Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“Where’s your brother?” Kamala asked, some forty minutes later.

“Dunno.”

“What do you mean don’t know?”

“I’m reading,” Amina lied. She fanned the pages of the book with her thumb. She hadn’t really been able to read at all, had only circled the words Kurtz, green , and river .

Kamala frowned. “Did he go somewhere?”

“He’s out.”

“Out where?”

Amina shrugged. After they dropped her at the head of the driveway, Amina had watched the car roll fifty yards down the dirt road.

“Hey! Idiot!” Kamala snapped oniony fingers in front of her face. “Where did he go?”

Amina sighed. “Jesus.”

“What Jesus? I’m asking you a simple question, and you’re sitting like some deaf-mute.”

“I’m trying to read.”

Kamala grabbed Amina’s left ear, twisted hard.

“Ow! God! He just went to Ben Franklin’s for paint! He’ll be back soon!”

Kamala let go. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

“What the hell does it matter? He’s out doing whatever he wants, and it’s not like we have to keep track of him every shitty second of the day!” Amina rubbed her ear.

“No cursing!”

“Leave me alone, then!”

Kamala scrunched her face and abruptly held a cool palm to Amina’s forehead. “You’re having a hormonal episode,” she announced.

Three hours later Akhil sat at the dinner table looking like he’d gotten a once-over from an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. Hair stuck out from his head in charged puffs, a half-inch circumference around his mouth was swollen and pink, and his left ear glistened gooily. His hooded sweatshirt was oddly bungled around his throat, as though hurricane-level winds had whipped it into a knot. Kamala passed the potatoes.

“So you’re the team captain again?”

Akhil took a spoonful of vegetables. “Uh-huh.”

Kamala scooped two more spoonfuls onto his plate. She followed with a leg of chicken, three spoonfuls of yogurt and cabbage, and two chapatis. “How many people are on the team?”

“Can I have one?” Amina asked.

Kamala reached for the water pitcher, filling their glasses. “Ten? Twelve?”

Akhil’s fingers pressed tenderly at his ear before migrating to his mouth. “Six.”

“And all are National Merit semifinalists?”

“Yeah.” Akhil rubbed his nose, then stopped, sniffing his fingers.

“I tell you, in India we competed in maths all the time, but there was never a real tournament — such a good idea! A sport that tests the mettle of the mind!”

“That’s not really a sport,” Amina said.

“Not true! What do you think chess is?”

“Not a sport either.”

“Shut up, idiot box! You know your grandfather was the champion chess player of Madras Christian College and went on to become the—”

“Semifinalist for the All-India Chess Championships. Yeah. You told me.”

“Well, you’re in a fine mood today, Miss Impressed with Everything. Maybe you should try using your brain for something instead of criticizing everyone. Maybe you should try leading a team of — Akhil, what’s wrong with your ear?” Kamala pointed a serving spoon at him.

“Nothing.”

“You keep fiddling with it. It’s infected? Come, let me look.”

“No.” Akhil leaned back. “No, it’s fine.”

“But it’s swollen, no?”

Akhil shook his head, and the sweatshirt around his neck slipped to reveal a pulpy bruise.

“Oh my God!” Kamala stood up. “Oh my God, you’ve been hit!”

“What?” Akhil looked at Amina, who pointed a finger at her own neck.

Akhil slapped a hand over the bruise. “No. Nothing. It’s nothing, Ma.”

“Who did this to you?” Kamala demanded. “Those boys?”

“No one, Ma, it’s nothing—”

“What nothing? You’ve been beaten! Was it the same boys as last year? Mr. No Good Martinez and his thuggy band of goondas ?”

“No, I swear—”

But she was already rising from the table. “Mesa Preparatory code of honor my foot! They said it wouldn’t happen again, and now this! Why didn’t you say anything? When did this happen? I’m calling your father.”

“No! Don’t!”

But Kamala was already walking quickly to the kitchen, hand held in front of her like a weapon.

“Do something!” Akhil whispered, hurrying after her.

“Like what?” Amina followed.

In the kitchen, their mother punched the buttons on the phone with her middle finger, pointing it at them when she finished dialing. “Thugs! I saw it on the Eyewitness News , gangs coming to Albuquerque with their initiations and putting ideas in the heads of teenagers! Yes, operator, can you have Dr. Eapen kindly call home? His son has been beaten to a bloody—”

“It wasn’t a boy!” Amina shouted.

Kamala stopped talking, her mouth puckered over her next word.

“It wasn’t a boy,” Amina repeated.

Her mother put the phone back in the cradle. “A girl?”

Akhil nodded.

“A girl beat you?”

“He wasn’t beaten,” Amina said. “It’s a hickey.”

Kamala’s eyes widened. “Who?”

“The thing. On his neck. It’s like a kiss, but sort of hard. Like a sucking kiss. He was with Mindy Lujan. That’s where he was when you asked. That’s why—”

Kamala waved a frantic hand and Amina stopped talking. Her mother stood dead still, palms flat against the counter like she was holding it in place. She looked at them, her mouth twisting at the corners, and Amina realized she was trying not to cry.

“Oh, Mom …,” Akhil started, but Kamala’s lips just stretched tight and thin and paper-flat, as though they could be torn. She walked around the counter to her purse and picked it up, stuffing it under one arm. Then she went out of the kitchen and down the hall and out the front door, opening her car door and slamming it with a thump. They watched her pull out of the driveway.

“Thanks a fucking lot, Amina.”

“You said to do something.”

“Shut up.”

It took four hours for Kamala to come home. Amina knew because she was awake, wondering if it was possible to lose both parents to the difficulties of living in America. Could their mother really just leave them, too? Was that all it took, one good fight and members of her family would drive off down the driveway forever?

But then came the noise of the car, the keys landing on the countertop. Kamala hushed the dog’s whining with the low hum of Malayalam. Footsteps and paw steps made their way across the house and the bottom stair creaked as Kamala climbed up to the kids’ landing. Amina hurriedly arranged herself into something she thought a mother would feel good about coming back to — back straight, nightie smoothed. A good girl. A Girl Scout. But Kamala didn’t knock on her door. She didn’t knock on Akhil’s either. Amina stared at the brass knob, listening to what sounded like rustling and fleeing, Kamala’s steps softer on the stairs as she hurried slipslapslipslapslip down.

Amina got up. She tiptoed across her room and opened the door as silently as she could, peeking into the hallway. Nothing. No Kamala, no Queen Victoria, no one to look intrepid for. But wait. She squinted. Yes, there was something. A paper bag. It sat outside Akhil’s door, as familiar and mystical as a lawn gnome. Amina slid across the floor in her socks and knelt in front of it, dumping out the contents. A box fell to the floor. Small, neat, not much bigger than her hand. She turned it over, looking at the picture of a couple silhouetted by the sunset. LATEX, bold letters proclaimed, and with the proclamation, Amina understood that she had no business with it whatsoever. She shoved it back into the bag and half ran back to her bedroom, diving under the covers.