Love Songs for a Lost Continent

by Anita Felicelli

  She checked her phone every five minutes. No sign of reconciliation—no texts or emails. Hema had other friends, mostly her teammates, and of course she had Theo. Kathy’s sister, Lucy, was at high school by then, but she had her own interests—as far as Kathy could tell, they were horror movies, gymnastics, a giggling group of friends, and boys. Kathy only ever had Hema.

  She thought of Kai then and wondered what he would say. He had been home for the holidays. He never brought any of his partners home—there was a chill, a subtle testiness between him and his parents that went unremarked. But he was the same old Kai and kind to Kathy.

  She searched for him online and called him at work, and after his initial surprise to hear from her, he asked why she’d called.

  “Is this a joke? Did Hema put you up to this? My sister can be very persuasive.”

  “No, this is true.”

  “I’ve met that guy once or twice. He seemed nice enough.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Kai still sounded uncertain. “It seemed to me like he cares about Hema and wants the best for her.”

  “I don’t know about that. I think they’ve had sex, Kai. And he’s going to take her to try out for the under-twenty women’s team when she turns eighteen.”

  There was a pause and then Kai’s voice was harsh. “I’ll take care of it.” He hung up before Kathy could say anything else, leaving her stunned by how quick her own betrayal had been. She’d half-expected Kai to tell her to mind her own business, or maybe to say something that would make her understand why Hema would do this.

  ***

  The next morning, Kathy didn’t see Hema as she left her house, pulling a slicker tight around her. It was drizzling, one of those light fantastical California rains, where the sun continues to beam as a fine mist coats everything. Faintly green hills. Gopal’s car, usually gone by seven, was still parked in the driveway. A mild acrid odor blew up from the black asphalt and blacker loam.

  Kathy stood in the mist and watched through the window for a moment: Hema, Gopal, and Prabha. She could just barely make out Gopal—apoplectic—shouting and pounding his fist on the table. Prabha was crying. Hema stood stock-still, arms crossed, watching her parents.

  ***

  When Kathy returned home from school that afternoon with Lucy, Gopal’s car was still parked in the driveway, but the living room blinds were drawn.

  “Is everything okay with you and Hema?” Lucy asked, jerking her finger at the Sarmas’ house.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Lucy paused, and then she asked, “Are you ever jealous of her?”

  “Why would you say that?” Kathy fumbled around for her key as they walked up the path to their front door.

  “I’m jealous of her sometimes.”

  “Why?”

  “She has beauty, brains, talent. Sometimes, when I’m standing next to her, I feel lame and ordinary. It must be worse for you since she’s your best friend.”

  ***

  She didn’t come back to school. Kathy learned later from one of Hema’s teammates that she’d gone to live with Theo. Gopal and Prabha called the police, but by then the two of them had disappeared.

  His apartment on El Camino Real was vacated. Kathy talked the super into letting her into the studio unit and saw that Theo had left behind a couch and a bed. They were stripped of their covers and sheets and pillows. There were a few pots and pans abandoned in the cupboards. Kathy imagined Hema in the tiny kitchen, cooking dinner with Theo, pretending to be an adult, sitting on the counter and swinging her feet, banging them against the cabinets, the way she did at Kathy’s house. No pieces of paper in the apartment, no notes, nothing to explain where they’d gone or whether they’d ever be back.

  Later, Kathy would hear from her mother that Prabha flew around the country that spring, haunting tryouts in different cities, hoping to find Hema at one of them, hoping to bring her home, even though she was eighteen. But she didn’t find her.

  Midsummer, Kathy bumped into Kai at the Harvard Square T station. His fingers were entwined with a man’s. He looked so different—so happy—and they hugged. “Have you seen her?” Kathy asked, both afraid and hopeful that Hema had kept in touch with her brother, even though she’d cut Kathy off.

  “Yes. She’s fine. I’m sure she’ll contact you eventually.” His partner tugged his hand and they had to leave, but Hema never did call.

