Born Confused (53 page)

I zoomed in closer. She was sitting cushioned between her knapsack and the little lunchbox purse, a coffee clutched between two hands, holding on to it, not drinking, as if to ward off a wintry chill. And she looked different.

Her unbraided hair spiraled ravingly out, all the gold parts gone in the gauzy day. The smock covered most of her clothing, but I could see there was no vinyl or pleather involved underneath; looked more like jeans and a T-shirt that claimed to love nowhere. Makeup: minimal, and her face was a child-face—one that looked like it hadn’t tasted an Oreo or heard a really good joke in a long time. The eye-crying mouth looking more like she’d just heard a really sad story.

It was the face of a little girl in a banistered cage. And I wondered how we’d put up this barrier, bar by bar, boy by boy, between us.

Gwyn stood now, slinging on her backpack. I was watching her and she was swimming in my eyes, rippling like a reflection and receding. She seemed to notice her unseen companion patchworking out from under the bench just then, and leaned down and placed the unsipped sippy-cup-lidded cup just by the panhandler’s hands.

I brought my camera to my belly to get myself together. But I could still see her on the insides of my eyelids, and I suddenly felt like touching her face, telling her it would be all right. It occurred to me that maybe Gwyn didn’t have it so easy. That maybe she was just
as confused as everyone else. And it occurred to me a moment later that maybe I was being selfish by not reaching out to her, by not letting her know I’d be there for her, no matter what mess we might be in. I’d been so worried about Karsh could be I’d been giving her the cold shoulder when what she needed most was a set of open arms.

When I opened my eyes to take my first step towards her, she was gone. An uncertain ghost. As if she’d never been there.

The sky had cleared by the time I got home, and my father greeted me at the door with giggling eyes.

—Somebody stopped by to see you, he said, handing me an opaque plastic box.—To return your mother’s Tupperware! What a good boy he is.

—That hardly qualifies as coming by to see me, I said.

I took the still rain-damp box in my hands, wondering why my father looked so delighted. And then I realized: It wasn’t empty. I could hear a shuddery shivery sound inside, like sand or sugar or maracas, and I peeled off the lid. Inside, a piece of paper lay folded on a bed of what looked like innumerable matte pink and glossy white beads.

I ran a finger through the tinily pinging pieces. But upon a closer look, they weren’t beads at all. I brought a fingerful to my lips to test my theory and crunched, the sugar crystals melting away on my tongue. The sweet part of the mukhvas.

I unfolded the paper.

Rani. I don’t know how to thank you. That was the most marvelous gift I have ever received.

He had liked the photos. Clearly, a lot. When I examined my
gut, I realized questions knotted my belly more than answers. Could it be that—? But he couldn’t. (Could he?)

I could feel my father’s breath in my ear as he read over my shoulder.

—What a grateful letter! he beamed.—Imagine if we had given him stainless steel!

I was utterly confused. I wondered if there was still time to slip onto that bench beside the lost-looking Gwyn. And I knew one thing: that that was what I needed to do first and foremost—be beside Gwyn. So now, one day down to Flashball, and I’d e-mailed and texted and even snail-mailed her a note calling for a 2 Mega Ultra Chica Historical summit. She’d said not to talk to her—but this wasn’t technically
talking,
right? I had no idea whether she would show, but I was pretty sure she came home these days (eventually); after all, Karsh was a Jersey boy, too.

A 2MUCH was the most urgent of calls to meet. The last time we’d had one of those was when I’d gotten my period for the first time in sixth grade. These meetings were held in one place only, the ovary office of our little girl government: the playhouse. So that night I tied a sweatshirt around my waist in case I was in for a long wait and headed over, crunching through the dried twigs and acorn shells to our home of old.

I pushed the slatted door and entered, must clogging my throat and spiderwebs trapping me in their invisible netting. Motes quivered in lazy suspense in the shafts of setting sun. Mary, Joseph, angel and wise men, and of course baby Jesus crammed together into corners, lay toppled on their sides, all coated the same grey shade now. They were much smaller than I’d remembered; I would never have imagined then that they’d all fit in here.

