The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

CHAPTER 1

Shortly after almost driving himself and Amina into untimely deaths, Akhil went to sleep for three months. It wasn’t a straight sleep of course, but a persistent one, a sudden fever of exhaustion that lasted from December through February and found him sprawled over chairs and couches and rugs the minute he came home from school, eyes spinning under the silk of his eyelids. Gone was the constant barrage of words, replaced by an infantile drowsiness, eyes that barely focused, a mouth that opened only to eat or snore. He was too tired to think, he said when asked any question, and it was obvious.

The first week, neither Amina nor Kamala had any idea what to make of it. While Akhil’s wordy tirades had been exhausting, his sudden silence was eerie.

“He’s like this in school?” Kamala asked, her hand pressed to his forehead.

“I have no idea.” Amina tightened her ponytail, crossed her arms. It was paid misinformation. The day after “the car incident,” as she and Akhil referred to it, they had come to an agreement of sorts. Amina now woke him after his lunchtime nap, made sure his eyes didn’t flutter while he drove, and said nothing about it to anyone. Akhil paid her $4.50 a week. Still, unlike the other brief nod-outs, this kind of sleeping was new. And worrisome. Amina looked at her brother, the stinky cavern of his mouth, his twitching nose.

“Must be the flu,” Kamala said, and Amina nodded just so she wouldn’t have to say anything incriminating.

During the second week of the Big Sleep, they found themselves conducting strange experiments. On Tuesday, Amina repeatedly kicked her brother’s ankles until he opened his eyes and pushed her away. At the Thursday dinner table, Kamala shouted out, “How about this trickling-down theory?” in a desperate attempt to engage him in a conversation. On Friday, they took turns shaking him hard until he woke up.

“What the fuck?” Akhil croaked through a dry throat, eyes goopy with sleep.

“What’s happening?” Kamala asked, but the question came out wrong, too full of cheer that did not match her anxious face.

The subtleties were lost on Akhil, who rolled over with such a thump that the couch shuddered a little.

Kamala peered at her son as though he were a jar of something unidentifiable in a fridge. “At least he’s eating.”

It was an understatement. The sheer amount of food Akhil put away each night at dinner was nothing short of phenomenal. Mountains of rice, stacks of chapatis, flotillas of idlis, and entire chickens disappeared during meals. Amina saw him go through a bag of oranges in one sitting.

At the end of the third week, Kamala perched on the sofa arm. “And what,” she asked Amina, as though they had been in the middle of a conversation, “does he say about it?”

“About what?” Amina turned the page of her book, guilt emanating from her upper lip, her armpits.

Kamala pointed a squiggling finger at the space over Akhil’s head. “This sleeping-all-the-time business.”

“He doesn’t say anything about it.” This was true. The three times she had tried to bring up his new sleeping pattern, Akhil had either turned up the radio, ignored her, or accused her of trying to “get more fucking money by making shit up.”

“You think he’s depressed?”

“He’s always depressed.”

“Not true! He’s always angry.” Kamala pulled a piece of fuzz from his eyelashes, studied it, and flicked it away. Akhil did not move. “Has something bad happened to him recently?”

“You mean other than Salem?”

Kamala’s lip curled inward, her nostrils flared. She blinked at Amina several times before saying, “That didn’t happen to Akhil.”

“No, I know, but we just—”

“Not Akhil. Not you.” Kamala walked to the chair Amina sat in and bent down, surprising her with a kiss on the head.

“You both are fine,” she said, squeezing Amina’s arm quickly before heading to the kitchen.

Strangely, saying the words out loud changed something in Kamala. As week four turned to five and the holidays rounded the corner, she was lighter suddenly, bustling about the kitchen, making tins of cookies and halwa that Akhil would devour by the handful before passing out, crumbs lining his lips. Once, when she caught Amina hovering over the couch, she prodded her away, saying, “Enough,” like Amina was pinching him.

“Maybe he’s fucking possessed,” Dimple suggested on Christmas Day, channeling Mindy Lujan to the best of her ability, though the holiday had wrenched them apart for an entire twenty-four hours. She and Amina stood in Akhil’s room, looking down at his sleeping body. “What does your dad think?”

“He’s been really busy with work. And it only really happens in the afternoon like this, when Dad isn’t around, so it’s really just me and Mom who see it.”

“And what does Our Lady of Supreme Intolerance say?”

“She thinks he’s fine because he’s not depressed.”

“Cool.” Dimple’s eyes wandered toward Akhil’s window. “Do you know where he hides his cigs?”

But it was not cool. As the cars of the Kurians and the Ramakrishnas receded down the driveway, as Thomas mumbled about needing to make rounds and Kamala divided the leftover idlis into Ziplocs for freezing, Amina sat in Akhil’s beanbag, peeking at her snoring brother over the pages of her book. The next week she grew more agitated. Was it normal for anything that wasn’t a cat to sleep for sixteen hours a day?

“I think he’s sick,” she announced loudly after dinner the following Monday. Enough was enough. Winter break was over, and Akhil was getting worse instead of better, heading for the couch like a drunk rushing to the bottle the minute they came home.

“You said yourself he is doing fine in school,” Kamala said, scrubbing the stove with gusto.

“Look at him, Ma. Does he look fine to you?”

They looked at Akhil. Truthfully, Akhil did not look unfine so much as uncomfortable, one arm folded under him, the other hanging bent over the edge of the sofa.

“This isn’t normal,” Amina said.

Her word lingered in the air, spreading like the smell of smoke. Amina saw her mother’s shoulders dip and rise. Kamala went to the kitchen, picked up the phone, dialed.

“Come now! Your son is sick and won’t wake up!” she announced after a beat. She slammed the phone down.

It rang back almost immediately. She listened.

“No ambulance!” She slammed the phone down again.

Half an hour later Thomas gunned down the driveway in a whirl of dust. He left the car door open and the lights on, running in the front door.

“Where is he?” he asked Kamala, not breaking his stride.

“The living room.” Kamala, Amina, and Queen Victoria followed him down the hall.

“What exactly is wrong?”

“He won’t wake up.”

“How long has he been out?”

“Not out, sleeping! Since he got home!”

“Did he suffer any kind of head trauma today? Falling, getting hit, anything like that?”

Kamala looked at Amina.

“Not that I saw,” Amina said.

By now they had entered the living room. Thomas took a sharp breath and knelt down on the shag rug. He shooed away the dog and pulled at Akhil’s eyelids, revealing the white, swirling custard of both eyes. He grabbed a wrist.

“Akhil?” His voice was loud.

Akhil rolled over. “Mnff.”

“Akhil, wake up.”

Akhil frowned but didn’t open his eyes.

Thomas looked at his watch. “Pulse is steady and breathing looks fine.” He placed his hand under Akhil’s nose, then reached into his pocket, pulling out a thermometer. He placed it in Akhil’s ear. “So he’s been asleep for about five hours?”

“No, he was awake for dinner,” Kamala said.

“I thought you said he’s been asleep since he got home.”

“He woke for dinner and then went right back to sleep,” Kamala said. She leaned forward, whispered knowingly, “Maybe drugs.”

“Did he have a healthy appetite? What did he eat?”

“Five helpings of chicken curry, nine chapatis, two spoons of salad, one bowl of rice and dahl, one bottle of RC Cola.”

Thomas’s eyes widened. “Really? All of it?”

“What, all of it? He likes my cooking.”

“And dinner ended when?”

Kamala glanced at the clock in the kitchen, held up her fingers calculating. “Two and a half hours ago.”

“He’s not on drugs,” Amina volunteered.

The thermometer beeped and Thomas pulled it out, looking at it for a long moment. “So he was totally coherent during dinner?”

“Not at all,” Kamala said with the barest note of triumph in her voice. “I said ‘Good for Star Wars,’ and he said nothing!”

