The bus stopped, and Sharon exited along with four other kids. Siddharth watched as she walked toward her house, weighed down by her bursting backpack and clunky trumpet case. This was the first time he was seeing the house that her mother had rented. It was a tiny ranch, with chipping paint and overgrown grass. On the front lawn sat an old sofa and a rusty, broken-down jeep. The sunless sky made it all seem especially dreary. In that moment, Siddharth realized something: Sharon was poor. In that moment, he felt worse for her than he ever had before. But he also felt like he barely knew her. He felt uneasy about letting her back into his life.
He turned back to Luca, who was sliding down his window. “Yo Niggerski,” shouted Luca, “you look hot today! Would you be my girlfriend?”
From her driveway, Sharon glanced up at the bus and scowled, then stuck up her middle finger.
Siddharth crouched down, focusing his gaze on the worn knees of his blue jeans.
“Freaking dyke,” said Eddie. “Her mailbox is mine.”
* * *
Luckily, the rain picked up, and by six o’clock, loud booms of thunder were rattling the windows of the Peroti household, causing Luca’s little brother to howl. Mrs. Peroti said she would drive them from house to house to get some candy, but Luca said that would be lame. Mrs. Peroti served them tortellini for dinner, and the boys watched a movie called Re-Animator, which Mohan Lal had rented for Siddharth. After reading the back of the case, Mohan Lal had said it was a work of science fiction, and science fiction taught young people to think critically.
The movie ended up being about a scientist who developed an injection that could bring dead things back to life. In Siddharth’s favorite scene, a decapitated body grasped its own head and performed oral sex on a woman. Siddharth ended up having a great evening and wondered if the universe was finally on his side.
Mrs. Peroti drove them to school in the morning, which meant that he avoided another encounter with Sharon. But the thought of facing her in class made his stomach churn. During English, he tried smiling at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. As he walked to science later that day, he thought about visiting the nurse to see if he could go home early. But it was Thursday, and Ms. Farber was usually home on Thursdays. He stopped in the bathroom to cup some water into his mouth and ended up arriving three minutes late to class. Mr. Polanski said he would give him a detention if it happened again.
Today they were going to do an experiment that involved comparing the masses of various liquids. By the time Siddharth got to his lab station, Sharon had gathered most of their materials—goggles, glass beakers, and a triple-beam balance. She looked up at him and said, “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Why would something be wrong?”
She yawned and stretched her arms. “Well, I’m pretty exhausted.”
He strapped his goggles onto his head. “Why, what did you do last night?”
“Jake came over. We were watching scary movies until three in the morning.”
“You mean he slept over?”
“What did you do?” asked Sharon, ignoring his question.
“Your mother let him sleep over?” Siddharth didn’t know why, but he felt himself growing hard. He felt disgusted with himself, and with Sharon too.
Smiling, she wrote their names on their lab sheet. “Come on, Siddharth. Why do you always gotta make such a big deal about everything?”
4
Sharon’s Blues
As the temperatures dipped toward freezing, Siddharth started daydreaming about his brother’s holiday visit. Once Arjun was back, it wouldn’t matter that Marc didn’t have any time for him. Arjun would take him to the mall. They would stay up late talking. Siddharth would show him off to Luca Peroti and Eddie Benson. He would show off Eddie and Luca to Arjun. He would prove to Arjun that he was definitely a regular guy—so what if he didn’t play sports?
On a mid-December evening, Arjun called to say he had a change of plans. Instead of flying to Connecticut for winter break, he was getting a ride in a van to rural Tennessee, where he would spend Christmas with other college students building houses for poor people. Siddharth was hurt. Angry. He couldn’t fathom why his brother would want to do something so lame and taxing.
“Let me guess,” he told Arjun, locking himself in the bathroom with the new cordless phone, Ms. Farber’s most recent purchase. “You’re doing this to impress your girlfriend.”