  ***

  Many winters passed. In a blink: Harvard, graduate school in molecular biology, and a prestigious job at a large pharmaceutical company. Kathy passed through the years in a trance, doing what needed to be done, the idea of success—of the ultimate gold star blinking and beckoning her—a light far off in the distance that eventually, one day, with enough hard work, enough adherence to the plan, she would reach out and seize.

  One winter, Kathy was promoted to a director position, the youngest director in her company, and she returned to her parents’ house for the holidays as she always did, prepared to celebrate. She stepped out of the taxi and into the stark shadows of late afternoon. Rolling her suitcase after her, she noticed a curious emptiness inside her, the flatness like soda after the fizz had gone out. She wasn’t even excited about her promotion. She’d imagined it for so long, it was like she’d already gotten it. An unfamiliar car sat in the Sarmas’ driveway, and she stared at it.

  To her surprise, Hema emerged from the Sarma house. Pregnant, she wore a crimson maternity dress, her hair cropped short. She raised a hand in greeting. “How’ve you been?” It was as if Hema were returning from a vacation instead of reappearing after years. She had some sort of accent she hadn’t possessed as a child. It was like her, when Kathy thought about it later, not to acknowledge what had happened. She’d moved on to adventures Kathy couldn’t imagine, while Kathy had stayed on track.

  “All right, I guess. Congratulations.” Kathy gestured at Hema’s belly.

  “Oh! Thank you! We’re going to raise her in Paris—that’s where we’ve been these past years—but my mother begged me to have her here.”

  “We?”

  “Theo and I.”

  “You’re still together?” Kathy couldn’t hide her incredulity.

  Hema laughed and held out her hand. There was an enormous ugly diamond on her ring finger, its facets glinting in the dark orange light as the sun slipped toward the horizon. “Twelve years, baby.” Kathy could hear in her voice a faint I-told-you-so, or was she imagining this? “Don’t look so shocked, Kathy,” she said gently. “We were meant to be.”

  “But you were a star. You had so much talent. You always wanted to play in the Women’s World Cup.”

  A cloud passed over Hema’s eyes. “Well, I’m happy anyway.”

  This was what their epic friendship had come to, this dumb, silent moment on a sidewalk. Kathy wondered what Gopal and Prabha thought—Hema had been their great hope, and in spite of their every effort, she’d followed a completely different path than the one they’d laid out for her. Perhaps Hema was saving face by pretending everything had worked out. After all this time, after losing everyone, after throwing everything away, would she admit she’d made a mistake? There was nothing apologetic in Hema’s face, no worry lines, no signs of secret distress, just that look in her eyes, like a light had been turned down. She stood with her hips thrust forward, as if in defiance of what Kathy might be thinking.

  Then she cracked a huge smile. “Do you want to feel the baby kick?”

  Kathy didn’t, but she placed her palm on Hema’s hard belly. For a few moments, she didn’t feel anything and was about to withdraw her hand, when something rolled against her skin, against her palm. A sharp kick, and then another. A new life. A force even less predictable than Hema. “When are you due?”

  “Last week.” Hema jerked her head toward the shadowy hills. “I’m trying to get labor going, but this baby just doesn’t want to come out.” Kathy nodded and started pulling her luggage up the road toward her parents’ house and
turned into their driveway. At the top of the steps, she paused. This was where she’d glimpsed Hema for the first time as a small child, running with a large bubble wand—bubbles streaming in a long gossamer tunnel behind her before separating into large fragile baubles that burst momentarily, leaving dark wet splats all over the concrete path that led to Kathy’s stoop.

  She turned and began walking down the steps, putting up her hand to shield her eyes from the intense orange glow of the sun. She wanted to retrace all her steps, to tell Hema how much she’d meant to her, to tell Hema that she made life exciting and new, always, and that she was sorry she’d betrayed her and that she was genuinely happy she was happy, and that somehow, against all odds, Kathy had obviously been wrong about her passion for Theo.

  The words stuck in her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to call after Hema, who was waddling up the hilly road, heading toward the creek where they’d spent so many long, happy hours together. Holding her hand over her belly, she didn’t look back at Kathy, and in a moment, she disappeared around a curve.