Thomas looked at Amina for translation.

“You know, Reagan’s new defense-policy thing. Mom said she supported it, and Akhil didn’t argue.”

Amina watched this information filter through her father’s mind, his brow growing heavy. “Kamala, you do realize I was with a patient.”

“And?”

“And this could have waited.”

“I’ve waited two months! How much longer should I be waiting?”

Thomas pulled the stethoscope from his neck, placing the white tips inside his ears. Amina and her mother stood still as he cocked his head, shut his eyes. When he was done, he pulled the earpieces out and rocked back on his heels, taking in the room. He looked at the book bags flung on the floor, the shoes and papers covering the carpet, the television broadcasting game-show applause. His eyebrows raised slightly at the “snackument”—a tower of crackers and spray cheese that Amina liked to build and eat — before landing on Vanna White turning over a row of white s’s.

“Well?” Kamala asked.

Thomas stood up, pulling a big antennaed block out of his pocket and setting it on the table in front of the couch. “We’ll just have to see.”

“Don’t you think we should take him to the hospital?”

“Not yet.” He walked across the room to the liquor cabinet.

“When? Tomorrow?”

“I think we should just watch him for a bit.” He took out a tumbler.

“We’ve been watching! I’m telling you! He’s not himself anymore!”

“Kamala, please.” The liquid splashed down. “We can’t send him to the hospital because he isn’t fighting with you. Sleeping for a few hours in the middle of the evening is hardly unusual for a boy of his age.”

“But it’s not just that! Amina, tell him!”

Her parents’ eyes shifted to her, pleading separate cases. Amina looked from one to the other.

“Something is wrong with him,” Amina said at last, and her father looked plainly disappointed. “No, really, he’s been sleeping all the time. And he …” She struggled to think of something that wouldn’t get Akhil into trouble. “Even when he is awake, he’s really out of it. Sometimes he has to pull over when we’re driving. He sleeps during lunch. And then he comes home and eats like some crazy starving animal. And Dimple thinks he’s possessed.”

Her father sighed. “Is that everything?”

Amina nodded, feeling foolish.

“Not everything!” Kamala interjected. “He needs to see another doctor! Right now! Take him!”

“I told you he doesn’t—” Thomas started.

“Yes HE DOES. I AM TELLING YOU HE DOES.”

“Does what?” Akhil asked, his voice cottony with sleep. They turned to him, but no one said anything.

“What’s going on?” Akhil asked.

“You’re awake.” An unsurprised Thomas took a sip of his scotch.

“Yeah.”

“What day is it?”

Akhil stared groggily. “What?”

“Day of the week. Monday, Tuesday—”

“Thursday.”

“What’s the date?”

Akhil frowned. “Is this a test?”

“Yes,” Thomas answered.

Akhil blinked several times before saying, “January 12, 1983.”

“Why are you sleeping so much?” Kamala demanded.

Akhil looked at Amina, his face darkening with accusation. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, of course not,” Thomas said.

Akhil slumped back into the chair. He looked at his father, frowning. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s early.”

“Your mother called me home.”

“Why?”

No one said anything. Kamala bit her lips together, blew air in puffs through her nose.

“What is going on?” Akhil looked warily from one to the other. Amina shrugged.

“Something is wrong with you!” Kamala shouted.

Akhil’s eyes rounded. “What?”

“Kamala!”

“Wrong with me?”

“Your mother was just worried, and now she’s not,” Thomas said. “Don’t worry yourself.”

“Don’t say how I am!”

“Kamala, enough. You’re scaring him.”

“I’m not scaring anyone! Reagan could be deporting all of us tomorrow, and he would sleep like a baby!”

“We’re being deported?” Akhil asked.

“Listen, he’s fine—”

“He is not fine! He’s sleeping all the time like some kind of infant! His brain is going soft! He’s turning into furniture! You’re too busy in the hospital all the time with your precious patients — strangers! — and here your own son is dying and you won’t even—”

“I’m DYING?” Akhil sat up.

“HE’S GROWING!” Thomas bellowed, his voice slapping the ceiling. “My God, Kamala, nothing is wrong with him. He’s a regular boy in the middle of a growth spurt! You and your ridiculous wringing your hands and good Lord, it doesn’t take a doctor to know these things — just look at him! LOOK AT HIM!”

Amina followed her father’s arm, an arrow of accusation tipped by a trembling finger, pointing straight toward Akhil. She looked at her brother. She really looked at him. And for the first time, she saw that his arms had grown thinner and longer as if stretched, knuckles grazing the carpet as he slouched into the chair. And his legs. Bulkier in the thigh, hard-looking, like twin benches attached to his torso. Her eyes moved up to his scowling face and saw that the acne had sucked back into his cheeks, leaving tiny craters in its place. And his cheekbones. They were too huge suddenly, swollen into arcs that hardened his face into a new, lunar topography. He blinked. He stood up. Amina backed up.

“Done?” Her brother’s voice was tight with fury.

“Yes,” Thomas said.

Akhil stalked across the room. Moments later, his feet trampled the stairs. A bedroom door slammed above them. Kamala stared at her husband. She opened her mouth to say something and then shut it.

“Kamala, you were scaring—”

The flat of her palm silenced him. She turned and left the living room, sari swishing against the bare floor. Another door slammed.

Thomas tipped the rest of the scotch into his mouth, swallowed. He walked over to the couch and sank into it. “Go if you want.”

Amina stayed.

Her father placed his elbows on his knees, his forehead in his hands. A face mask hung loosely from his neck. His scrubs were dotted with blood. He looked up at the television. “What’s this show?”

“Wheel of Fortune. They’re trying to guess a word.”

“Huh.” He looked confused.

“Or a saying. You know, like ‘tears of a clown.’ Or ‘from dusk till dawn.’ ”

She sat down next to him on the couch and turned up the volume, but her father had lost interest.

“What’s that?” she said, pointing to the box with the antenna.

“It’s a telephone.”

“Where’s the cord?”

“It doesn’t have one. It’s a new thing, a phone that can go where you go. Soon they say they’ll be making them for cars.”

“Why would anyone phone someone from a car?”

Thomas shrugged. “For directions?”

“Huh.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“What’s that?” he pointed at her plate.

“It’s a snackument. Ritz crackers and cheese in a can. You can eat it.”

“What kind of cheese comes in a can?”

Amina grabbed the can. “Hold out your finger.”

“The sun will come out tomorrow!” a cheery voice announced, and a flurry of lit tiles ding-ding-dinged on the television.

Her father held out his finger, and Amina decorated it with swirls of yellow cheddar. Vanna turned the lit tiles over. The winning contestant got a new car and a vacation to Phoenix, Arizona. When Amina was done, her father held his finger to the light, turning it this way and that so that it glistened.

“The wonders of America,” Thomas said. He placed the finger in his mouth and sucked it.

CHAPTER 2

Two days after Thomas had pronounced Akhil’s sleep nothing more than a growth spurt, Kamala settled on a cure for it. Amina, curled into an armchair with a copy of Heart of Darkness, barely noticed as her mother lifted Akhil’s legs and settled herself under them on the sofa. Kamala opened the first volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and cleared her throat.

“Anguilla,” she announced.

“What?” Amina said.

“The most northerly of the British Leeward Islands,” Kamala read, underlining the words with her extended middle finger. “Area, about sixty square miles.”

“What are you doing?”

Kamala jerked her head at the sleeping Akhil.

“Oh,” Amina nodded.

Her mother squinted, refinding her place. “The first inhabitants of the islands were—”

“Wait,” Amina said. “Why Anguilla?”

“I’m starting with A’s.”

“You’re going to read them all?”

