For some reason, Sharon wasn’t in English class, and he felt a deep sense of relief. Maybe she was absent. But when he walked into science, she was standing at their station, preparing materials for the day’s lab. She was wearing a strange homemade costume, which consisted of a yellow T-shirt with pieces of cardboard attached on the side. There was also a disc-shaped piece of golden cardboard on her head. He said, “What the hell are you supposed to be?”
Sharon told him that the entire band had dressed up as their instruments. “What about you?” she asked. “Too cool for costumes?”
“I didn’t feel like dressing up,” said Siddharth.
“Are you going out tonight?”
He responded with silence.
She poked him in the chest. “Hey, is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Siddharth grabbed the lav pass and headed down the hallway. He was glad that that the bathroom was empty. He placed his hands on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror, noting that the little hairs above his lip were getting thicker. If he could only hang out with Marc tonight, then he wouldn’t be worrying about any of this. But Marc was going out with Andy Wurtzel, and that was the way things were now. Siddharth recalled a conversation he’d had with his father, after their last dinner at Pasta Palace. He had asked Mohan Lal why he hadn’t stood up for Mustafa when the man was always so nice to them. Mohan Lal said, “Son, you’ll understand once you’re my age. One has to be true to his values. And there is no greater virtue than loyalty.”
Siddharth gave the paper towel dispenser a solid punch with the top two knuckles of his right hand, just as he had learned in karate. As usual, his father’s words were of no help to him. He had no idea which one of his friends was more deserving of his loyalty.
* * *
When the last bell of the day sounded, he found Luca at his locker with Eddie whispering into his ear.
“Yo, what’s up?” said Siddharth.
“We’re just doing some planning,” said Eddie.
“What’s the plan?” asked Siddharth.
“The plan?” said Eddie. “Tonight we’re gonna pop your cherry. Tonight we’re gonna get you a freaking mailbox.”
“Pop your cherry,” repeated Luca, shaking his head and smiling.
Luca and Eddie boarded the school bus first, and Siddharth followed behind. He handed his note to the driver, who was wearing a mesh baseball cap. Siddharth spotted Sharon in the sixth row. Fortunately, she was staring out the window. Holding his breath, he kept his eyes glued to the ribbed rubber walkway and scurried past her. Luca and Eddie were seated in the second-to-last row, and Siddharth sat alone in the seat before theirs. The bus pulled out of the lot, and a ninth grade girl in the back lifted a live rabbit from her backpack. Everyone cooed over it for most of the ride. At one point, Eddie grabbed the animal and held it up to his face, miming that he was giving it cunnilingus. Siddharth chuckled, but he tried to keep himself from laughing too hard. As the bus navigated the quiet, soggy streets of South Haven, he occasionally stole furtive glances at Sharon. Maybe she hadn’t even realized he was there. Twenty-five minutes into the ride, he saw her gather her things and prepare to leave. He was grateful that the journey had passed without any incident.
The bus stopped, and Sharon exited along with four other kids. Siddharth watched as she walked toward her house, weighed down by her bursting backpack and clunky trumpet case. This was the first time he was seeing the house that her mother had rented. It was a tiny ranch, with chipping paint and overgrown grass. On the front lawn sat an old sofa and a rusty, broken-down jeep. The sunless sky made it all seem especially dreary. In that moment, Siddharth realized something: Sharon was poor. In that moment, he felt worse for her than he ever had before. But he also felt like he barely knew her. He felt uneasy about letting her back into his life.
He turned back to Luca, who was sliding down his window. “Yo Niggerski,” shouted Luca, “you look hot today! Would you be my girlfriend?”
From her driveway, Sharon glanced up at the bus and scowled, then stuck up her middle finger.
Siddharth crouched down, focusing his gaze on the worn knees of his blue jeans.
“Freaking dyke,” said Eddie. “Her mailbox is mine.”
* * *
Luckily, the rain picked up, and by six o’clock, loud booms of thunder were rattling the windows of the Peroti household, causing Luca’s little brother to howl. Mrs. Peroti said she would drive them from house to house to get some candy, but Luca said that would be lame. Mrs. Peroti served them tortellini for dinner, and the boys watched a movie called Re-Animator, which Mohan Lal had rented for Siddharth. After reading the back of the case, Mohan Lal had said it was a work of science fiction, and science fiction taught young people to think critically.
The movie ended up being about a scientist who developed an injection that could bring dead things back to life. In Siddharth’s favorite scene, a decapitated body grasped its own head and performed oral sex on a woman. Siddharth ended up having a great evening and wondered if the universe was finally on his side.
Mrs. Peroti drove them to school in the morning, which meant that he avoided another encounter with Sharon. But the thought of facing her in class made his stomach churn. During English, he tried smiling at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. As he walked to science later that day, he thought about visiting the nurse to see if he could go home early. But it was Thursday, and Ms. Farber was usually home on Thursdays. He stopped in the bathroom to cup some water into his mouth and ended up arriving three minutes late to class. Mr. Polanski said he would give him a detention if it happened again.
Today they were going to do an experiment that involved comparing the masses of various liquids. By the time Siddharth got to his lab station, Sharon had gathered most of their materials — goggles, glass beakers, and a triple-beam balance. She looked up at him and said, “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Why would something be wrong?”
She yawned and stretched her arms. “Well, I’m pretty exhausted.”
He strapped his goggles onto his head. “Why, what did you do last night?”
“Jake came over. We were watching scary movies until three in the morning.”
“You mean he slept over?”
“What did you do?” asked Sharon, ignoring his question.
“Your mother let him sleep over?” Siddharth didn’t know why, but he felt himself growing hard. He felt disgusted with himself, and with Sharon too.
Smiling, she wrote their names on their lab sheet. “Come on, Siddharth. Why do you always gotta make such a big deal about everything?”
4. Sharon’s Blues
As the temperatures dipped toward freezing, Siddharth started daydreaming about his brother’s holiday visit. Once Arjun was back, it wouldn’t matter that Marc didn’t have any time for him. Arjun would take him to the mall. They would stay up late talking. Siddharth would show him off to Luca Peroti and Eddie Benson. He would show off Eddie and Luca to Arjun. He would prove to Arjun that he was definitely a regular guy — so what if he didn’t play sports?
On a mid-December evening, Arjun called to say he had a change of plans. Instead of flying to Connecticut for winter break, he was getting a ride in a van to rural Tennessee, where he would spend Christmas with other college students building houses for poor people. Siddharth was hurt. Angry. He couldn’t fathom why his brother would want to do something so lame and taxing.