“We’ve traded hair,” said a voice.
“Fuck!” Charu jolted up. “You’re the one I heard moaning!”
“Oh, god,” muttered El.
Maya tussled Charu’s pixie. “This is you. You look perfect.”
“So do you! When did you stop covering?”
“I still wear it. Even wore it in Mexico sometimes. Depends on what I’m feeling, I guess.”
“You look amazing. How was Mexico—was it amazing?” Charu looked at El. “Sorry, I say ‘amazing’ when I’m at a loss for words, except this time I really mean it. Tell me about Mexico!”
“We haven’t talked about that yet,” said El, throwing a few twigs into the fire.
Charu studied her sister’s face staring at Maya. Maybe everyone looked sensual and alive beside a fire pit, but El radiated. Charu heard the slight tenor of pain in her voice. Though El had not planted any moon blossoms, the regular summer flowers seemed aglow in the fire.
Maya stared into the fire pit while she spoke. “The trip, right. Incredible. Amazing, as you’d say, Charu. And I thought I’d be lucky enough if I could do a semester at Brooklyn College. I guess getting away never seemed like an option. My family never traveled, not even back to their own countries. It was just too hard with Mema’s health. While I was recovering, Ramona Espinal had been the night nurse. We started bonding when I came to—you know, just shooting the shit. She’d seen us from time to time from her window, gardening, kicking it. When my folks arrived, Sallah lost his shit on the staff, pissed that they hadn’t contacted them immediately. I wasn’t underage, so they didn’t have to tell him anything. The way he carried on made everyone uncomfortable. They felt sorry as hell for me. Here I was, coming down from delirium, and yes, you were right, El—I couldn’t take a piss for the life of me—and I’m being yelled at; the nurses are being yelled at. He just made a total scene. That’s my father.
“At some point, Ramona came in to check my vitals, and pump me with more of the activated carbon. She asked my father to leave so that I could undress, while Mema stayed in the room. Ramona tells us she’s going to Mexico; her cousin had opened up a hostel in Mexico City and needed some help getting it off the ground. And then, Mema says, ‘Maya can help you in the hostel. She’s very organized.’ She told Ramona that being mistaken for Dominican my whole life had made for good Spanish lessons. Mema had brought five hundred bucks in cash. First she tried to pass it off to Ramona, but Ramona nipped that in the bud, saying taking Mema’s money would make her feel like a coyote or some shit. So, Mema gave it to me for my plane ticket. I saved a few thousand from working all summer. I had the blessing of the one person who might die if I left her.”
“So have you traveled a lot?” asked Charu. “Or you’re always at the hostel?”
“Most of the time, I’m just helping folks get their linens and Internet password,” said Maya, laughing. “But I’ve made time to see things. All the D.F. touristic hotspots were incredible—I lost myself at Frida Kahlo’s Blue House, the Xochimilco boat rides, the museos, Teotihuacán. As I started to get more situated, meet folks, travelers and chilangos alike, I met other queers in Zona Rosa. Nothing romantic. But to know that there’s this parallel universe, people scattered and searching, like our city; it was a relief. I didn’t have to have this grand experience. I didn’t have to be riveted. This is happening, while that is happening. Mexico City has the elite, the impoverished, the fashion boys, the intellectuals, the markets, the subways, the parties, the food, the expats, the dirty, the mountains, the drugs, the youth, the dust and the ancient and divine. All the time.”
* * *
As the fire dwindled, they threw water onto the embers. Smoke shrouded them, the same color as the clouds above. They heard sounds of celebration on the block, the party they had started and abandoned. A pair of dogs barked at one another.
“Will you stay in Brooklyn?” asked Charu.
“I’m leaving for Berkeley at the end of the summer.”
“It’s a good night for a ride,” said Charu.
“Where do you want to go?” asked Maya.
“I don’t know.”
