Born Confused (45 page)

Once he was in the car, Karsh angled over to pull the lock up manually.

—It’s been having trouble lately, he explained. It seemed a portent.

I wasn’t really sure why I’d been invited along. But despite the fact that I would once again be the third wheel (or seventh, considering the Golf was already rolling), I couldn’t stay away from him, and so I settled in on the hump; it had my name written all over it. But at least I could watch his beautiful brown eyes a little more discreetly from here. I just wished that bindi weren’t there, shifting over his face in the mirror as he moved; I knew it was mine, but I hadn’t stuck it up, and it troubled me.

—So how was your day? Karsh asked, eyes squinting and going sun-gold as he switched lanes. Hadn’t they already covered that at Gwyn’s?

—Fantastic! she exclaimed anyways.—As you know, my sweet silly goose. Oh, but I forgot to tell you—I talked to Zeb; I’ll need a sample tape from you pronto—she wants to, you know, feel in the know by the time the party rolls around. And anyway, that next one you do, that Indian Independence Day meltdown thing—she’s coming to check you out for sure. You know, she’s telling everyone you’re the next big thing—there’s already a waiting line to get in!

—Wow, thanks so much, said Karsh.—You really got me the gig of gigs. I seriously owe you, Gwyn.

I tried to focus on the stuck lock for distraction. But it wasn’t going anywhere.

—How about dinner at Chimi’s on me? Gwyn was saying excitedly.—I can charge it to
Flash!
after today’s meeting—I feel so official! And Dimple just
loves
Chimi’s, don’t you, Dimps.

She checked me out mischievously.

—The last time she was there was how all the trouble began with Julian, she now explained to Karsh. (I’d have to remember to thank her later for that one.)

—I’ve got to go with my mom to get her car from the shop first,
remember, Karsh said.—But when I come back to get you, we can all go do the Chimi.

—Actually, maybe I better not charge it all, Gwyn said pensively now.—If they question me I don’t know how I’ll justify three meals.

—I’m not really hungry anyways, I maundered.

—You could always say Dimple’s doing the visuals for the party, Karsh suggested. He sought me out in the rearview. I did a little bhangra and shrugged.—That’s your thing, after all, isn’t it?

Gwyn was quiet a moment, her eyes clouding as we passed under a bridge.

—Yeah, actually, that’s a good cover-up, she finally nodded.—Brilliant! That’s my Karsh.

—It’s not really a cover-up, said her Karsh.

—True—she’s taken some great photos of me. I should add those to my portfolio sometime, Dimple, if you could get me some copies.

—Portfolio? I said.

—Yeah, well, I figure with my big modeling debut coming up, I should run with it. We are in New York, after all—if not here, then where? Once I have a few shots together I can get an agent, and once I get an agent, I can skip college altogether.

—Hmm. We’ll have to talk about that a little more, hon, said Karsh.

Hon? Hun was more like it. I decided I had to tune them out for the sake of my own sanity. I began to count the number of times I saw red out my window.

—Dimple, you’re awfully quiet, Karsh said as a banana-yellow truck passed.—Are you okay?

—I guess I’m just a little tired, I said.—It’s nothing.

—No such thing as nothing.

Gwyn’s shades were down and I couldn’t read her face. She was monopolizing the scanner button, creating more static than song on the radio. But Karsh’s eyes were so intensely on me I had to turn away, to the trees and the water and the buildings pulled all ablur like someone had stuck their hand out the window with a huge brush in it, a forty-five-mile-an-hour painting.

At the mall, Karsh dropped us off by the Macy’s entrance.

—I’ll just go run my mother over to the dealer’s and then be back for you two, he said.—It should only take a few. Maybe you can scope out whatever you’re interested in, and then we can start charging when I get back, okay?

—Sounds good, honey, said Gwyn.—Meetcha by the video arcade. Promise you won’t be gone long?

—Promise, he said.

—I just get a little antsy here, she said in a baby voice so authentic it made me wonder if she’d just been dubbed.—Last time I was here and at Chimi’s was, well, with Dickland.

—Don’t worry—we’ll undo all those nasty associations. Isn’t that right, Dimple?

—Uh, right, I said.—I mean
riiight.

