Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

“She said shank us?”

“She said kill us.”

“Oh.” Amina tried not to feel upset by this. What did she think was going to happen?

Outside, Prince Philip was barking a low, constant complaint. Amina got up from the bed and ambled over to the window. Her parents were weeding in the garden, despite the afternoon heat.

“What?” Dimple asked.

“What?”

“You just said ‘nuts.’ ”

Amina moved away from the window. “My parents. It’s weird. They go everywhere together now. The garden, the porch, probably the bathroom for all I know. It’s like they’re dating or something.”

“That’s sweet.”

“No it’s not. It’s like having the sun set on the wrong fucking side of the sky.”

Dimple was quiet for a moment. “How are you doing?”

Why did everyone always ask that? “I’m fine.”

“My mom said last night was awful.”

“When are you telling her about Sajeev?”

“What?” Dimple’s voice bowed up in surprise. “I don’t know. I mean, that’s the last thing we need to think about right now, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t it just better to tell everyone and be done with it?”

“God, Ami. Compared to everything else going on? It’s practically a nonissue.”

“I mean, especially if you’re still planning on eloping after the show.” Amina paced around the room. “Because a wedding might be nice, you know. For everyone to think about.”

“What, like a distraction?”

“No,” Amina said, even though that was exactly what she meant. Was it really so bad to want something to look forward to? She opened up Akhil’s armoire and saw a grimy version of her own tired face staring back at her. “When do you get in?”

“Midnight tonight. We’ll come over in the morning. Who is that?”

“What?”

“Ami, seriously? Have your ears melted? Your doorbell just rang.”

It rang again. Prince Philip began barking like his back was on fire.

“Shit.” Amina looked down. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her damp armpits smelled mildly like coffee. She looked around the floor for her bedroom slippers.

“Do you want me to call back?”

“No, I’ll just see you tomorrow.” She dropped the phone in the cradle and hurried down the stairs just as the ringing switched to knocking.

“Coming!” she shouted as she approached the door, and this unleashed a torrent of disapproval from Prince Philip, who seemed to be auditioning for the role of ferocious guard dog on the other side of it.

“Thank God,” Jamie said when she opened it, eyes looking back at the bared teeth. “Your dog is about to go Cujo on me.”

“Oh!” Amina crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey!”

“Can you help me out here?”

“SHUT IT, PRINCE!” Amina shouted, and the dog looked immediately sheepish, tail wagging. He sniffed Jamie’s pants.

“Prince like the singer?” Jamie watched him nervously.

“Like Prince Philip of England.”

“Ah.”

The dog wandered away, and Jamie looked at her expectantly.

“You look great,” Amina said.

Actually, he looked like a banker on a business-casual day — chinos, checked shirt, and good leather shoes, face the kind of clean-shaven that felt rubbery — but still.

“Yeah? Cool. I wanted to look nice to meet your parents.”

“Ha!” Amina tried to tamp down the flare of panic between her ribs. “Of course. Yes. And they want to meet you, too! We all do. I mean, not me, but you know, have you meet them. The thing is, though, it’s just not really a good time.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Jamie said. He took a step back, glancing at his car as if he were going to get back in it, and for a moment Amina thought it would be that easy. Then he shrugged. “I mean, I get it. I really do. Which is why yesterday when we got off the phone I just thought, You know what? It might never be a good time. So I might as well just go over .”

She was nodding like one of those nodding dolls, the ones that go from cute to stupid in about a second. She stopped. “Weird.”

Jamie frowned.

She shook her head, tried again. “We are weird right now. And the house. It’s …” She looked down at the good leather shoes. The good leather shoes were not going to like what was passing for normalcy behind the front door. Amina sighed. “It’s fucked.”

“Amina.”

It seemed like a bad idea, looking right at him. It seemed like the inevitable first step toward some tedious, emotional conversation about how bad things were getting, how shakily she’d handled them, how long it had been since she’d showered. But when she looked up, there was something sympathetic and a little amused in his eyes, and she found herself backing up. Jamie walked inside. He looked around slowly, lingering on the windowsills, the furniture, the chair with the clocks. Overnight, Christmas lights had been laid on the floor on either side of the hallway so that it lit up like a merry runway.

Amina pushed her hair behind her ear. “It doesn’t always look like this.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want some tea or something?”

“Sure.”

It was funny to have him walking behind her, his height out of context in her house. She felt like she needed to point out lighting fixtures, doorways, to push the walls a little farther apart. They went into the kitchen, where Thomas had crammed the countertop with candles of all shapes and sizes that morning, despite Kamala’s vocal disapproval. Amina turned the kettle on and retrieved a paper bag, opening it with an efficient snap. She began dropping the candles into it.

“Pretty house,” Jamie said.

Amina gave him a look.

“No, really. It’s obviously not, you know, in its best state right now, but it’s still nice. The trees are huge.” He looked into the courtyard. “Is that …?”

“A halogen lamp wrapped in Christmas lights. Yes. It’s funny how that’s the one that gets people. What kind of tea do you want?”

“Anything. Actually, decaf if you have it.”

She finished with the candles and rolled the paper bag tight, setting it down on the floor. At the back of the cabinet, she found an old herbal sampler and pulled out a bag of chamomile for him and a Red Label for herself. She turned on the kettle. “You hungry?”

“Nope.”

She walked a few paces toward and away from the stove. She could feel him watching her.

“I’m fine,” she said preemptively. “I mean, I haven’t showered in a while. Or slept, really. And I keep worrying about my parents doing something crazier than they already have, but that’s just, you know. Fine.”

“Crazier?”

“You know, like pushing the fridge into the garden. Or burning the house down.” She laughed self-consciously, and sat. There was something sticky on the countertop, and she scraped her nail against it, aware that Jamie was still watching but unable to stop.

“So how is he?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe fine? Maybe metastasizing?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” she said, and felt a little pop in her chest when he reached across the counter and held her hand. The water heated with a quiet roar. “Was it like this with your mom?”

“Not really.”

“Just the part where she covered the whole house in lights?”

Jamie squeezed her hand.

When the teakettle screamed, Amina poured water into both cups, thinking of all the other things she had assumed would kill Thomas one day. The smoking. The scotch. Some kind of extremely rare blood-borne disease that he’d get but save the rest of the hospital from with a final heroic act.

“I guess I just didn’t think it would be like this,” she said out loud.

“Yeah.”