Open Mic (6 page)

Thanks to this intense sisterly schooling, I began to relax around guys. I even made some male friends by the time I started high school. These buddies confessed crushes on other girls in excruciating detail, and in return I offered advice gleaned from the adult fiction section of the library. Well-researched romance novels soon turned me into the school’s number-one dating guru. I was at a suburban high school wearing jeans, not perched on a mountaintop in a white
saree,
but it didn’t matter — scores of young men streamed to me for relationship advice.

No new points, though.

Meanwhile, my sisters suddenly stopped playing altogether. Thanks to a blossoming feminist movement on their college campus and a bunch of not-so-great experiences, they were now bemoaning time wasted with Stone Age chauvinists and losers masquerading as good guys.
Learn from our mistakes,
they warned me.
Wait for quality; skip the quantity.
I listened (sort of) but couldn’t help thinking it was fine for them to quit, but I was still only at a grand total of two points. And did Dwayne’s playground invitation and Spock’s geeky move even count?

Then Steve moved into the neighborhood. He was a basketball star with strawberry-blond hair and blue eyes, so gorgeous that girls finger-fanned their faces when discussing him in the locker room. On his first day at school, I watched him open a door for a tottering, seventy-something history teacher, and
bam,
I was gone.

Steve turned up in most of my honors classes, and I put my best “I’m your buddy” foot forward. It worked superbly. After we shared a laugh or two, it was easy to add him to my coterie of guy friends. On the outside, that is. On the inside, I crushed on him madly, from freshman year until junior year. Nobody knew and nobody asked. I told the truth only to my diary, an orange notebook stashed deep in my desk.

By junior year, I was losing hope. There was no way Steve was going to like me. Not in that way, not a chance. I’d seen the vacancy in my male friends’ eyes as they skipped across my face and body to scan a room for their white crushes. I did have the necessary feminine equipment, don’t get me wrong, but apparently my body parts were the wrong hue to hold a gaze. In this neighborhood, they preferred deli-sliced turkey.

And then it happened. Steve stopped at our table on the way to eat with his basketball buddies. I was sitting with three of my friends, pretty Brady Bunch–ish blondes munching on PB & Js. Usually, guys talked to me with eyes fixed on my companions, but Steve was looking at me. Only me. And he was standing closer than any male buddy ever had. “Like roller coasters, Mitali?” he asked.

Swallowing the bite of leftover lentils and rice Ma had packed for me, I prayed he couldn’t smell mango pickle on my breath. “Love them,” I said, smiling brightly.
You’ve never ridden a roller coaster, you idiot. Don’t lie to him!
“Love the idea of them, I mean. I’ve never tried one in real life.”

“What?” asked Marcia, Jan, and Cindy in unison.

“Are you joking?”

“Don’t they have roller coasters in India?”

Maybe they did. But we’d left before I had a chance to find out. Besides, life in a suburban American school felt like a crazy thrill ride that never ended. Who needed the real thing?

“You’ll like the Giant Dipper,” Steve said. “Our church youth group is heading to Santa Cruz on Saturday. Want to come along?”

Want to come along?
I could hardly believe it — my dream guy had just joined the short list of dudes to ask me that question. First Dwayne, then Spock, and now . . . Steve. Apparently, I scored points only at lunch. “Sure,” I said, deploying two years of finely honed “I’m your friend” acting skills to keep from shouting the word.

“We’ll pick you up at noon,” he said. “What’s your address?”

“Sounds great,” I said, lying again as I scribbled my address on a napkin. How would I explain a ginger-headed basketball player to my blissfully ignorant parents? Once again, I’d have to enlist my sisters’ mad skills.

Steve tucked the napkin into his pocket and moved on. The girls at my table were quiet, but only for a bit. I watched them shake it off and start to chat about their weekend plans. This invitation was a blip, for sure. Guys asked
them
out in front of
me,
not vice versa. When it came to the scripts of their lives, I was the fourth chick, the one without a speaking part, the sidekick who never got her own backstory. I was starting to suspect I was only in the movie so the protagonist could add dimension to her character.

