His phone buzzes and he sets the guitar down and bolts up from the sofa. “Hey, Babloo, what’s up, man?…Nothing, nothing. With Rakhi, actually…No, my place. Why?”

  Great. I haven’t spoken to Babloo since we got pani puri on S.V. Road almost two weeks back, but now that he knows I’m here he’s going to want to talk to me. I turn back to the computer and stare at the smiling Nepali chef on the website.

  After a few moments, Alex returns. “Rakhi? Babloo wants to talk.” He tosses the phone to me, sits down on the sofa, and picks up his guitar again.

  I shuffle to the far end of the corridor so Alex can’t hear me talking. Still, I whisper into the phone. “Yes, what is it?”

  “Yaar,” Babloo says, guffawing so loud I have to hold the phone a few inches from my ear. “Even I haven’t been invited up to Pali Hill, myself.”

  “What do you want, Babloo?”

  “Can’t I say hello, hi, how are you? What are you doing at Alex’s home this late?”

  “Working on something.”

  “On what?”

  “He’s helping me apply to college.” I brace for him to laugh at the thought of me attending college, but instead I hear him take a drag of a cigarette.

  “You shouldn’t be spending time alone with him like this, in his home. You’re not from his world.”

  My back stiffens. “You think I don’t know that already? Or have you forgotten I knew him first?”

  “Calm down. Just remember, if you ever need anything, you come to me first.”

  “What could I possibly need from you?”

  “Arre, why are you yelling? I’m just looking out for you. As always, isn’t it? This boy, he’s not the one for you.” He keeps laughing, which only makes me angrier.

  “And he is for you? Taking him to drink whiskey and eat pakoras with your friends? Going to dance bars, hi-fi parties, all that nonsense? How are you any different from me?”

  Babloo stops laughing and his voice becomes hard. “I know more than you, I’ve done more than you, and I’ve seen more than you ever will. End of story.”

  “And what, I’m just some idiot office girl? You think because you were gone for so long I put my life on hold for you? That I was just waiting for you to come back?”

  He doesn’t say anything, and in the silence that follows I realize that what I just said is true.

  “Like you said, he’s only a tourist. Here for a good time, that’s it.”

  My voice is straining. “Just let me go, yaar.”

  “Fine, then. Go.” The phone goes dead.

  Back in the sitting room, Alex is stretching his fingers to hit the right notes on his guitar. Water streams down the window panes, turning the outside world into a vague blur of nighttime blacks and streaks of streetlamp yellow.

  I hand him his phone. “Can you read my application now?”

  He stops strumming. “How many lines you got?”

  “Six.”

  “That’s it? Add some more. Whatever comes to mind. Then we’ll edit it.”

  Sinking into the sofa, shoulders slumped, I spend the next half-hour adding more bakvaas about firanghis and hotels and India.

  When I tell him I’m done he takes the laptop away and returns with printouts, two bottles of Coke, and a bowl of peanuts. As he reads through what I’ve written, he squints. Purses his lips. Frowns.

  “Is this true? You want to work in hotel management because you care about what tourists think of India?”

  “I am showing you around, na?”

  “All right,” Alex says, finally. “You’re going to have to think about it some more. I’ve written down some notes. But here’s my advice: You need to make this personal, or else you sound like everyone else applying for this program.”

  “What does it mean, personal?” I put some peanuts in my mouth. They’re coated in a sweet and salty crust. I shiver and pull my knees up. Even with dry clothes on, this flat is still so chilly.

  “You’ve got an interesting story.”

  “Because I am living in Behrampada?”

  “Well, that’s one part of it.”

  “Lots of people working in these hotels come from the slum, only. So I am just the same as other people.” I hug my knees to stay warm.

  Alex asks me if I am all right.

  “It’s cold. AC is on high,” I say, rubbing my arms.

  He runs into the hallway and returns in a second. “Okay, turned it off.” He then walks to the giant windowsill and slides the massive window open with both hands. The drumming sound of heavy rain fills the room, and I inhale the warm, misty air curling past us.