“Don’t be a child,” said Arjun. “I’m doing this because I believe in justice. Look, I have a week off in February. I’ll definitely see you then.”
“Whatever.”
“Siddharth, what did I tell you about trusting people? You gotta trust me. I’ll see you in February.”
Over dinner that night, Mohan Lal said he was glad Arjun was putting his money where his mouth was, but that he hoped this charity nonsense wouldn’t interfere with his studies. Ms. Farber said that Arjun was setting a great example, and she thought that the four of them should plan something similar for the summer.
“Fabulous,” said Marc, who then made a gagging sound.
“Siddharth, honey,” said Ms. Farber, “I know this is disappointing, but it actually might be for the best.”
“The best for who?”
Ms. Farber explained that an old friend from her Manhattan days was finally getting married, and that the wedding was being held in Atlantic City on the final weekend of Arjun’s February vacation. “Mo,” she said, “Arjun could watch the boys. We could turn it into a little vacation.”
“Vacation?” said Mohan Lal. “You think my book will write itself?”
“Jeez, Mohan,” she replied. “God forbid we spend a night alone.”
A few days later, Ms. Farber booked a two-night February package at a boardwalk hotel, which included four meals, a live show, and thirty dollars of tokens for the slot machines. Siddharth cringed at the idea of her and Mohan Lal being alone together in a hotel room, but he calmed himself with the thought of having his brother all to himself. Besides, February vacation was still two months away. A lot could happen between now and then. Ms. Farber could be hit by a bus, or perhaps move to Indonesia. No, that would be bad. That would be bad because Mohan Lal would have to grieve for another woman.
* * *
The next morning was the second-to-last day of school before Christmas vacation. The sky was bright blue, but the temperature hovered around freezing. As Siddharth headed to the bus stop, he couldn’t free his mind from thoughts of Atlantic City. He had once gone there when he was seven or eight, for one of Mohan Lal’s marketing conferences. On the first night there, they went out to a fancy restaurant, where the waiters pulled out their chairs and brushed away their crumbs. He had loved all the luxury and attention. He ordered mussels for dinner, even though his mother said he wouldn’t like them. She was right, but to prove a point he had eaten every last one and said they were great.
Siddharth reached the top of his street, pausing in the middle of the quiet intersection to wait for Timmy Connor. He placed his foot on a frozen puddle, causing it to shatter. When they were small, this area would often freeze over completely, and he and the Connor brothers used this ever-present patch of ice as a makeshift skating rink. Surrounded by sand and salt, the puddle now looked like a miniature ocean, complete with its own beach. During the Atlantic City trip, while Arjun had bathed in the ocean, Siddharth remained on the shore building a sand castle. As he stood there now, waiting for Timmy, the memory was still so vivid in his mind. He could taste the bitter mussels. He could see his Velcro sneakers, the silk scarf his mother tied around her neck when it was windy. But what was the point of these memories? That weekend was gone forever.
Looking up, he saw Naomi, Timmy’s mutt, trotting toward him. Siddharth’s mother used to keep a water bowl for Naomi by the Aroras’ front steps. The dog nuzzled up against him, and he scratched below her jaw. The tip of her left ear was oozing blood; a few gnats were swarming around it. “What’s wrong?” asked Siddharth. “Whe
re’s Timmy?”
The dog wagged her tail and offered him a paw.
If he waited any longer, he would miss the bus, so he started walking. Naomi remained by his side. He saw that many of his neighbors had placed Christmas candles in their windows, and a few had put up menorahs. This year, Ms. Farber would light a menorah at the Aroras’, and she would buy him a compact disc player for Hanukkah. His neighbors’ lawns were blotched with snow, so he stuck to the street to avoid ruining his suede shoes. As the road curved to his left, he passed an enormous oak. The tree stood in front of a tiny brick house, which a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses had recently purchased. Naomi abruptly halted and started barking.
“It’s just a tree,” said Siddharth, patting her head.
