“The Bindases have invited you over for a swim tomorrow.” Mother addresses Kammi. “They have a son”—she squints at Kammi—“about your age, I think.”
“I told her all about Mayur,” I say. I didn’t, of course. Only his name and age. But Mother doesn’t know what I said or didn’t say.
“I’m sure Kammi will give Mayur a chance.” Mother turns to her. “He’s a nice-enough boy. From a privileged immigrant family. So his expectations are high.”
“She means he’s slumming,” I say.
Mother glares at me. “He’s lonely.”
“With all those cousins who come from Trinidad?”
“But they don’t live here.”
“Neither do we.”
“His parents like him to meet new people. It was very nice for him to call this year. Particularly when you were so rude.” Mother leaves out why I was rude. “I’m sure he’ll like Kammi.” Because Kammi is nice and I am not, that’s what she means.
I don’t bother to warn Kammi that Mayur is a smirky rich kid who set the rules for the pool when his parents aren’t around. The first time I was invited over, he said that I had to take a shower—with soap—or I couldn’t swim in his pool. His pool, he called it. The houseboy delivered fresh towels folded in squares, just like at a hotel. They smelled like lemons and bleach.
“The pool’s nice,” I concede to Kammi. “The way it seems to be part of the sea, but isn’t. It’s safer.”
I won’t let Mother have the last word.
Chapter Five
A FEW MINUTES before three the next afternoon, I tap on Kammi’s door. It snaps open as if she’s been waiting just on the other side since lunch. Dressed for a pool party, she’s braided her brown hair and pinned it up at the back. A pareo is tied just so at her right hip, where the barest pink bikini bottom peeks through; the bikini top is held by what looks like ribbons over her shoulders. Somehow she managed to pack in her suitcase a straw tote with a pink gingham lining that matches her suit. Her whole look is so fragile, I have to turn away.
I say, “Hope you brought enough sunscreen.” I sound like my mother. When she addresses me it’s not in direct questions like “Did you bring concealer?” or orders like “Don’t eat that.” Instead, she says “Ice cream has X grams of fat” when I’m not even close to the refrigerator, or “Black is slimming” when I’m reading a book in the bay window on a winter night in Maine. Funny, she doesn’t say that about my black beaded headscarf, the one I started wearing after Dad died and I signed up for Arabic. Mother hates that scarf. But I liked wearing it sometimes last year, covering myself like my Arabic teacher. After a while, the principal said no one could cover their hair at school unless they had a written note from a parent saying their religion required such a covering. Even then, he wasn’t happy about it. He was afraid someone would smuggle a weapon into the school under a scarf. As if it wouldn’t be easy enough to do that anyway if someone wanted to.
Outside, I feel my bathing suit sticking to my skin underneath the same skirt and T-shirt I’ve been wearing all day. If I go in the pool, I’ll take the skirt off and leave on the tee. It skims the top of my thighs and helps cover my chest better than the swimsuit. As long as I don’t get wet, the tee hides the fat.
Will Mayur notice I’ve gotten fat? Heavier up top like the boys in my class started to notice this year, and I hated the way they made fun. Zoe told me to ignore them, but it was easier for her. She’s petite like Kammi.
We’re away from the house before Kammi says anything.
“Do you really dislike...” Kammi starts to ask. I think she’s going to ask me why I don’t like my mother. “Why don’t you like Mayur?”
She doesn’t ask about Mother. That’s a subject she’s probably not ready to talk about.
“He’s a jerk,” I say. “But his parents are nice. The pool, too, like I said.” It’s also away from my mother. And even if I don’t like him, I have a reason to see Mayur again.
At the next turn in the road, I lead us along a shell path that winds down a hill toward a secluded bay shaped like a thin lip of moon. When we reach a steep turn, Kammi’s leather-bottomed shoes slip.
She skids, catching herself before she lands on her butt.
“Flip-flops or sneakers. Don’t you have some?” I look at her and then turn away. I’m more direct than Mother after all.
“Running shoes, I have those,” she says, pushing herself up.