Blue Boy Read online

  She doesn’t notice me at first, and I am almost to my desk when Sarah says, “Mrs. Nevins, why is Key-ran out of his seat?”

  Mrs. Nevins looks up and says. “What? Key-ran, why are you out of your seat?” She gives me the same disappointed look she gave me at the mall, except now, in light of that unfortunate run-in, it seems more intense.

  “I was in the restroom,” I lie quickly. It just pours straight out of me. I think of the dirty yellow tile of our school bathroom, then see it replaced by the sylvan calm of the park. The park seems like another planet to me now.

  “Key-ran, you are supposed to ask to use the restroom.” She walks to the blackboard, where she writes my name in neat cursive. She has never so gracefully or properly spoken my name the way she spells it on the board now.

  Normally, having my name on the blackboard would break my heart, but here, narrowly saved from my big disappearance, I see it as a blessing.

  “But Mrs. Nevins—” Sarah tries to add. Mrs. Nevins gives her a firm “Shh, Sarah, let’s finish our exercise.” I take this rare moment to turn around and smirk at Sarah, who makes a sourpuss face and returns to her work.

  I can’t believe my luck. They didn’t even notice I was gone! What luck!

  It doesn’t hit me until ten minutes later that this is not a good thing. No one here even noticed I was missing. The moment from earlier, when I lay on The Clearing with the recorder as my sole companion, comes flooding back to me, and my eyes well up as I picture the way the flute looked when dropped on those pebbles. I may have lost Blueberry Muffin in a tumble, but I will get that flute back the next chance I get. Part of me hopes that those high schoolers won’t be there, but a bigger, fiercer part of me hopes that they are.

  Creepover

  Trying to forget what I have seen in the park, I try to shift all of my focus to the talent show act. I have decided against including anyone else in the act; after the disaster of using Lindsay and Eric as Ariel and Eric, I know that keeping things to myself is the way to go. I have devised a collage of various performative elements: I will sing, dance, play the flute, and act. The song I have chosen, quite logically, is “How Will I Know?” It’s one of the few songs I have on cassette, and the tune has begun to represent the particular nature of my situation: I live in a world of so many emotions, many of them whimsical and happy but many of them uncertain and frightening, and Whitney’s music captures all of them in one glossy nugget of a song. It conjures up a feeling of bright colors and bright feelings, tinged with the darkness of not knowing how things will turn out. Most of all, it longs for a love who will understand my confusion. Whether I am a god or a mortal, I need that listening ear. Krishna pined for Radha. I long for the same sort of consort, and I proceed in merry bewilderment.

  The piece will begin with me upstage right, kneeling down, head bowed. I will then freestyle dance to the song and act out certain Krishna-related activities: I’ll mime a butter pot that I will dip one hand into and then pretend to slurp imaginary butter off my fingers; I will pick up my recorder and play the chorus of the song into the microphone, which will be on a stand at the center of the stage. I will sing along when not playing the flute. Throughout the song, I will pretend that there is an imaginary lover of mine onstage, and I will sing to her. At certain intervals I will dance with her, one arm held up as if around her waist, the other outstretched the way ballroom dancers do. The key is to move like a ballroom dancer but to have my feet evoke khatak dancing, so that, again, there is an homage to my Indian self while still paying tribute to my current existence. I simply want the piece to evoke a certain romance mixed with the grandeur of Krishna’s spirit, all the while showing the audience why I deserve both.

  I’ve had a secret dream to make my Indian and American worlds collide. Even though it’s nice that the Indian kids I know don’t go to my school (and therefore they are not there to double my usual ridicule), sometimes I think that the other kids in my school would respect me more if they knew I had another life. Sort of the way that Sarah and Melissa interacted one time recently when talking about their weekend plans.

  “Mel-belle, wanna come over tomorrow afternoon?” Sarah said, putting her reading textbook into her backpack at the end of a Friday.

  Melissa said, “I don’t know. I have to check with my mom.” She, too, was packing up her things, putting her number two pencils into a shiny plastic pencil case with hearts printed on it.

