by Neel Patel
I was embarrassed but buoyed. I hung up the phone and placed the pencil next to a stack of comic books on my desk. All night long, I imagined us becoming friends, exchanging notes during class, playing Street Fighter at the video arcade. I saw us wearing matching outfits during “twin day” at our school. I was dizzy with the possibilities, unable to sleep, skipping breakfast the next morning so that I’d be early to school. But when I walked into English class, Jordan barely acknowledged me, and when I sat down behind him, he inched forward in his seat. It was as if our conversation the night before had never even happened, as if I had made the entire thing up in my head.
* * *
At home, my parents regarded me with blissful ignorance, unaware of my life at school. Beyond my grades—and the requirement that I attend college in the fall—they expressed little concern for my social affairs. Once, at the mall, Brendan Simmons shouted an insult from across the store. “Your friend is calling you,” my mother said, holding a blouse to her neck. “Go play.” If a child my age laughed at me, my mother would nudge me from behind. “Go play.” When the neighborhood kids threw rocks at my head, my mother would ask if I had enjoyed their game. Only during moments of extreme frustration—when I lingered too long over the stove, when I listened to her conversations over the phone, when I stared at her pinning the filigreed pleats of her sari to her blouse—would she turn her sharp focus onto me. “What sort of boy does these things?”
I had no answer. My father didn’t, either. He occupied his time at the house doing chores, fixing the plumbing in the bathroom or a leak on the roof. His only form of communication was at the dinner table on Saturday evenings when he would raise his palm to indicate that he was full, refusing the extra helping of chicken or lamb my mother was offering. At the end of the meal, he took a handful of mawa—fenugreek seeds mixed with candies and mints—and chewed them silently while watching the news. At ten o’clock he would leave, taking with him the sharp scent of his cologne, the slight heft of his weight, the dark veil of guilt he now wore like a hood, like a shroud.
* * *
My first class was at 5 P.M. on a Friday. I was the only boy. I was pretty sure I was going to quit. The choreography was less intricate than I had imagined. The routine was nothing more than a series of steps, really, embellished here and there with a ball change. I had expected something different. I had hoped to learn the choreography from Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time.” I had imagined doing windmills on the floor. I had not imagined this.
The instructor’s name was Anton. He was Filipino. He wove a path around us and enumerated our steps. The other kids were flustered, bumping into each other, but not me. I added my own take: a body roll, a hip thrust, a two-step where there was one. Anton frowned.
“No need for flair,” he said. “Just keep it simple—keep it clean.”
There was a mirror at the front of the room in which I could observe the other students, so I folded my arms, watching them. Then a door swung open; a figure emerged. I turned my head. It was Jordan. He walked into the room wearing shorts and a tight white T-shirt, his hair slicked back, dripping at the ends. I was stunned.
He noticed me watching him and nodded his head. I hadn’t anticipated his world to crash so effortlessly into mine. I wasn’t prepared for Jordan to sit down next to me and cross his legs, smiling at me. He smelled like rain—I heard the gentle drumming of it on the rooftop above our heads—and something sweeter, like bodywash or shampoo.
“It’s coming down out there,” he said.
I glanced at the bare wall as if it were a window through which I could see outside to the shimmering rain. I nodded. Jordan stretched his arms, his T-shirt lifting slightly to reveal the pale, stubbly surface of his belly. I turned my head.
I thought about him all weekend: at the dinner table, at the mall, while my mother cooked curry on the stove. I thought about him while watching Bollywood movies in my room. I thought about him, still, that early Sunday morning, when I walked into the kitchen to find my father standing over the stove.
“Where’s Mom?” I said.
“In the bath.”
“When did you get here?”
He didn’t answer me.
“I’m frying bacon,” he said.
The bacon hissed and sputtered in its pan. The kitchen filled with smoke. I watched him curiously. He had aged since the separation, since Lisa had run away. His eye bags were puffed; his once black hair was now speckled with gray. I took my seat at the breakfast table and folded my arms. He piled the bacon onto my plate.