  “Better?” He sits back on the windowsill.

  I rise from the sofa to stand beside him, peering out the open window. There are iron bars to keep us from falling out. Or to keep burglars from coming in. Because of the sheets of rain, it feels like we are behind a giant waterfall. The tree-shaped shadows sway against the dark sky.

  Alex reaches his arm between the bars and out the window, holding his hand out. Big, fat raindrops splash on the surface of his palm. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply, then lets his breath out slowly before he opens his eyes again. “I feel so awake right now.”

  I take a seat next to him. “You are awake.” Firanghis are always trying to create meaning in ordinary things.

  “No, I mean full of energy or life or whatever. I feel whole, if that makes sense.”

  “Means?”

  “I haven’t really told you this, but when we hang out, I don’t feel like such an outsider.”

  I scratch the hollow of my throat, unsure of what he means.

  “Back home, I’m not white enough to fit in. Kids used to imitate my mom’s accent. She stopped cooking Indian food because I got teased at school for smelling like spices when she did. Even now, people laugh when they hear Lalwani-Diamond, like it’s fucking gibberish. And then I come to India, thinking these are my people, but here I’m not Indian enough. I barely speak Hindi, I don’t know the culture. To everyone here, I’m just a white guy. And either people are weirdly drawn to whiteness, like my aunt and uncle’s friends, or they’re repulsed by it, like everyone at the office.”

  He wipes little beads of condensation off his Coke bottle with his fingertip. I didn’t realize there was something he was insecure about. I decide against telling him that people in India also think his last name is funny.

  “People insist on categorizing me as white or Indian, and that’s made me second-guess how to even categorize myself. I’m just tired of people trying to put me in a box, you know? I just want to…break free. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  I read the wariness in his eyes, the worry on his forehead. It looks familiar. “People are seeing what they want to be seeing, only. And nobody is believing you when you are saying they are wrong.”

  “Yeah, sort of.” Alex nods. “You can probably relate to being labelled. Babloo told me what happened when you were kids.”

  “Told you what?”

  “About the guy who sold paan. And how you both got locked up after.”

  That chutiya Babloo. He disappears from my life and never looks for me, even though he was here in Bombay this whole time. And when I finally find him again, he tries to take away the first real friend I’ve had since him. I draw my legs up to my chest, forcing out a strangled laugh. “It’s not important,” I say, but what I want to tell him is that it’s my story. And it’s not for Babloo to tell.

  For a while, neither of us says anything. Outside, the shadowy figure of a bat darts back and forth, between the tall trees. I can hear the rain bludgeoning every leaf on every plant in Pali Hill.

  Finally, I unclench my jaw. “Why you are talking to Babloo about me?”

  “It just came up in conversation.” He holds my gaze like he’s waiting for me to say more. I don’t respond but the silence between us grows so uncomfortable I have to say something.

  “It was a big mistake,” I blurt out. Gusts of wind throw fat droplets of rain at the windowsill and onto our arms and legs. They do nothing to cool down my overheating body. “I was…I was only twelve years.”

  “You don’t have to justify it to me. I’m not judging you.”

  “I had to survive.”

  As I say it, I feel warmth spreading all over my body. I’ve never willingly spoken about the paanwala incident to anyone. It’s like there’s a muscle that has been tight and tensed up for eleven years. Until now.

  “Every time I learn more about you, I’m convinced you have everything you need to succeed in life.” He goes on about how I’ll have to keep in touch when he leaves, tell him what I end up doing, that maybe he’ll come back to work in India after he’s done at graduate school.

  “You are serious?”

  “Yeah, why not? I’ll come stay at the hotel you’re working at. And you can give me a discount rate since you’ll be running the place by then.”

  I don’t say anything, overcome by a pleasant sense of dizziness.

