Part 18 (1/2)
”Very cute,” he said, looking at her pink sneakers. ”I thought we could go somewhere and talk.”
”Why?” She stood up, and in her flat shoes she was only a few inches taller than he.
”I want to know more about what you're thinking, why you're here. Have you had breakfast? We can go to a coffee place if you want.”
She hung her purse, a gray pouch kind of thing, over a shoulder. ”I told you, I just came out here to have some fun.” She spoke softly and stepped away from the reception desk.
He stayed put and declared, ”Most people don't run off to see other men right before they're about to get married.”
”Come on.” She headed toward the outside door. ”Let's not make a scene. I've already had breakfast. Let's just go see something.”
At the streetcar stop in front of the building, Abhay tried again. ”You're really serious about marrying this guy?”
Rasika slipped sungla.s.ses over her eyes. ”I haven't met him in person, yet. We've talked over the phone. I think I'll like him.” She turned away from him so her shoulder and purse were between herself and him.
”Yeah. You're so excited about marrying him that you flew all the way across the country to see scruffy old me.”
She ran her black lenses over him from head to toe. He wore a pair of faded jeans and an old green fleece jacket. ”You don't have to be scruffy if you don't want to.”
”That's not the issue. Why are you here?”
A middle-aged, square-shaped woman holding a large tan shopping bag stopped right in front of them to look at the streetcar schedule.
”You invited me,” Rasika hissed. ”Why did you invite me?”
”I invited you because I love you.”
”Oh, please.” She turned her back to him again.
The streetcar pulled up with a faint squeak of its wheels against the track, and he decided to give up figuring her out for the time being. ”Let's go to the library,” he suggested as they hung on to the streetcar straps and swayed down the street. ”I want you to meet someone.” Justin Time spent hours at the public library, finding and photocopying new materials to bring to Abhay.
On the sidewalk in front of the library, they gazed at the grand building. ”I love the fact that this building, which is free and open to the public, is more imposing than the Portland Art Museum,” he told her.
She followed his gaze to the beautiful tall arched windows, the broad steps from the street to three arched doorways, the bronze lamps on either side of the stairs. They climbed the steps and entered the lobby, with rows of pink marble pillars and a black grand stairway ahead of them.
”It looks like a ballroom, or something.” She pulled off her gla.s.ses and tucked them into her purse.
”Yeah and it's for all of us. Take a look at these stairs.” He led her to the black staircase, heavily embossed with garden imagery. ”You can see shapes hidden in the design. Here's a bird. There's a crocodile, I think.”
”It's like finding the hidden pictures in one of those children's magazines.” They clambered around the staircase. She was giggling with pleasure, putting her hands down to feel the shapes.
On the second and third floors, she admired the rose-patterned carpet. There were more pillars, beautiful light fixtures, heavy wooden doorways leading to rooms with rows of bookshelves, and tables of people reading or using computers. ”I don't think I've been in a library since I was in college,” she said.
”Where do you get your books?” Abhay asked.
”I buy magazines. Sometimes I borrow a book from Jill or a friend at work, but I can't even remember the last book I read.”
Justin Time generally occupied a far table on the third floor. As Abhay led the way, he could see Justin's bald head bent over a pile of papers.
”Justin,” he whispered, and the man startled.
At that moment, Abhay saw Justin as Rasika was likely seeing him: a humorless middle-aged man in rumpled clothes. He felt embarra.s.sed to be introducing this glowing woman to this lifeless man. But Justin was waiting expectantly, so Abhay finished the introductions. Rasika held out a clean, elegant hand, and Justin grasped it in his ink-stained one. Abhay said a few sentences to Rasika about the important goals of the organization. Justin seemed impatient to get back to his research, so they left him and walked out of the library.
Outside, they sat on a stone bench. ”That guy gave me the creeps,” Rasika said.
”He's a little eccentric.”
”He's like a zombie or something. There's nothing there. What is it you guys are trying to do?”
Abhay explained HOPE again to Rasika. Her eyes grew larger, and she burst into laughter. ”You've got to be kidding. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”
”Do you know that the world's population will top nine billion by 2050? That's about eight billion more people than can live a comfortable, enjoyable life on this planet. And do you realize that each person born in America will produce millions of pounds of trash, and lead to the consumption of thousands of barrels of oil?”
”Do you really think you can get everyone on the planet to stop having children?” She shook her finger at him, and he realized she was imitating his gesture to her. In fact, his hand was still up in the air, ready to make his next point.
He put his hand down. ”That's a goal.” He tried to make his voice less strident. ”You have to have a goal, so you know what you're aiming for.”
”It's not a goal. It's a delusion.”
She looked so funny, with her eyes wide open and her eyebrows raised, that he had to laugh. ”He is kind of a strange guy, I admit. And the organization is unusual. I'm just doing this for a while, until I figure out what I really want to do.”
”Are you getting closer?”
”Maybe. I'm realizing at least that I like the research I'm doing for Justin. I love libraries, and I love books. I miss being in school.”
”You could become a professor. Then you could be in school all the time.”
”I think what I really want is to be a perpetual student!” He laughed.
”Sometimes I wish I could permanently be eleven years old,” she said.
”Why? What's so great about eleven?”
”I wasn't conflicted then. I wanted the same things for myself that my parents wanted for me. I made cookies. I was a Girl Scout. I collected Beanie Babies. Boys had cooties, and I stayed away from them.”
”I thought you still wanted the same things your parents want.”
”I do. But-it's just different now.”
”Rasika, if you'd just admit that you don't want the same things as your parents-”
”Abhay, if you'd just admit that you're refusing to grow up-” She held up both hands, palms parallel, as though handing him a large box of her thoughts.
He realized she was imitating his gesture again. He dropped his hands. ”I guess we should stop trying to fix each other.”
”Good idea.”