“No, dummy, just the good ones. I skipped Akrotiri, Afghanistan.” Kamala cleared her throat and resumed: “The first Amerindians settled on Anguilla about three thousand five hundred years ago. Archaeological finds indicate that the island was a regional center for the Arawak Indians, who had sizeable villages at Sandy Ground, Meads Bay, Rendezvous Bay, and Island Harbor. The Caribe Indians, who eventually overpowered the Arawaks, called the island Malliouhana. Early Spanish explorers named the island Anguilla, which means ‘eel.’ ”

“You think he’s going to wake up for this?”

Her mother looked over her reading glasses. “Of course not.”

“Because he can’t hear you.”

“Not true. I read they can hear you and they understand and it calms them.”

“They?”

“Coma patients.”

“Akhil isn’t in a coma.”

“Doesn’t matter. His brain will be stimulated.”

“By Anguilla?”

“Amina, I do not have all day. Someone has to make the dinner and set the table, and you can either shut up your mouth now or you can go to your room!” The last part came out in a yell, and Akhil’s eyes cracked open. They blinked twice in the land of the awake like a sea mammal penetrating the surface of the ocean and then shut again. Kamala watched and turned to the encyclopedia with renewed fervor. “The British established the first permanent European colony on Anguilla in 1650.”

Amina stared at the glossy green cover of Heart of Darkness. She did not want to go to her room. She did not want to listen to her mother read about Anguilla.

“Despite a few invasion attempts by the French, Anguilla has remained a Crown Colony ever since. Then in 1969 the British Royal Marines were going to go in and kill everyone for order and it would have been a bloodbath, but those people treated it like an independence day parade.”

“It says that?”

“No, I just remember that part.”

Amina put Heart of Darkness down. She listened to the brief history of Anguilla, watching the lines on her mother’s face soften, her cheeks grow fuller, suddenly plump with purpose.

“The currency is the Eastern Caribbean, though the dollar is widely accepted,” Kamala said, closing the book with a muffled thump.

Amina looked at her. “That’s all?”

“That’s all for now.” Kamala struggled to lean over Akhil’s legs and placed the unwieldy book at the foot of the couch with a thump.

“Legs,” she said. Amina stood up and walked over to the couch, wedging her arms under Akhil’s legs and lifting them up. Kamala slid out, stood up, wobbling a little. She took off her reading glasses and smoothed down her sari, pulling it tight over one shoulder.

“Now what?” Amina asked, dropping her brother’s legs. He rolled farther into the couch, burying his face in the seam.

“Now dinner. Come and set the table.”

The next night was asteroids. The next was Athens. Amina went to her room for Australia (she had done a report on it in fourth grade, using the same encyclopedia) but came back the next night armed with her camera.

“The Aztec calendar utilized a 260-day year and a 52-year time cycle,” her mother read, and Amina crouched so that she was taking in the full length of her brother, his feet growing like strange roots out of Kamala’s sari.

By John Wilkes Booth, Amina was on her sixth roll of film, and the family had entered an entirely new phase, one that would fill her with peace when thinking about it later. It wasn’t just the muzzle on Akhil’s vitriol that sent calm down the hallways like the scent of summer, it was the soothing sound of Kamala’s reading, the triumph that bloomed in her eyes with each finished passage. January’s snowstorms began, settling thin white blankets over the cottonwoods and ice over the ditches, and Amina wandered outside to get pictures of her mother and brother through the living room window, tight in their coziness. The days began to grow fractionally longer, Kamala moved on to Catholicism and cicadas, and, as though responding to the incantation of a spell, Akhil’s eyes began to crack open for increasingly longer intervals. He would listen wordlessly, watching the ceiling as though it were another galaxy.

CHAPTER 3

Akhil woke from the Big Sleep during da Vinci. Kamala was just launching into the sad account of the rapidly eroding Last Supper when he said his first full sentence.

“I want to paint a mural.” His tongue darted out, licking dry lips.

A mural? Amina leaned forward to see if his eyes were really open. They were.

“On the ceiling,” he clarified. “In my bedroom.”

It was early February. Outside, the prairie grass had flattened into grayish yellow slicks, and a northern wind blew against the tin roof, making the house creak. Kamala put the book down and turned to him.

Akhil looked at her. “Can I?”

“Okay.”

“Really?”

Kamala nodded slowly. When he smiled at her, she patted his legs and he lifted them. Open sesame. Kamala stood and walked toward the hall with a sleepwalker’s disregard for her surroundings. “Let’s go, then.”

“Now?” Akhil asked.

“Now?” Amina echoed.

“Ben Franklin’s closes at eight.”

In the store, under the glare of fluorescent lighting, Kamala and Amina pushed the cart forward while Akhil gathered big tubs of powdered tempera paint. He strolled the aisle ahead of them, pants hanging slack around bony hips, three inches of sock exposed at his ankles.

“So much of white?” Kamala asked, peering into the basket.

“It’s for mixing.”

“Ah.” She smoothed her braid down one shoulder, glancing at the tubes of oil paints hung like bats from the displays on either side of them.

“I’ve got to find the brushes,” Akhil said, turning left abruptly and wandering into the fluorescent haze.

“Ma,” Amina said anxiously when he was gone.

“Mmm?” Kamala had pulled one of the tubes down and now cradled it in cupped palms. “Cadmium yellow! Should we buy it?”

“What? No! That’s oil paint! It’s expensive!”

Kamala turned over the tube, eyebrows shooting up at the price tag. “My God, no jokes!” She placed it back on the shelf. “Oh well.”

“Ma, what are we doing?”

“We’re buying Akhil paint for his mural.”

“Akhil doesn’t have a mural.”

“Because he doesn’t have any paint.”

Amina moved the cart to the left as a woman with half a cart full of pink yarn passed. “But he’s never painted anything in his life!”

“So? First time for everything, nah?”

Amina bit a little of her thumbnail off, spit it into the aisle. “Well, can I get more film?”

“We just bought you film last week.”

“One roll. I need more.”

“You’re using it too fast.”

“No I’m not! Ma, seriously.” Amina pulled into the model-plane aisle. “And besides, how do you know he’s even going to do anything with this stuff? That he’s not going to fall back asleep tomorrow until June?”

Kamala didn’t answer her, marveling at a bin of sea sponges.

At the register, they bought one full set of tempera paint, three extra tubs of white, six paintbrushes in various sizes, a stenciling kit, and a sea sponge.

“Really, Mom, I don’t need it,” Akhil protested about the sponge.

“You might!”

“For what?” Amina glared at the entire contents of the basket.

“For effects, dummy!” Kamala handed the clerk at the register her credit card, smiling in a conspiratorial way. “My son is an artist.”

“I told you why Guevara, right?”

“Yes.”

They were taking a detour across the west mesa, driving at a thundering pace, the graded dirt road under them making Akhil’s voice vibrate.

“Because, you know, the prophecy wasn’t totally clear on who to pick. So that part is up to me. And I recognize that Che comes with certain complications, but I think it’s important to recognize the spirit of a true revolutionary.”

By “the prophecy,” Akhil was referring to a recurring dream he had had during the Big Sleep, giving him a glimpse into a future in which he was destined to be “a great leader among other greats.” (“Like Madonna?” Amina had asked. “Like Mandela,” he had answered.) While the hard details of exactly what Akhil saw in his future were never revealed (Was he strolling through the U.N.? Flying Air Force One? Sitting in an expensive leather desk chair that swiveled?), the way he would reach his destiny was clear: He would paint a mural of the Greats. It would harbinger change. And now, one week later, he had already fashioned a collage that would serve as the basis for the mural, reimagining the Sandias as a sort of Rushmore-esque homage to Gandhi, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Rob Halford.

“I told you why Mandela, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just such a crime, what they’ve done to him. I mean, if you really think about—”

“You told me. I have.”

