At the salon, I tell the bleached-blonde lady at the front desk, "I want to be perfect, like a doll." It's the first time I've ever gone to a salon and the Lebanese girl at my mother's bank recommended this place, Nails 4 Us, says they know what they're doing, that they're fast and professional. As the bleached blonde lady takes me into the back room and closes the white curtains shut, I pray that the Lebanese girl is right.
In the back room, the lighting is low. There's a simple screen over the lamp so it bathes the room in this pale other worldly glow which I guess is supposed to be calming. After fifteen minutes two nice ladies come in and lay me down and tell me to relax, relax, before they wax and pluck and pick all the hair from my skin and then shape my eyebrows and draw the ends on with a pencil. No hair, no hair, no hair. The first time the ladies pull off the strip, perfect spheres of blood appear and my whole body tightens and I can't move my legs or my arms, I'm so nervous, but after that second tug there aren't as many little dots, and by the third, I get used to the feeling of my skin being ripped off and stop tensing up.
* * *
An hour or two after walking into that back room (and after my skin isn't so red), I go to Sonny's. In the basement, he feeds me mangoes with salt. The juice from the fruit drips down my chin, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. He meticulously cuts the ripe, sticky mess in sphere shaped sections and then carefully sprinkles the salt over his concoction. This weekend will be our first time away together, staying in a motel overnight instead of parking on the tree-lined street a few houses down and cramming down the seat in his Camry, maneuvering to unzip jeans and unhook my bra, ducking down when the lights from passing cars illuminate the steamed windows. I'm not going to lie, I'm excited. A real bed. I've already told my parents that I'm staying at Alyssa's for the weekend, and he's told his parents that he's spending it at Miguel's. It's the perfect plan.
We're sitting on the stools at the kitchen counter. The basement is cool, almost cold even, a welcome relief from the heat of the day. Under my clothes, I feel naked and new, but Sonny doesn't seem to notice. I want him to say something about how much better I look, but he only leans over and feeds me another piece of mango. He absentmindedly wipes his fingers on a paper napkin, folds it four ways and places it on the kitchen counter. Then he feeds me another piece, and then another one, and we do this until there are footsteps upstairs, softly padding against the wooden boards, and his mother peers down the stairs.
I fall back on my stool and wipe my fingers against my skirt. Although she's in her late forty's, Sonny's mom looks like she's no older than thirty-five. Her face is soft; slight circles under her eyes from long hours at the hospital. In her arms is a blue sari. I pull down my shirt, which has ridden up my back. His mother is one of the few people in his family that actually likes the fact that I'm with Sonny. She carries herself down the stairs and holds the sari to us as an offering, asking if I'd like to try it on, just because.
Sonny rolls his eyes. "Mom, she doesn't want to try on your stupid sari."
But I don't know if that's true. I don't not want to try it on. I can feel myself blush beside him as I cross my arms. His mother smiles wider as he scowls. I should have known this was coming. Ever since Sonny told her I was going to school out of state, she's been trying to capture evidence of my existence with her son.
"I just want to take a picture. To see how it looks," his mother says. "What's wrong with that?"
Sonny would rather die than see me wear that sari. I can tell, because he doesn't answer and starts cleaning up the mess of mango on the counter.
"How about later, Mrs. A?" I say. "Before I leave, definitely."
She nods, touching Sonny on the shoulder and winking at me before gently gliding back up the stairs.
I push Sonny lightly and he shrugs me off. Sometimes I think he likes that I don't know anything about him. It took over eight months for him to tell me that the colorful altar by the front door was just what Hindus did. I noticed it the first time he invited me to his house (and asked him about it too) but he said nothing about the incense and pictures of loved ones and divine looking gurus; instead he just pushed open the basement door and offered for me to go ahead. A few months later, when we were going to a movie at the mall, he told me that his parents' ancestors were originally from India but were shipped to Guyana as indentured servants. When he said this I didn't want to sound dumb by asking where Guyana was, so I waited until I went home and then I pulled out a map and found the blot of a country sandwiched between Venezuela and Suriname, crowning Brazil, touching the Atlantic Ocean. How foreign and exotic and strange. I wanted to know everything there was about the place. I wanted to learn the language, walk the streets, but Sonny just scoffed when I asked if I could ever go visit with him. He had only been there once or twice before, to visit sick relatives, those that were too frail to fly over to the states. "There's a war going on," he said. "They'd take one look at your pale ass and kidnap you."
