Wow so this started out with some huge writers block. Hope it doesn't show too much.
Part 4
I
It becomes a sort of thing for the week, Freida’s coming over. We watch Bollywood movies and microwave Actoo popcorn in our underwear. When we wake up after our afternoon ‘naps’, kernels roll out of the sheets. Freida leaves strands of long brown hair on my pillow and the smell of her skin on mine. We talk a lot; she tells me that it was Jerome who took her virginity when they were in a relationship almost a year ago, in his bedroom after a party. I don’t have quite such exciting things to tell her but I tell her about my family. She listens and asks careful questions. She asks if my eyes are my mother’s eyes – You don’t really see a lot of Indians with blue eyes – I correct her and tell her they’re grey, not blue, but she insists. I give up – if she likes blue more then I guess it’s better that they’re blue.
She asks about my tattoo on Tuesday night, lying on my back and tracing it with her fingers on the back of my shoulder as I flick through the movies on TV.
“What’s your tattoo mean?”
The Dark Knight is on. Wow.
“Uh…it’s complicated.”
She drags her fingers along the helically intertwined snakes.
“When did you get it?”
“When I was eighteen.” (It had hurt like hell but I was in that rebellion stage where I would’ve done anything to be today’s equivalent of hipster. Yes, I was a lame kid.)
I settle on The Dark Knight. It’s either this or some fluffy Zac Efron bullshit on HBO.
“Tell me what it means,” she says, resting her chin on my shoulder.
As a result, we spend half an hour talking about sushma and the souls and DNA and macro/microcosmic representations and protein structures. I think it turns her on or something because then she kisses me, right there on my living room floor, and the minute after that we pretty much forget about the TV and dinner and everything.
On Wednesday Elizabeth calls. It’s five-forty in the afternoon, the sun setting over Neelankarai, the last of it creeping under the balcony curtains in the living room along with the sounds of seagulls and keerai vendors. Freida and I are lying on the red suede sofa in our underwear, with her still wearing her school socks. She’s asleep on my chest, her nose pressed into my collarbone. When my phone rings suddenly I answer it without looking to get it to shut up. It’s only after I hear the incoming Hello? when I realise my mistake.
“Neil?”
Fuck.
“Elizabeth.”
“Neil, what the hell? Like, seriously?”
“Liz, I –”
“Listen. I know you’re upset about the whole moving thing. It can wait. But I’m coming home.”
I don’t know why I can’t infer the immediate meaning of her words. I blink up at our slowly rotating ceiling fan.
“Back to New York?”
“I said coming. I’m coming back.”
“What? When?”
“Friday. I just booked my ticket.”
I don’t know what to say. I really don’t. Maybe I should say don’t, because you’ll find sheets that smell like sex and the remnants of my affair with an eighteen year old or maybe I should say that’s great babe, I missed you, I’m so sorry about before, can we put that all behind us?