  Dreading the visit, Devi was determined to make herself comfortable. In spite of the swarm of snowflakes eddying around the windows of her third-floor walk-up, she’d tried to duplicate the conditions of her hometown. The girls were working, and so she played Debussy at full volume. The thermostat read seventy-five. After seven years in the States, the cold was still too cold, the snow not much like the white sparkly sugary bees she’d imagined as a child when she’d read about snow in the hardback fairytale book her aunt had brought as a gift from America.

  She lounged on the red pleather couch and skimmed a glossy magazine, glancing expectantly at the door every few moments. In one full-page advertisement for matte lipstick that promised to transform her into a brand-new woman, she was confronted with Veronica’s wide horsey smile—hideously toothy and self-satisfied. In a fit of pique and hunger, she flung the magazine across the floor with a scowl. At first, it felt good, letting out all her disdain and anger in this tiny gesture, a gesture that was more than what she usually allowed herself. But the release passed too quickly, and soon she was back to worrying. She told herself she’d have the foundation commercial soon. She’d get her first check from that assignment and repay her roommates for her share of the heat and sundry expenses.

  Footsteps outside the door. She picked up the magazine and placed it on top of the glass coffee table and took a deep breath.

  The first knock was soft, tentative. Pause. Another knock. Devi unlocked the front door and smiled so wide it hurt. “Susannah! How was your flight?”

  “Devyani!” Susannah was shorter than Devi, with glowing skin, so dark it was almost black, and features like a little girl’s—big eyes, curly hair, a space between her front teeth, and a soft wide nose. With her irregular, mussed ringlets, Susannah looked to Devi like the unkempt villager who cleaned her parents’ house in Chennai.

  Unsure of whether to hug her cousin and mostly not wanting to touch her, Devi waved her inside. “I go by Devi now. It’s easier.”

  Susannah stomped on the welcome mat, and her leather combat boots exhaled a puff of snow. “For Americans you mean? Should I take off my shoes?” she asked.

  “Probably best.”

  Susannah squatted in the middle of the room and tugged at her boots with a despairing expression. After she finally yanked them off, she deserted them in a pile by the door and looked around the room before settling precariously on the edge of the couch. The warm, overripe scent of summertime rose petals trailed after her. Sighing, Devi picked up the boots with two fingers, holding them out in front of her, and dropped them on the silver wire shoe rack. She towed Susannah’s suitcase into the corner and asked after Susannah’s parents in California and their restaurant, Madras Magic. She paced back and forth, trying to think of something to say.

  The cousins made stilted small talk. After a few minutes, Susannah wiped sweat from her brow. “You’re making me nervous. And this place is hot as hell.”

  “I just have a lot of energy.” Devi dropped onto an armrest, regretting the coke she’d snorted before Susannah arrived. Her heel started jiggling. “So, you’re only here for a weekend. That’s not really long enough for me to show you all of Manhattan or even more than the highlights.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen everything. I’ve been here before.”

  “Really? Your mom didn’t tell me that.”

  “Many times. I just didn’t want to inconvenience you by staying longer.”

  “I suppose you haven’t eaten yet?”

  “My head’s still in the Bay Area, but it is dinnertime, isn’t it? I could eat.”

  “We’re going to a lovely, upscale restaurant with some of the other girls from the agency—my roommates.”

  “Excellent.”

  Susannah sounded far too relaxed, and so Devi gave her what she thought was a meaningful look and gestured at the bathroom. “Is that what you’re going to wear?”

  “Oh, you think I’ll show them up in this?”

  Devi frowned. “Maybe you ought to put something nicer on?”

  Susannah rolled her eyes.

  The train was delayed by thirty minutes, so they ambled down Avenue B to East Fourteenth Street. The icy journey through Alphabet City seemed unduly long to both of them, a light snow drifting about their faces, neither turning to look the other in the eyes. All the news of the past several years had been brought properly current in the apartment, and the forty-eight hours that remained loomed dangerously long and unscripted ahead of them. Devi adjusted her stocking cap. “Did you tour the law school when you got here? Did you like it?”