A car pulls up in the driveway and a knot thickens in my stomach. The door slams shut and there's the rustling of keys at the front door, the turning of the lock.
We hear shoes shuffling off upstairs and the basement door opening and before I know it, Sonny's brother comes downstairs. I've been with Sonny for a little over a year and his brother still has never said hi to me. He throws his weight down on the creaky wooden steps, not like his mother who floats through the house like a ghost. Her eldest son is taller than Sonny, lanky, with a sharp little goatee.
He brushes past us as we sit on our little stools and dips a spoon into the steaming curry on the stove, bringing it to his mouth and licking his lips as he smirks in my direction: "This curry too spicy for you?"
I shrug, but Sonny laughs. He idolizes his brother. When they were little, his brother showed him how to break into cars in the Bronx, tricks of the trade. I know his brother's not into that now, primarily because he's got a wife and newborn baby to look after, but whenever he's in the room he still makes me nervous, like he's judging me for not growing up in the city like they did. It's not my fault my parents moved out of Queens.
I feel Sonny's brother watching me. I try to stand up straight under his gaze. Poor little white girl, he seems to say. He pulls Sonny off his stool and drags him into the hallway, talking to him quick and low in Guyanese. I can make out some of the words, but the Creole is hard to understand. Sonny once described it as bastardized Jamaican, but I think it has a flavor all its own. Still, I know better than to ask Sonny what a word means, every time I do he shrugs and changes the subject.
I try to occupy myself at the counter, wiping off the salt that's still sticking to the tiles. I don't care what they're talking about. I'm not listening, I'm not listening...
Sonny's different around his brother, harder, like he's really this tough, born-on-the-streets kind of man. When his brother walks into the room, Sonny's eyes get a little meaner, like he's never left the Bronx and that apartment where his sister now lives, the same apartment that his parents first moved into when they came over from Guyana in the 1970s. When Sonny thinks of the city, he thinks of that old neighborhood: dirty and loud with sirens and people. I wonder if I even know the real Sonny. I wonder if he actually works at it or if being able to talk to people just comes easily to him. He's always a gentleman with my parents, even though my dad doesn't like him because he's brown, and at school, he always pays attention and our drama teacher loves him. He's the lead in the school play and is even playing two roles, the everyday father and the loud-mouthed gardener.
Sonny's brother nods my way and jumps up the stairs, taking two and three steps at a time.
When Sonny comes back I fiddle with one of my earrings. "What were you two talking about?"
Sonny doesn't say anything. He wipes a paper towel over the linoleum countertop, smoothing over the sticky parts.
"How come you don't trust me?" I ask.
"I do." He rubs at a spot on the counter, a smudge of mango skin.
"You don't."
"You just wouldn't get it."
I can feel my mouth tightening into a thin line, just like my mom's when she's mad.
"It's nothing." He sighs. "I might have to drop off Sky at my sister's before we head out to Atlantic City tomorrow."
"Isn't that out of the way?"
"See? Told you you wouldn't get it."
* * *
Later that night, I lie on my bed listening to the sound of cicadas outside my window, a low, ceaseless hum. The air is warm and my bed's pushed up against the window with the hope that a cool breeze will flow through, though there's no wind tonight and I'm having trouble sleeping because I can see the little legs of the fireflies and moths as they cling to the metal screen. My skin is smooth and itchy, and I lie on my hands to prevent myself from scratching my legs.
Prom is a few weeks away, and Sonny isn't going to tell his parents that he wants to take me since he knows his dad will say no. A part of me wants to go to say I went, but then I think it's just stupid, a hassle. I'll have to go to the mall and buy a dress on the clearance rack and they're just so tacky, all sequins and poof bottoms in bright fuchsia and pomegranate. Just listening to girls in school talk about how they already have their dresses all picked out at Caché in the mall, where the price tags don't go under two hundred dollars, wears me out. Evening wear. What's the point of buying something you only wear once?
