Born Confused (55 page)

—You shouldn’t hide your face, she whispered.—You’ll want the best view possible.

Shailly was already doing her thing, as I could tell from the lazy taffy-machine beats being swung-flung round the space. My heart in my throat I immediately began to scan the room for Gwyn and Karsh. I didn’t see them anywhere. At a first glance, it felt the room was all Indian, and I wondered at this, as the point had been to mix it up to draw in a wider audience for Karsh. And then I realized it was a handful of non-Indians in saris, swirling their little pink umbrellas, who’d given me that impression. When I glimpsed the trenchman among them, I figured they must be
Flash!
folk. It was confirmed when I recognized a redheaded woman whose picture was on the preview editor’s letter on the website (yes, I’d sneaked a peek): Elizabeth “Zeb” Lupine.

Clusters of these draped damsels, and dudes, too, moved along the walls, where I could sideways see stretchy images winking on the brick, probably from the
Flash!
shoots, considering how rapt Zeb in particular appeared: She was pointing out something to an epiphany-eyed guy whose picture I’d definitely seen in
Time Out
or somewhere. She was aiming to be as graceful as possible but was having a little difficulty, as the crisscrossed part of the sari kept shushing down her chest to reveal her tightly bodiced lean mean upper body whenever she waved her spackling cigarette.

Serge Larmonsky caught sight of me and peace-upped me, heading over.

—You’re the famous Dimple Lala, correct? he said, while my
father nodded proudly, as if
he
were the famous Dimple Lala, and Radha and my mother nudged each other as if I were their combined spawn.—Yeah, I remember seeing you with DJ GJ and Gwyndolyne Baxter Sexton at the desecration gig. You should be very proud—you gotta hear how the Zebster is talking about it. Congrats.

For what? For being seen with DJ GJ and golden Gwyn? I couldn’t believe Serge Larmonsky even remembered me. But he was bar-bound before I could say a word.

—Shall we see what this tamasha is all about? my mother suggested, gesturing towards Zeb and company.

—They’re shots from the magazine, I explained.

—Not the shots, my mom sighed.—The saris. That one on the titian mission girl is looking particularly nice. Edison?

—Most likely, yaar, nodded Radha.

My parents plunged excitedly over to the buzzing bunch.

—Don’t you want to go over and take a look? asked Radha.

I wanted to look for Gwyn first.

—No thanks, I said.—Maybe later.

—Suit yourself…but I think you might really enjoy seeing them again.

—Again?
Flash!
isn’t on stands yet—I haven’t seen any of it.

What was up with her?

—Baapray, Dimple—this magazine is showing a very high quality! my father exclaimed, now conjuring himself up at my side again.—The pictures are fantastical!

—Yeah? I said, surprised.—What did you see?

—All the ones of this hijra, said my mother breathlessly.—I had no idea it was a model. I saw it talking to some people in that corner…see…over there…?

I couldn’t see. Because I was flipping: Someone had already had that idea?

—Now these are the kinds of photographs you should be making one day!

—Those
are
the kinds of photographs she’s making, smiled Radha proudly.—They’re hers.

We all turned quizzically to her.

—Well, technically speaking, they’re
Karsh’s
now, but being the generous soul he is, he lent them to the magazine to make repros.

—What are you saying? my father queried.

—The photos. They’re all Dimple’s. She took them.

She gestured towards the brick.

—All of them!

—What?
I cried.

—You heard me, yaar, said Radha, grin breaking loose now.

—He did what? I said, flabbergasted.—But how did they decide to—? Why did they—?

—Because your pictures are, as you say, frocking good.

I couldn’t believe it. And I couldn’t wait! I vaulted into the room to take a look, the Marriage Mafia tagging alongside me.

Except for the space directly behind the stage, where video clips were blinking by like eyes in too much sun, on this side of the club the exposed brick glowed from mortared edge to edge with great glossy images of…my own photographs!
Enormous
professionally framed images of
my own
photos.

