Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“He lost the car ?”

Kamala laughed. “I know! Can you believe it?”

“And you’re sure he’s safe working?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s seeing Ammachy and then he loses the car?”

“What? No! Not at the same time, dummy. He lost the car this morning ,” Kamala said, as though that explained everything. “This other thing happens at night.”

“But you don’t think they have any connection to each other?”

“Of course not. Pish, this girl! Always overreacting to simple-simple things!”

“I’m not overreacting! I’m just saying that if he—”

“Your father loses everything twice every month for the last twenty-five years. It’s funny, that’s why we told you. Everyone loses the car in the mall!”

Amina pulled at the phone cord. A knock at the door jerked her head, and Jose’s half-lidded, reptilian eyes slanted her way.

“I have to go,” Amina told her mother.

“You didn’t tell me your flight information,” Kamala said as Jose ducked through the doorway, a flat yellow envelope in his hands, AMINA ONLY written on the front.

“I’ll call you later.”

Kamala banged the phone down. Amina stared at the receiver. Jose cleared his throat.

“Right.” She looked up at him. “Sorry.”

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m fine.” She glanced at the envelope. “What’s that?”

“A beauty. Not that you deserve it.” Jose slid the picture onto her desk. They stared down at a white-haired woman laid across a dark tabletop, her arms extending from her sides. The view was from her feet up, her scuffed shoe bottoms giving way to the twisted root of her body. Empty chairs lined either side of her like an invisible audience, and her mouth hung open. The halo around her was barely perceptible, a lightness that made her body rise from the table. A man crouched next to her, his lips pursed.

“Jesus,” Amina said.

“That’s exactly what I thought!” Jose said, his voice betraying his excitement. “I put in a little bit of light just around her head and body. I brought out the detail of the shoes, you know, like that. And I can go heavier on the man’s face in the corner if you want. I just sort of liked it, you know, with her as more of the focus.”

“No, I like him soft.” Amina looked at the woman’s hands, her curled fingers. “The hands are nice, too. This is one of your best.”

“ Your best. Man, I don’t know what I’d do around here if you didn’t keep me rolling in a steady supply of nasty. She didn’t die, did she?”

“No, just passed out from excitement. She was fine when I left.” Amina carefully picked up the picture and slid it back into the envelope, then into her bag. “Okay, what kind of filling do you want?”

“Veggie. Also, I need more of the green stuff.”

“Chutney.”

“Whatever.”

Amina wrote the order in her notebook. “My cousin and I are meeting someone in your neighborhood on Sunday, so I can drop them by if that works.”

Two years before, when Jose had gone out of his way to print one of Amina’s shots in an 18 × 20, he had almost gotten her fired. With just the right amount of light and shadow to enhance just-married Janine Trepolo getting cake pummeled into her face by a slightly too forceful groom, Amina had been sure that it was Jane’s version of a pink slip when it arrived in a manila envelope on her desk, AMINA ONLY on the front. She was on her way to her employer’s office when Jose asked if she liked it. Only after confirming that no one else had seen the picture could Amina confess that she loved it, and then, not having anything else to offer, had given him half her lunch. When the next print was ready, Jose asked for more samosas. “Trade for trade,” he had said, a notion that so clearly pleased him that Amina saw no reason to disabuse him of it, never mind that she bought the food from a well-hidden restaurant in Magnolia.

“You and Dimple are going out in my ’hood? And I’m not invited?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Man, when you going to introduce us? Five years you’ve been here, and I still don’t know that girl.”

“You’re married,” Amina reminded him.

“We have an agreement.”

“So you say.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you’d tell me a lot of things to get to Dimple.”

“Dimple,” Jose said, licking his bottom lip, “is a human samosa.”

“Stop.”

He smiled wide, his short, flat teeth making him look like a gremlin. “Go on, gimme that lecture on sexism-racism-ismism now, you know you’re dying to.”

The phone rang, and Amina shooed him toward the door with a hand. “Give yourself that lecture. I have work to do.”

There are small blessings, tiny ones that come unbidden and make a hard day one sigh lighter. The weather that greeted Amina on the ride up to the Highlands neighborhood for the Beale wedding on Saturday afternoon was just that kind of blessing. Yes, it was a bit cooler than it should have been in June, but the sky was scattered with a few pale clouds — perfect for everlasting union. The Commodores sang “Easy” on the radio, and she sang with them, Why would anybody put chains on me sounding existentially good. She was easy. She could make Lesley Beale happy. At ten minutes before two, she pulled into the Seattle Golf Club parking lot, where one of the many green-clad groundskeepers waved her around to the back entrance.

“She had some trees rushed in this morning for the long hall,” Dick, the bean-shaped grounds manager, explained, pressing a linen handkerchief to his upper lip as Amina passed through the doorway. “No one can go in for the next hour or so.”

“Is she here yet?”

“She’s been setting up the women’s lounge for the girls since ten. Eunice is back there, too.”

“What happened to the library?”

“Changed her mind, changed her mind,” Dick said, then turned abruptly to answer the question of a woman holding an armload of lilies.

Of course she had changed her mind. Changing her mind was a kind of sport for Lesley, whose clipped charm, equine good looks, and marriage to the heir of the Beale department store fortune had long ago turned her into the exact kind of person whose mind did not worry over how much each change changed. A fleet of handsome catering staff passed Amina as she made her way down the hall.

“Hello?” Amina walked into the lounge.

“Oh, good, I was just starting to wonder about you.” Lesley, in a crisp and flawless origami of white linen, watched as an older woman placed a crystal vase in front of each mirror. “To the left, Rosa. More. A little more. Good.”

Amina set her bag down, quickly glancing around. The room was a riot of competing pinks. Rose curtains, walls, and carpet glowed under chandeliers. Eight mirrors were ringed with baby-pink Hollywood lights, a peachy wingback chair sitting in front of each like a misplaced cockatoo.

“You’ll need to put your stuff in the coat check,” Lesley said.

“No problem. Just let me get set up.”

“Good idea.” Eunice, the perpetually startled-looking wedding planner, stood up from where she’d been squatting on the floor, one hand clutching a spool of white ribbon. “The girls finished at the salon early and are on their way.”

Amina nodded calmly, pulled out a light meter, and started taking readings from around the room.

“Where are the lilies, Eunice?” Lesley asked.

“Excuse me?”

“For the vases. They need to be in place before the girls come.”

“Right. I just don’t, ah, I think because we were going to be in the library and you decided the textures would compete?”