But then, the playhouse was much smaller than I’d remembered, too. I suppose from the outside it had always seemed about the same, but in our spriggiest youth the inside stretched its ceilings
Taj Mahal high when we played princesses, the floor sprang sweet-smelling miles of meadows for us to cowgirl-and-Indian in, and the world outside our windows rocked rowdy waves and we were pirates on a horizonless sea. Now the four walls seemed nearly to cave in on one another, and I had to duck my head to avoid sweeping against the crumbling ceiling.

In the once-far now-near corner was a tiny dining room set, which I remembered with a pang. One chair was shaped like the Calico Cat and the other like a haberdasher dog and the table had once been decorated with a nursery rhyme in bright shades of red and blue. A pile of seashells was strewn across the fading paint, and a toy teapot and saucers lay there, the thin-handled cups appearing even more delicate in the grit. The table was still set for two.

I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been here. I couldn’t remember what we’d been playing.

You certainly couldn’t step in the same river twice. My mother was right as usual, her adages seeming more perspicacious as time went on. I wondered now whether it had been foolish of me to imagine that Gwyn would ever come back here to meet me. Perhaps she wouldn’t even remember the code, 2MUCH, what my message had meant; could be I was already so far expelled from her head that even memory couldn’t draw me back in, playing a momentary magnet.

I was sitting on the Calico Cat, my knees nearly up to chin level on either side of it and my bottom sliding off the scant seat when I saw a movement outside. Through the cleared bit of pane: a pair of blue eyes, woesy as Mary’s, staring back at me.

She’d come.

I leapt up, banging my head on the ceiling in the process, to unhook the door and let her in (an old habit, locking it behind me).

She stood on the outside a moment, the door frame cutting her
forehead from view, and I wondered whether she might just stay there.

—Hi, I said.

And then the golden roots ducked down and in she came.

Neither of us said anything, and tension crackled electric in the wooded space.

—It, it feels strange in here, doesn’t it? I said, gesturing around a little helplessly.—Like it’s all too small, like we don’t fit anymore.

—Frankly, Dimple, I think it would feel like that just about anywhere with you right now, she said.

That stung.

She was trying to maintain her space, arms crossed on her chest, but it was a tough thing to do in here: There was no room to keep any kind of physical distance and so we both sort of automatically ended up sitting at the table.

—So what do you want, Dimple? Why did you call me here? I don’t have all day.

We used to have all the time in the world, I thought, watching her work her fingernail into the ridges of a particularly big pink seashell. But she didn’t look like she was going anywhere soon: She was in sweatpants and a T-shirt, her hair swooped up in a ponytail. She had no makeup on.

I figured I’d break the ice by telling her how I’d spotted her the other day, by letting her know how much I’d longed to speak to her even then.

—Well, I just thought you should know. Remember that, um, day of your shoot?

She nodded.

—Well, I saw you. Outside the café.

—And your point is?

—You. You looked. I don’t know. Like a little girl. And I just really wanted to run over and—

—Dimple, if you’ve come here to humiliate me, you can save your breath, she said icily. I was stunned.

—Humiliate you? What are you talking about?

—You know what I’m talking about. I can just hear you thinking it: Oh, there’s that airhead, Gwyn Sexton, who actually thought she was being asked to model, and—surprise!—was only being asked to lug around equipment. I admit it. I got it all wrong.

—That’s not at all what I meant, I said. So that’s why she’d been in town that day.

She picked up the pink-striped seashell then set it down again.

—Well? So? What…What are you leading up to—Serge’s asking me to assist? Are you going to be jealous of that, too?

—What do you mean? I said, fumbling. I hadn’t expected this to get confrontational so quickly, but I figured I might as well step up now that it was. I took a breath.—I’m not jealous, Gwyn. Okay, I have been jealous, but not about that—not about Serge, or any old magazine thing.

I exhaled.

—So…how’s Karsh? I asked.

—Why don’t
you
tell
me
?

—What do you mean?

—Don’t play dumb with me, Dimple, she said.—He hasn’t said anything to you?

—Well, no, I said.—He did give me a…well, a sort of present. Mukhvas. A sort of candy that made me…wonder.

