Shantallow Read online

  “Listen,” I said, “I know you can’t go anywhere, but if you want, I can come over.”

  Tanvi hesitated a beat. “I wasn’t kidding about being a disaster zone. I can’t keep anything down. I’m in sweatpants and my grossest hoodie with my parents popping their heads in here every five minutes. Nothing would happen between us.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, you’re sick — I’ll be your visitor.” Take her mind off Alice and her parents. Be whoever she wanted me to be. Give the future an opportunity to fall into place.

  “My parents would probably say no,” Tanvi pointed out.

  “Don’t ask them. Like when you took your car.”

  “Misha.” The undiluted delight attached to my name made me smile. “I like the way you think. But don’t be surprised if my parents hurl questions at you. If they ask, say you’re buddies with Taye, my friend Imogen’s brother. But only if they ask.”

  “Don’t tell them we were complete strangers when you offered me a ride home?” I teased.

  “Try it and see where that gets you,” she challenged, firing off her address before disconnecting.

  288 Margate Avenue.

  I knew the street, all right. Golding Green Thumb had multiple clients on Margate. Nice people mainly, with more money than they knew what to do with. But why couldn’t Tanvi have given a more neutral address? One that didn’t make me feel like I was about to drive off a cliff with my foot on the accelerator?

  I rolled on a fresh layer of deodorant, dug my bike out of the garage, and pedaled to Newtown Creek. Twenty-three minutes in an evening sun that would’ve turned me into a puddle in thirty. The well-manicured lawn was in shade, its healthy green glow sneering mutely at me as I sauntered up the driveway and leaned on the doorbell.

  A forty-something-year-old white woman in a gauzy floral top and black leggings promptly opened the door. Her shoulder-length brown hair draped over one shoulder as she tilted her head.

  “I came to see Tanvi,” I said politely. With adults, politeness was my default. After years of practice, it was second nature. “I heard she was sick. Thought I’d drop by and try to cheer her up.”

  “Come in, Misha,” Tanvi called from down the hallway.

  One of my feet made to cross the threshold.

  “Wait a second,” the woman urged, her right hand reaching out to hold me in place. She swiveled, glancing at Tanvi as she shuffled into view. “Aren’t you going to introduce us? I don’t think we’ve met before.”

  “This is Misha,” Tanvi said, a step behind the woman and at least three inches taller. Tanvi’s voice dragged, and she was wearing a ratty yellow hoodie, but the rest of her was as stunning as the first time I’d seen her in the flesh, her mouth a polished mahogany and her long black hair back in a ponytail that showed off her cheekbones. “And Misha, my bodyguard is named Helena.”

  The woman — Helena — laughed reluctantly. “You can call me Mrs. Mahajan, Misha.” Slowly, she stepped aside, allowing me to enter. “Where do you know Tanvi from?” Eagle eyes immobilized me before I could reach Tanvi. I stopped dead on the hardwood floor.

  “Oh, I’m a friend of Taye’s, so we’ve been running into each other for a while.” I glanced at Tanvi for confirmation.

  “I think Misha might be a sexual trafficker from Eastern Europe,” Tanvi chirped. “You should probably call the cops.”

  “You’re making him nervous,” Mrs. Mahajan chided, smiling wearily at me as if to say, You see what I have to deal with here?

  I grinned uneasily back, my T-shirt sticking to my spine. Then Tanvi grabbed my arm, talon-like. She pulled me along with her, steering me through a hallway that dwarfed the two of us, an ornate beaded chandelier dangling overhead like a cluster of melting icicles. We swung into a large room with open double doors. I loitered just inside the doorway while she curled up on a charcoal-colored sectional couch positioned opposite a mammoth wall-mounted television.

  A trio of photographs in identical square white frames decorated the wall directly behind the couch. Dramatic black and white prints, each image placed no more than three inches from the next. The first, frothy sea. The second, mist embracing mountains. The third, sunshine breaking out between storm clouds.

  A leather armchair rested on the far side of the couch, beyond it a thin birch-veneer desk littered with an assortment of more casual photos, a sprig of fresh flowers, and a bell-shaped table lamp. Bay windows cast the room in golden evening light, the butterfly palm next to the desk casting a hazy shadow on the hardwood floor.