The supporting wall was so stark these splashes of intense color were like desert water—and a color-therapy bubble bath at that. It was like entering some sort of multimedia installation of my life. And I couldn’t believe how enchanting it looked from here: Viewing the images one after another like this, I could see they told a story—where I had once thought was none had been one far more bewitchingly beautiful than I could have ever imagined. And watching people oohing and ahhing over the Zara shots—including, I
confirmed now, Zara herself, thronged by admirers (the most truly, of course, PK)—it was as if people were standing inside my head, oohing and ahhing the view from the inside of my eyes, out. As if it was a view, however new to them, they understood.

Clearly, irrefutably, and no less than magically I could now see my life outside myself, and even more magically I could now see my heart in all its motley, melodious complexity, as if it were up on the wall itself.

It was impossible to imagine a time that I had not loved Karsh with every
Dhage na Dhin, Dhage na Dha
of my drumming heart. And the more I simply beheld the thought of him, the more my nerves calmed. The less I doubted, undid, tried to close and control the world in my hand, skin stretching too tight, the more I felt the knots loosen, the drum give, the music play.

I was already walking, running his way.

The club looked the same but different. It was awash in pink light, with a bit of a boudoir ambiance at the moment, which went swimmingly with Tamasha’s taffy turntable techniques. No Ravana piñata tonight (as Kavita had explained to me later; Ravana was the ten-headed demon, the enemy in the
Ramayana),
but a whopping prismatic disco ball. And where had been a nearly solely South Asian audience last time was—I realized now, as more and more
Flash!
folk and Lenne Lenape High posse people and Starbucks pals and the usual HotPot crowd and Karsh following filtered in—a rainbow mix. The music had picked up and the foot-tapping, headnodding business was well under way. I wound among the rainbow tribe, feeling safe in the world, blissfully aware that Karsh hovered somewhere above me.

I slipped behind the bar and swung my bag around to my back and stood there, at the foot of the ladder, trembling slightly before the stained glass wall of bottles and brews, elixirs and quick fixes. My
hands quaked and I wondered how I would be able to keep a grip, let alone climb up, up to the clubland firmament. Picturing my mother’s dance spear between them, I let my eyes follow my imagination, rung by rung, all the way to that dark opening, sweet and secret as a dug hole.

And a funny thing. My heart grew very still. And slow, an oar through unfathomed water. My breathing deepened and I could hear it clear as if I were swimming.

I felt a wave of calm wash over me. I still wasn’t sure what his lips had whispered to the flame as he entered his new year. But my answer was yes.

Before I’d even gotten to the top, a hand reached down to help me up. I climbed the final step to come face-to-face with him, there in a Nehru jacket and jeans. It was his big night, and he deserved it.

But it was Gwyn’s big night, too, and the sight of Karsh was a honeyed one, a pangy sweet like a sad song you love. I felt a flood of unsung tears inside me, tears that followed a receding childhood, tears for everything she had been through, with and without me, for the dust-filled cups of the playhouse and this summer coming to a close. And tears that belonged to a happiness greater than any I’d ever known, too.

He was watching me a little shyly, hesitant. And I realized he looked worried, and it was possibly even because of me, and I was crying then.

—Forgot something? I sobbed, swinging his laced-together shoes towards him.

—Yeah, I suppose I did.

He didn’t look too surprised as he took them from my hand and set them on the floor.

—Yeah, well. Me, too, I said.

—Yeah?

And I unwrapped my arms around him, brought my hands to his naped skin, sweat and cinnamon, my lips to his left lobe.

—I forgot to do that, I whispered.

His arms were around me, too, now, and I could have stayed there forever. And even pulling me a step into the balcony area he kept me close. Shailly was at one end, multiply eared, perusing the decks like a tarot reader. We climbed over the rooty wires and cords and cables, and around the crates and bags to the other side. In the shadowed corner, he lifted my face, thumbing my tears off my cheeks. He looked at me very seriously.

—Now if I’m allowed to venture a guess about why you’re crying, I would have two. The first, a little egocentrically, I suppose, is that you don’t know how to tell me you still consider me sunk, and it’s putting you through the stress wringer because you aren’t used to confronting unfun situations head-on.

—You were never a sunken ship, I said, taking each thumb now in my hands. Both pulsed, as if he had two hearts.—I never—it was all out of context. I’m so sorry.