Contrary to Amina’s belief that he would buy all the paints and pass out from sheer exertion, Akhil had woken up with a bang, rejoining the Mathletes, rephrasing his political convictions, and stalking from one end of the campus to the other with newly hewn limbs. He was big now, man-sized, a fact that was not lost on Mindy Lujan, of all people.

“Hey, Amina, is that your brother?” she asked one afternoon as they sat on neighboring benches in the quad. Amina, startled by being personally addressed for the first time all year, almost didn’t understand the question. She looked where Mindy pointed. Akhil was striding out of the science building in the first pair of jeans that had fit him since November and a leather bomber jacket, recent gifts from an overjoyed Kamala.

“Yeah.”

“He’s fucking sexy. Like, the Indian James Dean or something.”

Akhil dug his hands deeper into his pockets, appearing to mutter to himself.

“Gross,” Dimple said.

“What?”

“He’s my cousin.”

Mindy crossed her legs. “So you can introduce us.”

“No way.”

“What, you want him for yourself?”

Dimple snorted. “Dis. Gus. Ting.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I’m not doing it.”

“Fine.”

Three days later Amina found them sitting on the hood of the station wagon, Dimple with legs and arms crossed, Mindy with bare legs in front of her, as though it were not February and barely warm in the direct sunlight. She waved as Amina approached.

“Hey! Where’ve you been?”

Amina scowled at Dimple. “Getting my prints from the darkroom.”

“Oh yeah, Dimple said you’re totally into your photography class or something.” Mindy eyed her notebook. “Can I see?”

“Amina is sort of private about her work,” Dimple said, flashing Amina a look. “I haven’t even seen them, right, Ami?”

“Here.” Amina handed Mindy the notebook.

“Cool.” Mindy thumped the small space between her and Dimple, who looked visibly uncomfortable. “Come on up. Let’s see.”

The hood of the car was warmer than Amina thought it would be, pressing into the backs of her thighs with the promise of spring and soft grass. She opened the notebook. The first photo was all hands and feet: her mother’s gnarled fingers clutching the B — Bi volume; Akhil’s feet oddly flexed forward and backward, like he was performing a ballet in another world; Akhil sleeping with a pillow over his head; Akhil eating dinner with his head in his hands. The last picture was Akhil in what Kamala had called the “Our Lord and Savior” position, head hanging over the edge of the couch, mouth open, back arched over the armrest, arms flung apart as though to embrace the ceiling. The hollow of his stomach disappeared into jeans that Amina now realized were unzipped.

“Shhhhhhhit,” Mindy breathed.

“He’s got a breath issue,” Dimple said. Mindy flipped the picture over. “So, I can have it?”

Amina felt herself warm, though she wasn’t sure if it was because she was pleased to be asked for the picture or because she didn’t want to give it away. Mindy leaned closer, her eyes reflecting the burgundy hood of the car, the shadow of Amina’s head. Her glossy lips parted to reveal rows of curiously small teeth, and Amina felt an astounding urge to rub noses with her, or purr, or roll over.

“Fucking finally,” Dimple said. Amina turned to see Akhil walking across the parking lot, head ducked to his chest, one hand dug deep into his jeans pocket. He looked up suddenly and came to a halt.

“What are you doing here?” It wasn’t exactly clear whom he was asking, as he looked from Amina to Mindy to Dimple and back to Amina.

“Looking at pictures of you naked,” Mindy said.

“Not naked,” Amina said quickly. “Just sleeping. I have ones of Mom, too. And Dad,” she lied.

“Pictures?”

Before Amina could protest, Mindy grabbed the photo from her lap, thrusting it at Akhil. Amina watched her brother take it in, her gut sinking as his brow furrowed. He looked up at her again but didn’t say anything. He unlocked the car door, threw his books into the back.

“I told you he’s a freak,” Dimple said. “He flips out all the time for no reason.”

Mindy slid off the hood as the engine started. She opened the passenger door and leaned down. “Can I get a ride?”

“To Corrales?” Dimple asked.

“Yeah.” Mindy swayed slightly. Akhil’s gaze, trapped in the crease between her breasts, swayed with her. Mindy smiled, drawing his eyes to her face.

“Do whatever you want,” he said, and Mindy eased into the passenger seat. She unlocked the back door for Amina, who got into the car, feeling a little sick and thrilled with the oddness of it all. Dimple’s mouth was a hard slash through the window as they drove away.

Amina wasn’t totally sure where one should be when one’s brother was being seduced, but she was pretty sure the backseat was not the right place. She stared into the rearview mirror, trying to catch Akhil’s eye, but her brother wasn’t looking back or even at Mindy. He was slouching behind the wheel, his right knee at an odd angle, as though it were being magnetically drawn to the passenger’s seat.

They weren’t two minutes into the drive when Mindy reached into her bag and pulled out a cigarette. She turned to Akhil. “Do you mind?”

Akhil glanced down. “Is that a joint?”

“Yeah. Do you smoke?”

“Yeah.”

“No you don’t,” Amina said, but if they heard her, they didn’t answer. Mindy pulled out a lighter and sucked in, pinching the tip before handing it to Akhil. He took it.

“So, fucking Corrales, huh?” Mindy exhaled. The car filled with a rich, funky odor, and Amina coughed.

Akhil took a tiny puff and held it in, nodding. He handed it back to her.

“You want some?” Mindy turned around.

“No!” Akhil said. “She’s a fucking kid.”

“Oops! Sorry.”

“It stinks,” Amina said.

“It’s skunk,” Mindy replied, and Amina sat back, baffled.

“So how long you guys lived in Corrales?”

“I don’t know. Nine years.”

“Cool. I have an aunt that lives in Rio Rancho.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Rio Rancho sucks,” Amina said.

Mindy looked over her shoulder and laughed, her hand landing on Akhil’s knee. “Doesn’t it? It’s like the old-person capital of the state.”

“TB survivors,” Akhil said, taking the joint back.

“What?”

“A lot of them are tuberculosis survivors. The climate is easy on their lungs.”

“Fascinating.” Mindy turned so that she was leaning against the passenger door, her body facing Akhil’s. “So what else do you know?”

“About what?”

“About other things.”

“Other things?”

“About Indian things.”

“Indian things?”

Mindy squeezed his knee. “Kama Sutra?”

Akhil looked like he’d been hit with a bad smell. He knocked her hand away, and a nervous swell rose in Amina’s stomach. Would they pull over right there, on Coors Road? Would he yell furiously, or talk extra slowly to make each word hit harder? Would his speech be about racism or appropriation, or would he just tell Mindy she was a big fat nothing? Anything was possible. Amina imagined the heat-blurred silhouette of Mindy in the rearview mirror, waiting for some low-rider to pity her and give her a lift back to school.

Akhil said nothing. Mindy slid her hand to his upper thigh, squeezed again. He did not remove it.

“Where’s your brother?” Kamala asked, some forty minutes later.

“Dunno.”

“What do you mean don’t know?”

“I’m reading,” Amina lied. She fanned the pages of the book with her thumb. She hadn’t really been able to read at all, had only circled the words Kurtz, green, and river.

Kamala frowned. “Did he go somewhere?”

“He’s out.”

“Out where?”

Amina shrugged. After they dropped her at the head of the driveway, Amina had watched the car roll fifty yards down the dirt road.

“Hey! Idiot!” Kamala snapped oniony fingers in front of her face. “Where did he go?”

Amina sighed. “Jesus.”

“What Jesus? I’m asking you a simple question, and you’re sitting like some deaf-mute.”

“I’m trying to read.”

Kamala grabbed Amina’s left ear, twisted hard.

“Ow! God! He just went to Ben Franklin’s for paint! He’ll be back soon!”

