“I guess it would have been . . . May nineteenth. Yeah. That’s right, because he was in town that weekend for my high school graduation, and I told him the night before he left. He had to fly straight back to school to finish the year out.” Lena sucks in a breath, and her already pale skin turns an eerie shade of blue-white. “What? What is it? Lena. Tell me.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she says, then whirls on one heel and heads back down the crowded, filth-strewn roads in the direction of the hotel. Once again, Lena’s in charge. It’s all I can do to keep her in my line of vision as she moves, weaving her way expertly among cows and goats and peddlers and beggars. I’m afraid, suddenly. I’m afraid because I’m wholly dependent on her. She’s my ticket home, my way through and away from this messy city.
Also, I realize for the first time: I’m in this. I’m so far in it that I honestly can’t envision returning to my other life, the safe and supported one back in Illinois, where everything was predictable and ordinary. Maybe meeting Charlie a year ago set this chain of events in motion, but Lena’s infused it with purpose.
I have this weird feeling, pain twisting in my stomach and squeezing my heart. Lena feels betrayed. Like I used her for a free ride.
Adam was on my mind when I suggested Bombay. But I would never have pushed her to go all the way out here—or taken advantage of her kindness—if Z hadn’t mentioned the journal. If I hadn’t seen it for myself in the photo. I never would have come just for Adam. I need her to know that.
I run after her, following her yellow shirt through the crowd, bolts of adrenaline and fear shooting through me. I can’t tell when Lena became important to me, but she has. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see her turning onto Colaba Causeway, still in the direction of our hotel. She’s so impulsive, she could have gone anywhere. I follow her up to the room and let myself in with my key before she can change keys or figure out a way to lock me out. She curls up on her queen-size bed and turns away from me toward the wall, humming softly to herself like she does sometimes when she’s not talking. I sit on the edge of my bed next to her. I want to hug her but I don’t feel it’s my right. Her legs are folded up behind her, and her curls spread out over the white bed cover, just faintly yellow against its silken embroidery. Sun streams in through the window, casting a beam over her. She looks ethereal in its light. In a few hours the sky will turn orange, yellow, pink, and purple with another breathtaking sunset. I know, because that’s how it was last night; and nothing seems to happen in India without Technicolor.
“Talk to me.” My voice is unabashedly pleading. “Please. Lena, I’m sorry. I didn’t come out here for Adam. But I should have told you anyway.”
“You should have,” she agrees. Then she’s silent.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I truly am. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just . . . afraid to trust you. I didn’t know you yet. But now I see how wrong I was.”
She doesn’t tell me off. She doesn’t move. I sit there for an hour before I give up and turn on the TV, flipping on a Bollywood dance channel because I hope it’ll pique her interest. She barely shifts position. She’s so quiet and so still that she could be sleeping, but I can tell by the sound of her breathing that she’s not.
Two hours later I order room service. The waiter brings up butter chicken and palak paneer for me and shrimp korma for Lena, along with two portions of cheese naan; and still she doesn’t move. She hasn’t eaten all day. I wonder what she’s thinking about. I feel like a sentry, standing guard. I feel like I’m too obsessed. But this is my new reality. My hands are clammy, I’m anxious, I’m wildly afraid she’ll leave. I’m acutely aware of the strength of my feelings for her. We’re like that for the whole rest of the night: Me watching, waiting. Lena thinking, rejecting.
12
Lena
I tell people that I met Charlie at a summer enrichment program in London. Which is mostly true. But Charlie wasn’t in the Talent Identification program sponsored by Duke, the one masquerading as a résumé booster that was, for me, just an excuse to jet-set like I always have every summer, thus getting me out of my parents’ hair and freeing them up to go wherever they want: a safari in Botswana, a treehouse village in Provence, et cetera. I love that my parents are in love and want alone time. I do.