  Sarah shook her head slightly and shrugged. “Okay, don’t worry about it. I think Amber Johnson might come over, too, so if you can’t make it, don’t worry.” She pulled her backpack on and stood up, waiting for the bell to ring.

  Melissa’s face immediately fell. Jealousy and surprise occupied it in equal parts. It was startling to me that someone whose emotions I tracked so closely should be so poor at concealing them. As the wheels of her jealous and bruised mind turned, her face contorted back into a bright smile. “I’ll be there,” she replied eventually. “And I’ll bring Girl Talk,” this board game in which girls use a fake phone to feign gossip.

  (“Hey, Key-ran, wanna come play, too?” Melissa added, conscious that I had been listening to their conversation so intently. I ignored her and resumed sketching a picture of SS on a piece of looseleaf.)

  Just like Melissa was dumbstruck by Sarah’s sudden loyalty to another party, so I imagine my American cohorts would be if they understood the nuances of my Indian life. What these American kids don’t know is that we Indians have an annual talent show, too, even if it’s not called such. In our Indian world, we have an evening of song and dance to celebrate Holi, the holiday that marks the beginning of spring. Every year, countless girls dance mindlessly to Indian songs much in the way that American kids lip-synch. The girls dress in saris, baring their midriffs, and although these girls’ fathers would never let them show the equivalent amount of skin in American dress, it seems A-OK to let it happen when petticoats and wraps are involved. Some girls lip-synch to the music, showing that they have both a command of what the lyrics are saying and Hindi itself; other girls do not move their mouths but look altogether terrified to be performing in public. Whether they like it or not, it is expected of good Indian girls to do so.

  Two years ago, the Indian mothers in our clan insisted on organizing a group dance among all of us kids. It was a type of dance called fogana in which you hold a painted wooden stick in each hand and click your sticks against everyone else’s in a certain pattern. Oftentimes, there will two concentric circles of children rotating in opposite directions, the kids in the inner circle clicking sticks with the kids in the outer circle. Then the group will split into pairs that continue to click their sticks together.

  Most of the girls were particularly good at fogana, having danced to Indian music their whole lives. Even Neelam, whose sari looked quite unflattering, knew all the right steps and looked positively radiant. The boys, on the other hand, were not very good—aside from me, who, from my scant lessons with the carnation-ponytailed Hema and my ballet training, could remember the routine quite well. I refrained from instructing the other boys in how to dance; I knew that they didn’t want to hear it from me, and there was more than one occasion in which they voiced their resentment and said my dedication to dancing solidified my status as a pansy. Still, they had to look like pansies whether they wanted to or not: the day of the performance, Nisha Auntie went around and put eyeliner on the boys and girls alike, along with a thin coat of pink lipstick on our mouths to make them pop from the audience. (Ashok in particular looked pretty with makeup on. Ajay, on the other hand, looked like a clown.) It felt so strange to me to have someone else apply my makeup; I worried that Nisha Auntie would see the fear on my face as she applied mine and realize that I was already an experienced professional in such matters. But when she put the makeup on me, she did it in as perfunctory a manner as when she did it to Neha, who looked resplendent in a red sari with gold trim and ten gold bangles on each wrist. Little did Nisha Auntie know that only
two years later, I’d be putting her lipstick on my face.

  As we stood in the wings of the high school auditorium used for the event, I wondered what the students of this school would do if they came in on this Sunday afternoon and saw us. Where cheerleaders may have stood with their pom-poms fluttering; where choir members may have sung in a concert; where basketball players may have high-fived each other before taking the stage for a rousing pep rally in their honor, we Indian kids stood dressed in kurtha pajama and saris, holding wooden sticks and wiping sweat off our made-up, brown faces. Each of us boys had a magenta sash tied around our head, the knot on the side in the style some sort of fortune-telling gypsy might wear. This was so removed from the Midwestern machismo of the residents of this city, and somewhere deep down, I wanted those people to see this lifestyle because it carried with it an exoticism that they didn’t know.

