Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

He was talking to Itty, no doubt about it. Even though she hadn’t heard it in decades, Thomas’s flat, loud cadence was instantly recognizable, like a foreign language.

“You called Anyan?” Kamala asked.

“I left a message with his service.”

“And what did they say?”

“They said he’d call me back.”

“But what did they say about Thomas ?”

“They didn’t say anything about Thomas because I didn’t tell them about Thomas . They are not doctors, they’re operators.”

“So then what? We just sit and wait?”

“What else?”

“Go talk to him.”

“You go talk to him!”

“Chi!” Her mother snorted to cover up the fact that even now, in the midst of illness and disaster, she was unwilling to set foot on the porch. “What nonsense! Leaving your own father to wander around like some yakking idiot?”

“I don’t think we leave him at all, not when we’re not sure if he’s …” Amina watched her father lift a level into the air, reading the fluorescent bubbles like they were measuring something. “Anyway, I think we should keep an eye on him.”

“I am not watching this man like one television! You think I have nothing else to do?”

“Oh, that’s right, you’re busy cooking food that no one likes to eat .”

“I am cooking food that will fatten him up! You want him to waste away to nothing? He needs reserves for radiation!”

“So go back to the kitchen, if that’s where you want to be!”

Kamala gave her a long, cold look. To Amina’s surprise, she threw open the screen door, marching straight onto the porch. It seemed to curl and shrink around her, like wood chips spent by flame, and she paused for a moment, getting her bearings. She thumped through the machinery with her fists clenched, little puffs of sawdust gasping at her heels. “Thomas!”

He took no notice of her, bending to adjust the radial dial.

“Thomas!” Kamala shoved a pointer finger between his shoulder blades.

“Cha!” he yelled, wheeling around to face her. “What!”

“What are you doing?”

Thomas looked around nervously. Whether it was the simple fact that she was on his porch for the first time in fifteen years or that her clenched, fuming face was doubled up on him like a fist, Kamala had him spooked. He took a quick breath before saying, “Talking to Itty.”

“Why!”

Why? Amina blinked from the laundry room. She would not have thought to ask why.

“Because …” Thomas looked behind him, presumably to where Itty stood. “Because he’s here .”

Kamala took this in with a frown, then dodged to the side suddenly, as though she might catch a glimpse of Itty if she were fast enough. She straightened, looking back up at Thomas. “You see him?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

Thomas nodded.

“Then tell him to go.”

Thomas looked stricken. He began to tremble visibly, dropping his eyes to the floor.

“Thomas, you hear me? Stop this now.”

Thomas shook his head, lost, it seemed, to the shavings and filings and occasional winking screw or nail.

“Hey!” Kamala barked and he looked up at her. “What are you doing?”

“I … I don’t know.” He swallowed, his eyes filling with tears. He looked behind him and then back at Kamala. Amina watched from behind the screen, her eyes and nose suddenly liquid with grief. He should not go like this. He should not lose his dignity.

Thomas’s shoulders tented up and down with the effort of trying to speak, but Kamala stopped him, squeezing his forearm. She spoke so softly, Amina had to stop breathing to hear her.

“Never mind. Not important. I am going to be in the kitchen cooking. I will not leave unless I tell you first. Come get me if you need. Okay?”

Thomas’s head dropped. Kamala turned and strode back toward Amina, who only now realized that the droning she had heard in the back of her mind was not just some by-product of too much emotion, but the live and urgent trill of the telephone. Anyan George was calling back. Kamala opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen, past the still-ringing phone.

“It’s for you,” she said.

Jamie Anderson had not swept his entryway recently. That afternoon, as Amina rang his doorbell and paced, she almost crushed a tiny cluster of anthills dotting a seam between bricks and had to do a funny hop-skip to right herself. But no, even breathing hard, even disturbed by Anyan George’s lack of help (“Keep an eye on it,” he’d said, as though looking away were an option), she would not destroy another creature’s carefully wrought world. If she were God, she’d be a little fucking kinder.

A few seconds passed. She rang the doorbell again. She had hung up the phone with Anyan George and driven straight there, not admitting to herself that she knew exactly where she was going until she had pulled up behind Jamie’s station wagon.

Could he really be out? Amina banged on the door. She stepped forward, letting her forehead drop against it. If this were a movie, Jamie would open it right now. She’d fall into his arms. They would make love. She wouldn’t know if she had an orgasm because women in movies never touched themselves during sex, and it made her suspicious of their climaxes.

It was not a movie. He really wasn’t home. Amina backed up, willed the pressure in her chest to ease up. It was probably a good thing. What was she doing there, really? She did not know this man. She did not know his temperament, his cleaning habits, and the haste had been a ruse, a trick to keep from thinking clearly. By now her hand had found the doorbell and she rang it over and over again, not for any real hope of summoning Jamie, but to feel the power of her own cause and effect. There was a bubble in her lungs, the kind that happened when she stayed underwater for too long. Air Supply . She gasped with understanding. They really were such a better band than anyone knew.

Without warning, the hair on her arms stood on end, her animal brain understanding a split second before the rest that someone was behind her. Amina turned around to see Jamie stopped on the sidewalk a full house back. His park blanket was tucked under his arm, football-style.

“Hi,” she said. Jamie nodded at her once, the kind of nod you give across a room when you have no intention of getting closer. A neighbor switched on a radio that briefly blared rap before it was turned down and rerouted to NPR.

“You’re here,” he finally said.

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t go back to Seattle?”

“No.”

He waited for her to say more, but she couldn’t, unnerved by the reality of him, his 94 ROCK T-shirt, the wariness on his face.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

“I left you two messages.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Jamie’s eyes did not leave her face, and though nothing in them looked vulnerable toward her, she remembered their first kiss, how strange and eager they had both been, like two mutes trying to describe a freak storm.

“I had a funny week,” she said.

This seemed to release him from whatever paralysis he’d fallen under. He walked to his car, opening the hatchback and putting the blanket in, shutting it with a neat slam. She backed up as he made his way to the front door.

“How long have you been here?” He smelled sweet and chlorinated, like a day by a pool.

“Not long.”

“Huh.” Jamie unlocked the door and pushed it open, motioning for her to enter first. She walked through a foyer to a sunny, sunken living room with two couches. Amina walked toward the smaller one as Jamie set his keys down.

“Nice place.”