The summer heat has come early this year. I can feel the humidity on my skin. I remember when I was in elementary school we used to walk to Alyssa's pool in the soupy afternoons. Her aunt would feed us Bruschetta and sweet chocolate in gold paper and cluck her tongue, pat my arm: "Such an Italian girl, such a good Italian girl." And later, when I worked at the movie theater, the boy with glasses so thick his eyes were bulbs would come up behind me and smile. "So, you're Egyptian then? You look it." And later, at the check-out line in the supermarket, a new friend seeing the small picture of Sonny I kept in my wallet: "Checka, what part of India are you from?" and me stopping a second before swiping my credit card through the machine to really think about what she was saying, if she was really saying it to me. And then there was the old lady in the airport, in Port Authority, on the street corner trying to find downtown, stopping me quickly to look me in the eye, rolling her R's. The only words I could make out: habla, espanol, claro, no, tambien...And I would shake my head, smile apologetically, step away. Understanding what she was saying slightly, but too shy to speak back.
It seems to me that whether you're white or black or brown or yellow depends on the people around you at any given part of the day. I'm white if the person next to me says I am. Or Italian. Or Mexican. Or Egyptian. Or Indian. If this is true though, how can I ever really be sure of what I am and who I'm not?
* * *
The next day is unbearable. Time drips by, the hours melting and sticking together. When I finally make it to the last class of the day (Reject Math) I feel like I want to scream. I'm stuck sitting with Jacob Walker and bug-eyed Lauren Moysey, twiddling my thumbs as the teacher drones on and on about stuff I'm not even going to use in my lifetime.
I put my head down and watch the clock tick by. Each minute is one minute I won't be spending in Atlantic City. I've never been there before, but Sonny's co-workers told him that the boardwalk is full of colorful lights and all those casinos, the Las Vegas of the East. I just want to go somewhere with Sonny, anywhere but here. I run my hands up and down my now smooth arms. Sometimes I wish I was like my Korean friend, Lena, who never breaks out or even has to wear deodorant, not even to Gym. She doesn't even own a razor because she never has to shave her legs, and she has this straight dark hair that falls down her back and never tangles or frizzes like my messy curls. Plus, her face is symmetrical and she doesn't smile out of the corner of her mouth like I do.
I think about all the time I would save in the morning if I didn't have to shave my stupid legs and wish for a second that I was born Korean, but then, if I was born Asian I know Sonny wouldn't really be into me, he's told me time and time again he doesn't dig Asian girls. He likes the Mediterranean flavor, the dark skinned Mexican and Italian girls, just as long as they're not as dark as him and not freckly pale, and even though I'm American and can't cook like a real Italian or Greek, he says I look the part and that's enough, and besides, it's not like he's a real Indian either, he's somewhere in between, Indo-Caribbean, American, Indian, Hindi. He's whatever the person next to him says he is, too.
It's around three when I hear a slight tapping, knuckles on wood. I lift my head up from the desk to see Sonny's face through the glass door. Looking at his dark face in the window, he doesn't seem like the type to be into theater. I don't know if I believe that the only reason he joined the drama club was to get to know me better, to have a reason to ask if I'd like a ride home. The shadows of the hallway accentuate his cheekbones. He gets that from his father, his angular face and defined features. I have to admit that I don't think it's bad that he's brown. Every white guy I've been with just talks too much and then tries to slip his hand up my shirt. One time Sonny asked me if that was the only reason I liked him, because of his chocolate skin, and I nodded no, of course not, and brushed the hair out of his eyes. He has these long eyelashes like a girl's. Occasionally one or two of them will fall off on his cheek and I'll painstakingly try to pick one up with the edge of my fingernail. He thinks I'm lame when I do it though and can never really hold still for long. Sometimes I think he's right, but I don't tell him that. I'm not sure why I like him, but maybe it is that simple. I like him because he isn't like me and he likes me because I'm not like him, though we have to have something in common if we keep coming back to talk to each other, if we can laugh for hours in his Camry and find ways to amuse ourselves by walking along the Hudson or on the fourth floor of the mall, throwing pennies down to the first.
At the window, he's still in the theater costume, a crisp business suit, black tie, and bowler hat. He knocks lightly on the glass again. "Come on," he whispers and holds out his hand.
The teacher's back is turned. I quietly rise from my desk. Lauren Moysey sniffs in my direction, that little sneetch. I glare at her and then quickly slip out the door. As soon as I'm out of the room he takes my hand and we make a break for it, sprinting down the corridor past the hall monitors and the classrooms. Our shoes slap against the shiny floor and when a teacher yells at us to slow down, we just run faster.
It's almost three fifteen, but Sonny still says that we'll be able to make it. "Without traffic, it's not even that far."
