Habitations, page 7
“First Christmas as a family,” Vega said. According to Monty’s frequent updates, Ezekiel’s temporary arrangement was acquiring a permanence. When Monty talked about him, it was with the zeal of—if not a new father—a proud uncle. “The kid loves bell peppers!” he told Vega one night. “Have you ever known a kid who loved bell peppers?” A few weeks earlier, he’d taken Ezekiel to the theater to watch a movie called Street Fighter. Vega found this all baffling. How does a family just give up a child? How does a child just stumble upon a new family?
They talked a bit about Monty, how he had moved in with Naomi’s family when he was sixteen and had lived there even after Naomi left for college.
“He told me once that he liked living with you,” Vega said. “That he was happy.”
“We both were. My ex, Camille, came from this wealthy New England family. They had a vacation home in Maine, and they would go to France over the summers. She used to talk about these magical memories from being a kid, and I would just think, is there something wrong with me? My happiest days were spent smoking weed behind the Shell station with Monty and renting movies from the Blockbuster.” The train stopped at the Danbury station. Through the window, Vega watched a cluster of people outside: an elderly man, a couple in their forties, and two small children.
Naomi asked, “What about you? What were your happiest times?”
“I really enjoyed my vacation home in Maine.”
“Shut up. For real.”
“I did have some really nice childhood holidays. We would go to my grandparents’ house in Mysore. It was a beautiful old house with a garden.” Vega had been blissfully happy during those holidays. She loved being with her cousins, losing themselves in their world of imagined play, sleeping on the balcony and whispering to each other until they dozed off. But those memories seemed so distant, etched into a former version of herself.
Naomi was looking at her. Vega turned to face the window and stared at their blurred reflections. “I had a sister who died, five years ago. So, in some ways, my life was split into two parts.”
“Vega.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t practiced talking about this.”
“Well, you don’t need to practice. You can just talk. I’m here.”
“I mean it, earnestly. I don’t know how to talk about this, so I don’t want to. Not in any real depth. I just mean that, any good memories from when I was a child are irrelevant. Because when I think of them, I know that there is this terrible thing coming. And I want to scream and warn my former self. So, I don’t know how to enjoy those memories.”
“I’m just so sorry, Vega. I’m so damn sorry. If you want to talk, or not. I’m here.”
“I don’t think I do.”
Naomi squeezed her hand. “What about right now? What makes you happy right now?”
“This,” Vega said. “I think I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.”
* * *
They were quiet for most of the walk. Outside the building, Naomi said, “We don’t have to go inside just yet. Our neighbor’s apartment is empty. That’s where I was thinking we could spend the night if we don’t want to get a ride back to the city. We could just sit for a bit.”
The layout of the Martinezes’ home—as it was labeled on a doormat reading Casa Martinez—was exactly the same as Naomi’s family’s apartment, and similarly oriented towards Jesus-themed décor. There was a cross hanging over the door, and a painting of the Virgin Mary at the entrance to the kitchen. Naomi set their coats down and went to the linen closet, returning with a bundle of blankets and a pillow decorated with tiny fish, the ichthys that Vega recognized from her mornings in the Rhodes School chapel.
“I don’t know why I’m getting blankets,” Naomi said. “They’re for later if you want to sleep here. I just felt like I needed to do something.”
If they were in their own apartment, Vega would have busied herself with a task. Maybe riffled through her backpack or walked into the kitchen and washed a dish. On the coffee table was a heavy book called Spirit and Life: The Holy Sacraments of the Catholic Church. She could not plausibly have thumbed through it.
“I’m so sorry about your sister, Vega. I understand if you don’t want to talk.”
“I do want to talk. I just don’t know how.”
Naomi put her hand on Vega’s cheeks and looked at her with such intensity that she thought—despite the heaviness in the room—she might laugh. She’d always been one to do this. To laugh at the worst times.
“Are you smiling?” Naomi asked.
