Chapter 4
The next evening, Vijay and Lucky stood in their small apartment, digging through their suitcases and pulling out articles of clothing. Nothing seemed to be appropriate for the party they were going to, and eventually they just gave up and put on their everyday clothes. When they arrived at the event, some of the students noticed their attire and made a few comments, but Vijay and Lucky didn't care. They were too busy enjoying their first party in America. The hall was decorated with tiny, glowing white lights, and the room was filled with well-dressed students chatting with each other, eating fancy hors d'oeuvres off small trays, and drinking.
Lucky looked around the hall at all of the beautiful women, but particularly those who were wearing tight, short skirts and low-cut tops. His behavior was less about being lewd and gawking at women and more about not knowing how to handle the culture shock. Coming from a rural part of India, he was not used to seeing so much female skin, and the sight of it mesmerized him. Vijay stood beside him, a cup of pineapple juice in his hands, imitating Lucky's facial expressions.
"Hi Vijay!" Anna waived and came over to them. She was wearing a short black dress, and her long blonde hair was curled over her shoulders. Lucky watched her hips sway as she moved, and his heartbeat fell into rhythm with the clicking sound her stilettos heels made against the tile as she approached. "She is looking so hot!" he whispered to Vijay.
"Hi Anna," Vijay said, embracing her warmly. Anna closed her eyes and kissed Vijay on both cheeks. When her eyes fluttered open, she couldn't help but notice that Lucky was looking at her like a kid looks at candy. Anna and Vijay talked for a few minutes about their classes and the professors in their program, while Lucky stood silently and focused on Anna's cleavage. She pretended not to notice, but was actually enjoying his attention. Her instincts told her that he meant no harm, and it was important that he was attracted to her.
"You know my friend, right?" Vijay asked.
"Oh, yes. He's the gentleman who came to the lab. Lak?Lak?..," Anna again tried to pronounce Lucky's name.
"Lakshminarayanan," Vijay said. Lucky wasn't even listening to their conversation and didn't realize they were talking about him. Vijay pinched Lucky hard on the arm.
"Ah! What!" Lucky looked as though he had been rudely awakened from a dream.
"You remember Anna? She works in my lab," Vijay said.
"Of course I know her," Lucky mumbled, overcome with shyness.
"Which program are you in?" Anna asked, trying to put Lucky at ease.
"Hmm, what? What program am I in?" Lucky looked at Vijay with panic in his eyes, as though Vijay was his only hope for answering such a difficult question.
"He is doing an MBA," Vijay laughed, answering for Lucky.
"Oh, yes. I am doing MBA, and?" Lucky replied, but before he could complete his sentence, an Indian man strode up to the group and grabbed Anna's wrist, pulling her away from Vijay and Lucky. He gave them both a look of disgust. "Anna, why are you wasting your time with these pigs?"
"Dan, stop it!" Anna retorted. The man still had her wrist in his and was pulling her deeper into a crowd of students. Anna turned back to look at Vijay and Lucky. "Sorry!" she shouted. "I'll catch up with you guys later."
"Who was that guy?" Lucky asked Vijay, staring across the room at the back of Anna's blonde head as it bobbed and weaved in a sea of students and faculty. She seemed to be having an argument with the man.
"Dan," Vijay answered, his distaste evident in his voice.
"But he looks Indian."
"He is Indian. His name is Dhansukh Patel. He's ABCD. He's also a management student, but he's been failing in almost every class for years," Vijay explained with a derisive chuckle.
"What is this ABCD?"
"'American Born Confused Desi.' They're Indians who are born here by Indian parents. So they look desi and pretend to follow Indian tradition, but they're very confused and don't know anything about it," Vijay replied.
"Why did he call us pigs?" Lucky asked.
"PIGS means 'Poor Indian Graduate Students.' ABCDs laugh at our poverty and our appearance, but they forget that their parents were also PIGS. And we forget that someday our kids are going to be called ABCDs, and they will call someone else PIGS."
"Hmm. I must be honest. He looked very rich, and we do look dirty like pigs," Lucky replied.
"Well, he is rich, but he didn't earn that money. His dad is a vice president of BCC bank. Dan is spending money earned by his Indian parents who worked hard like you," Vijay replied.
Their conversation was cut short by the sudden sounds of music being pumped through several huge speakers and a subwoofer. Vijay and Lucky backed up towards the wall and watched as other students migrated towards the center of the hall and began dancing. Lucky looked at them with envy. More than anything else in that moment, he wanted to have the courage to go out there and dance with a hot girl. But so far, all he could manage was to his shimmy his legs back and forth while staying firmly rooted in the one square foot of space he had claimed on the sidelines.