Saturday dawned, a breezy, summery, Santa Cruz–perfect day. I knew it wasn’t a real date — there were a bunch of us going — but he had asked
me,
right?

“Are you sure this jock is worth it?” Sonali asked doubtfully.

Rupali chimed in. “Why’s it taken him so long to ask you out?”

I didn’t answer. My sisters exchanged glances and shrugged.

“Let’s get you ready,” said Rupali.

“What’s our game plan?” asked Sonali.

I tried on eleven outfits before they finally agreed on the perfect combination — faded jeans, a white cotton shirt embroidered with flowers, and sandals with bling. Rupali convinced Ma to go shopping, Sonali asked Baba for help in chemistry, and I stole out to the porch to wait. My sisters were going to tell the truncated truth — I was spending the day at a park with some nice, studious friends.

The church ride was on time. I dashed to the curb and jumped in before Steve had a chance to get out or Baba glanced up from Sonali’s chemistry textbook. Acquaintances from school jammed the car, so no introductions were needed. We chatted with the others on the drive, but once we got into the amusement park, Steve led me away from the group.

“See you in a while,” he told them, leaving a wake of confusion behind us.
Why does HE want to be alone with HER?
I could hear them thinking.

Before I could ask myself the same question, we were standing by the Giant Dipper. It was white, wooden, rickety, and huge. I gulped. “You’ll like it — I promise,” Steve said. “Just don’t fight it.”

He was right — I loved it. My head buzzed with the nearness of him as the Dipper twisted and turned us. That sweet old coaster kept tossing me over to Steve and hurling Steve over to me. We rode it three times, then crashed into each other’s bumper cars, made crazy faces in the hall of mirrors, and shared fried dough. Steve swished a basket in the arcade and won an enormous stuffed monkey. He handed his prize to me with a smile sweeter than the dough we’d devoured.

“Let’s name him Dipper,” I said, swinging the huge creature onto my shoulders.

Steve reached over to brush the hair out of my eyes, and suddenly, it was time. I took a deep breath and hit him bang in the face with my best Smoldering Look. Oh, his eyes were blue, as blue as the California sky above our heads, as blue as the Pacific waves crashing on the sand.
Stow it,
I told myself.
Write the poem later. This is now, baby. Twiddle some Hair and keep Smoldering.
Oh, I Smoldered, all right. And Twiddled. All while balancing a monkey, no less — go on, try it, it’s harder than it sounds — but thanks to my sisters’ stellar training, I managed it.

During the ride home, Michael Jackson’s “Rockin’ Robin” may have been belting out on the radio, but my heart was dancing a crazy Bollywood dance. The only thing separating us was Dipper, one leg draped across Steve’s jeans and one leg on mine. One by one the others were dropped off, but when it was just me and Steve in the backseat, he didn’t move away. No, he stayed close, one denim leg pressed against mine.
To balance Dipper,
I thought. But then he wielded his own nonverbal. It was a classic guy move I’d watched college dudes use on my sisters: a yawn, a stretch, and suddenly an arm was stretched out across the seat behind me.

I knew the right response: lean in a little closer and clutch Dipper’s paw.

The church car stopped in front of my house (
too soon, too soon
). I opened the door and swung out a leg. “Thanks so much,” I said.

In a quick move, as smooth and agile as though he’d practiced it a hundred times in front of a mirror, he leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You’re sweet, Mitali,” he said, and handed me the monkey.

And like that, he was gone. The car whisked him away, leaving me with points one, two, and three. I stood on the curb, squeezing Dipper so hard a real animal would have been asphyxiated in seconds.
So, that’s the game,
I thought.
Hmm
. . .

The door opened. It was Ma, calling me inside, scolding about how late I was. I didn’t care. I’d played the game; that was enough. But how was I going to explain the monkey business?

“Griff, snap out of it,” Evan says, jabbing his elbow into my rib cage. “You’re missing the newbies.”