The dog’s ears pointed outward, and her tail shot up in the air. She started pacing back and forth, growling.
“Naomi, you’re gonna make me late.”
But her barks got louder and sharper.
Suddenly, a large falcon leaped from the oak and shot upward. As Siddharth watched the bird fly circles above their heads, another image from Atlantic City surfaced. During the trip, his mother had visited a boardwalk psychic who claimed that his dead grandmother was always watching over them—manifesting itself in birds. The psychic said that the presence of any unusual avian life might actually be a sign from Siddharth’s grandmother, and at the time, this notion gave him chills.
He resumed his journey, but with his eyes glued to the winged missile hovering in the clear blue sky. Yes, his mother might have sent the falcon. She might actually be inside of it, he thought. If the bird were actually her, he would apologize to it for so many things—for not drawing regularly or thinking of her more often. He would say sorry for that time she had wanted him to spend a night with his grandfather and he told her that his grandfather was old and boring and smelly. Naomi started barking again. The falcon nosedived toward the earth and grazed the grass, then shot back to the sky. It was now clutching something in its talons.
As it flew toward the main road, the bird released whatever it had hunted. The object crashed on the hood of a parked burgundy Taurus, then bounced to the ground. Siddharth anxiously jogged over to the car and was dismayed to discover that what had fallen was nothing but a crunched-up can of beer. “You’re fucking kidding me,” he mumbled. He stuffed the can down a sewer drain, and it made a plopping sound upon hitting the sooty water. Naomi approached him, once again wagging her tail and panting.
“Go home,” said Siddharth. She wouldn’t budge, so he threw a stick at her. He recalled what his father had said on the ride home from Atlantic City: birds were just birds, and the psychic was a goddamned liar.
* * *
During homeroom, the principal got on the PA system and told everyone to make their way to the gymnasium in an orderly fashion. Today was the band’s annual winter concert, which meant that Sharon would be performing. Siddharth had a vague recollection of her complaining about her mother not being able to attend the event.
He walked down the hall with his only homeroom friend, David Marcus, who was telling him about an upcoming ice-fishing trip. Siddharth was only half-paying attention. He still couldn’t get over the fact that David was shorter than him and not as funny, and yet he had somehow managed to bag a decent girlfriend.
By the time they reached the gym, it was already abuzz with the animated chatter of several hundred students. The basketball hoops had been cranked up, and the bleachers were out, behind a dozen rows of metal folding chairs. Mrs. Oliver, his blond math teacher, directed him and David to these chairs. He turned around and spotted Luca on the bleachers, sitting beside his skinny new girlfriend, Jeanette Horiuchi, who was part Japanese and part Italian. He had lost many hours counseling Luca about this volatile relationship, doling out advice he’d gleaned from the television.
Principal Moser, a short woman with huge glasses, got up onstage and stood in front of the closed curtain. She issued warnings about the consequences of disruptive behavior, smiling in spite of her stern tone. She said she wouldn’t be averse to issuing Christmas Day detentions, which made a few people laugh. “That’s no idle threat,” she added. “Right, Corey?”
Corey Thompson sat in the front row of chairs, flanked by a teacher on each side. He was smiling like a child who had been caught stealing candy. It struck Siddharth that the world was more fond of troublemakers than the kids who actually did what they were told.
When the curtain rose, the parents in attendance approached the stage to snap pictures. Siddharth spotted Sharon to the right, with all the other horn players. The entire band was wearing black pants and white shirts, except for Sharon, who was wearing a black turtleneck. She sat beside Kenny Hong, a Korean kid with golden glasses and spiked hair. Kenny seemed to be having a problem with his trombone, so he handed it to Sharon, who made some quick adjustments and then handed it back. He gave her a thumbs-up, and she nodded her head and cracked her knuckles.