Kamala let go. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

“What the hell does it matter? He’s out doing whatever he wants, and it’s not like we have to keep track of him every shitty second of the day!” Amina rubbed her ear.

“No cursing!”

“Leave me alone, then!”

Kamala scrunched her face and abruptly held a cool palm to Amina’s forehead. “You’re having a hormonal episode,” she announced.

Three hours later Akhil sat at the dinner table looking like he’d gotten a once-over from an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. Hair stuck out from his head in charged puffs, a half-inch circumference around his mouth was swollen and pink, and his left ear glistened gooily. His hooded sweatshirt was oddly bungled around his throat, as though hurricane-level winds had whipped it into a knot. Kamala passed the potatoes.

“So you’re the team captain again?”

Akhil took a spoonful of vegetables. “Uh-huh.”

Kamala scooped two more spoonfuls onto his plate. She followed with a leg of chicken, three spoonfuls of yogurt and cabbage, and two chapatis. “How many people are on the team?”

“Can I have one?” Amina asked.

Kamala reached for the water pitcher, filling their glasses. “Ten? Twelve?”

Akhil’s fingers pressed tenderly at his ear before migrating to his mouth. “Six.”

“And all are National Merit semifinalists?”

“Yeah.” Akhil rubbed his nose, then stopped, sniffing his fingers.

“I tell you, in India we competed in maths all the time, but there was never a real tournament — such a good idea! A sport that tests the mettle of the mind!”

“That’s not really a sport,” Amina said.

“Not true! What do you think chess is?”

“Not a sport either.”

“Shut up, idiot box! You know your grandfather was the champion chess player of Madras Christian College and went on to become the—”

“Semifinalist for the All-India Chess Championships. Yeah. You told me.”

“Well, you’re in a fine mood today, Miss Impressed with Everything. Maybe you should try using your brain for something instead of criticizing everyone. Maybe you should try leading a team of — Akhil, what’s wrong with your ear?” Kamala pointed a serving spoon at him.

“Nothing.”

“You keep fiddling with it. It’s infected? Come, let me look.”

“No.” Akhil leaned back. “No, it’s fine.”

“But it’s swollen, no?”

Akhil shook his head, and the sweatshirt around his neck slipped to reveal a pulpy bruise.

“Oh my God!” Kamala stood up. “Oh my God, you’ve been hit!”

“What?” Akhil looked at Amina, who pointed a finger at her own neck.

Akhil slapped a hand over the bruise. “No. Nothing. It’s nothing, Ma.”

“Who did this to you?” Kamala demanded. “Those boys?”

“No one, Ma, it’s nothing—”

“What nothing? You’ve been beaten! Was it the same boys as last year? Mr. No Good Martinez and his thuggy band of goondas?”

“No, I swear—”

But she was already rising from the table. “Mesa Preparatory code of honor my foot! They said it wouldn’t happen again, and now this! Why didn’t you say anything? When did this happen? I’m calling your father.”

“No! Don’t!”

But Kamala was already walking quickly to the kitchen, hand held in front of her like a weapon.

“Do something!” Akhil whispered, hurrying after her.

“Like what?” Amina followed.

In the kitchen, their mother punched the buttons on the phone with her middle finger, pointing it at them when she finished dialing. “Thugs! I saw it on the Eyewitness News, gangs coming to Albuquerque with their initiations and putting ideas in the heads of teenagers! Yes, operator, can you have Dr. Eapen kindly call home? His son has been beaten to a bloody—”

“It wasn’t a boy!” Amina shouted.

Kamala stopped talking, her mouth puckered over her next word.

“It wasn’t a boy,” Amina repeated.

Her mother put the phone back in the cradle. “A girl?”

Akhil nodded.

“A girl beat you?”

“He wasn’t beaten,” Amina said. “It’s a hickey.”

Kamala’s eyes widened. “Who?”

“The thing. On his neck. It’s like a kiss, but sort of hard. Like a sucking kiss. He was with Mindy Lujan. That’s where he was when you asked. That’s why—”

Kamala waved a frantic hand and Amina stopped talking. Her mother stood dead still, palms flat against the counter like she was holding it in place. She looked at them, her mouth twisting at the corners, and Amina realized she was trying not to cry.

“Oh, Mom …,” Akhil started, but Kamala’s lips just stretched tight and thin and paper-flat, as though they could be torn. She walked around the counter to her purse and picked it up, stuffing it under one arm. Then she went out of the kitchen and down the hall and out the front door, opening her car door and slamming it with a thump. They watched her pull out of the driveway.

“Thanks a fucking lot, Amina.”

“You said to do something.”

“Shut up.”

It took four hours for Kamala to come home. Amina knew because she was awake, wondering if it was possible to lose both parents to the difficulties of living in America. Could their mother really just leave them, too? Was that all it took, one good fight and members of her family would drive off down the driveway forever?

But then came the noise of the car, the keys landing on the countertop. Kamala hushed the dog’s whining with the low hum of Malayalam. Footsteps and paw steps made their way across the house and the bottom stair creaked as Kamala climbed up to the kids’ landing. Amina hurriedly arranged herself into something she thought a mother would feel good about coming back to — back straight, nightie smoothed. A good girl. A Girl Scout. But Kamala didn’t knock on her door. She didn’t knock on Akhil’s either. Amina stared at the brass knob, listening to what sounded like rustling and fleeing, Kamala’s steps softer on the stairs as she hurried slipslapslipslapslip down.

Amina got up. She tiptoed across her room and opened the door as silently as she could, peeking into the hallway. Nothing. No Kamala, no Queen Victoria, no one to look intrepid for. But wait. She squinted. Yes, there was something. A paper bag. It sat outside Akhil’s door, as familiar and mystical as a lawn gnome. Amina slid across the floor in her socks and knelt in front of it, dumping out the contents. A box fell to the floor. Small, neat, not much bigger than her hand. She turned it over, looking at the picture of a couple silhouetted by the sunset. LATEX, bold letters proclaimed, and with the proclamation, Amina understood that she had no business with it whatsoever. She shoved it back into the bag and half ran back to her bedroom, diving under the covers.

The next morning the bag was gone. Akhil did not say anything about it as they ate their toast alone in the kitchen. And Kamala did not come out at all, even as they washed the dishes and packed their bags for school, though Amina thought she caught a glimpse of her mother’s dark head looking through the dining room window as they pulled out of the driveway.

CHAPTER 4

Nobody at Mesa Prep was prepared for the mid-semester arrival of Paige and Jamie Anderson. By late February, any luster of new lives or new possibilities had been dulled into the routine of schedules and cliques. Students clustered in the quad in the morning, bored to death with one another and staring sullenly toward the parking lot, as though daring it to spit out something worth looking at. So there was a pause as the two figures crested the asphalt horizon, a round of glances exchanged. Bodies turned slightly on benches. Words trailed off into the morning. Were they real?

Wearing down coats, hiking boots, and blank faces that gave nothing away, Paige and Jamie arrived like orphans, a hint of tragedy, bravery, and unmentionable events following them with the persistence of a shadow.

“Who’s that, Snow Fucking White and the Disco Dwarf?” Mindy said, watching them cross the lawn that first morning.

“Shut it, Mindy,” Akhil said, proving that while Mindy’s remark was overzealous, her move to ostracize the Andersons was actually highly instinctual, the tactical response of one species whose time has been eclipsed by another. There was a palpable knowingness, along with several other features, on the approaching Andersons that would wipe the likes of Mindy Lujan off the Mesa Preparatory map, including:

1. Paige’s thighs (curvy)

2. Paige’s breasts (hidden by her white jacket, but clearly visible in outline, like croquet balls covered in snow)

3. Paige’s neck (long)

4. Paige’s cheeks (ruddy)

5. Paige’s mouth (large and slightly blurry at the edges, as if the lips hadn’t been told where to end themselves)

6. Paige’s hair (shiny, black, bobbed)

7. Jamie’s Afro (huge)

To be clear, Jamie’s Afro (yes, he was white, but what else to call it?) was not in itself attractive, but somehow the sheer wildness of it, with outer limits reaching a blond radius twice as wide as his actual head, served as a brilliant counterpoint to his sister’s tidy black locks, baby’s breath to her rosebud. It made her, if possible, more perfect. No one said anything else as they walked past, disappearing into the dean’s building.