  Even now, I envision what it would be like for people like Sarah and Melissa and John Griffin and Cody to see me dancing fogana. I wonder what it would be like for them to see me in an entirely different element, among people of a different heritage, my heritage, joyous instead of ridiculed. I wonder what I would be to them, dressed in a gleaming white kurtha and vibrant red sash. If transformed into a resplendent fogana aficionado, perhaps I might just win the respect of my very American, very un-Indian classmates.

  I know the reason why I didn’t get as excited about that Indian talent show as I did about my school’s talent show was because, in the end, there was no American audience in that venue. Now that I am bringing that Indian spirit to these Americans, however, the real anticipation begins. I have an occasion to show them the romanticized Indian spirit I have always wanted to have.

  Sometime over the last week, Cody has managed to make a good friend out of Donny Howard, a blue-eyed, freckled ostrich of a boy with thin, long legs and a slumping posture that practically mimics Cody’s own hunch. I notice the two of them hanging out during recess when they play basketball on the blacktop. I’ve never even known Cody to attempt something as physically strenuous as basketball, what with his mild deformity, but he moves with a stealth that is as smooth as it is surprising. Donny is made for basketball due to his height, but Cody gives him a run for his money, engaging in court-long skirmishes again and again.

  When I come back from The Clearing after my daily exile there, I see this sweaty duo patting each other on the back. They start exchanging comments and glances in class the way Sarah and Melissa do, and I can’t help but feel snubbed by Cody. Cody may not be a flawless friend, but he is still the closest thing that I have ever had to one, and seeing him move on to Donny makes my stomach feel like Jell-O. Doesn’t he realize that, at the very least, if I had never lent him pencils, he would have flunked out of school by now? Why, without me, he might not even be a student here anymore! The nerve of him!

  Friday, when our school has its annual Halloween party, Cody and Donny come dressed as pirates, with long black wigs stuffed under bandanas and plastic swords with large gold handles. I dress in a demure orange sweatshirt and black sweatpants; I learned last year, after wearing an assortment of rainbow-colored clothing and saying that I was Rainbow Brite’s boyfriend, that keeping my Halloween costume conservative is the way to go. So I am extra sad at seeing these two boys dress to their hearts’ desires, and I imagine that they will wear these same costumes this Saturday, the actual day of Halloween, while I will be sitting with my mother on our front porch and helping her pass out candy. (Not surprisingly, my mother is too paranoid to let me go trick-or-treating in this town.)

  For the first time today, while all of us kids fill the cafeteria with our costumed selves, the lunch table includes Cody, me, and Donny. I am eating my roti like it’s a burrito, having rolled it up and consuming the end of it in tiny bites. Donny does not seem to have much to eat in the way of lunch. He eyes my lunch more keenly than most students, out of both puzzlement and hunger, but when I offer him a bite, he recoils. Instead, he starts in on some Cheetos and a can of Coke. He picks one Cheeto at a time out of the yellow-and-red foil bag, dandruffy crumbs falling on the table with each motion. I don’t know where he finds the energy to play basketball as fervently as he does if that is the sort of diet he follows. Cody, meanwhile, is eating a sweaty hot dog squeezed into a near-burnt bun, and the locks of his wig keep falling into its ketchup and mustard.

  “My mom said you guys can stay over tonight if ya want,” Cody says. It comes out of left field; Donny looks at Cody dumbfounded, then looks over at me. I am instantly aware that I am the third wheel here. This has been obvious during the short duration of this slipshod trio anyway, but the prospect of the three of us involved in a sleepover takes this to knew heights—or, depths. Donny’s body language clearly shows that he finds this proposition awkward. Cody, on other hand, continues to eat his hot dog nonchalantly.

  “Cool,” I say, stuffing my unfinished roti into my lunch bag to make Donny somewhat less uncomfortable. Then I lean over to him and whisper, “We get to look at titties.”

  Donny greets this with the initial confusion that you might expect, not seeing the direct link between a sleepover and smut. But as the connection slowly dawns upon him, he straightens up.

  “So what? My dad’s got tons of mags I can bring,” Donny says. “He’s got fuckin’ Hustler.”

  “What’s Fuckin’ Hustler?” I ask, saying the F-word quietly.