“I don’t know why. I think I’m nervous.” She started to fumble her way through another explanation, but Naomi was kissing her mouth, then her neck. Seconds later, they were in the Martinezes’ sons’ bedroom, lying on top of a Yankees comforter. Naomi’s body was both familiar and alien. The coarse hair, the sticky heat. She touched Naomi in the exact, narrow corridors where she wanted Naomi to touch her, embarrassed when Naomi adjusted her hand, and shocked when it worked, when Naomi gasped and writhed and fell apart underneath her. Rolling over, lying on her back, she slid her thermals down until they dug into the edge of her hips and let Naomi pull them the rest of the way. Her underwear came along with them, everything bunching at her knees, and she felt ridiculous. Like a child who needed help undressing. She wanted to say something. It seemed that too much time had passed without anyone saying anything. And then Vega felt it. The rush and rise she had let herself feel on so many nights, pretending her own hand was Naomi’s.
* * *
Eddie greeted them at the door, slurring and effusive, wearing a green sweater and red apron. “Check you, cuz,” he said to Naomi. “My genius cuz.”
He hugged Vega and lifted her off her feet. It was a strange departure from their usual dynamic. Normally, he just waved at her from across the room. “Look at this beautiful girl. Are all the women in India as beautiful as you?”
“There are half a billion of us,” Vega said. “There’s some variation.”
Naomi laughed a pitch higher than normal, and it surprised Vega to see that she was nervous. She slipped off her coat, then took Vega’s and wandered to the closet to hang them up. Vega tried to follow, but Eddie trailed behind and cornered her next to the bookshelf. By then, Naomi had been pulled into the kitchen.
“You know where I actually want to go?” Eddie asked. “Brazil. I want to go to the beach and drink them caipirinhas and just look at the girls. If they ever deport my ass, I’m gonna take my dollars and cash out in Colombia. Then I’m gonna drive over to Brazil all the fucking time and drink caipirinhas. And I’m gonna eat a thousand fucking grilled shrimp. You believe me when I say that?”
“I think anything is possible,” Vega said.
Eddie finally drifted towards a couch full of middle-aged men, and Vega went into the kitchen where somebody handed her a milky cinnamon drink. From what she could follow, there was much debate at the stove over the various pots, and some discussion of whatever was cooling on the counter. Alba, sitting at the table with a drowsy Gabriel on her lap, waved her over. “I bet you’re sad that you’re not with your family,” she said.
Thinking of her parents snapped Vega out of her stupor. Even in the span of their brief phone conversations, she had run out of things to say to them. They told the same stories over and over again—errands her mother had run, her father’s health news, the occasional update from his classes at Iyer Law College. For the past week, she had been thinking that she owed them a phone call, but she could never bring herself to dial the number.
“I made the chicken, so you have to try it,” Alba said, ignoring, as she usually did, the perplexing fact that Vega didn’t eat meat.
Vega stroked Gabriel’s hand and was reminded that, in addition to her parents, she was overdue for a call to Shoba. She looked around the room again to try to find Naomi. She felt as though she were drifting, as though she might be imagining the entire evening.
It was after midnight when the party ended. Most of the uncles were sobering up with coffee and preparing to drive back home. One of the aunts said, in surprisingly clear English, “I not going with your drunk ass.” Some of the women planned to stay behind, on the couch or the floor. Daniel was rubbing his eyes, and Alba and the baby were asleep in Naomi’s bedroom.
Sometime later—maybe minutes, or maybe an hour, Naomi gestured for them to go. Vega had been deliriously tired moments before. She rarely lasted past midnight under normal circumstances, and in avoidance of a coconut cocktail that Eddie was passing around, she had drunk more beer than normal. But entering the Martinezes’ home, she was wide awake.
On the couch, they stared at each other briefly, then Vega said, “So, tell me about your accelerated three-and-a-half-year course of undergraduate study.”
Naomi smiled. “It’s embarrassing. How impressed they are with me.”
“It isn’t. It’s lovely, actually.”
Naomi reached across the couch and ran her finger lightly along Vega’s collarbone.
“I don’t know what to make of any of this,” Vega said.