Without warning, Anna appeared right in front of Lucky's face. "Are you having fun?" Anna shouted over the driving, hypnotic bass.
"You came back to dance with a pig?" Lucky blurted out. He blinked a few times, surprising himself with his sudden boldness with this woman. Ten minutes earlier he couldn't manage to remember what program he was in when she asked, and now here he was, actually joking with her.
Anna was briefly shocked, but recovered quickly and rewarded him with a sly smile. "Why not? I just love bacon," she whispered into Lucky's ear. "Dan is an a-hole. Don't pay any attention to him," she said as she grabbed Lucky's hands and pulled him onto the dance floor.
Dan and his friends saw Anna's interaction with Lucky, and Anna knew it. She looked over at Dan and moved her body closer to Lucky's, grinding her hips against him in time with the music. This was the first time any girl had been this close to Lucky, and he quickly became uncomfortable. He never expected that his first experience would be with someone who looked and behaved like Anna, and she excited him in a way that made him uneasy. He looked to Vijay for support, but Vijay seemed unconcerned. He smiled at Lucky, raised his cup, and shouted over the music, "Welcome to America!"
Dan glared at the couple, disgusted with the spectacle Anna was making of herself. Anna watched Dan's reaction closely, toying with him like a cat toys with a mouse before the kill, raising her perfectly arched and powdered brow and smiling at him over Lucky's shoulder. Vijay knew Anna, but he didn't know that she had been in a relationship with Dan several months ago, until he'd slept with her roommate. When she confronted him about his indiscretion, he had shown no remorse, but had become even more arrogant, accusing her of not servicing him with enough frequency and enthusiasm, and blaming her for his cheating.
Anna knew how much Dan hated Indian graduate students, so her plan for the evening had been to find the ugliest Indian student at the party and use him to make Dan furious. Lucky turned out to be her weapon of choice, and in her pathological self-absorption, she convinced herself that as long as Lucky was attracted to her, she wouldn't feel guilty for using him. The poor indian boy should be grateful for her attention.
Her plan was working: Dan was furious. He wanted to forcefully pull Anna out of Lucky's arms, but he knew everyone was watching to see what he would do, and he didn't want to embarrass himself. Anna was already doing a fine job of that. He was also concerned about the faculty members present at the party, and he knew that neither he nor his friends could do anything to Anna or Lucky. Not here and not now. Dan tried to soothe his anger with copious amounts of alcohol, but he continued to brood in the corner while watching his ex fawn all over the poor Indian kid. Despite all attempts at willpower, he couldn't take his eyes off the two of them for more than a few minutes at a time.
Anna knew she was getting inside Dan's head, but she decided to switch tactics anyway. Instead of goading him
on with her eyes, she began to ignore him and focused all of her attention and affection on Lucky. She whispered repeatedly into his ear and ran her fingers through his hair, all the while rubbing her breasts against his chest. Finally Dan's patience reached a breaking point, and he threw his drink to the ground, determined to end this charade here and now. He'd only made it a few steps before his friends realized what was happening and blocked his way, a couple of the bigger men grabbing his arms and forcefully leading him out of the hall.
Lucky, fortunately or unfortunately, was completely oblivious to Anna's ulterior motives. He was too lost in fantasies about the sexy American angel who had fallen for him to notice what had transpired between Dan and Anna over the past hour. As the song they were dancing to came to an end, Anna took Lucky's face in her hands. "Listen, sweetie, I'm having such a great time with you," she purred. "But you don't mind if I call it a night, do you? A girl's gotta get her beauty sleep if she's going to look pretty for her man." Lucky nodded, and Anna, mission accomplished, disappeared into the crowd.
Vijay hadn't been paying any attention to Dan, but he was happy to see that Lucky was finally having some fun in his life. Vijay had watched everyone dance for awhile, but the low and persistent growl from his stomach became distracting, and knowing there was no food at home, he set off in search of something to fill his belly before the party ended. Maybe he could also find some cookies he could slip into his pocket for Lucky, if he ever stopped dancing with Anna.
The party was full of half-naked girls and drunken boys, their presence so ubiquitous that Vijay had stopped finding them remarkable in any way. Perhaps that was why the girl's presence startled him, simply because she was so different from anyone else at the party. Every inch of her skin was covered, and she wore no makeup as far as Vijay could tell. Her south-asian face needed no enhancement. She had deep set, dark brown eyes, a small, sloped nose, and her full lips parted to reveal a beautiful smile. She had covered her head with an intricately detailed scarf, and every few minutes, she would use her fingers to gently tuck wayward strands of dark brown hair back under the hijab. She was obviously from a very conservative Muslim family, and she was standing alone in the corner of the room, observing everyone else at the party. To Vijay's delight, she was even holding a glass of what appeared to be pineapple juice.