—It’s okay…I didn’t stay upset about it long, you don’t need to apologize. I figured, maybe self-protectively—how could I take it too personally? You didn’t even know me. At least it showed you had a good sense of humor.

—If anything you were a sunken treasure, I said quietly.

He smiled a smile that was at once happy and sad.

—So you talked to Gwyn, he said.

I nodded, stumbling through tears. We sat down now, face-to-face and toes touching. Though from here the ceiling wasn’t so high and the air was misted with smoke and sweat, when I closed my eyes, it was easy to imagine we were on a rooftop edge, close enough to touch the fronded boughs, in the part of them where they plumed like giant evergreen birds, an occasional windblown clearing in
their feathery mass through which you could just glimpse the just creased water of Mirror Lake.

—Well, we really had it out, I said, opening my eyes now.—And now she says she needs time on her own to think about things. But I can’t help feeling I’ve just lost my oldest friend in the world.

—Dimple, rani, maybe that’s the truth: She just needs a little space. A friendship like yours can’t end over something like this.

—Over something like this? I said, poking him gently in the chest.—I hope you’re right, but I think it can. You’re pretty out of the ordinary, Karsh.

—You know, he said, humbly, sincerely.—I don’t even think it was me so much. It’s got a lot more to do with you two. You’ve opened a can of worms. I’m just…sort of symbolic. A catalyst.

I realized then that there were a lot of things besides him that had come up in the conversation with Gwyn. He was partly right. The fact of him had triggered an entire set of underlying issues we’d either been ignoring, or never noticed, or never wanted to deal with.

—Yeah, it’s true. The two of us had a lot to talk about, I nodded.—But I wish we were still talking. You haven’t seen her?

He shook his head, and my heart sank in the midst of all this baffling joy. Happy-sad. It was funny I’d never understood that concept before, that you could feel two things at once, or maybe even more. Now it seemed this grey area was the natural, the only, state of things.

—I wish she were here, I said.—I mean, in a way it’s her party.

—Well, kudos to
Flash!,
she was certainly the woman to put in charge. After all, she’s the one who told them to use you for the visuals.

—What?

—She insisted, Karsh smiled.—Of course, she hardly needed to twist my arm. And once the
Flash!
folk saw the images, they were into it, too.

—She insisted? I said, stunned. I’d always thought she only liked the pictures she was in.

—Insisted,
he said.—Even when she fully understood my feelings. For you.

I was moved, by both of them, and in spite of myself joy budded in me. I smiled, too, feeling shy, but nicely so.

—I was very clear with her from the beginning, he added.—At least I thought I was.

—She told me she’s never been treated with so much love, I said.—At least, by a boy. Maybe she misunderstood. I mean, I even misunderstood what the two of you were about. And until she told me herself I still wasn’t sure.

—How could you not be sure? I kept trying to send you signals—leaving the shoes, playing my tablas to you on that tape. When I asked you to dance.

—What?

—At HotPot. And you said your feet hurt. And then I realized maybe it would never work out. You kept pointing out that we were like brother and sister.

—I did? I said nonplussed.—But so did you!

—Well, you do feel like family to me. But not like a sister. Or rather, like a sister…but…hmmm. Then we’d be getting into contraband thoughts, he winked.—So I never knew how to read you. But I finally figured it would be better to just speak up and say how I feel in case, in case there was any chance…rather than regret it for the rest of my life.

Eternal recurrence.

—I know what you mean, I said.

He reached over and took my hand in his, turning it over gently to reveal my palm.

—Look, he said, tracing his finger along a tributary off my life
line.—It says right here: Everything is going to be all right between the two of you.

—It says that? There?

—Well, it says, um, a current crisis in a friendship may not be its ending but rather the beginning of a new phase, a new sort of happily ever after…See? Right here.

Now he was tracing a second sidestream with one hand, his other holding my own.

—And it says right here that—yes. That a certain someone will be there for you through it all, and will wait for you till you’re ready, till you feel fully free. That this certain person, well, it took twenty years for him to find you, give or take—and you didn’t even exist for a couple of them! So if it’s all right by you, he’s not letting you go so easy.