He grabs his duffel bag of clothes from the auditorium and then we race to the parking lot.
* * *
We only drive five or six minutes until Sonny puts in a CD. The boom boom boom of his favorite reggae echoes through the car. The music's joyful and alive, but I can't help but frown. The sky's already darkening behind some trees.
"What's wrong?" Sonny asks, putting his hand on mine. I'm not sure what's wrong but my head aches.
"Turn this song down, will you?"
And he does. His phone beeps beside him. He lets out a sigh and answers it, says 'yeah' gruffly a few times, and then hangs up.
"We gotta make a quick stop," he says, not looking in my direction.
* * *
Walking into his house, I hear the faint sound of a woman singing in Hindi. Sonny opens the basement door and the playful music wafts our way.
Downstairs, his mother is at the kitchen counter, chopping onions. She sees us and grins.
"Checka, you look pretty today. You could almost pass as North Indian." She wipes her hands with the dish towel and nods at me. "I want to show you something."
Sonny groans. "Mom."
But his mother doesn't listen. She picks up the remote and fast forwards a video of a voluptuous Indian woman singing and swaying on a beach, her arms intertwining up to the sky, and then slows it down to normal speed when the Indian woman is in a glittering red sari on a snowy mountain top; her lips blue, goose bumps on her arms. "This is my favorite song," his mother says. "What do you think?"
I sit down on the couch while Sonny stands against the wall with his arms crossed. The Indian woman on the television dances gracefully in the shimmering light. She moves fluidly, like she's swimming through air. I want to learn how to dance like that. I nod at Sonny's mom after watching for a few minutes.
"She's beautiful," I murmur.
She smiles. "Sonny prefers action films."
"I'll take Bruce Lee over this junk any day," he scoffs.
I hear a child's voice and Sonny's niece, Sky, jumps down the stairs one at a time. Thump thump thump. She runs toward Sonny and reaches out to him, though she's so tiny that her little outstretched hands only reach to his knees. He lifts her up and swings her around, a bubbling laugh escaping her lips.
* * *
I sit on the passenger side while Sonny wrestles with Sky in the back seat. The upholstery feels good on my legs and I squirm and admire what a good job Nails 4 Us did. Sky swings her sippy cup upside down and tries to grab Sonny's nose as he buckles her into the car seat. He fumbles with the straps. "Don't worry, we can make it."
I look at the clock. We stayed longer at his house than I thought. "It's almost five."
He gets in, turns the key in the ignition and hits the gear in reverse. "We'll make it."
* * *
We are driving to Atlantic City. We are driving to Atlantic City. I try to tell myself this as I sit in the passenger seat next to him. He drives without any music, listening to the beats and ticks of the car as it hums along the road. He bought this car used, with his own money, working night shifts at the shoe store. His brother got him the job.
The trees blur by. We are driving to Atlantic City. I think about driving with him for the rest of my days. How would that work? Would I sit silently next to him like I'm doing now? He's so committed to his family, always cancelling on me at the last minute for a cousin's birthday or if his father asks him to stay home. Was being with Sonny a mistake? In the summers we used to walk down to the convenience store and buy blow pops and cherry sticks, the cicadas singing in our ears. I liked the days best when we cut through old Davie's lake, snaking through the tall grass, the flowers and weeds strewn about the path. One time as we walked in the dirt he told me what a slut he'd be if he was a girl. The things he'd do to guys, those poor saps. I walked ahead of him. Our skin was wet with sweat, the sun high, not a cloud to hide us from the heat.
* * *
He concentrates on the road, the speedometer needle keeps rising. He speeds up the ramp to the parkway. The car shifts and I hit my head slightly on the car door when he roughly turns.
"Aren't you going a little fast?"
"I know how to drive," he says.
Sky bangs her sippy cup against the door. I try to tell myself he isn't pushing it, but then I see red lights flash behind us and Sonny slams his hand against the steering wheel. He doesn't slow down for a few seconds, but eventually he shifts his foot to the brake and crosses the thick white line, coming to a complete stop.
The police car pulls up behind us.
"Look cute," I whisper to Sky in the back seat. She giggles and covers her mouth with her hands, squeezing her eyes shut and sticking out her tongue.
"Looook cute! Loooook cute! Looook cute!" she sings like a parrot.