Vijay couldn't stop staring. He was Hindu, but there was something unique about the girl that Vijay found himself inexplicably drawn to. He was a very simple person, and he believed that a woman's beauty lies in her simplicity. The girl in the hijab was the perfect example of that kind of beauty. Vijay mustered the courage to introduce himself, and he began to walk towards the girl when a young woman suddenly rushed past him and approached the girl in the hijab, speaking to her excitedly, though Vijay couldn't understand the conversation. The two girls walked quickly towards the exit, and Vijay felt a physical pain in his chest as he stood rooted to the spot, unable to do anything but watch the girl in the hijab disappear. He had no idea who she was or if he would ever see her again, though he hoped that since she had come to the party, that she might be a student.
"Hey! What are you doing here? I was looking for you everywhere!" Lucky had appeared out of nowhere.
"Nothing. I was just?I was just grabbing some cookies for both of us. Where is Anna?" Vijay replied.
"She left."
"Where did she go?" Vijay asked.
"The dorm."
Vijay shifted his weight and stared at his roommate. "So why are you here?"
Lucky was momentarily confused, but suddenly the implication of Vijay's question was clear. "Are you crazy? I am not doing those things before marriage!" Lucky said.
"As if you're going to marry her!" Vijay chuckled, shocked that Lucky was thinking about marriage after the first meeting.
Lucky bobbed his head back and forth. "Maybe."
Vijay looked at his roommate like he'd lost his mind, and Lucky laughed.
"But I am not marrying her tonight, so we can go now," Lucky said. Vijay smacked the back of Lucky's head, and they both grabbed some cookies before leaving the party hall and stepping into the cool night air.
It was a beautiful September evening, and they walked casually, taking an indirect route to the subway as they enjoyed each other's company and shared stories about the party. As they cut through the main part of campus, Lucky was deeply immersed in a conversation about what he kept referring to as Anna's "assets." He was excited and gesticulating wildly with his hands, completely focused on his storytelling and paying little attention to anything else. Vijay was listening attentively, but unlike Lucky, he was always observant of his surroundings. It was Vijay who first noticed the Indian boy asleep on the bench outside the university library and stopped in front of him, while Lucky kept right on walking for several yards before noticing he no longer had an audience. He turned around and saw Vijay pointing to the man on the bench. Vijay shot him a questioning look, and Lucky shrugged. Lucky walked over to stand beside Vijay, and they both stared down at the sleeping young man. He had long, lean limbs and a muscular build, and given the light color of his skin, they thought he was probably north Indian. He looked to be a little older than Lucky and Vijay.
The man's eyes opened suddenly, and Vijay and Lucky jumped back.
"Hi!" Vijay said, composing himself. The man stood up and rubbed his eyes, but said nothing. "Are you a student here at the university?" Vijay asked.
The man looked at Vijay and then at Lucky, as if he was trying to determine whether they were worth the effort of replying. "Yes. I just came in today evening."
"Why are you sleeping on the bench? Do you need help?" Lucky asked.
The man hesitated, and then his shoulders drooped. "I reached here after 5 o'clock, and everyone in the International Student's Office had left already," the man replied. "I don't know anyone in this country and truthfully, I have nowhere to go. That's why I'm sleeping here. I won't cause any trouble. I'll just wait here till they come back tomorrow."
"Oh, the police won't allow you to sleep here, especially with all of your luggage," Vijay warned, glancing at his bags. "And it's going to be very cold tonight."
"Well, the guards threw me out and said I couldn't stay inside the university," the man replied.
"Hmm?" Vijay hummed as usual. He looked at Lucky, and Lucky nodded.
"Do you want to come home with us? You can stay with us for tonight, and then tomorrow you can come back to the university and straighten everything out," Vijay offered.
"No, it's okay. I don't want to bother you. You don't even know me," the man said.
"Well we can solve that easily!" Lucky smiled at the man. "I am Lakshminarayanan, he is Vijay, and you are Raj Khanna. Now we can go!"
The blood drained from the man's face and he froze, stricken with confusion and paranoia, desperately fighting the urge to flee. Lucky saw his discomfort and realized he needed to diffuse the situation quickly. He pointed to the man's luggage. The bag closest to Lucky had two large, white sheets of paper with the name "Raj Khanna" written on them in bold black letters, and they had been secured with several pieces of clear packing tape.
