Good Indian Girls: Stories by Ranbir Singh Sidhu Read Free Book Online Page B

Lovedeep decided the instructor was jealous. She plucked up her courage. “Do you have his number?” she asked. Theinstructor took a moment to consider her response, took hold of Lovedeep’s wrist and brought her mouth close to Lovedeep’s ear.
    “We’re after bigger things, aren’t we, you and I,” she whispered. Lovedeep didn’t know what she was talking about. The instructor continued, “We want to overturn our lives. Start from scratch, tear open our bodies.” The instructor’s breath beat warmly against Lovedeep’s ear. “Listen to me, I know what you need. Come with me to India. Take me there. Please.”
    The instructor’s nails pressed into the flesh of Lovedeep’s wrist. “We can do it together, we can walk from the bottom of India all the way to the top.”
    Saying that, her nails pressed so hard that Lovedeep let out a cry and wildly yanked her arm free. She turned furiously and started racing past the stunned eyes of her fellow students.
    Behind her, the instructor called out her name.
    Lovedeep slammed open the door and threw herself into the crowd of milling smokers and out into the parking lot with its warm air smelling of car exhaust. Once inside her own car, she burst into tears. The instructor was right. She wanted more than anything to overturn her life, to start anew, to become someone else entirely. She turned on the engine and drove away, thinking that she was nothing more than a coward.
    A message was waiting on the answering machine. It was from Ian. On hearing it, all the agitation of the evening disappeared instantly.
    He was sorry for not calling earlier. He’d planned to see her again at class tonight, but got delayed. Traffic. He was in the area. If she was up, could he come over? He wantedso much to see her. There was something he wanted to tell her, and he could only say it to her face.
    The first thing he did on entering was to walk into her bedroom and open the closet doors. He was carrying a backpack and a small, black leather case that looked like a camera bag.
    “It’s not so bad,” he said, indicating the closet. “You don’t need that class.” He held up a wide leather belt and admired it. “I like this. You should wear it.” He handed it to Lovedeep.
    She had watched him walk from the door, across the living room and into her bedroom, with disbelief and a rising sense of admiration. She liked how he moved, he was familiar, it was as if he lived here already. Everything that had happened to her that day, these last few weeks, maybe even everything that had ever happened to her, had been erased when she heard his message. She was a different person already. Tomorrow, she would tell Marjorie this. “I’m not your friend anymore,” she would say, “I don’t know why I ever was. Go find someone else.”
    “The woman at the class told me you give off bad vibes,” she said to Ian. “She said you’re ugly. In spirit or something, I don’t know.” She slipped the belt around her waist and pulled it tight.
    “Tighter.” He pulled it tight for her. “Like that.”
    With the belt so tight, Lovedeep had trouble breathing.
    “You’re going fast,” she said. “Let’s have a beer. You did bring some.”
    He pulled a six-pack out of the backpack. Coors. She hated Coors.
    “My favorite,” she said, opening a can and following him back into the living room. A heavy glass ashtray sat on thecoffee table, overflowing with butts. She lit a cigarette and offered it to him. He took it wordlessly.
    The apartment was sparsely furnished. A sofa, loveseat, glass-topped coffee table, television. When a friend came over, they sat together, smoking, discussing what to order for takeout or watch on cable. Despite the lack of furniture, her experience of the room was of being suffocated. She could not walk, she told herself, without tripping over all her crap. Was this why she’d jumped at the opportunity when she saw the de-cluttering flyer in the women’s room that