—Wonder, she said.—Well, I’m wondering about something, too. Wondering why you couldn’t just back off. Why you couldn’t just—stay with Julian, stay out of my way.

—That’s why you wanted me with Julian?

—Well, that wasn’t the original plan, obviously. I was with someone, so I wanted you to be with someone, too. And Julian was the next best thing to Dylan.

—But even if your own boyfriend was running around on you like that, you wanted me to be with his closest clone?

—Yeah, I guess I did, she shrugged, looking down.—Maybe I felt it couldn’t be so bad if you were doing it, too. You, the one who never makes mistakes.

She suddenly seemed irritated. And I couldn’t figure out why, since she was basically admitting she’d wanted to bring me down with her. But I suppose, then, she’d also always wanted to bring me up when she was going up, too, and I held my tongue.

—Besides, what are you complaining about? she said now.—You told me yourself how upset you were after the whole double date fiasco, how disappointed that you’d lost him.

This was true. But not the whole truth.

—I don’t know if I was ever into Julian so much as the idea of Julian, you know? I said.—And after I found out my parents had set up this suitable boy thing I wanted to do something to rebel, to make it clear to them and to Karsh that I wasn’t interested and would never be interested in him.

—And are you never interested in him now? she asked, staring down at the shell again.

—No, I said looking down, too.—I suppose I was falling for him all along.

—Well, then. Why didn’t you ever tell me how you were feeling about him? Letting me go on and on like such a fool, even buying that second turntable. What am I going to do with that turntable?

—Gwyn, it was all happening in such a strange way, I said fi
nally.—It was almost like I didn’t even realize it—because he didn’t match up to anything I’d ever dreamed of, because I was trying so hard to go against my parents, to be what I thought was cool. To fit in with you. I didn’t see he was getting under my skin until it was too late. Until the two of you were already falling for each other.

—We weren’t falling for each other, sighed Gwyn.

—What do you mean? Of course you were—I saw right in front of my eyes.

—Well, yes, of course
I
liked Karsh. But he never
liked
me liked me. He thinks of me as a sister—he finally said it himself. Not only that, but he even told me I should be myself more—like
you
are—because what I am is just fine.

She softened a moment, visibly.

—And the thing is, the way he didn’t like me was still so much better, kinder, more loving than the ways all these other guys have—even my own father. I couldn’t so easily give it up.

She pulled her hands off the table and into her lap, and her face shuttered down.

I was speechless. After spending all this time convinced the two of them had been getting it on I still found it hard to believe, even with the mukhvas and everything. And the idea that Karsh thought I was a self-actualized person was the biggest whammy of all, as I’d all along been of the humble opinion that I hadn’t figured out in the slightest how to be me.

—Anyways, it’s ruined for everyone now, she said.—Now he’s all worried he has to back off because he’s wrecked our friendship. But I think we did that ourselves if you ask me.

—We did? I said softly, hoping I had misheard what I knew I had not.

—Of course we did. You were dishonest with me, Dimple.
Much as you said you thought of him as a brother, that you weren’t into him and all, I could see what was going on. I mean, I’m blond but I’m not blind. I could see how he would look at you. The way the two of you would use this, this vocabulary I could never be a part of, like the one you have with Kavita. And I tried so hard to be what he wanted—to be a suitable girl. To be you.

To be me?

—Why didn’t you just come out and tell me what was going on, Gwyn? I finally managed.

—And play the fool twice? No thank you.

—Not even just about that, not just about Karsh, I said.—But there were so many things you never told me. Like about your father, about Dylan.

—These things are hard to talk about.

—But you managed to talk about them to Karsh and to Kavita. Even to Sabina.

She paused a moment, turning to the window. The light angled in steeper.

—Well, sometimes it’s easier to tell a stranger, she said then.—Like at confession. And with Karsh, well, it seemed he could relate with his dad being gone and all. But I don’t know how you could ever relate—I mean, your life’s so perfect.

—You keep saying that, I said.—You make me feel like I have to apologize for that, and how can I? Just because my family’s intact doesn’t mean I don’t feel for you when you tell me what’s troubling you, even if I don’t understand firsthand. It doesn’t mean I don’t have any feelings; it doesn’t make me impervious.