The cop gets out of the car and saunters our way. He's a thin man with large, dark sunglasses, and he holds his utility belt with both hands. Sonny rolls down the window and the cop's head looms over him, surveying the situation. "May I see some license and registration?"
Sonny nods. "Sure." He reaches over my bare legs and opens the glove compartment. There are no stray receipts or outstanding tickets, just a few papers crisply folded down the middle, no wrinkles or tears. Sonny grabs the license and registration.
"Looooook cute! Loooooooooook cute!" Sky hollers in the back seat. The officer raises an eyebrow.
"Kids." Sonny shrugs. But when the officer pulls out his notepad, Sonny straightens his back. "Is that really necessary?"
"Uh-huh."
"I wasn't even going that fast."
"Uh-huh."
The officer stops writing and takes off his sunglasses. He peers into the car and takes a long look at Sky who scrunches up her face and makes a farting noise (SQUEE!), and then at me, making a point to look me up and down.
"You okay, ma'am?" he asks. I nod slowly. Why wouldn't I be? The officer rips the ticket off the pad to hand to Sonny, who takes the small piece of paper without a word, his teeth clenched.
I lean toward the policeman. I'm wearing my purple tank top that dips down down down. "Officer, he's telling the truth. I mean, he wasn't going that fast."
The officer only tips his hat with a smirk and saunters back to his car. Sonny waits until the cop drives away before getting back on the highway. He doesn't talk or look at me. I hold my breath and count how many cars shake his Camry as they speed by, but when we get back on the highway it's not long before we're stalled again, this time in traffic. Sky sleeps in the back seat, her little hands balled up in fists. Sonny hasn't said anything since he got pulled over. He just taps his hands on the wheel rhythmically. Suddenly, he looks at me.
"You shouldn't have spoken up."
"I was just trying to help."
"You know. I'm happy being me."
"Okay…Congratulations," I say.
"If I was like you, I bet you he wouldn't have even pulled me over."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He holds his breath and outlines the steering wheel with his hands, gripping the soft leather as I watch a plastic Indian goddess sway on the dashboard, a goddess I'd dishonor with my clumsy American tongue. He looks out at the sea of lights shimmering in the distance. I try to pinpoint what he's looking at. We've been inching forward but it isn't much, and we still have a tunnel and a lot of winding roads to go through. I don't tilt my head in his direction. I just watch the lights in front of us. I'm not going to forgive him yet. I'm not going to be the one. I don't care if I'm stubborn, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care…
Finally, he exhales. "Can we start over?" He leans in to kiss me quickly on the lips, swaying over the yellow lines a little, and I kiss him back, even though I don't really want to start over and it always seems like we're going back to the beginning and hoping we'll have a different sort of ending but it never works out that way.
"Truce?" He smiles at me tentatively, as if he's afraid I'll reject him, and I sigh.
"Truce," I say, only half-meaning it.
After a few more minutes of silence he pats my knee. "Let's talk about something."
I glance at the clock. 8:00 p.m. "Like how we're not going to Atlantic City?"
The sharp light from my own eyes reflects off the circular slivers covering his. He glances my way before looking back to the road. The Indian Goddess mocks me in her sway, steady and unadorned. Only merchandise. Plastic eventually to be discarded under the passenger's seat; one more thing collecting dust from town to town, zip to zip.
* * *
After the traffic clears, we arrive at his sister's around ten. We drive up the littered street. A few streetlights are broken. He parallel parks in a spot across the way from her apartment building. The air is sticky. I open the car door and jump out and stretch my legs. Sonny doesn't rest his hand on my leg like he usually does, so he doesn't know, but my legs feel like silk, velvet and soft. He comes around the back to unbuckle Sky and then makes her hold his hand when they cross the street.
As we enter the apartment building he places his free hand on the small of my back. "Don't tell my sister we got pulled over, okay?"
I nod. There's a sad-looking Christmas tree, a lop-sided star on top, drooping in the piss-smelling lobby. We walk up one flight of steps, following a trail of muddy footprints and passing evenly placed doors that all look the same, the occasional wreath with fake flowers entangled in the twigs. At #21 Sonny knocks.
His sister opens the door, a small, pretty woman with dark, long eyelashes. A younger version of his mom by twenty-five years. Sky yelps with joy and leaps into her arms. She gives each of us hugs, maneuvering around the small child between us. "Weren't you supposed to go somewhere this weekend?"