He grabbed one of Raj's bags and Vijay grabbed the other. "Come on, Raj! It is a long way to the palace," Lucky said jovially.
"Thanks a lot, guys," Raj said, following both of them with the third large bag and his backpack. When they reached the subway, Vijay swiped his card and they pushed Raj's bags through the emergency exit and snuck through themselves when the station manager wasn't looking. They didn't have to wait long for the train, and the car was fairly empty when they boarded. They grabbed several seats and stacked the luggage close to them.
"You must be hungry. Do you want some cookies?" Vijay asked, offering the cookies that he had taken from the party.
"Thank you. You guys are so nice," Raj said, grabbing a cookie. Lucky also took a cookie, as he was tired and hungry from all of the s
exy dancing.
"Don't worry about it. We also didn't know anyone in this country until we met each other. We were in the same situation as you. So where are you from?" Vijay asked.
"Srinagar," Raj replied.
"Really! You are from Kashmir? I heard it is very beautiful, but very cold, like here," Lucky said as he moved to sit by Raj.
"Yeah, it is. Where are you guys from?" Raj asked.
"He is from Bombay and I am from Tamilnadu," Lucky explained.
"Did you just come this semester?"
"Yes," Vijay answered.
"Which program are you in?" Raj asked, turning to look at Lucky. Lucky started to answer, but Vijay cut him off.
"Aren't you going to ask me?" Vijay inquired.
"Ask you what?" Lucky replied.
"Ask me what program you're in."
"Why would I ask you?" Lucky said, perplexed and slightly perturbed. Raj said nothing, but was confused by this unexpected diversion.
"Oh, I don't know?maybe because when Anna asked you the same question three hours ago, you could barely remember your own name and had to check with me first," Vijay teased. "What's changed? Don't you think Raj's "assets" are as nice as Anna's?"
"Shut up, Vijay!" Lucky said, a look of insult on his face. "As I was saying before my friend so rudely interrupted me, I am studying for MBA, and Vijay is working on the PhD in Mechanical Engineering. How about you?"
"Fine Arts," Raj answered.
Lucky gave Vijay a curious look. "Fine Arts? Do we have such program? I thought the university has only engineering and management programs."
Vijay shrugged. "Well, they admitted him, so for his sake, I hope it exists." Vijay meant his comment as a joke, but he also seemed unsure about Raj's claim.
"They just started the program last year," Raj replied, and then offered nothing more about the subject. "Where do you guys live?" he asked, changing the topic.
"Rockaway Boulevard. It's a small basement apartment," Vijay said.
"So how far is it from the World Trade Center?" Raj inquired.
It was not a question that Vijay or Lucky anticipated, and Raj saw the look they exchanged. "I mean, you know, how far is it from the city?" Raj asked.
"Thirty or forty minutes. Living in the city is very expensive," Vijay replied. Lucky didn't say anything, but he started to get an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Maybe it was just hunger pains, or his other problem.
"What was going on today? When I was sitting on the bench, I saw a lot of students around," Raj asked, planting a smile on his face that he hoped look casual and not forced. He hoped it wasn't too late to undo his mistake.
"Oh, there was a party for new graduate students. It was fun! You should have come," Vijay said, trying to rid the conversation of its sudden awkwardness. "Lucky certainly had a good time, didn't you?" Vijay reached over and playfully slapped Lucky on the knee. Raj, appreciative of Vijay's efforts, laughed and smiled at Lucky, but Lucky didn't return the courtesy. He didn't speak to either Vijay or Raj the rest of the way home.
It was late when they finally reached the apartment, and everyone was exhausted. Vijay shared his blankets with Raj so that he didn't need to unpack his bags, but Lucky began to set up his bed as far from them as possible in the small room. Lucky had always slept close to Vijay since the very first night, so Vijay had no idea what he was doing and gave him a puzzled look. But Lucky offered no explanation, and Vijay was too tired to pursue the issue further. Within minutes, he heard Lucky begin to snore, and then Vijay fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Raj had noticed Vijay's reaction to Lucky when he set up his bed, and assumed this was not their normal sleeping arrangement. He silently cursed himself for being so careless with his question about the World Trade Center. There was nothing he could do about it now. He just needed to stick to his plan and make sure he didn't make any more stupid mistakes. Raj put an arm under his head and stared at the shadows the tree branches had cast on the ceiling. He flipped on his side and looked out the small window bathed in moonlight, and then back at the ceiling. It was going to be a long night.