Maya looked at El, waiting for the next move. El nodded. Maya hopped onto her new ride, and lapped around the garden. Charu followed her for a few loops, until they both knocked a trellis on El’s vegetable beds.
“Oh shit,” Maya and Charu said at the same time, shooting guilty expressions at El.
El walked over to Anwar’s seed bank. He placed the dirt spheres he’d made of Hashi’s beloved wildflower seeds, compost, dirt, and clay in the girls’ bicycle baskets. “Throw these wherever you want.” He unlocked his bike, and hopped on. “Now, let’s go where we first met.”
“Doesn’t that mean something different for all of us?” Charu rang her bicycle bell, and led the way out of 111 Cambridge Place. They rode in a triangle, as a migrating flock obeying unspoken directions. Past the masjid’s worshippers and the humdrum of the subway. Past the crowded park and a thunderous applause in the distance. They scattered seeds across familiar terrain, throwing dormant blossoms into decayed buildings, neglected lots, barren yards, and cracks in the sidewalk. Dispersed in front of barbershops and beauty salons, churches and schools and housing projects. They spanned different neighborhoods, riding silently in the dark, in an agora of sound. As night fell, they crossed a narrow bridge to the ocean. One by one, they flung the last of their bombs into the water. Millions of years from now, all that was written in them would reemerge, forever altered.
Everything behind them, and everything ahead, vanished.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the last decade of working on this novel, I am forever grateful to so many wondrous people in my life:
My parents, Neelu and Ashraf, encouraged me to follow the creative path, no matter how much meandering and uncertainty it has required. My sister, Promiti, is the smartest, warmest, and most kindred spirit I have in this world. Ours is a family where art, love, and laughter happen in step with mistakes and life’s travails, but still we keep on.
Rebecca Friedman, my agent, for her vivacity, passion, and friendship. Sending you the basket of herbs on your birthday, the same day we sent Bright Lines on its way, was auspicious, to say the least. To my editor, Allison Lorentzen, for her vision and trust in this book, even when we didn’t know what this would be. Thanks to the entire team at Penguin, for all of their efforts in making this whole.
To my family in Bangladesh and beyond, for their love, generosity, support, and knowledge: Subarno, Boshudha, Shilu Ma, Shaheen, Nanu, Putu Bhaiyya, Ferdous Mama.
While working as an organizer and teaching artist, I met bright and talented young women writers, actors, and playwrights in high schools around New York City. Adilka, Santy, Sarah, Oona, for the magic that is Make the Road, my first gig where I learned that all teaching is learning. To all of my teachers: Kiese Laymon, for those early lessons in how we must have an abiding love for the truth that fiction unwittingly leads us toward. At Brooklyn College, I learned from glorious writers, masters of craft whose lessons have stayed with me: Francisco Goldman, Fiona Maazel, Ernesto Mestre-Reed, Josh Henkin.
To all the random hustles and heartbreaks I’ve worked through, the Brooklyn cafés I worked out of, the music of Mulatu Astatke, Johnny Osborne, OutKast, Erykah Badu, and Juana Molina for being easy to listen to on repeat. So much love to the writers and editors at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, VONA Workshop, Hyphen magazine, The Feminist Wire. Being a part of these communities has nurtured an electric, vital connectivity.
I’m grateful for friends and teachers whose artistry, love, and openness is my muse. Ngozi, for our endlessly blossoming soul-sisterhood. Alex, Shilu, Sunita, for being first readers and lifelong friends. Alicia, Fran, Carina, Amita, Max: Our early creative collaborations at Vassar were numinous experiences, full of possibility, and here we are, years later, still experime
nting. Victor, all this, from a random hello. Isabel Saez, for your guidance in unfurling the past to make way for the future.
Mojo Talantikite, my love, for his profound support during this homestretch, as a keen reader and loving partner. I stay tripping over you.
To my inspiring crew of artists, activists, and creative entrepreneurs, for being bright and beautiful spirits who reiterate that we must make art to live.
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