"Supposed to." I smile.
Sonny just shrugs. "We'll make it some other time."
His sister shakes her head. "You guys hungry? I have some chicken with cabbage leftover. Not too spicy, Checka." She winks at me.
She grabs a handful of plates and we all squeeze into her narrow kitchen and pile on the chicken with cabbage. His sister hands us forks and we shuffle into the living room and throw ourselves down on the mismatched furniture. She turns on the television and suddenly the room explodes with sounds and splashing lights. The channel's on one of those game shows where you can win a million dollars if you answer all the questions right. I bite into the chicken and the sweet flavor explodes in my mouth and she's right, because it isn't too spicy, so I take another bite and another and pretty soon I fork down every last bit on my plate and soup up the rest with a piece of roti, swirling the flat bread in the juices.
As we watch the game show, Sonny's sister answers all the questions right. She leans back in her chair and sighs: "Shit, I should be on this show! Then I could live in a fancy house, no burst pipes. Some white lady maid doing my laundry." She sinks a little lower in her seat. "No offense, Checka." But I just laugh, because she hasn't offended me, not this time, and she's right after all. The people on the show aren't that smart (even though I didn't know all the answers either), and they're paler than me anyway, and who wouldn't want someone doing their laundry?
After we're all satisfyingly stuffed, we put down our plates and rub our bellies with our hands. Sky sleeps peacefully, her head resting on her mother's lap, her little eyes shut tight and her baby hands balled up in fists around her favorite blankie. It's such a sweet image; she has her whole life in front of her and has absolutely no idea what's right outside her window. I look over at Sonny and notice that he's watching Sky sleep too, hell, we're all watching, though I can tell by the way that Sonny's looking at her that some day he's going to want to have kids (even though now he won't really admit it). Sad thing is I know he'd be a good father. He'd look after and provide for his children, because that's what he does, that's what he's been trained to do, and that's why we're never going to Atlantic City. The thought comes to me suddenly, almost as an afterthought, but even so, it feels right. For Sonny there's always going to be more family to take care of, to have dinner with, to drive around. Family has and will always come first.
Gently, his sister wraps the sleeping Sky in her arms and stands. There's an edge of the blankie still clasped in Sky's small hands as her mother walks out of the room.
"You guys can have the couch," she says. "Rest and go home in the morning." Then she smiles and slowly closes her bedroom door.
I go to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face and study my dripping reflection in the mirror. My eyes are tired, slight bags under my lower lids. There's this faraway look in my pupils, the same look my dad has after coming home after driving people to and from the city for twelve, fourteen-hour days. I once read somewhere that your pupils dilate when you're thinking about someone you love, but when I told Sonny this, he said he heard that they only dilate when you're thinking about someone you hate. I haven't had half as long a day as my dad has, but still, all this hoping and wishing has made me tired. I stare at my eyes, the little black centers. They look dilated to me, but it's hard to tell what exactly I'm thinking about. Sonny? My dad? Sky? Being stuck on the highway for hours and hours? At least my eyes are brown like Sonny's. At least we have that.
I switch off the light in the bathroom and venture back into the living room, but Sonny's flipped the switch and the room is dark. I have to stumble over the furniture to where I think I hear him breathing, falling over a chair and then the corner of the table two or three times. Sonny turns on the VIDEO screen and blue light tints the room into another realm to light my path.
"Thanks," I mumble.
I see his blue-tinted head nod at me. "No problem," he says. I can hear the drowsiness in his voice. I wonder if he'd want to touch me here, feel my skin, finally, one last hurrah. Though when I see him lie down on the couch, I know he's too tired. I crawl on top of him and let it be. Whenever I lay on top he's out usually in five minutes, sometimes less. I like to think it's because he feels safe. When he's under me he knows I'll keep him from floating away. Then again, Sonny really has no danger of floating away anytime soon. I'm the one going to college out of state. I'm the one leaving him.
I poke his bicep and then his shoulder and listen to him breathing under me, in and out and in and out. His shirt smells damp and clean, like it's just been washed, and I can feel his heart beating through his rib cage. It's a low, steady rhythm. The glow from the Laundromat sign flickers on across the street and radiates through the window, and there's that old musky smell, of garbage and pine sol and cooking, of people living in close quarters, of generations of people. I rest my head on his chest and listen to the beeping car horns and the shouts of strangers echoing through the night.
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