“What’s their deal?” Akhil said as they were lost to the bright glare of the closing door.

“Only one way to find out.” Dimple slid her books off the concrete bench and followed them.

Unsurprisingly, it was Dimple who broke the first legitimate scoop on the Andersons, some four hours later in biology class. She walked in past the chalkboard, where the words interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase swirled yellow against green, and winked at Amina. When Ms. Pankeridge stepped out of the room five minutes later to find more pipe cleaners for the mitosis models, Dimple announced, “They’re intellectual refugees.”

“What?” Hank Franken asked, working his pinkie finger steadily into a Styrofoam ball.

“The Andersons. They got kicked out of St. Francis’s.”

“Bullshit. Says who?”

“Says them.”

“Hicked hout?” Gina Rodgers asked, her lips clamped over two pipe cleaners.

“That’s why they’re here now. Apparently their grandfather had to bribe the school or something so Paige could graduate on time.”

“Kicked out for what?” Amina asked, and Dimple smiled like she’d won the $25,000 question.

“Atheism.”

A small murmur went up in the room, followed by a few nervous glances. While everyone knew better than to actually believe in God, the outright denial of one seemed dangerous and possibly gauche.

“Can they really kick you out for atheism?” Amina asked.

“They’ll kick you out for anything,” said Hank, his fingers now deeply rooted in five separate balls so that when he raised his hand, it looked like half a solar system. “Those nuns are relentless.”

“What exactly did they tell you?” Amina asked.

“Well,” Dimple began, looking coolly around the room, “when I asked him why they were starting here in the middle of the second semester, he said because legally, the U.S. required schooling until the age of sixteen, and that St. Francis’s had become untenable for him. So then I said, well, thank God they had room for you here so late in the year, and he said God had nothing to do with it, his grandfather’s checkbook did.”

“And that makes him an atheist?” Amina asked.

“Pretty much,” Dimple said.

After dinner, Akhil stood stoned on an aluminum ladder, head, hand, neck, and wrist all craned toward the ceiling. Downstairs, they could hear Kamala cleaning the dinner dishes, bursting with the first bars of “The Sound of Music” every few minutes.

“Dimple says they got kicked out for being atheists or something,” Amina said, lying on Akhil’s bed.

“That’s a load of crap.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Paige is in Mathletes.”

“So you talked to her?”

He looked from the piece of paper in his hand to the ceiling, studying it for long seconds before drawing a single long, skinny line. “Does Che look like a girl?”

“Is he the bald one?”

“Fuck you. The bald one is Gandhi. You can tell because of his glasses.” Akhil climbed back up. “And anyway, of course I didn’t talk to her.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s, you know.” Akhil mashed the paintbrush down in the can. “Pretty.”

“And Mindy will get jealous?”

“No. We broke up yesterday anyway. I mean, we’re still, you know, seeing each other, but we’ve decided not to be exclusive. But anyway, Paige told Mr. Jones that her father didn’t think St. Francis’s was academically rigorous enough. You really don’t think that looks like Gandhi?”

“It looks like a baby.”

“But the eyes are good, right?”

“Kind of, but they’re in the wrong place.”

“Oh, that’s all? Fucking great.”

“Make them lower.” She went to his desk, opened up his history spiral. She drew an egg on the paper and then drew a light line across the middle. “Like this. Everyone always thinks eyes go high on the head but they’re usually more in the middle of it.”

Akhil was quiet, pink eyes scanning the paper. “Hey, Ami, maybe you could—”

“No.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“No. How much?”

“Two bucks a night.”

“Three.”

“Please? I’ll take you to Coronado mall this weekend.”

“Two seventy-five.”

Akhil groaned. “Seriously. Please.”

Amina considered it. This money, combined with what she was making on Akhil’s “flash sleeps,” as she’d begun to think of them, would put her in fine contention for getting at least an extra roll of film a week. “Fine, two. But just the drawing. I’m not painting anything.”

“Deal.” He looked back down at the paper. “Where do the mouths go?”

“Dunno.” Amina took the pencil from him and started up the ladder. “I’m bad with mouths.”

CHAPTER 5

“The river is crucial to understanding every other element in these pages,” Mr. Tipton said the next day, holding up Heart of Darkness. “Who can tell me what it signifies?”

The door opened, sending in cool air and swiveling heads from the board to the doorway. Amina saw the fuzz of the blond Afro, then studied her notebook as the rest of Jamie Anderson materialized. Mr. Tipton crossed the carpet to shake his hand.

“Welcome,” he said with a broad smile. “We were expecting you yesterday. Jamie?”

The Afro bobbed.

“Well, come in. Dean Farber tells me you’ve transferred in from St. Francis’s?”

“Yeah,” Jamie said. His voice was slightly muffled and husky, as though he was getting over a cold.

“And before that you lived in Chicago?”

“My dad was a professor at the University of Chicago.”

“Ah, I see,” Mr. Tipton said, his eyes sparkling with appreciation. “Well, welcome. Take a seat.”

Jamie looked around the room. He looked at the empty seat next to Amina and then chose the one directly across the classroom, sliding into it. His eyes flicked up. They were a deep, unnerving green, protected by ferocious eyebrows.

“So, Mr. Anderson, in the last two weeks, we’ve plunged straight into Heart of Darkness,” Mr. Tipton said. “Everyone else has read the first hundred pages, so you’ll need to catch up over the weekend. Meanwhile, I don’t suppose you brought a copy?”

Jamie lifted the paperback. The cover was different from the one available at the Mesa bookstore.

“Great,” Mr. Tipton said. “So who in the class can fill Jamie in on the broad themes in the book? Amina?”

“It’s okay, I’ve read it,” Jamie said, to her utter relief.

“Really? I was told St. Francis’s doesn’t cover this particular work until senior year.”

“I read it on my own over the summer.”

“Oh! Great! So I expect you’ve got some insight into some of the prevalent themes.”

“Maybe,” Jamie said.

Amina’s stomach clenched with nervousness, as though she were being ratcheted up a ramp on a roller coaster. Maybe?

“So we were talking about the river,” Mr. Tipton said, hands jamming back into his pockets. He rocked on the balls of his feet. “Who can tell me what the river is?”

“Life.”

“Death.”

“A journey.”

“Obsession.”

“Good!” Mr. Tipton said. “These are all good thoughts. Jamie, anything to add?”

Jamie tugged at his left ear. “A river.”

The collective titter gave way to a tingling silence. Mr. Tipton did not smile. “That’s all?”

“In a sense.”

“In what sense, exactly?”

Jamie shrugged his shoulders.

“No, no,” Mr. Tipton said, “go on, I’m interested. Please tell us in what sense the river is just a river.”

Jamie muttered a little, his ears reddening, and Amina shifted in her seat.

“No? Okay, let’s move on,” Mr. Tipton said, resuming his pacing. “So. A journey. What kind of jour—”

“In the sense that in order to experience this book, really experience it, the best thing anyone can do is to get rid of the need to label every symbol in it.” The flush spread fast over Jamie’s face, covering everything but the white half-moons under his eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, if you’re really plunging — you said plunging, right? — into this book, then tethering yourself to every single guidepost along the way isn’t really going to make that happen.”