I glance at Evan — trying to ignore the scraggly reddish-brown “soul patch” on his chin — then turn to follow his gaze. A mob of girls, huddled together like starry-eyed lambs heading to the slaughter, make their way across the quad with Principal Greer herding them along. With their blinding-white blouses and heavily starched skirts, they look like rejects from an episode of
Gossip Girl.

Of course, my blazer and slacks would fit in the show just fine. As Principal Greer says, we’re all cut from the same cloth here.

“Where are the boys? Did their group already pass?” Callie sports the same uniform as every other girl at Hobbs, but takes a more . . . generous interpretation on the skirt’s length requirements.

“Did we look that scared last year?” Rebecca asks. “They’re terrified.”

Though talking to the group, she leans into me. I try to ignore the sweetness of her citrus-scented perfume, the color of her perfectly pink lips, the touch of her freckled hand against mine.

“Which one do you think’ll bite the dust first?” Evan asks. “My bet’s on the chubby one with the splotchy cheeks.”

“No way,” Callie says. “You see Tinkerbell — the one with the pixie cut? She probably still wets the bed.”

Only a handful of events are certain at Hobbs Academy. The chicken enchilada will give you diarrhea. Coach Hawkins will mutter something inappropriate during the Spring Pep Rally and we’ll all hear it thanks to the state-of-the-art sound system. And at least one freshman won’t make it past the first two weeks. That last one may as well be chiseled in stone.

While Rebecca yells at Evan and Callie for being mean, my gaze falls to two girls at the tail of the mob. Rail-thin. Leggy. Dark-brown skin. Short, bouncy, black hair.

Twins? Maybe.

Black. Definitely.

I should know.

“What do you think?” Evan elbows me again, pushing me into Rebecca. “Which one leaves first?”

“The blonde,” I mumble, trying to regain my balance.

“Which one?” he asks. “There are, like, twenty of them.”

Exactly.

With about thirty students per grade, Hobbs is the smallest boarding school in Vermont. Our demographics are just like the state’s. White, white, and white.

I guess that’s not fair. Technically Rebecca is “one-eighth German, three-eighths Sephardic-Jewish, and one-half Irish.” And Evan has enough Muskogee blood running through him to be a member of the Creek Nation. Still, I didn’t see anyone looking at them when we talked about the Holocaust or the Trail of Tears last year in World History. But let anyone mention Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Will Smith or even the slightly black-looking dude who trims Principal Greer’s prized rosebushes, and suddenly I’m the center of attention.

It got bad during Black History Month.

I own February at Hobbs.

Even the cafeteria lady gets in on it. Like:
I’m sorry, Griffin. So sorry. First — well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, do I now? — we had slavery. Next came those horrible Jim Crow laws. And then Hurricane Katrina — can you believe it? Here, take an extra slice of cake. It’s lemon. I’ve got watermelon and fried chicken and red Kool-Aid in back, too, just for you.

(Okay, she didn’t say all of that stuff. Not at the same time, anyway.)

But this afternoon in September, the cafeteria lady barely looks in my direction as she plops a scoop of lasagna onto my tray.

“Dude,” Evan says as I near the table. “I heard there’s twins in the new class. Twins!”

I slide into the chair beside him, bypassing the empty seat by Rebecca.

“They’re in my PE class,” Callie says. “Violet and Jasmine Harris. I think Coach is going to talk to them about playing volleyball.”

“Volleyball-playing twins.” Evan’s eyes make him look like a rat in search of cheese. “How do they look?”

Callie glances at me. “You know . . . they’re tall. And they have . . . brown eyes.”

Evan’s eyes dart around the room. “Yeah? And?”

“They’re um . . . um . . .”

I drop my fork on the tray, not expecting the clang of metal on plastic to ring so loudly. “They’re black.”

The table falls silent. Another rule at Hobbs — no one talks about race. Like last year’s mono outbreak and Principal Greer’s BO, we ignore it — pretend it doesn’t exist. Pretend it doesn’t matter. “I saw them in the library.” Rebecca picks at her salad — a sea of iceberg lettuce and creamy ranch dressing, with a few walnuts on top to make it reasonably healthy. “What makes you think they want to play volleyball?”