open and so she flew through the window and she did not look back but went toward what she hoped with all her heart was the surface and not the sand or out into the ocean. She hit the air and heaved and was surprised to see the streets quiet, as if nothing at all had happened. As if the reckless tourists had never been there. As if her friend was not under the water stuck in her seat belt. She swam until she could walk out. Four more minutes maybe. She ran across the street without looking either way, toward a convenience store that was closed. A minute. She ran toward another store that was up an alley. Five minutes. She was wet and dirty and she babbled to the register man who nodded and handed her the phone. She didn’t call the police or the fire station. She called her parents. But all she could say was “Mateo kissed Pinky and now she’s over the waterfront. She’s in the water and it’s only me on land. Just me. Help. Come help.” And by then the convenience store owner had used his cell phone to call the police. And by the time the police came and Gita’s father came with Mrs. Delroy, it had been almost thirty minutes.

“Why don’t you go get her?!” the father shouted before the car had even stopped. Mr. Manachandi left his car like a man on fire and rushed past the police who were gathered around Leslie. He jumped into the water. The police did not stop him. “Part of his mourning,” one said to another and jotted the occurrence down in his chart. Mr. Manachandi went under and then came back up. “Help me! Please. I see her. Help me.” Mrs. Delroy cried and then screamed and then a police officer said, “Get the old man out of the water.” And a young cop took off his gun and jumped in and grabbed Mr. Manachandi and hauled him out. The father looked like an animal. He looked like a wild dead animal. The firemen, who were more trained in dealing with human beings, told him that they needed him over here. Over here. Away from where the divers were going down to cut the body out of its seat belt. And by then Gita had been underwater for forty-five minutes.

In the ambulance Leslie howled as though her own mother was dead. She howled, and then for two days she did not speak at all. When she did it was to ask her own mother why they had not tried to resuscitate her friend. “It was too long underwater. Even if they had gotten her back it would not have been enough of her.”

Mrs. Delroy walked into the shop and said “Good afternoon” out of custom. Mr. Corban replied out of the same compulsion. She looked around at the coffins. Mr. Corban thought she must be about Usha’s age and sat more erectly in his chair. She walked to the mustard-colored coffin with the Virgin emblazoned on it and caressed its satin lining. The Virgin was reminiscent of the girl’s mother. Mrs. Delroy thought this would be best, but she wasn’t sure she’d have her way. She looked at Mr. Corban behind the glass counter. “Something for a teenage girl,” she said. He nodded with the weight of this request and came out from behind the counter.