"Young master," said Asa behind him.
Doug turned. Asa was still standing in the doorframe, blue-skinned against the warm embers of the hall behind him. Silhouetted like this, Doug could just barely make out a jagged smile in the corner of Asa’s lips, like a crack in his bell.
"My mistress misspoke. It works," he said, and closed the door.
29
The undyed
OPHELIA HOSTED a hair-dyeing party for all the girls playing Puerto Ricans. It was something of a magnanimous gesture, after fighting tooth and nail for the right to keep her brown-sugar hair and pink bangs. Her family had Puerto Rican friends in New York, she argued — real Puerto Rican New Yorkers — and they didn’t all have black hair. But Samantha Todd, the theater director, was adamant — now that she’d cast Sejal in the leading role she wanted the other girls to match.
Mostly they watched the Natalie Wood West Side Story and ate. Ophelia, Sophie, Jenny Underwood, Emily Purvis, and Jordan Belledin needed to dye their hair, but of course Sejal didn’t. And Abby was playing a white girl, essentially an extra. And Cat was just there to assistant direct the whole thing.
"I can deal with the hair," said Jordan as Cat picked across her scalp, "but are we really going to wear dark makeup? Isn’t that supposed to be offensive or something?"
"Offensive?" said Sejal.
"I don’t mean offensive to have dark skin," Jordan assured her, though it hadn’t occurred to Sejal to consider this until she was assured not to. "I mean, it’s blackface, right? I think people get really upset if you wear blackface."
"This’ll be brown face," said Sophie. "And brown neck."
"And arms," said Emily.
"You’re so lucky," Jordan told Sejal. "You don’t have to change anything."
"Good thing we’re not doing Grease." Ophelia laughed.
The girls fell silent. Sejal supposed they were thinking the same thing she was: If they were doing Grease, she wouldn’t be playing the lead.
"Crap, that’s my phone," said Cat. "I have goopy gloves."
Ophelia fished the phone from Cat’s boxy velvet purse and sang, "It’s Ja-ay."
"Put it up to my ear. Hey, Jay! No, I’m at Ophelia’s. A bunch of us girls are here, trimming each other’s bushes."
A couple of girls gave scandalized shrieks, and everyone laughed except Emily, whom Sejal had come to think took everything a little too seriously. "Aah! Tell him we’re not really, Cat!" Emily said. "He’ll spread it around school."
"Shave a lightning bolt in mine!" shouted Ophelia.
"He knows when Cat’s joking," Sejal told Emily. "He’ll not spread it around."
"He’ll tell Doug, maybe," Emily whimpered.
"So what if he does?" said Abby. "Doug doesn’t care about your business."
Silence, again, apart from Cat’s brassy laugh — Jay must have said something funny. She looked abruptly startled, chastened, as if she’d just remembered she was in church and surrounded by sober, serious people. "It just got really quiet here," she said into the phone.
What did the other girls think when they heard his name? wondered Sejal. Surely they couldn’t be having the same thoughts as she. It really was a ridiculous idea. The way Doug had been acting, and Abby’s decline, and the stories from that store robbery and the bat that night — you didn’t just put all those pieces together any way you pleased. They had their own order, or lack of order. And although these pieces were all cut from Western cloth, she knew how it would sound to American ears if she, the Indian girl, started talking about vampires. That was the gaudy image she was embroidering from all these loose threads, wasn’t it? That Doug was a vampire? It was the Niravam, certainly. She had to stop taking it — it only made her worse. Poor Indian girl — her head is full of superstitious hoodoo. It’s a culture of confusion — too many gods, all those arms — what do you expect?
"Can I talk to you a minute, Abby?" asked Emily. "In private," she added in the least private tone possible. It was discreet like a kazoo was discreet. The two girls rose and went off in search of some quiet corner.
"I don’t know. Some drama," Cat told Jay. "We’re a dramatic people."
"Okay, so what’s the deal with Doug Lee?" said Ophelia. Sejal imagined that a less brazen version of this question might at that very moment been posed to Abby in another part of the house, but Ophelia’s seemed to be directed primarily at Sejal.
"I know, right?" said Jordan as Cat tucked the last of her slick hair under a plastic grocery bag. "So creepy. My uncle pulled this really weird Jekyll and Hyde thing a few years ago, and that turned out to be a stroke."
"Why are you looking at me?" Sejal asked Ophelia. "You have known him longer."
"Yeah, but I’ve only been paying attention to him as long as you have. And he has a huge crush on you, so maybe you got to know him. For a while some people thought you might like him, too."
So we’re not just talking about Doug, thought Sejal. "Maybe you should shout your questions louder," she said, "so Jay can hear. So Abby can hear."
"Ophelia wants to know what’s up with Doug," Cat said to Jay. Ophelia winced. Cat leaned away from the phone. "Jay says nothing’s wrong with Doug, but he’s saying it in this weird way he gets whenever he’s lying. Like he’s talking in all caps. What? No, I’m just telling them what you said."
"This is gonna sound all weird," said Sophie, "and if you tell anyone I said so I’ll kick your ass, but…like, I know you said you thought he was looking better, ’Felia, but does anyone think he actually looks…good? Like not good good, but…like you see some eggplant and you actually feel like trying it even though eggplant makes you throw up."
"I know what you’re saying," said Jordan. "I’ll admit it. It’s like he got some kind of Guido body spray and it actually works like the commercials say it does."
"Do you think they’ve…you know," asked Carrie. "Do you think he took her virginity?"
"Ha!" said Ophelia. "He’s not a time traveler."
Cat had by then hung up. "Jay says he and Doug haven’t hung out much lately, but…he thinks it all has to do with Doug wanting to go with Sejal and her saying no. Doug thinks she led him on — sorry, Sejal, I don’t think you did. Maybe he’s just bitter or depressed or something."
"I need a glass of water," said Sejal. "Does anyone want a glass of water?" No one did. "Excuse me."
She didn’t know this house well, and at the bottom of the staircase she veered away from the sibilant whispers of Abby and Emily ("Jodi thinks so, too," Emily was saying. "She called him evil…") and down one hall, past a loo, and into a laundry room.
"Damn," she whispered. She turned and found Ophelia blocking the hall.
"Hi," said Ophelia. "Here." Then she leaned forward, her still-sugary-brown locks breezing fragrantly past Sejal’s nose, and switched on the dryer. The empty tumble made the small, slightly chilly room inexplicably more inviting. Dapples of warm light like goldfish appeared on the blue moonlit wall behind the dryer. Ophelia half closed the door. No one would hear them speak.
"I didn’t lead Doug on," Sejal said. "I thought I might grow to like him, isn’t it? When I realized my mistake, I stopped it."
"I’m sorry."
"What I did was proper. I do not mean to lead anyone on."
"I believe you. I’m sorry."
They paused. Sejal listened to the warm, snoring dryer.
"I’m trying to learn to be a better person," Sejal said. "A stronger person."
"You’re good. You’re strong."