“What if we don’t have to figure out any of that right now? What if we just sleep next to each other? We can sort through it tomorrow.”
The next few minutes were stilted. They took turns brushing their teeth in the small bathroom with its black and white tiles and glass bowl of potpourri. Then they changed, discreetly, in separate corners of the bedroom—Vega stripping down to the thermals she wore under her pants and sweater, and Naomi into athletic shorts and a T-shirt that read Black Knights Basketball. They fell asleep, Naomi’s hand resting on Vega’s stomach.
* * *
In the morning, Vega found Naomi at the kitchen table. She was sitting with a coffee mug in front of her, thumbing through the Martinezes’ address book.
“A bit of light reading?” Vega asked.
“It’s funny to look through this. There are so many families who’ve moved. All these people, they crossed out their old numbers and wrote in new ones.” She stood up and poured Vega a cup of coffee, then held up a can with a triangular dent poked into the surface. “They only have evaporated milk.”
“That’s fine.”
“It tastes like a camping trip.”
“I’ve never been on a camping trip.”
“If you had dated my ex, you would have been on many.”
Vega didn’t know what to say to that. She had, until that moment, found everything about Naomi to be thrilling and novel and magnetic. Now, she felt a desire to hurt her, to poke at her happiness and watch her deflate. “We need to clean the room,” she said. “We should wash the sheets.”
Naomi looked confused. “We’ll get around to it.”
“We should probably do it now.” Looking around the bedroom that morning, Vega had been daunted by the mess. They would need to strip the bed, haul everything down to the basement. She was tired of laundry. Of basement units and staticky sheets and other people’s lint. With fresh rage, she thought about Sukumar Reddy, smug and shirtless, drinking one of his insufferable green juices and leaving the unwashed blender in the sink.
“I don’t think we have to worry about that now. I can take care of it later.” Naomi sat back and chewed the corner of her lip. “I’m probably not going back into the city until tomorrow. We could go for a drive. I have Eddie’s car. Nothing will be open, but we could go to Westport and see the coast.”
“I should probably go back to the city today, if the trains are running.” Vega regretted the line the moment she delivered it. She did not want to go back to the city. She wanted to stay in the Martinezes’ apartment, fall back asleep next to Naomi on the unmade bed. Rationally, she knew that this was an option, that it was what Naomi also wanted, but it still felt out of reach. And that feeling made her angry. Specifically, it made her angry at Naomi.
Naomi nodded slowly. “I’ll try again. I’m going to spend the morning with my family. Downstairs. You’re welcome to come. Otherwise, I can drive you to the station. There is some train service today. It’s sporadic, but I think there’s an afternoon one.”
“This isn’t feasible, Naomi.”
“Feasible? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Who the fuck uses the word ‘feasible’ in conversation?”
“I only mean that it isn’t practical.”
“Thank you. I know what the word means.”
Naomi stared at Vega for a few long seconds, then she left the kitchen. Vega could hear her in the bathroom, running the faucet, then the shower. A few minutes later, the apartment door opened and closed.
Vega brushed her teeth, got dressed, and sat on the rumpled bed, unsure what to do. She went back to the kitchen and washed the coffee mugs. Then she straightened out the couch cushions and wandered through the living room, looking at the framed pictures on the walls. Two boys at different stages. A toddler with a ball next to an infant in a stroller. Posed, with braces and collared shirts. In a graduation cap and gown. After some time, there was a knock on the door. Vega looked through the peephole. It was Naomi’s mother. She came inside, holding a mug of coffee and a paper plate of sweet-looking rolls. Then she sat on the couch and patted the empty space next to her. “Merry Christmas,” she said.
It was all so puzzling, and with the absence of any real common language, there was no point in even trying to sort through any of it. Vega took the plate and bit into the roll. There was a crust of sugar on top. The coffee was milky and sweet, reminiscent of Madras coffee. “No want you be sad,” Naomi’s mother said. “You’re nice girl.” She squeezed Vega’s hand. They sat quietly until Vega had eaten the last roll and drained her mug.