  “It’s the best fuckin’ thing ever,” Donny says. “You’ll see.”

  When we get back to the classroom after lunch, Cody complains about his wig being too hot and takes it off. He tosses it into the coat closet with his things. I don’t miss a beat, and by the end of the day, Cody is rummaging through the closet and cursing the wig’s disappearance while I sling my newly-fat backpack on with a secretive grin and say, “See you tonight.”

  My mother is excited about the sleepover, probably because it’s the first one I’ve ever attended. Well, there was the one time our Indian group partied way too long into the evening at Ratika Aggarwal’s house and we all made makeshift beds out of the many couches and plush carpet floors, each family in a different area. Mine was in the den, my mother insisting on the floor because she said it was better for her back, leaving me and my dad squashed onto a loveseat. But that was not a real sleepover, and nothing was more awkward than seeing various Indian women emerge from sleep looking like morning-after prom dates and pouring themselves tea from the same ravaged pot.

  No, this sleepover is the legitimate kind, and in the car ride to Cody’s house with my mother, my sleeping bag rolled into a bun on my lap and my backpack full of toiletries, pajamas, and a change of clothes at my feet, I conjure up visions of the pillow fights the girls in the Baby-sitters Club books have. Then I snap out of my reverie and remember that no such scenario will happen this evening. I am with Donny and Cody, not Stacey and Krissy, and I cannot expect Donny and Cody to have read those books—and, what is more, to understand why pillow fights and painting one’s nails would be so much fun. The image of Donny and Cody playing basketball pops into my head, and I try to imagine myself there, dribbling with ease, flicking the ball toward the hoop with a deft movement of my wrist and the ball collapsing into the hoop with a light swish of the net. That is what I need to imagine for tonight. No girls, no girly things, no mirror girl. Just Kiran, a boy.

  My mom stops the car when we pull up in front of the Ulrichs’ house. At first, I assume she is about to give me a lecture-cum-pep talk, but then she pulls the key from the ignition and gets out of the car. I sit in my seat, puzzled, wondering why she steps up onto the curb and puts a foot onto the Ulrichs’ driveway. Then she turns around, equally puzzled and says, the words muffled through the car window’s glass, “Are you coming?” I cringe as I realize that my mother wants to walk me to the front door.

  I get out of the car with my sleepover goodies in tow. My mother walks back to the car and shuts the door behind me. “Mom, you don’t have to walk me to the house. I’ve got it.�
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  “Beta, I vant at least a qvick word with Beverly if my son is going to be in her home all night.”

  “Mom, please. Please. I don’t want to look like a loser.”

  “You’re embarrassed of me?” she asks. There is a smirk on her face that is in direct opposition to the gravity of this situation.

  “YES,” I reply.

  Her face crumples in mock hurt, and then she laughs and heads up the driveway. I love her to pieces, but in this instant, I want to beat her over the head with my backpack.

  I experience the entrance to Cody’s house as if I’ve never seen it before. The front doorway is a picture frame of white metal peppered with rusty slivers. In a brick corner next to it, a potted plant lies in cold ruins. A welcome mat that has apparently survived an elephant stampede bears “The Ulrichs.” My mother rings the bell, a firefly stuck in a small white box to the left of the doorway, and I can hear the shuffle of feet as someone walks to the door. The lock is turned, and the door opens with a quick crack. There stands Beverly, a cigarette in one hand as usual. She is about six inches taller than my mom, her bushy brown hair adding even more height, and raised one step up from the porch, she looks like an Amazon. The smoke emanating from her cigarette rises slowly next to her. She is wearing faded blue jeans and an oversize T-shirt that has a gaggle of beagles and hearts covering its front. This is a particularly strange image given that the Ulrichs don’t have a dog.

  “Well, hi, there, Shashi,” she chimes. She pronounces my mother’s name wrong, making the first syllable rhyme with “rash” instead of “rush.”

  “Hello, Beverly,” my mother says. “Thanks so much for hosting Kiran tonight. Please be advised that sometimes he gets headaches, but he has his medicine, so I’m just letting you know.”