Mr. Tipton’s mirth was palpable. “So you think critical reading is a useless activity? That your classmates are just, what, not experiencing the book?”

“I think the best way to experience this book is to let it happen to you and think about what it all means later.”

“Later when?”

“Later when you’re a high school English teacher.”

Amina was sure she wasn’t the only one who gasped audibly, but somehow it was her face that Jamie locked onto. She swallowed.

“Mr. Anderson, let’s take a minute in the hall, shall we?”

Jamie got up and walked out first. Mr. Tipton carefully placed down his chalk and walked out after him.

“Holy shit,” someone laughed, and someone else let out a low whistle, the kind reserved for pretty girls and danger.

The mouths were disastrous. Every single one of them. She hadn’t drawn them well, to be sure, but the mural had taken a turn for the worse when Akhil insisted that all the lips be shades of pink or peach. The Greats had the smiles of country club mothers.

But if the failure registered at all with Akhil, he wasn’t showing it as he led Kamala down the halls to see the progress.

“Let me see, let me see,” Kamala said giddily, as though Akhil wasn’t doing just that. The door to his bedroom swung open, and Amina let her eyes rise to the ceiling, seeing, for the first time, how the mural darkened the ceiling like a gargantuan spider. Kamala circled under it, hands clasped over her heart.

“Fantastic!” she said.

Akhil, too pleased to hide a smile, looked away.

“Who are they?”

“In order, they’re Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Che Guevara, and Rob Halford.”

“Of course they are! Which one is Gandhi?”

“The one with glasses.”

Kamala squinted.

Akhil sighed. “The one on the left.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Kamala smiled enthusiastically. “And who is this baldy fellow over here?”

“Rob Halford.”

“He’s lead singer of Judas Priest,” Amina explained.

“Lovely,” said Kamala. She looked so tiny in Akhil’s room, gazing at the ceiling and hugging herself tightly, as if to keep her joy close to her. “And now what? You’ll do more? Or something else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe the sky?”

Akhil frowned, looking at the ceiling. “The sky?”

“You know, for background. Use the sponge!”

“Oh, yeah. Good idea, Ma.”

“Good idea,” Kamala repeated. She and Akhil studied the ceiling together, heads turning this way and that while Amina watched from the bed. “It’s really good, Akhil. I can’t believe you did this whole thing by yourself.” Kamala hesitated before reaching out to gently squeeze Akhil’s shoulder. She let go of it quickly, walking out the door before he could turn to see the tenderness on her face.

The sky began that night, tattered clouds making their way across an orange and red sunset. Below them, a crucifix-shaped flock of snow geese flew into endless twilight. As an afterthought, Akhil also labeled each of the Greats, block letters making clear what artistic longing could not.

CHAPTER 6

Had she known it was going to be an exercise in complete humiliation, Amina would not have come to the dance at all. As it was, she sat in a whirlpool of disco lights trying not to watch every single person in the entire school (including Akhil, including Dimple) make out with someone else. It wasn’t easy. God knows she had already scrutinized the streamers scaling the gymnasium walls, the monster-large speakers floating over sweet-smelling smoke, the disco ball spinning like the eye of a Cyclops. “Only the Lonely” blared through the speakers like some kind of cosmic taunt.

She hated it. She hated the lights and her shoes and her hair and the fact that the wistfulness of the singer’s voice made her wish for a nuclear war or an earthquake or really anything that might make someone else want to kiss her.

“What are you thinking about?” A face spinning with white stars leaned over hers, and Amina shot up straight, almost smashing into it. Jamie Anderson stood beside her, jean jacket collar turned up, some sort of velour shirt underneath. Colored lights illuminated his enormous puff of curls, making him look like a candied dandelion.

“What?”

“You look like you’re thinking about something.”

“Bombs,” Amina said, wishing instantly she hadn’t.

Jamie nodded, like of course she was thinking of bombs. “The ones in the mountain?”

Amina looked at him warily.

“By Kirtland Air Force Base,” he said. “You know what I’m talking about.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, or why he was even talking to her at all, considering that he hadn’t said word one to anyone in English class after his initial outburst. He surprised her further by sitting down. A little breath of him escaped from the jacket. He smelled like denim and deodorant.

“One of the Manzano Mountains is hollowed out and filled with nuclear warheads. I thought everyone in the city knew that.”

“I guess no one told us retards.”

Jamie winced and smiled at the same time, looking over his shoulder, and Amina covertly wiped her hands against her jeans. Sweating. She was sweating.

“So what are you doing here?”

“It’s a school dance.”

It wasn’t a great answer, but Jamie nodded. “Cool.”

Amina tried to ignore the couple in front of them, noses nuzzling necks, hands locked onto asses.

“You know if a war starts, we’ll be the first to go?” Jamie said. “And the thing is, I bet the Russians wouldn’t even want to kill us if they could. You know? I bet they’re just like us over there, just at the mercy of their leaders—”

Amina stood up. “Do you have a cigarette?”

He smothered a look of surprise. “Yeah, sure.”

She turned and started down the steps. “You can just give it to me. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

He followed her. “What if I want to?”

“Can you stop talking about bombs?”

“Because it scares you?”

“Because you sound like my brother.”

He didn’t say another word as they thumped down the rest of the bleachers. They reached the bottom just as the song ended and the mass of conjoined faces in front of them split apart, looking alternatively dreamy or just wet.

“C’mon,” Jamie said, grabbing her hand. She looked down, mesmerized by the sight of his pale hand on hers, and let herself be led through the heated bodies, the sweat and Polo cologne and fruit-flavored lip gloss and hairspray. The wood floor turned to linoleum under her feet and the air cooled as Jamie pushed the gym door open. She followed him to a set of arches a few hundred feet from the gym and looked away as he fished into his jean jacket and then the back pocket of his pants.

“So what’s up with your brother?” he asked, putting two cigarettes in his mouth. “He’s a pretty cool guy, right?”

“You know him?”

Jamie blew on the end of one, handed it to her. “Not really. I just see him around. He went to that nuclear-waste protest at UNM last week.”

“You went to that?”

“My whole family went.”

Amina looked away, dumbfounded. Was that what other families did? A car skidded into the lot. The door opened and three girls uncrumpled themselves from the front seat, cooing their way across the parking lot.

“So you’re from Chicago, right?” she asked.

“Yeah. We just moved here last summer.”

“Huh.” Amina flicked her cigarette, the way she’d seen Akhil do it, thumb on the filter. “Do you miss it?”

“Yes. Not as much as my sister, but yes.”

This made sense. The few times Amina had seen Paige during lunch break, she was staring intently off campus, as if there were a whole world waiting on pause just outside the gates.

“Why did you get kicked out of St. Francis’s?”

“Who says I got kicked out?”

“You didn’t?”

Jamie blew at the end of his cigarette. “I got busted getting high at the Christmas Pageant.”

“Oh.” Amina tried for nonchalance, but she didn’t personally know any freshmen who had gotten high, or at any rate, high enough to get kicked out of school. Something about it excited her terribly. She wanted to lead Jamie back into the light and check his pupils and reflexes, maybe test his memory.

The gym door opened, and the high wail of an electric guitar slipped out before it shut.

“Anyway, I’m sure she’ll go back next year,” Jamie said. “She’s trying to get into Northwestern.”

“Why don’t you like Mr. Tipton?” Amina asked.

Jamie shrugged. “It just seems like everyone kisses his ass.”

“Well, if you are trying to get kicked out again, it won’t happen. The worst they’ll do here is have you sit in the corner and not get to participate in the discussion.”

He snorted. “Yeah, that would suck.”

What was it about him that was so hard to stop looking at? In a school of razor-jawed, short-haired boys, he was hardly handsome. His eyes were too deep set and his eyebrows too present. And yet these, together with his ruddy cheeks and too feminine lips, gave him an oddly androgynous face that Amina had to fight to ignore in class. Now the sneer on those lips sent a small flare up her spine.