—And dinner’s on me when I get back, he said. He rolled his window partway up and she blew him a kiss as he pulled away. He blew one back, which she pocketed, and one to me, too, to be polite, I guess, but Gwyn intercepted that one as well and made like she was sticking it in her lunchbox purse. I couldn’t believe it; now she was even stealing air kisses! This was irksome to the max. Karsh’s presence had alleviated some of the tension, but now, as the Golf disappeared into the distance, it all came back twofold.

We were both feeling the lack of him. The two of us stood there a moment on the sidewalk, silent, as if we had nothing left to say to each other.

—Well, I’m going to go to the camera store, I guess, I said.

—No! Wait, I’ll go with you. Karsh won’t be back for a good half-hour.

Of course. She had a little time on her hands.

The two of us walked through the suffocating perfume fumes, the blinding boxed jewelry, the pumped-up stereo section to the south part of the mall, where the photography store was.

It was really strange being here. I hadn’t been back since the night of the double date from Hades. And before that, for the birthday shopping ritual. The mall used to seem like a safe however stressful (when it came to trying on clothes) place. Now all the blank nippleless mannequins and bossy bright signs urging you to
Buy! Buy! Buy!
just depressed me. The floor was too grey and the light too artificial. Old couples were here to walk in the controlled climate; younger folk came to go broke. Everything seemed like such a ripoff today.

Except here at the camera store, of course, the only place that was about making the world a more beautiful place, not just yourself.

I was heading straight for the fisheyes when Gwyn took my arm.

—Come on, Dimple—for old times’ sake!

She was gesturing towards the photo booth in the corner, the one where she’d, unbeknownst to me, taken my fake ID picture late last spring. Old times? It did feel old, that day. And it was old news, too, that she could never resist having her picture taken, even now.

—Oh, I don’t know, Gwyn, I said.

But she was already yanking away the curtain, dragging me in.

—It’ll be fun, she said.—Just one round.

We squeezed into the booth. A piece of advice: If you are already feeling so nervy around someone that the wide walking promenades of the county’s biggest shopping mall don’t alleviate the claustrophobia, the last place you want to go with them is the interior of a photo booth. Now the tension was almost unbearable—but it was the opposite of the way the distance between Karsh and me had been tense. There it had been an ache that made me long to bridge the distance. Here, it was a closeness that made me long to run away, widen the gap, dilute the pain with every fleeing step. All the held-back things—what I wasn’t saying, what we hadn’t talked about—seemed to inhabit the small space as well, like riotous, neglected, overweight people, and I had the sense I was being crammed up against all their sweaty skins, even though it was just me and Gwyn on the brief seat.

The last time we’d been here she’d pulled me into her lap. This time, we avoided that, maintaining the façade that we were each mighty comfortable with a mere half butt on solid seating (well,
her
entire one probably fit).

I was already uncomfortable both on the inside and out, and once she dropped in the change and the machine hummed to life, I couldn’t take it. The blinking began, and Gwyn eagered up, pushed her way farther into the indicated frame, thereby knocking me off the slidge of seat I’d been balanced on. I went with the momentum and shot out the booth. She stayed inside, her feet calmly kitten-heeled on the floor below the now ruffled curtain.

—What did you do that for? she asked when she came out.

—I don’t know. I just got…too hot.

Under the collar.

But she wasn’t paying attention. She was reaching for the strip of pictures, and curiosity drew me in to look over her shoulder.

The first shot was of the two of us. Well, of about one-quarter of
my face and three-quarters of Gwyn’s, caught in mid-blink. The second one was of my right earlobe—I must have been falling already—and Gwyn looking exactly like she did in the first one. The third was a fully lobed vaguely stunned Gwyn glancing after me, the lighting gone all funky from what my tumble must have done to the curtain. And the fourth was an overexposed solo snap of her doing her sexy looking-up-from-lowered-lids look, which I was pretty sure she’d poached off Kavita.

—You’re hardly even in them, she said.—Well, whatever. I can give these to Karsh. I wanted him to have a wallet-size of me—so now he can have four!

