to his father.
“No, Jaya. Not anymore. I made it. You put it in his two-timing hands,” she said. She didn’t blink.
So that’s how it was. Sanjay’s cheating was an ordinary part of their life. Like showering. Or brushing your teeth. His mother despised Sanjay just enough to not want to deliver the tiffin but not enough to refuse to make it in the first place. Also not enough to leave him.
Jaya scratched his head. So now he was the tiffin wallah?
“Get going, Jaya,” Jayshree said.
Jaya nodded. “Yeah, ok.”
He set the tiffin in a small open cooler in the trunk so it wouldn’t tip.
The weather was perfect—sunny and cloudless with just the right amount of breeze. He selected Nirvana’s In Utero CD and turned it up. He drove and the music and the scenery relaxed him. By the time he reached the long gravelly road leading to the construction site, he’d reached his own nirvana.
When he stepped out of the car, the trade winds welcomed him. It occurred to him that maybe his father would want to share the tiffin with him. After all he wasn’t a random tiffin wallah like in Mumbai. He was the son. Jaya flinched.
He was still a daughter to them.
The scent of cumin wafting from the tiffin took Jaya’s senses on a trip. He reminisced about his family’s last visit to Mumbai. Barely eight years old, Jaya had marvelled at the countless tiffin wallahs riding their bicycles through the crowded streets, maneuvering between trucks, cars, pedestrians, and the occasional cow, carrying multiple tiffins to ravenous workers throughout the huge city.
He smiled, surprising himself.
This is how Mom’s supposed to feel, right?
The sun suddenly felt hotter. Stronger. The trades had disappeared. It was too quiet. He looked around. There weren’t any people. No construction workers doing their thing. No engineers or architects in hard hats. Didn’t the workers usually eat lunch on site?
Jaya opened the door of the trailer office. There at the far end of the trailer was Sanjay kissing someone.
Jaya froze. The tiffin slipped and crashed onto the floor. Dal leaked onto his Reeboks.
His father and the woman looked up.
Jaya was gone before they saw him. He jumped in his car and peeled out. He drove back to town shaking the steering wheel and making way-too-sharp turns.
Should he go back and call Sanjay out? Should he go home and tell Jayshree? Should he pretend like he didn’t see anything?
In the end, he decided to keep quiet. The same as always.
Better to stuff it all down. Way, way down.
The bus stop shelter near the Hau’ula Beach Park smelled of urine and sorrow. Rasa crinkled her nose at the used needles and ragged condoms that littered the area. She turned away to face the ocean. She thought about when they’d lived in a tent a few yards away. She pressed her palms together in prayer and lifted her head to the drab sky. “Thank you,” she whispered, grateful for their shack. Also that her sisters had never been homeless.
The heavy clouds burst. Rain pummeled the ground. Rasa hopped over the garbage into the shelter. She stepped onto the bench under the narrow roof and hugged herself. The rain fell in thick drapes.
A cold gust of wind blew rain onto Rasa. She shivered and rubbed her bare arms. Her skin ached with chill. She tried to distract herself by counting the raindrops that landed on her slippered feet. She was at forty when a red Ferrari pulled up in front of the bus stop.
The passenger side window came down. An older man, maybe in his late thirties, called out, “Hello?”
Rasa looked up.
The man strained his neck to catch her eye. “Need a lift?”
Rasa looked left and right. No bus in sight. She sized up the man and his fancy car.
There was a stethoscope and white coat in the back seat. It reminded her of her siblings’ doctors’ appointments next week. She still needed three hundred dollars to cover the costs.
The library can wait.
Maybe this rich guy who might be a doctor could be useful. He couldn’t be that bad if he was a doctor. He was supposed to help people, right? Do no harm…
She licked her lips and got to work. She made her teeth chatter. Then she leaned over so that the front of her short sundress fell away from her chest. She watched his eyes drift to her cleavage. “My savior,” she said flashing her sexiest half-smile.
A flustered pink rash spread across the man’s pale cheeks. His eyes widened. He gave her a closed-mouth smile. “Jump in.”
He pressed a button to unlock the door.
She climbed in, breathing a sigh of relief.
“You’re shaking.” He reached behind her seat for a plush towel. “This will warm you up.” Then he turned a dial on the center console and said, “So will this.” Immediately her black leather seat began to heat up.
She cloaked herself in the towel. “Thanks.” She brushed his arm with her fingers and followed his eyes following her fingers.
He shook his head quickly and adjusted the volume on the stereo. “The Police,” he said, smiling to himself.
“Oh, I love them,” she replied. She let her finger graze his leg.
Don’t Stand So Close to Me came on. He revved the engine. “Ready?”
Rasa nodded.
Kamehameha Highway was empty but wet. Despite the slickness of the road, he floored it.
Rasa spread her fingers out and gently gripped his leg. The faster he went, the higher her hand moved up his thigh. And the bigger his smile grew.
Rasa got lost in the sounds. The swishing of the windshield wipers. Sting’s pleading voice. The Ferrari’s racecar engine. The exhale he tried to hide.
In no time they were on the North Shore. He pulled the car makai through a gate onto a short driveway. Rasa stepped out. The gray sky turned black. Thunder crashed. She ran ahead of…
That’s when she realized she didn’t know his name.
And he didn’t know hers.
Oh well. Like it really matters. Like I’ll ever see this guy again.
She stood trembling near the front door and peeked through the glass panels on either side. The living room resembled one of those hipster repurposed warehouses in Chinatown complete with sparse furnishing and a few massive works of modern art on the walls.
He
