twilight(SG)~part5-pg 11 - Page 3

We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was
pretty much it for Conversation. We stared out the windows in silence.
It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their
trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered
with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.

It was too green — an alien planet.

Eventually we made it to dad's house. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that
he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind
of days their marriage had — the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the
house that never changed, was my new — well, new to me — truck. It was a faded red
color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I
didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid
iron affairs that never gets damaged — the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint
unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.

"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much
less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain
to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.

"I'm glad you like it," Dad said gruffly, embarrassed again.

It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. I got the west bedroom that faced out
over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born.
The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains
around the window — these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Dad
had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk
now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the
floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could
stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share
with Dad. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact.

One of the best things about Dad is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to unpack and
get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice
to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the
window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wasn't in the mood to go on
a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the
coming morning.

Morena High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven — now
fifty-eight — students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class
alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together — their grandparents had
been toddlers together.

I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.

Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Mumbai should, I could work this to my advantage.
But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond — a volleyball
player, or a cheerleader, perhaps — all the things that go with living in the valley of the
sun.

Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite
the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an
athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without
humiliating myself — and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of bathroom
necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel.
I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it
was the light, but already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty — it was
very clear, almost translucent-looking — but it all depended on color. I had no color here.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to
myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a
school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?

I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to
people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was
never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I
was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through
theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain. But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered
was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.

I didn't sleep well that night, even after I was done crying. The constant whooshing of
the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. I pulled the faded
old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until
after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.

Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the
claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage.
Breakfast with Dad was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked
him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. Dad left first, off
to the police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak
table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark
paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed.
My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some
sunshine into the house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized
family room was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Dad and my mom in
Delhi, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful
nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last year's. Those were
embarrassing to look at — I would have to see what I could do to get Dad to put them
somewhere else, at least while I was living here.

It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Dad had never gotten over
my mom. It made me uncomfortable.

I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house anymore. I donned my jacket — which had the feel of a biohazard suit — and headed out into the
rain.