She smiled brightly and carefully tucked the strip into her lunchbox purse. I gritted my teeth. I could feel the words clogged up behind them like old gum; if I opened my mouth even a bit, they’d escape and trap us in a sticky mess, which I wasn’t sure was preferable to just shutting up, swallowing, and letting that proverbial rubber tree take root in my belly instead. But I was choking on all the unsaid things.

We left the camera store. I was walking really quickly, but still couldn’t get up to speed enough to outrun the situation.

By the boho store with its windowful of feathers and florid lights, kinky bulbs and hanging beads and rasta tie-dyes, Gwyn paused to use the reflection to reapply her lipstick.

—I just had a flash, she said smacking her lips together and winding her Smoosh Bouche back into its silver tube.—You know how they have all those Christmas lights up at East Is Feast? Well, I was thinking
that
would be a great idea to steal for those palm plants at HotPot.

—Well, I guess that’s your specialty, isn’t it, I blurted out before I could stop myself.

—What’s that?

—Stealing.

She turned away from her reflection to face me.

—What’s that supposed to mean?

—Nothing.

Now I wished I hadn’t started, but I certainly couldn’t stop there. That was the trouble with holding back; there was going to be a landslide now. I could already feel my feet twitching.

—Well, okay, I said.—It’s just, I can’t believe you stole my idea like that.

—What idea?

—What do you mean what idea? The whole idea about the party!

—I stole it? Gwyn laughed icily.—I was the one with the connection.

Well, I’d been the one with the connection
to
her connection.

—And anyways, Dimple. Ideas are just—

Now she gestured towards the potted plants, the stalls selling Roman candles and teddy bears and reindeer ornaments and automatic menorahs already.

—Out
there, she said.—And besides, you weren’t going to use it.

—Well, couldn’t we at least have shared it? I thought we shared everything.

—Shared everything? Well, you didn’t share Kavita or the Hot-Pot party—I had to find out by accident! You didn’t share Zara, or that book about your grandfather; Sabz told me. You didn’t share your
feelings.

I was dumbfounded.

—Whatever, Dimple, said Gwyn, looking off towards the teddy
bears. They looked more like fuzzy brown punching bags right now.—It’s done with now. And anyways, don’t you want Karsh to be happy? In the end it was all for him, right?

—Of course I want Karsh to be happy, I said.

—Then what does it matter? He’s happy.

—
I
wanted to make him happy.

I felt embarrassed as soon as I said it. She snapped back towards me, neck cricking, and she looked like a stranger.

—This isn’t about the party at all, is it, Dimple? she said coolly.—This isn’t about stealing any stupid idea. Go on—just say it.

—Say what?

—For once, say what you mean, for god’s sake.

—What do you want me to say? I mumbled.

—This is about stealing Karsh! Admit it—isn’t that why you’re so upset? Isn’t that what you’re getting so worked up about?

—I’m not upset! I nearly shouted.

—You always want what I want, Gwyn continued, and a vein I’d never before noticed poked an abrupt blue path in her forehead.—Ever since we were little—the Special Dolls, the donuts for breakfast. And even now. Even now.

—I could say the same for you, I said.

—Oh, come off it, Dimple. I can’t understand why you can’t just be happy for me.

Because her happiness, for the first time, was truly getting in the way of my own. Because she always had to have her way, and this time it was getting in mine.

—Do you have to have everyone? I asked her instead of saying all that.—You could have had any boy in the world. And you had to pick this one.

—I don’t want any boy in the world. I want
this
boy. I’m in love with
this boy.
And that was
my
idea: I spoke up first; I confided in
you. Face it, Dimple: You forfeited the right—you told me you didn’t like him.

I bit my tongue. This was true—but I couldn’t help it if it took me a little longer to realize things than her, could I? To figure out who I was, who I liked, what I wanted? I wasn’t a born pro at any of this, and I didn’t know how to speed up my RPM. Self-actualization wasn’t like the 600-yard dash where you could work out and do laps and get better and speedier and stronger—was it? And regardless of anything, how was I to now just turn off my feelings?

—I liked him first, she concluded.

—Well, I was Indian first, and that didn’t stop you from trying to take that, too, I said.—It’s not just about stealing Karsh, Gwyn. It’s much bigger than that—it’s. It’s about stealing identities. My identity.