She and Leslie Dockers were a pair. Their mothers had approved of the friendship when the girls were young because each family felt the other would help with assimilation to island life. The Manachandis thought that Leslie’s family was Creole — the white French they had heard were native to the island. The Dockers thought Gita was a Trini Indian. But neither family was actually from the island — the Manachandis were from Mumbai by way of Toronto and the Dockers were from Leeds. By the time anyone began to question the need for this friendship, it was too late.
Now Leslie is caressing the satin lining of the lush Virgin coffin as though she might climb in. It is open to show the brown Virgin de Guadalupe emblazoned on the inside. Leslie stares at the image as though she knows the woman. Then she realizes that this Virgin looks like her friend’s dead mother. She stands in front of it so Pinky cannot see.
But Pinky has wandered over to the airplane coffin with her pen and notebook ready. She stoops down to better see into the tiny glass windows. She puts her fingers into the coffin via the emergency exit door and touches the soft inside. Corban thinks she might get her finger stuck. It has happened before. He clears his throat.
“It’s so small and perfect,” Gita says, removing her hand with a slow reverence. “There’s even a cockpit in there by where the head would go. How much it cost?”
“A lot,” answers Corban guardedly.
But Pinky is bolder than she seems. She lingers as though she were a real customer. She asks questions like, “What kind of person would buy a one-winged plane? Where did you get it? When people come in, do they bargain?” Then she pulls out her money and buys some marigolds in a tiny clear box. They are fresh and soft.
The flowers are the same color as the gold satin of the Virgin coffin, and when Gita slips one of them in her hair, Father Simon feels a shiver between his shoulder blades and warmth at the back of his knees. This girl looks like the Virgin.
“It’s so beautiful in here,” Pinky says, as Leslie hisses at her to leave. “It’s like art.” The girls are on their way to get ready for dancing.
Gita was pretty smart by all definitions, but no one thought there was anything special about this. She was a hard worker. She studied with the ferocity of someone in love. And this was special. She was respected for her tenacity by the American and Trinidadian teachers and sought out for guidance by students. Her parents, who imagined her growing up to be someone important’s wife, approved because her study habits meant she would be a desirable catch — a woman who could bear smart and studious sons. Gita did not see it this way. She imagined that she was growing up to be an obstetrician-gynecologist. In her dreams, she treated the poor Indian women from South and slipped them birth control while their husbands waited in the lounge. Gita was often mistaken even by Trinis for being Trini. Her parents thought this was a bit of an insult. They had never cut cane. They had never been indentured. Those island Indians had children who spoke loose and didn’t go to Hindu classes on Saturdays. The girls didn’t think twice to date African or Syrian boys. But Pinky did not take it this way.
Up until the first two weeks of her senior year, Pinky’s routine was the same.
“Gita! Get up, my daughter. Gi-ta!” She was the only child and much was made of her. Her mother would tug on her toes until Gita pulled her feet away and bolted upright. She would go to the shower which was her shower alone. As she got older her showers became longer, and by the second week of being a senior in high school, she was taking forty-five minutes — something of a crime on an island where rain water was often stored under the house like treasure. She liked the water scalding, despite the heat of the island. Her mother would come and knock on the door: “Too much heat! You’re going to wrinkle young!” Then Gita would blast on the cold water and squeal, turning circles under the shower so that she could erase the wrinkling. For many years she stepped out of the shower and reached for her towel without even glancing at herself in the bathroom mirror that covered an entire wall. But since becoming a senior and since Leslie had lost her virginity last year, Gita had become more interested in her own body, and more brave with it.
Now she would step out of the shower and dry herself off with the delicate pats her mother had taught her would not dry out the skin. When the steam evaporated, Gita would hang the towel up and walk slowly to the mirror. She would look at herself as she brushed her teeth and arranged her hair. Sometimes, if she was thinking of Mateo Diaz, she would look serious and sexy like she imagined Leslie might when doing it with Benjamin Jamison. Then she would blow a kiss to her reflection, but this would be too much and she would collapse into giggles. Her uniform would be laid out on the newly made bed when she emerged.
Every morning, Gita and her father ate an elaborate breakfast together. Mrs. Manachandi stayed in the kitchen doling out her experimental dishes, like steak dosa, for the class she taught on Indian/Americana fusion. Gita was always her father’s daughter. He imagined that she would marry the son of one of his fellow managers at the Alcoa Aluminum dock. As each son returned from the U.S. or U.K. with his business or architectural or mechanical engineering degree, Mr. Manachandi would scrutinize him. But often the young men didn’t return at all. And when they did, there was often a scandal with some unknown girl met during the ringing nights of Carnival. The young man would marry hurriedly or be ruined for Gita by the burden of a bastard child. Still, Mr. Manachandi knew that Gita would have to be witty and up on national, regional, and global politics to win the best mate. He thought it would also serve her well to know the value of aluminum. How when the smelter plant was built it would be like gold to the island. Like bauxite had been to Jamaica. He would read all the protest articles in the paper to her. Father and daughter would take turns arguing the side of the softhearted environmental activists or the tough-minded board members at Alcoa. Pinky was good at both. She could argue against the carbon dioxide poisoning with passion. She could argue the side of industry and jobs with coolness. Mr. Manachandi was proud of raising a daughter who could see all sides. Secretly, he wished that she would come work with him at the aluminum dock like a son.
But this had changed in the second week of Gita’s senior year of high school. She and Leslie hung about in the school courtyard and talked about college. Leslie would go over to UWI — despite the ISPS education. So would Gita. Leslie, because it was cheaper than leaving the island and her grades weren’t good enough to get her an international scholarship to a stateside college. Gita, because — though she was a sure thing for a full Barnard grant and even had Spelman as a backup — her mother didn’t want her to go away to college. Too many girls came back with African-American fiancés or with ideas about never getting married.
“There’s Benji,” said Pinky, pointing with her chin across the school pitch where a pickup game of football was in progress.
“Screw Benji.”
“Why?”
“He horned out on me over the summer.”
“How do you know? He was in Atlanta all summer.”
“Grapevine, Pinky.”
“Why you ent tell me, girl. We need to get you a next man.”
“I ent tell nobody. We need to get you a man, period.”