* * *
The following Monday, Jordan walked into class just as Anton was teaching us the second eight count to “Dangerous” by Busta Rhymes. He removed his coat and took a place across the room. I was disappointed. I wanted him to join me—I had spread myself out for this exclusive purpose, causing one of the girls to trip over her feet. She was looking at Jordan now; we all were. He wore light gray shorts that grew dark with sweat as the lesson progressed, his muscles bulging, his hair turning slick. I watched him closely. He was good, though not as good as me. There was something tentative about the way he moved, as if he were counting each step, anticipating the transitions before they even happened. Soon, the class was over and everyone filed out of the room. Jordan hung back, waiting for me.
“You were great,” he said, his face damp with sweat. “I’m serious. You should be teaching the class instead.”
My heart jumped. We walked outside and started talking about things I no longer remember, things I would attempt to recall later, wishing I could. It was dark out, and our faces were lit by the overhead lights. Jordan lit a cigarette.
“I’m only taking this to get out of gym,” he said.
“Me, too.”
He nodded. Blue smoke curled from his lips. Jordan told me he had to walk five blocks to catch the bus—his car was in the shop. So I offered him a ride.
* * *
The drive was quiet, Jordan pointing at darkened signs, telling me which way to turn. I sensed his presence the way one senses a strange noise in the house. I couldn’t believe he was sitting next to me. I asked him about college.
“I’m taking a year off to travel.”
I was surprised. I had imagined Jordan would enroll in an Ivy League school, Princeton or Brown, where he would study finance or chemistry or physics or law—I did this often, projecting the futures of my classmates onto the blank canvas of my own.
“We have our whole lives to finish college,” Jordan said. “I’m only eighteen.”
I turned in to his neighborhood, imagining us taking snapshots in front of the Eiffel Tower, Jordan in a white tank top, me in a fancy suit. I made a left onto his street. The houses looked familiar: brick and wood structures with bay windows and French doors.
“It’s the house at the end,” he said. “With the brick mailbox.”
I pulled in to his drive, switching off the car. Jordan thanked me for the ride. Then he reached over the gearshift and kissed me on the mouth.
* * *
When I got home my parents were drinking red wine on the sofa. I could tell by my father’s smile that he was drunk. I went upstairs for my bath. I sank into soapy water, remembering the way Jordan’s lips had felt against my own. I couldn’t believe it. But I had to. I had to remember every last detail: the texture of his lips, the taste of his mouth, the song that came on the radio after I pulled out of Jordan’s drive. I rinsed myself in warm, fragrant water, playing it over in my head.
That night, I heard my parents whispering about something in the kitchen, raising their voices in the hall, and later, in the bedroom, their soft moans, penetrating the wall.
They said nothing about it the next morning. My father was in his business suit. My mother was in her robe. The makeup she had worn the night before was smudged around the eyes. She wore more makeup now: lipsticks and shadows and brightening creams. I found shopping bags all over the house filled with bright, velvety things. My father
started coming around more often, taking us to dinner, watching movies with us in the den, inviting my mother out with him on Sunday afternoons, to go shopping at the mall. Their rekindled companionship left me with free time on my hands—time I spent at Jordan’s house, kissing on his bed. His parents were rarely home. When they were, we snuck into the basement and Jordan locked the door. I had locked my own door, once, to look at a dirty magazine. My mother had screamed at me to open it.
I was surprised, then, by her sudden indifference. She never asked me where I was. She was too busy planning the meals she would prepare or the movies she would rent or the sweaters and blouses she would wear in my father’s presence. She colored her hair. “I never said it was over,” she said, to her sisters over the phone. “He’s my husband, after all.”