As the band went through a series of screechy classical pieces, Siddharth’s mind wandered. He thought about how Arjun would have laughed at the idea of their mother communicating with them through a bird. He thought about how most of the other kids would soon be away with their families. Marc was flying to Florida, and Luca would be driving to Maryland. Even Sharon was spending Christmas with her father. All he had to look forward to were ten nonstop days of the Mohan Lal and Ms. Farber show.
Suddenly, the entire audience began clapping. Onstage, there was a huge commotion. Most of the band members cleared out, with just a few kids remaining. They brought out a full drum set, then wheeled out a wooden piano. Mr. Donahue, the ninth grade biology teacher, leaped onto the stage. He grabbed a microphone and told everyone to settle down. “People, you’re in for a real treat,” he said. He had a crew cut, and his thick eyebrows seemed as if they’d been drawn with permanent marker. “I and some talented musicians—all of whom are significantly more talented than myself—have formed a little jazz quartet. We call ourselves the Cotton Gins.” He put the microphone back, then brought an enormous guitar-like instrument over to the piano, where the eighth grade social studies teacher was sifting through some sheet music. A ninth grader named Keith Liaci seated himself at the drums.
“That’s my cousin,” said David Marcus. “Go, Keith!” He whistled. “Rock out!”
Siddharth stared at the drummer, who had a butterfly collar and large silver glasses, the kind that were tinted. Keith looked more like someone who had gone to junior high in Arjun’s day. From the bleachers, someone shouted, “I love nerds!”
He wondered if it had been Luca, but he could no longer see him. Turning back to the stage, he was surprised to see Sharon walking on with her trumpet. He hoped Luca wouldn’t say anything—not today. Not when she was about to do her thing.
Mr. Donahue introduced the members of the band, then said, “We’re going to play a song of Ms. Nagorski’s choosing. It’s a song of great beauty, of great importance. Unfortunately, it’s a song that most of you have never heard.” He slipped the mic back into its holster, and a few people clapped, mainly parents and teachers.
David kept whistling, which made Siddharth uncomfortable. He wondered why David wasn’t embarrassed about Keith. He wondered if he should be cheering for Sharon too.
Mr. Donahue snapped his fingers and counted to four in a firm whisper. He then started plucking the strings of his large instrument, which stood vertically, like a dance partner or a high-rise building. It emitted one of the deepest sounds Siddharth had ever heard.
After a few beats, the piano chimed in with two solid chords, and the pair went back and forth like this for a couple of minutes, as if they were having a conversation. When the drums kicked in, Siddharth started tapping his suede shoes against the shiny wooden floor. Keith held brush-like batons in his hands, not actual sticks. His shoulders bounced while he played, as if he were dancing in his seat. His head was turned to the side, and he looked peaceful and contented.
&nbs
p; As for Sharon, she was just standing there, bobbing her head and tapping her hip. He couldn’t imagine her keeping up with these skilled musicians, but as soon as she started playing, he knew he was wrong. Her fingers pumped the trumpet’s keys like the pistons of a perfect machine. The sound her instrument emitted was sweet but serious, and it lodged itself deep into his bones. At first his insides were icy, but then he felt as if he were floating in bathwater. He could tell that Sharon was making up the notes as she went along, and he wondered how someone so young could play so well and why he had never known that his weird friend could do something so beautiful. In that moment, he was proud of her. In that moment, he wanted to be like Sharon.
After the song was over, the whole gym seemed to be cheering and shouting, as if they were at a rock concert, not inside a school gymnasium. He clapped his hands more frenetically with each passing moment. The musicians bowed, and Sharon’s face turned bright red. As he looked on, his father’s words popped into his mind: There is no greater virtue than loyalty. He decided he was going to do it. When the commotion died down, he would get up and give her a hug.
The principal rose and made some announcements, and the students started mingling in little circles. David Marcus charged toward the stage, and Keith grabbed his hand and pulled him onto it. Siddharth remained seated, watching the two cousins exchange enthusiastic greetings. His heart thumped loudly when he saw Sharon wipe down her instrument. She placed it in its case and then hugged some girl, another band loser.
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