“You finish here, come down,” she said, before walking out. “Have breakfast.”
It was such a sweet and illogical suggestion, delivered so carefully, and it was clear just how much planning and effort went into those few sentences. It was exhausting, Vega thought, to speak another language. To translate the individual words in your head, knowing that the composite would be barely coherent. She thought about Hyderabad, the hostel common room, the foil packets of takeout biryani. She thought about Sanjay. He had liked her so plainly, so publicly. He had offered himself to her. And what had she done? She had stopped talking to him. She had fucked Reddy, and then she had left.
“I will,” Vega said. Instead, she walked down the steps, tiptoeing past Naomi’s family’s apartment, caught a taxi to the train station, waited for nearly an hour, and took the long, cold ride back to New York.
She spent the day cleaning the apartment and hoping that Naomi would walk through the door. That night she slept fitfully, waking up and dozing off again. Around ten a.m., she dragged herself out the door and down the stairs and walked to the first open store that she could find—an East Asian market she had passed countless times but never stepped inside. It was curiously packed with students. She filled her basket with whatever she could identify, though none of it provided much sustenance: a bag of lychee candies; rice crackers; Maggi noodles; cream-filled rolls flavored with green tea. Then she went back to 121st Street, tore through the food, and waited some more.
* * *
By the end of the week, the apartment was unbearable. Most of the building’s tenants had left for the winter, and the super had turned down the heat—slipping notices into their mailboxes in early December, to which Vega hadn’t paid much attention. Now, the cold leached from the floor through her socks. Her nose ran constantly. She drank cup after cup of tea and was distracted by the steady pulsing of her bladder. Halima and Zemadi were out of town, or she would have retreated to one of their apartments. Once, she went into Naomi’s room and sat at her desk, taking in the small changes since the last time she had been inside there. There was a copy of The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology, a Brooklyn College travel mug where she stored pens, a weekly planner filled with her tight, curled handwriting. Fellowship app due; T.A. Notes; Alba cita con la doctora. Vega hadn’t known this about Naomi, that she used Spanish sometimes when speaking to herself. It was such a weightless thing to learn about someone. Still, she read the sentence over and over again, running her fingers over the letters.
Shoba called on New Year’s Eve. They hadn’t spoken since November, shortly before Thanksgiving. She was eight months pregnant now. Her voice was thinner. Vega imagined her vocal cords pressed against the weight of the baby.
“Best wishes!” she shouted, as though she were on the phone with Coimbatore. “We’ve been talking so much about you!” She updated Vega on her mother’s travel plans, the new rice cooker that Mohan had bought, and she inquired—as she always did—about Vega’s exams. Then she asked, “What do you think of Tara?”
“Tara?”
“For the baby. It means star.”
“That’s lovely, Shoba. It’s a beautiful name.”
On Sunday night, just over a week after Christmas, Vega returned from the library to find Naomi standing in the kitchen, slicing an apple, dressed in her bartending uniform: white shirt and black jeans. It had been enough time, Vega considered, for the anger to have dissolved but the desire to still be there. She imagined reaching out, touching Naomi’s stomach, sliding her shirt upwards.
“I’ll be out of your way in a minute,” Naomi said.
“You aren’t in my way.”
“Do you have a minute, then?”
“Of course I do.”
“There’s a good chance I’ll be in Austin by the summer. I think it might be best if I move out for the spring semester.”
“The spring semester starts in three weeks. You’re moving now?”
“You can find a roommate, or they can find new tenants. We’re month-to-month, so if you decide to move out too, we should let the landlord know soon.”
This was her opening, Vega realized. It was not too late to convince her to stay. Naomi stared down at her sliced apple as though she weren’t sure of the mechanics of eating it, then she said, “The thing you told me on the train. Your sister. I want you to know how much I hurt for you when you told me. I don’t know what I mean by this, except that you can’t do much for people if you aren’t in their lives. And I’m sorry I’m not in yours.” She pulled a container from the cabinet, packed her apple, collected her backpack and boots, and walked through the front door.