  He swings his feet around and down onto the floor. “It’s getting late. Let’s try to get a rough draft done for all of the applications. I’ll proofread them as we print them out.”

  I take a deep breath in, inhaling the clean, earthy smell of the rainstorm outside. “Okay.”

  * * *

  The sandwichwala outside St. Xavier’s College sold us the kerosene for fifty rupees and nothing less.

  “This guy is ripping us off,” Babloo said.

  “It’ll be worth it,” I replied as I handed the sandwichwala the cash I’d pinched from a firanghi lady haggling for a pair of wooden bangles on the Colaba Causeway.

  The rusty canister of kerosene was heavier than it looked. I could barely drag it more than a few inches, so Babloo sighed and gripped the other side of the handle. We staggered off, the kerosene hanging between us. Even though his arms were as skinny as mine, they were much stronger somehow.

  “It’s because girls are naturally weak,” he remarked.

  “What bullshit, yaar.”

  “Prove me wrong, then,” he said, letting go.

  The kerosene dragged me down by the shoulder. I had to tell him he was right before he’d pick up the canister again. We lugged it back to the paanwala’s stall and hid until he went for his afternoon shit, leaving his stall under the watch of a distracted sugarcanewala.

  “Lift with your legs,” Babloo urged as we struggled to heave the tin up to the paanwala’s little table while staying hidden.

  “What do you mean, ‘legs’?” I hissed back, glancing back over my shoulder to make sure none of the people milling around nearby had noticed us.

  “Okay, now tip it.”

  Our twelve- and thirteen-year-old frames were no match for the physical rigour of this prank. The kerosene glugged out of the tin too fast to save it. Babloo twisted his body so that at least some of it splashed over the table of paan leaves and betel nuts. Then we poured the kerosene over rags, stuffing them into the cubbies of the stall. The rest of the liquid spread quickly across the road, filling the cracks and potholes.

  “Quick, hand me the matches,” I whispered, my heart leaping in my chest at the mental image of the paanwala’s wares burning to the ground. That would teach him to mess with Babloo and me. I smirked at the thought of him being left penniless. Chutiya.

  That’s when I saw the paanwala trudging back from the public toilets. I seized Babloo’s hand before he could get a spark. “Shit, he’s coming back.”

  We scrambled out of the way, diving behind a row of parked cars on the other side of the street. Squatting behind the mud-caked wheels of a white Maruti van, we waited, our breathing shallow. The crunch of gravel under the paanwala’s leather chappals was loud, in spite of the traffic noises in the distance.

  I tugged Babloo’s shirt. “Yaar, let’s run.”

  But then there was the sound of a match flaring up. The paanwala was lighting his beedi. I held my breath as he let the burning match fall to the ground. The kerosene on the floor ignited, flames creeping up to the stall.

  Babloo and I hit the ground, chests to pavement, and peered from behind the Maruti to see the paanwala’s pant leg on fire. But as he rolled on the ground to quell the flames, he was only rolling in the kerosene we had spilled.

  I pushed myself up to run away but Babloo swung his leg over mine and dug his elbow into my back. “No,” he hissed. “Stay down.”

  “Babloo—”

  “Trust me.”

  Pinned down under the left half of Babloo’s trembling body, I watched helplessly as the paanwala flopped and thrashed about on the ground, like a fish in an empty bucket.

  Then came the sound of running feet. More feet joined in. Someone yelled about getting water to put out the flames. Voices rang out calling for an ambulance, a doctor, a fire truck.

  Eventually, the tan trouser legs of policewalas appeared and Babloo sprang to his feet. I lay frozen on the ground, too stunned to move. Without wasting a second, he put his hands under my arms and hoisted my stiffened body off the ground, dragging me away with adult strength.

  For a brief moment I glanced back, only to see the entire paan stall engulfed in flames.

  25

  My eyes fly open as I force myself out of my nightmare. In my dream, my face had melted off like candle wax. Shaking, I touch my cheeks, my nose, my lips to make sure they’re still there.