  “I told you nothing was going to happen between us,” Tanvi murmured, more into one of the plush couch pillows than to me. “You’re wasting your time.”

  “If I was a sexual trafficker from Eastern Europe, I wouldn’t take no for an answer.” My legs cut across the distance between us in long strides, a grin breaking my face in two. I swooped down to scoop her feet off the couch and hold them against my thighs. Her legs were hidden by shapeless white sweatpants with a logo that ran down one leg, but I could feel the shape of her feet under my hands. Narrow, long like the rest of her.

  Tanvi didn’t struggle. She laughed, the reflex action distorting into a cough.

  I set her feet gently down on the couch, dropping my body into the section across from her. “So, was that your dad’s second wife at the door?” I asked. Tanvi looked full East Indian. Or Bangladeshi or Pakistani, maybe. I couldn’t see anything of Helena in her.

  Tanvi dove into a hoodie pocket to extract a lozenge. “My aunt.” The lozenge clinked between her teeth. “One of my legal guardians. She and my uncle raised me. They adopted me after my parents died.” Tanvi wiggled her toes restlessly in her sock feet and hauled herself into a seated position. “You don’t have to put on a sad face. It was a long time ago. When I was a baby.”

  I obliged her, rearranging my face and resisting the urge to ask for details about what had happened to her parents. “So, when you said your mom wouldn’t let your Aunt Alice come back …”

  “I meant Helena wouldn’t let her come back.” Tanvi wrestled with the nearest couch pillow, holding it in front of her like a shield. “Alice was her half-sister. You would think being blood relations would mean something.”

  In an ideal world, maybe.

  “Why didn’t Helena let her come back and stay with you then?”

  Tanvi’s squat fingernails scratched at the pillow. “Alice had issues. I hadn’t seen her in two years. When she first left she texted sometimes. Then that stopped too. My parents didn’t want her bringing her problems here. That’s what they kept saying. I’m sure she knew they didn’t really want her being in touch with me, either. But if you can’t depend on your family, who else is going to help you?”

  A middle-aged South Asian man in a button-down shirt and chinos ambled past me, holding a glass of something fizzy. “You must be feeling better if you’re ready for visitors,” he noted. Crossing into the center of the room, he set the glass down on a wooden end table. “More ginger ale. Want to try some crackers or toast?”

  Tanvi shook her head decisively, her face graying at the thought of solid food. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  The man, sporting a classic Ivy League haircut — side-parted top and slicked-down sides — paused to cast his eyes on me.

  “I’m Misha,” I said anxiously. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Good of you to come and brave infection to cheer Tanvi up,” Mr. Mahajan replied. “You don’t go to Holy Trinity?”

  “Abbey Hill High.”

  Mr. Mahajan’s eyes remained unimpressed, the rest of his face holding on indifference.

  “I’m on the cross-country and track teams,” I added. And the honor roll. I was no one to be worried about. “Going into eleventh grade this year.”

  Tanvi smirked at me from the other end of the sectional. Too much information. Shut up, Misha.
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  Mr. Mahajan arched an eyebrow, hand diving into his upper-crust hair. “It’s an important year,” he declared.

  Tanvi sipped soundlessly at her ginger ale, her eyes avoiding mine.

  I’m no mind reader. But there were times when I thought I could read Tanvi’s, and that was one of them. I stayed silent on the couch, allowing the uneasy quiet to settle on the furniture and weigh down my shoulders.

  “Don’t stay too long, Misha,” Mr. Mahajan added as he began to withdraw. “Tanvi needs her rest.”

  Kapow. Tanvi glared at her uncle’s back, crossing her eyes. I stifled a chuckle and stared at her sock feet and smooth, lush lips. The tiniest details about her seemed startlingly incredible. The mild smell of grapefruit that infused her skin, despite being sick. The shallow cleft in her chin. The sharp smarts behind her mysteriously infinite eyes. You couldn’t miss that Tanvi was something special. But she wasn’t exactly making things easy for me. Did she want me to screw up and for her “parents” to toss me out to the curb?