At school, Jordan and I kept our friendship private, especially from Brendan Simmons—who continued to tease me, shouting insults at the back of my head. But I no longer listened. Every now and then, Jordan walked by me in the halls and I felt his fingertips grazing my skin. He left notes in my locker. He called every evening. At football games we sought each other out across the thickening crowd. And of course there was dance. Had anyone noticed? I wondered if they did, if they paid attention to the way we looked at each other, laughing at the same moments, over precisely the same things. I wondered what they would say if they found out, if our bodies had betrayed us in a way our mouths never would.
* * *
Then one day, I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the kitchen when my mother came down the stairs.
“That boy called.”
Her hair was damp from the bath, the silk panel of her dressing gown dark in certain spots. It was a cold morning in January, and she shivered as she lit a wick of incense and set it onto the counter.
“Which boy?”
“That boy. The one that keeps calling.”
I stared at her. I cut the crusts off my sandwich and sliced it into halves, then fourths. “Jordan,” I said.
“Jordan,” she echoed. “Where does he live?”
“In the neighborhood.”
“How did you meet?”
“At school.”
“What do his parents do?”
“They’re professors.”
She paused, nodding. “I see.”
I could tell by her tone that the information was satisfactory; having established Jordan’s background, he was now a suitable friend. I considered telling her the truth: that, just the other day, Jordan had slipped his finger over my tongue and asked for a blow job. I told her I was late for dance instead.
* * *
I skipped dance, though, and went straight to Jordan’s house. He offered me a beer. We drank it on the sofa while listening to Lauryn Hill. He looked at me with a determined glaze in his eyes, as if he were about to reveal some grave and irrevocable truth.
“I’m going to Brazil,” he said. “I booked my ticket last night. I’ll be leaving in the fall.”
My heart sank. I imagined Jordan on the beach, his hair woven into knots, and a sense of longing lodged deep in my bones. I was not going to Brazil. I was going to Brown, where I had been accepted two weeks earlier, and where I would major in chemistry—not dance—according to my parents.
Jordan laughed. “Life’s too short for chemistry.”
He kissed me on my lips, and the smell of him—like soap and skin—seeped into my clothes. I would catch flashes of that smell long after he was gone, at the supermarket, at the mall, in my bedroom even, holding the pillow close to my chest. We were silent for a while, Jordan’s head pressed against my own, then he whispered something in my ear. “Do you think about me?” He paused, uncertain. “When I’m not around?”
I told him I did.
* * *
I had expected my mother to be up and angry—my curfew was at ten—but when I walked into the living room she was nowhere to be found. The next morning, she was humming to herself in the kitchen as if nothing was wrong. “I’ll need you to go to the store,” she said. “I’m cooking dinner for your father.”
She tore off a grocery list and pressed it into my palm.
After school, I went to the grocery store and picked up chilies and ginger and garlic and cloves, the organic chicken my father would lick clean from the bone. I stopped by the deli, where a woman was assessing a colorful array of seafood, silver-skinned salmon displayed like jeweled bags.
“Samir?”
She was wearing black silk slacks, a matching black top. A gold necklace sparkled at her throat. It had been six years since I’d seen her, but I recognized her at once.
Of course I did.
“My goodness,” she said, approaching me. “Look how you’ve grown.”
It was Lisa. Her blond hair was longer now. Apart from a few wrinkles, she looked exactly the same. She paid for the salmon and walked over to me with open arms, beaming.
“How old are you now?”
“Seventeen.”
“Unbelievable.”
I wanted to ask her what was so unbelievable about it. I wanted to tell her that she was the unbelievable one. I said nothing instead. We stared at the tiled floor. She asked about my parents and I told her they were fine. I didn’t tell her the truth: that they were spending every day together, sleeping in the same room, moaning so loudly I’d had to put cotton in my ears.
“I’m starting college soon,” I said.
“Really? That’s wonderful, Samir. I can’t believe how much has changed.”