  But before I can sit up in the dark to start Dr. Pereira’s night terror exercise, I realize I’m gazing up at a high, plaster ceiling instead of a tin roof. Blinking rapidly, I reach around me for my little cassette player so I can hold my crystal elephant, but my palms skim along smooth sheets, not rough fabric. And I’m lying on something that feels like a soft piece of bread, instead of my thin mat.

  Shit. I’m still in the Motiani flat. I tense up immediately, throwing the covers off me like they’re covered in spiders.

  Then I remember that even though I’m still at Blossoming Heights, it’s Saturday, and I’m only there because Alex and I worked on my applications until three in the morning and he wouldn’t let me catch a bus back to Behrampada.

  “Arre, I will be fine. Don’t take tension,” I said.

  “No way, it’s not safe. You can stay in my room and I’ll take my aunt and uncle’s.” Then he handed me the applications that he’d marked up.

  There they are, sitting on the table beside the bed. I pick one up and flip through the pages, reading what I’ve written about why I want to study hotel management.

  “What kind of life do you want?” Alex asked me last night. “I don’t just mean what kind of job you have, or where you live, or how much you make. What do you want your life to look like?”

  I didn’t know how to reply. Nobody had ever asked me that before.

  I fall back on the bed, stretching my arms out. This mattress is so big I could roll over twice and still not fall off. The rain has stopped. Green parrots chatter outside and steamy morning sunlight starts to break through the trees.

  In the bathroom, I splash cool water on my face, which jolts me back to the fact that I shouldn’t linger here, even though the Motianis won’t be back until tomorrow night. Still, I can’t help but marvel at the privacy, the spotlessness, the soft light. There’s plenty of time for me to head home to change before I go back to the office to continue Vivek’s filing.

  After I leave the bathroom, I’m still thinking about returning to bed when I turn in to the corridor and freeze. Tazim is there, standing in the kitchen with a broom in her hand. The look of horror on her face grows as her widening eyes move from my loose, messy hair to the green T-shirt belonging to the memsahib of the house.

  Tazim’s grip on her broom loosens and it falls, rattling on the marble floor. We both stand there for a moment, staring at each other. Neither of us says a word.

  “Y-you don’t work on Saturdays,” I stammer.

  “The boy is by himself this weekend,” she replies, her voice barely rising above a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

  Before I can say anything, she turns her head to the kitchen, her eyes landing on the empty Coke bottles and bowl of peanuts perched atop the otherwise-spotless marble countertops.

  “Please, let me explain,” I say, extending a clammy hand toward her.

  She steps back. “I told you never to come to my work again.”

  “There’s a reason. Alex—you know, the Motianis’ nephew—he is one of the firanghi interns at Justice For All. We were just working late yesterday and—”

  “Liar!” Tazim roars, cutting me off. I’ve never heard her shout before. “I can see for myself what you’ve done. I want you out of this flat, right now.”

  Trembling, I careen down the hallway and back into Alex’s bedroom. I move fast, throwing on my wrinkled salwar kameez from last night. The cool dampness of the fabric momentarily soothes my prickly skin as I sweep the college applications into my bag.

  There’s no sign of Tazim in the hallway, so I dart to the front door, slip on my sandals, and yank the heavy door open, careful not to let it make a sound as it closes behind me.

  Just as I am about to press the button for the lift, a hand grabs me by the wrist.

  It’s Tazim, nostrils flaring, breath heavy. Stunned by her aggression, I let her march me down six flights of stairs, her braid flying behind her. The sound of her bare feet slapping down on the concrete echoes softly in the stairwell. I should have guessed the Motianis would call her in on the weekend to clean up after Alex.

  Down in the lobby, the night watchman is slouched in the same spot he was in the previous evening. He rubs his drowsy eyes and frowns when he sees the Motiani family’s bai dragging me away. He starts to get up, but Tazim holds her hand out. “There is no problem, she is my helper.”