  “Obviously he was really impressed by me,” I kidded once Mr. Mahajan had vacated the area. It wasn’t until he was clear of the room that I remembered he was her uncle and not her real father; he could’ve fooled me.

  Tanvi smiled tiredly. “He didn’t dislike you. That’s just what he’s like when I have someone over the first few times. His mind game trick is to say as little as possible so that the other person feels compelled to keep talking and reveal themselves.”

  “He sounds like a psychiatrist.”

  “Close. He’s in financial services.” The ginger ale hadn’t left Tanvi’s hand. Thirst welled up inside me as I looked at it. And at her.

  This wasn’t about the dreams anymore. If I let it, this was something that would shadow me during the day and keep me up late into the night. The thoughts of when I’d see Tanvi next and where we were heading.

  “Is he your mom’s brother or your dad’s?” I asked, conjuring Mr. Mahajan’s image and searching for a resemblance to Tanvi.

  “My mother’s. They were fraternal twins.” Tanvi’s dark irises began to melt. A single tear punched out of the corner of one eye and cascaded down the side of her nose. “He and Helena both make me sick after what they let happen to Alice. It’s so easy to say you care about someone, but the proof is what you do.” Yellow hoodie sleeves flew to her face, Tanvi batting at her eyes. “You suck too, by the way. You told Helena you were going to cheer me up.”

  “The night’s not finished yet,” I said. “Give me a chance.” Tanvi’s sadness got under my skin in a way that it shouldn’t have. We barely knew each other.

  I smiled crookedly, ignoring my instincts and leaping up from the couch. Storming to the unoccupied center of the room I crouched, my arms swinging backwards, then swooping under my legs and upward as I jumped into the air. Reaching maximum height, I tucked my legs and arms in, rolling through space. Landing on my feet, I let out a yelp of victory.

  Natalya had taught me the back flip during a visit to my grandparents’ house when I was seven. It was the nearest I’d come to flying, and I’d never let myself forget how to execute the move.

  The secret was to trust yourself. And not to be afraid. If everyone let themselves be ruled by their fear of falling, none of us would ever learn to walk.

  But I hadn’t planned to do the flip for Tanvi. The second I was safely on the ground my face began to burn. A dog could do tricks. A five-year-old kid with a store-bought magic kit.

  “Not bad,” Tanvi said. She tugged her socks off and trooped toward me, motioning for me to step aside.

  I returned to the couch and watched her throw her arms back, as though she was about to repeat my performance.

  Crouching just as I had, Tanvi stopped abruptly. “Ugh, I don’t think I can right now,” she said, her fingers stretching across her abdomen as she straightened. “Not without losing whatever’s left in there.”

  “Lie down already,” I told her. “If your parents” — was I supposed to call them that? — “come in and think you’ve been doing back flips for me they’re going to tell me to go home.”

  Tanvi sank into the sectional again, her socks abandoned on the floor. “I took gymnastics as a kid. And bhangra, ballet, taekwondo …”

  Sure. Her guardians would’ve had a bursting-at-the-seams college fund for her, too. Naturally they signed her up for every activity going.

  “I took squash,” I offered. “And rock climbing.” No one had to teach me to defend myself. Learning the opposite is just as tricky.

  “Not gymnastics?” Tanvi said with a wink in her voice.

  “No. My sister taught me how to do a back flip. Handstand, back walkover, and round-off too. She was the one in gymnastics.” Natalya’s gymnastic ribbons were hanging on the wall of her room when we left my dad behind.

  “How old is your sister?” Tanvi’s bare toes peeked up at me, completely at ease with their continuing nakedness.

  “Nineteen. She moved in with her boyfriend this past winter, but they have an apartment in Tealing.”

  “Your mom’s okay with that?”

  I shrugged. Keion was nine years older than Natalya, and as far as I knew he’d never made my sister cry. The single time I’d heard them argue his voice had remained level while hers was the one that briefly machine-gunned the air. The nights she got home late from her job at Jean Machine, Keion had chili, pasta, or lemon-pepper salmon waiting in the oven for her. When they were apart he sang Natalya songs over the phone because he knew it made her smile. On their anniversary he’d brought her a kitten from the local shelter, although he preferred dogs. Natalya was a cat person.

