Laura Furman - The O Henry Prize Stories 2005

Julia looked at her. Whatever you’re going to say, don’t say it. But she didn’t say anything.

“You have it backwards,” Anouk said. “Your mother left because of what happened. She went to America, because she knew your father couldn’t. There was an article about it in Nefte Compass -I couldn’t read it, because it was in Russian, but my dad read it.” She lifted her beautiful eyes to Julia’s. “My dad said it wasn’t fair. He said they shouldn’t’ve called your dad a crook.”

“Four-five,” her father called. “Your service.”

“But I guess your mom didn’t understand that.”

Cars were inching out of the club. Julia could see the red brake lights between the purple blossoms of the hedge that separated the court from the drive.

“It doesn’t matter,” Anouk said. “You said he wouldn’t have gone back anyway, so it doesn’t matter whether he couldhave.”

A car backed up, beeping. Someone yelled directions in Hindi.

“And it didn’t get reported in America or anything. My father says he's lucky he could still work in Europe-probably not in oil, but anything else. He doesn’t want to go back to the States anyway- alors, c’est pas grand chose.”

The game had finished. Their fathers were collecting the balls from the corners of the court.

“Ready?” her father called, but Julia was already hurrying across the court. By the time she got out to the drive she was jogging, zigzagging through the cars clogging the lot, out into the hot nighttime haze of the road. She was lucky to find an empty taxi. They pulled out into the mass of traffic in front of the Hagi Ali and stopped. The driver looked at her in the mirror for instructions.

“Malabar Hill,” she said. “Hanging Garden.”

Zubin was actually working on the essay, sitting at his desk by the open window, when he heard his name. Or maybe hallucinated his name: a bad sign. But it wasn’t his fault. His mother had given him a bottle of sam-buca, which someone had brought her from the duty-free shop in the Frankfurt airport.

“I was thinking of giving it to the Mehtas but he's stopped drinking entirely. I could only think of you.”

“You’re the person she thought would get the most use out of it,” his father contributed.

Now Zubin was having little drinks (really half drinks) as he tried to apply to college. He had decided that there would be nothing wrong with writing a first draft for Julia, as long as she put it in her own words later. The only problem was getting started. He remembered his own essay perfectly, unfortunately on an unrelated subject. He had written, much to his English teacher's dismay, about comic books.

“Why don’t you write about growing up in Bombay? That will distinguish you from the other applicants,” she had suggested.

He hadn’t wanted to distinguish himself from the other applicants, or rather, he’d wanted to distinguish himself in a much more distinctive way. He had an alumni interview with an expatriate American consultant working for Arthur Anderson in Bombay; the interviewer, who was young, Jewish and from New York, said it was the best college essay he’d ever read.

“Zu-bin.”

It was at least a relief that he wasn’t hallucinating. She was standing below his window, holding a tennis racket. “Hey, Zubin-can I come up?”

“You have to come around the front,” he said.

“Will you come down and get me?”

He put a shirt over his T-shirt, and then took it off. He took the glass of sambuca to the bathroom sink to dump it, but he got distracted looking in the mirror (he should’ve shaved) and drained it instead.

He found Julia leaning against a tree, smoking. She held out the pack.

“I don’t smoke.”

She sighed. “Hardly anyone does anymore.” She was wearing an extremely short white skirt. “Is this a bad time?”

“Well-”

“I can go.”

“You can come up,” he said, a little too quickly. “I’m not sure I can do antonyms now though.”

In his room Julia gravitated to the stereo. A Brahms piano quartet had come on.

“You probably aren’t a Brahms person.”

She looked annoyed. “How do you know?”

“I don’t,” he said. “Sorry-are you?”

Julia pretended to examine his books. “I’m not very familiar with his work,” she said finally. “So I couldn’t really say.”

He felt like hugging her. He poured himself another sambuca instead. “I’m sorry there's nowhere to sit.”

“I’m sorry I’m all gross from tennis.” She sat down on his mattress, which was at least covered with a blanket.

“Do you always smoke after tennis?” he couldn’t help asking.

“It calms me down.”

“Still, you shouldn’t-”

“I’ve been having this dream,” she said. She stretched her legs out in front of her and crossed her ankles. “Actually it's kind of a nightmare.”

“Oh,” said Zubin. Students’ nightmares were certainly among the things that should be discussed in the living room.

“Have you ever been to New Hampshire?”

“What?”

“I’ve been having this dream that I’m in New Hampshire. There's a frozen pond where you can skate outside.”

“That must be nice.”

“I saw it in a movie,” she admitted. “But I think they have them- anyway. In the dream I’m not wearing skates. I’m walking out onto the pond, near the woods, and it's snowing. I’m walking on the ice but I’m not afraid-everything's really beautiful. And then I look down and there's this thing-this dark spot on the ice. There are some mushrooms growing, on the dark spot. I’m worried that someone skating will trip on them, so I bend down to pick them.”

Her head was bent now; she was peeling a bit of rubber from the sole of her sneaker.

“That's when I see the guy.”

“The guy.”

“The guy in the ice. He's alive, and even though he can’t move, he sees me. He's looking up and reaching out his arms and just his fingers are coming up-just the tips of them through the ice. Like white mushrooms.”

“Jesus,” Zubin said.

She misunderstood. “No-just a regular guy.”

“That's a bad dream.”

“Yeah, well,” she said proudly. “I thought maybe you could use it.”

“Sorry?”

“In the essay.”

Zubin poured himself another sambuca. “I don’t know if I can write the essay.”

“You have to.” Her expression changed instantly. “I have the money-I could give you a check now even.”

“It's not the money.”

“Because it's dishonest?” she said in a small voice.

“I-” But he couldn’t explain why he couldn’t manage to write even a college essay, even to himself. “I’m sorry.”

She looked as if she’d been about to say something else, and then changed her mind. “Okay,” she said dejectedly. “I’ll think of something.”

She looked around for her racket, which she’d propped up against the bookshelf. He didn’t want her to go yet.

“What kind of a guy is he?”

“Who?”

“The guy in the ice-is he your age?”

Julia shook her head. “He's old.”

Zubin sat down on the bed, at what he judged was a companionable distance. “Like a senior citizen?”

“No, but older than you.”

“Somewhere in that narrow window between me and senior citizenship.”

“You’re not old,” she said seriously.

“Thank you.” The sambuca was making him feel great. They could just sit here, and get drunk and do nothing, and it would be fun, and there would be no consequences; he could stop worrying for tonight, and give himself a little break.

He was having that comforting thought when her head dropped lightly to his shoulder.