“I’m not an ass kisser,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m not an ass kisser just because I talk in class.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, really. I like what you say in class,” he said. “I mean, it’s smart.”

“No it isn’t.”

Why had she said that? She didn’t even know what she was saying anymore, or what exactly was going to loosen the knot that was hardening in her throat. She looked across at the parking lot, where one of the trucks appeared to be bouncing slightly in a disconcerting way. She felt Jamie’s gaze travel with hers, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up like it was being brushed the wrong way. She let herself look right at him. His hair radiated from his head in a beautiful nimbus, and she felt his face coming closer, the center of some oddly beautiful flower.

“What?” she said, and he jerked back in surprise.

He looked down at her hand. “Are you going to smoke that?”

Her cigarette had a thumb-tip-sized ash growing on it. She flicked it, stuck it between her lips like a straw, and sucked. A cat with its claws out skidded down her trachea. For one moment she held it in, looking at the curious expression on Jamie’s face, and then she choked and everything came out at once, smoke and tears and spit exploding out of her face. Jamie jumped back.

“Holy shit!”

She gasped, and began coughing again, this time jamming her face into the crook of her arm so he couldn’t see her. She wheezed, hacked. She felt his hand thumping her back like it would do any good, and she cursed silently through the rest of it, which ended with a few shaky breaths and a swallow.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice. She needed to burp and wasn’t sure if it would be smoke or air.

“You don’t smoke, do you?”

She shook her head, which made him laugh out loud. She dropped the remaining cigarette and stamped it out.

“Why did you ask for one?”

“I just wanted to get out of there.”

“Oh. No shit.” He looked back at the gym and took a step toward it, then turned around again. “So do you want to go for a walk?”

“No.”

“Around the soccer field or something,” he said, pointing past them like she didn’t know where it was. “And then we can go back inside.”

The sprinklers had gone off recently, and the wet grass tickled her ankles as they followed the lime boundary. Jamie walked a little ahead of her.

“So what did Paige do?” she asked.

“What?”

“To get kicked out?”

“Oh, she didn’t. She asked my parents if she could transfer because she thinks the Catholic curriculum is actively regressive.”

They approached a corner, and Amina’s shoulder brushed his as they rounded it. His hand swung close to hers, leaving a little comet trail of heat, and Amina thought of how if she were Dimple, she’d just grab it like it was some normal fucking thing to do.

“So you guys are Hindu, right?”

“What?” Amina startled. “No. We’re Christian.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

Amina walked a little faster. “Yeah. I mean, not that anyone in my family is anything, really. Our mother has taken us to church, like, twice. But we’re not Hindu. Although apparently the converts to our kind of Christianity were probably, like, Brahmins when Saint Thomas came down to India in 50 A.D., which is when our religion started, although everyone just, like, assumes it was some British colonization thing.”

Was she babbling? She was babbling. She fought down the inexplicable urge to tell him about how she and Akhil had once found a viper in their grandmother’s garden, or how Thomas used to see dead bodies burning on the banks of the river when he was little. They turned another corner, and Amina noticed with disappointment that the lights were on in the gym. Groups of kids were starting to come out the doors.

“We should go back,” Jamie said, walking across the field. She followed him.

“Fu-uck. Fu-uh-uh-uck.”

Akhil was knocking his head against the windshield repeatedly as they approached the station wagon, his hands gripping the roof.

“What is wrong with you?” Amina said, wanting more than anything for her brother to retain at least a whisper of the cool that Jamie had attributed to him earlier.

“Kee-ee-ee-eys,” Akhil said, not missing a beat. “Ssee-ee-ee-eat.”

Amina pushed him out of the way. Sure enough, there they were, glinting behind the sealed window and locked door.

“Oh my God.”

“You locked your keys in the car?” Jamie asked, and Akhil looked confusedly from him to Amina and back again.

“Apparently,” he said.

“Be right back,” Jamie said, and turned and walked toward the gym doors, where people were still coming out in sweaty clumps. “What are you doing with that guy?”

“Nothing. How are we going to get home?”

“Dunno.”

“What about Mindy?”

“I dropped her off at her house. We were done.”

Amina looked at the car, wrinkled her nose. She hated getting in with the overheated smell of Mindy (Giorgio of Beverly Hills, menthols, yeast) clinging to the upholstered seats. “Great.”

“You locked your keys in?”

Amina and Akhil turned to see Paige walking briskly toward them with Jamie behind her.

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t have a coat hanger on you?”

Dimples cupped either side of her smirk.

“No.” Akhil scowled.

“Joking,” she said. “I was joking. I think I’ve got one in my car.”

“Don’t worry about it if it’s a hassle.”

“It’s not,” Paige said. “I do it all the time.”

“She’s good,” Jamie said, as they watched her walking across the parking lot to a yellow van. “Faster than anyone.”

“I’m Akhil, by the way,” Akhil said, reaching forward to shake Jamie’s hand. Jamie returned the introduction, and then they dropped hands and stuffed them into pockets, awkward with the sudden formality.

“We have class together,” Amina volunteered. “English.”

“Oh yeah, with Tipton?” Akhil smirked. “What do you think of that guy?”

“I try not to.”

“Good answer.”

Paige reemerged from the van, waving a triumphant hand.

It was nothing short of riveting, really, watching Paige Anderson untwist the neck of the hanger while she studied the lock on the door, taking in the dimensions and calculating the geometry that guided her hand to the tip of the hanger. She bent it into a tiny u and then slid it first up, then down through the window crack. She bit her tongue between her front teeth and hooked the hanger around the lock. It slipped.

“Crap.” She shook out her hands. “Gimme a minute.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Akhil said, and she took a deep breath, wedging the hanger again, this time pulling it at an angle. The lock popped up.

“Nice.” Akhil smiled.

“Thanks,” Paige said, looking a little pleased. She opened the car door and handed him the keys.

“Amazing.” Akhil wasn’t even looking at the keys; he was looking at Paige, his face stretched into emotions Amina had never seen — wonderment, desire, and raw happiness riding over its surface.

“We should go,” Jamie said, breaking what had become a too long silence.

“Right,” Paige said faintly, backing up. “I’ve got to get my bag from inside. Can you grab the car and meet me?”

“Yep.” He held out his hands. Paige threw him her keys.

“You can drive?” Amina asked.

“Around the parking lot,” Jamie said, and started off, already ten feet away before Amina could say goodbye.

“Well,” Paige said to Akhil. “See you on Monday, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Akhil watched her go, grinning that crazy grin that made Amina want to kick him or cover his head with a paper bag. “Wait!”

“Yeah?” Paige stopped.

He cleared his throat. “So … what’s your name?”

Paige looked at him for long, increasingly painful seconds. Finally she said, “We’re in Mathletes together, I just picked your lock, and you’re going to pretend you don’t know my name?”

“Well …,” Akhil started, but she was already walking quickly away, fingers sprinkling a wave behind her. She was halfway to the gym, her dorsal softness jumping in and out of puddles of light before Akhil let out his breath. His features pooled with panic. “Shit. Should I …?”

“Don’t ask me—” Amina started, annoyed, but he was sprinting before she even finished, his shirt filling with wind, his legs slowing to a jog and then a very quick walk that would catch Paige just before she got to the gym door. Amina watched as he tapped her on the arm and then recoiled, running a hand through his hair and saying something she couldn’t hear. There was a beat. A pause. A moment of silence between them that Amina would later recognize as the forgettable turning into the extraordinary. Then Paige threw her head back and laughed, revealing a white slash of teeth, the long curl of her neck, and a fate that Akhil never stood a chance of resisting.