She told me she had taken a job at a local theater in town; she was a dancer. I wondered if she would give me lessons. I was about to ask her this when she hugged me and kissed me and told me to give my parents her regards. Then she was gone, leaving behind the sweet scent of her perfume, the pale sheen of her powder, the faint smudge of her lipstick coloring one side of my face. Later that evening, I unloaded the groceries and watched my mother set three place mats on the table for dinner.
But my father never arrived.
* * *
They’d kept in touch—Lisa had found my father’s contact information in a medical journal at her school. I was scandalized. I thought about all the evenings my parents had spent together, the errands on Sunday afternoons. I thought about the moaning, too. I never learned when it happened, at what point Lisa and my father had reunited.
Before long, she was moving her things into my father’s house, parking by his curb, attending to the rhododendrons in his front yard. She answered the telephone, with a proprietary lilt my own mother had never possessed. There were no parting words. One evening my father was watching Lagaan with us in the den, and the next day he was gone, his shoes missing from the mat, his jackets stripped from the walls, the scent of his cologne fading from the fabric of the sofas and chairs. It was as if everything they’d shared together had been a lie, as if my father had been biding his time, waiting for the precise moment to leave again.
My mother retreated to her room. I wondered if she even bathed. Sometimes she muttered to herself in the kitchen while wiping the same spot of spilled tea. Once, she went through the entire house and removed all the portraits and vacation pictures and piled them onto the living room floor. Then she lit a match, ultimately losing the inspiration, putting everything away. Things began to disappear from the house: the makeup, the wine, the curry on Friday nights, the kebabs my mother marinated and skewered and grilled.
“From now on there will be no meat in this house,” she said. “If you want to eat a burger, you can eat it outside!”
I ate them at my father’s house instead; Lisa cooked them on the grill. She made sausages, too, and potato salad. They had an intimacy my parents had never possessed, causing me to shy away from them when they held hands in the kitchen, or traded secrets over the stove, or touched each other in that effortless way, or escaped into the bedroom and turned off all the lights. I never spent the night. I imagined Lisa’s moans were much louder than my mother’s. I also imag
ined she would be guilty, ashamed of her sudden place in my father’s life—in mine—but she wasn’t, and neither was my father; in fact, he was smitten, waving their relationship around like a brightly colored flag.
I explained all of this to Jordan in my room, on a Sunday morning, dark clouds gathering outside my window. The house was silent. The jeweled art and plush carpets spoke of excess, but also regret. The windows, wide and full of light, revealed nothing of the darkness that lay within. It was almost noon, and my mother was at the temple. She was praying again. I often woke to the sound of her chanting—Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Krishna—until the whole house quaked and shook with her voice. I felt sorry for her, seeking comfort in the cadence of spells. Sometimes I walked by the statue of Lord Krishna in the living room—blue as a robin’s egg, with a peacock feather adorning his hair—and felt as if my every movement were being judged. Once, after watching porn, I thought I saw Lord Krishna’s shape hovering outside my bedroom window, shaking his head. It was a blue jay.
Jordan fished a joint from his pocket, lighting it in his hands. It was raining, steel rivers blurring the windows above our heads. I lay with my arm on his chest, listening to the sound of the rain sluicing off the sloped roof and onto the slick concrete below.
“I’m taking you with me,” he said.
“Where?”
“To Brazil.”
I laughed. I thought about Brown, the acceptance letter waiting in my desk at school; I’d told my parents I’d already replied. I imagined what they would say if I told them about Brazil. “Hai bhagwan!” my mother would say, clutching her chest, and my father, staring back at me with a bewildered look in his eyes, would say nothing at all.
* * *
Two weeks later, on a warm spring day, Jordan and I were in the parking lot when Brendan Simmons called out to us from behind.
“Samir the queer. Is this your boyfriend?”
“Just ignore them,” I said.
There were five of them, dressed in baggy T-shirts with horses or alligators stitched on their chests. They crowded around us when Jordan reached for my hand. I was stunned—we had never been physically demonstrative in public—but he held on to it. Firmly.