  “My mom likes him,” I replied, while Tanvi’s feet pretended it didn’t make any difference whether she was wearing socks or not because they were only toes, ankles, arches, and the bits in between.

  Only feet.

  “They’re good together,” I explained. “He drives a cab right now, but he’s studying part-time to become a nurse.” Anybody who ever met him would tell you he’d make a good one. Keion found something to like about ninety-eight percent of the people he encountered. If he had bad feelings about a person, not only was that person not worth your time, he or she was probably lethally dangerous. “Back in April he talked a guy with a switchblade out of robbing him. Then he let the guy go without reporting it. He said the guy didn’t want to hurt anyone, that he was just in a bad place.”

  No lie. Keion was like a good Samaritan you see on a news report but have trouble believing exists in real life.

  What I didn’t say: Natalya knew a good thing when she saw it. She didn’t need to take her time to decide about Keion. She’d seen enough of his antithesis to be clear on what she didn’t want.

  People say “grow up” as though it’s such basic advice that they can’t believe someone is making them utter it out loud.

  For better or for worse, Natalya grew up fast.

  “Not too many people would do that,” Tanvi said approvingly. She told me she didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Not from her biological parents and not from her aunt and uncle, who couldn’t have children. According to Tanvi, before her parents’ accident her aunt and uncle were planning to adopt from India. They’d wanted a girl. By a twist of fate, their niece had turned out to be the one.

  The topic bounced effortlessly around. We talked about the teachers who made students jump through hoops for their own amusement and the teachers you knew cared because they always went the extra mile, even for the students they didn’t like. How when you’re a kid the days seem so long. A week was forever. How you think you’ll understand things better when you’re older, that you’ll know what to do in any situation.

  “And you think the things adults tell you are the truth,” Tanvi said. “My nanaji used to tell me incredible stories about the animals in his zoo. Like fairy tales about their lives, but always
with happy endings.”

  “Wait, who has a zoo?”

  Tanvi’s laugh tickled the air. “My nanaji, my grandfather on my real mom’s side. He doesn’t really own a zoo, but he’s the curator of the zoo in Peterborough. He oversees everything.”

  Whatever we talked about, I never stopped noticing her feet, or the way her hands moved when she was excited. Had she tossed them around like that when we’d argued in the clearing in my sleep? Had she said my name then? What was coming for us in the woods? Why didn’t the dream ever move beyond that fixed point?

  And how long had I been sitting in the Mahajans’ den? Outside their bay windows, the sun had set and a yellow moon had taken its place. The days were growing shorter. Hot as it was, summer had begun to die.

  “I should go,” I said. Before Mr. Mahajan returned to tell me it was time to disappear. It was better if I offered first. I wasn’t Catholic like the Mahajans, and I wasn’t Indian. I needed to do something to make up for the deficit. I wasn’t even as polite as I could’ve been with her uncle because Tanvi hadn’t wanted me to be.

  As I stood to go, Tanvi frowned and hid her hands inside her pockets.

  I almost stayed instead.

  Launching myself off the couch and vaulting toward her, I bent to kiss one of her bare feet. Like nothing more than a peck on the cheek. Lips grazing soft skin.

  Until it happened, I didn’t know I was going to do it.

  “You’re crazy,” Tanvi declared, the same magic in her voice as when she’d said my name over the phone. She stared up at me with eyes that didn’t know what to expect. As though suddenly anything might happen.

  “Maybe,” I admitted, my chest exploding. My eyes ached in their sockets and my throat opened and closed like the gills of a fish. I pried my lips apart, controlled my breathing. “We should get together again — when you’re feeling better.”

  Tanvi nodded with her mouth shut. I was standing next to her part of the sectional couch, beside her outstretched legs. She hauled herself up, reaching for the center of my T-shirt. Fabric bunched in her hand, she yanked me down toward her. The tang of ginger ale fizzed on my lips as our mouths collided.