  “Not really. The students seemed stuck-up.” Susannah clapped her mittened palms together.

  “Isn’t it one of the best law schools in the country?” Devi was perplexed.

  “That doesn’t mean they have to be so snobby.”

  “You know, I don’t see you as a lawyer.”

  Devi expected some pushback, but instead Susannah beamed, as if she’d been paid a compliment, and brushed wet snowflakes from her cheeks and eyelashes. “Me neither. But constructing arguments for everything is the only thing I’m reasonably good at, I guess.”

  “You? You’re kind of touchy-feely for a lawyer, aren’t you?”

  “Sure, but I need to make money and if people will pay you to make really good syllogisms for money, why not? Or maybe it’s the whole immigrant thing. You know what I mean? You never feel like you can just relax.”

  Devi didn’t think of her cousin as an immigrant—Susannah’s family had moved to the States when Susannah was a baby, making her incontrovertibly American—but Devi also wondered whether her anxiety about this visit had been misplaced. Devi remembered Susannah from when Susannah had visited a little more than six years before: a scowling teenager with magenta streaks in her hair and a chip on her shoulder. When her aunt had phoned to arrange Susannah’s stay in New York, Devi had feared a visit full of interminable stretches of sullen defensiveness and perhaps moments of recrimination for perceived wrongdoings. This older Susannah was confident, not easily ruffled, and deadly calm. But people didn’t change. Not really. Somewhere under the fragile shell of her cousin’s inexplicably good manners, the real Susannah, the true Susannah was squirming with impatience, waiting to be reborn.

  Devi stuffed her hands in her pockets, fingering her subway tokens and spare change. Susannah wasn’t pretty—not by a long shot, even with her frizz smoothed down with cheap metallic-smelling drugstore gel—nor even especially intelligent—after all, she had gone to a public school for her undergraduate degree. But at least now she could converse without losing her temper or referencing the lyrics to atrocious goth music.

  Inside the dimly lit restaurant, they met five models, three of them Devi’s roommates. They were sipping fruity, sparkling bellinis and devouring date bread and poached persimmon salads and olive oil panna cottas, all of their dishes raw and vegan except the bellinis, and they cackled as they talked rather
heatedly about a Milan Kundera novel.

  Devi cleared her throat and introduced Susannah. “The girls,” Devi said, gesturing at the women. One of them, wearing a borrowed dress, was a runway model who routinely booked prestigious gigs, but often didn’t have enough money for rent. The others maintained a steady stream of commercial catalog work. Devi unwrapped her coat and hung it on the back of a chair, running a hand down her gold dress to smooth down scale-like sequins.

  Susannah wore a black shapeless dress made of some kind of rough cotton, and Devi noted she didn’t even have the grace to be embarrassed or humbled in the face of so much beauty. Instead she plopped down and dug into a raw lemon panna cotta with gusto. The models continued to debate a bowler hat in one of Kundera’s novels.

  Veronica leaned over and whispered in a pitying tone, “Someone invited Jake. That’s not a problem, is it?”

  Devi shrugged, trying to hide her discomfort. Jake was her agent, and the son of the agency’s owner. They’d dated briefly, and the memory of spending an entire paycheck on diamond-studded Tiffany’s cufflinks a few months earlier in the mistaken belief that they were exclusive, and so she could spoil him, still made her blush.

  “Who’s Jake?” Susannah asked. Her voice was casual, the familiarity of somebody who was making herself comfortable in an unfamiliar situation, instead of waiting to be invited. It was brazen, and it annoyed Devi that she didn’t understand the proper hierarchy, or where she belonged on it.

  “No one,” Devi said.

  Veronica asked Susannah where she was from, and how she and Devi were related. Devi was sure that Veronica noticed how different Susannah was from the rest of them, how lumpish, but if she did, she did not advertise her disdain. Devi supposed Veronica was too kind for that, and she applauded her own taste in friends.