And Laughter Fell From The Sky Part 18

"Very cute," he said, looking at her pink sneakers. "I thought we could go somewhere and talk."

"Why?" She stood up, and in her flat shoes she was only a few inches taller than he.

"I want to know more about what you're thinking, why you're here. Have you had breakfast? We can go to a coffee place if you want."

She hung her purse, a gray pouch kind of thing, over a shoulder. "I told you, I just came out here to have some fun." She spoke softly and stepped away from the reception desk.

He stayed put and declared, "Most people don't run off to see other men right before they're about to get married."

"Come on." She headed toward the outside door. "Let's not make a scene. I've already had breakfast. Let's just go see something."

At the streetcar stop in front of the building, Abhay tried again. "You're really serious about marrying this guy?"

Rasika slipped sungla.s.ses over her eyes. "I haven't met him in person, yet. We've talked over the phone. I think I'll like him." She turned away from him so her shoulder and purse were between herself and him.

"Yeah. You're so excited about marrying him that you flew all the way across the country to see scruffy old me."

She ran her black lenses over him from head to toe. He wore a pair of faded jeans and an old green fleece jacket. "You don't have to be scruffy if you don't want to."

"That's not the issue. Why are you here?"

A middle-aged, square-shaped woman holding a large tan shopping bag stopped right in front of them to look at the streetcar schedule.

"You invited me," Rasika hissed. "Why did you invite me?"

"I invited you because I love you."

"Oh, please." She turned her back to him again.

The streetcar pulled up with a faint squeak of its wheels against the track, and he decided to give up figuring her out for the time being. "Let's go to the library," he suggested as they hung on to the streetcar straps and swayed down the street. "I want you to meet someone." Justin Time spent hours at the public library, finding and photocopying new materials to bring to Abhay.

On the sidewalk in front of the library, they gazed at the grand building. "I love the fact that this building, which is free and open to the public, is more imposing than the Portland Art Museum," he told her.

She followed his gaze to the beautiful tall arched windows, the broad steps from the street to three arched doorways, the bronze lamps on either side of the stairs. They climbed the steps and entered the lobby, with rows of pink marble pillars and a black grand stairway ahead of them.

"It looks like a ballroom, or something." She pulled off her gla.s.ses and tucked them into her purse.

"Yeah and it's for all of us. Take a look at these stairs." He led her to the black staircase, heavily embossed with garden imagery. "You can see shapes hidden in the design. Here's a bird. There's a crocodile, I think."

"It's like finding the hidden pictures in one of those children's magazines." They clambered around the staircase. She was giggling with pleasure, putting her hands down to feel the shapes.

On the second and third floors, she admired the rose-patterned carpet. There were more pillars, beautiful light fixtures, heavy wooden doorways leading to rooms with rows of bookshelves, and tables of people reading or using computers. "I don't think I've been in a library since I was in college," she said.

"Where do you get your books?" Abhay asked.

"I buy magazines. Sometimes I borrow a book from Jill or a friend at work, but I can't even remember the last book I read."

Justin Time generally occupied a far table on the third floor. As Abhay led the way, he could see Justin's bald head bent over a pile of papers.

"Justin," he whispered, and the man startled.

At that moment, Abhay saw Justin as Rasika was likely seeing him: a humorless middle-aged man in rumpled clothes. He felt embarra.s.sed to be introducing this glowing woman to this lifeless man. But Justin was waiting expectantly, so Abhay finished the introductions. Rasika held out a clean, elegant hand, and Justin grasped it in his ink-stained one. Abhay said a few sentences to Rasika about the important goals of the organization. Justin seemed impatient to get back to his research, so they left him and walked out of the library.

Outside, they sat on a stone bench. "That guy gave me the creeps," Rasika said.

"He's a little eccentric."

"He's like a zombie or something. There's nothing there. What is it you guys are trying to do?"

Abhay explained HOPE again to Rasika. Her eyes grew larger, and she burst into laughter. "You've got to be kidding. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"Do you know that the world's population will top nine billion by 2050? That's about eight billion more people than can live a comfortable, enjoyable life on this planet. And do you realize that each person born in America will produce millions of pounds of trash, and lead to the consumption of thousands of barrels of oil?"

"Do you really think you can get everyone on the planet to stop having children?" She shook her finger at him, and he realized she was imitating his gesture to her. In fact, his hand was still up in the air, ready to make his next point.

He put his hand down. "That's a goal." He tried to make his voice less strident. "You have to have a goal, so you know what you're aiming for."

"It's not a goal. It's a delusion."

She looked so funny, with her eyes wide open and her eyebrows raised, that he had to laugh. "He is kind of a strange guy, I admit. And the organization is unusual. I'm just doing this for a while, until I figure out what I really want to do."

"Are you getting closer?"

"Maybe. I'm realizing at least that I like the research I'm doing for Justin. I love libraries, and I love books. I miss being in school."

"You could become a professor. Then you could be in school all the time."

"I think what I really want is to be a perpetual student!" He laughed.

"Sometimes I wish I could permanently be eleven years old," she said.

"Why? What's so great about eleven?"

"I wasn't conflicted then. I wanted the same things for myself that my parents wanted for me. I made cookies. I was a Girl Scout. I collected Beanie Babies. Boys had cooties, and I stayed away from them."

"I thought you still wanted the same things your parents want."

"I do. But-it's just different now."

"Rasika, if you'd just admit that you don't want the same things as your parents-"

"Abhay, if you'd just admit that you're refusing to grow up-" She held up both hands, palms parallel, as though handing him a large box of her thoughts.

He realized she was imitating his gesture again. He dropped his hands. "I guess we should stop trying to fix each other."

"Good idea."

A woman with a wrinkled face and gray hair walked a bike slowly past them. Blue sky and sun peeked out from among the clouds. The misty air of the morning was gone.

"Everyone seems so casual," Rasika said. "I guess it's casual Friday?"

"People in Portland are always like this. No one dresses up."

Two men in dress s.h.i.+rts and ties approached. As they pa.s.sed by, one of them revealed a backpack, and the other sported a ponytail.

"What should we do now?" Abhay asked.

"Let's have some fun! Isn't that why you moved all the way out here? Because you thought it would be more fun?"

"I moved out here to find meaningful work in a community that cares about the fate of the planet."

"That sounds so serious."

"Well, what do you want to do, then?"

"I love water." Rasika sighed. "I just want to see something flowing."

They took a bus down to the riverfront and rented bikes. "The city tore down a freeway in order to reclaim this green s.p.a.ce," he explained to Rasika as they stood on the lawn next to the bike path. "On the other side there's even a floating path to ride on." He had to shout when talking to her, because although the city had torn down one freeway, there was another one on the other side of the river, roaring with traffic.

"Look at the bridges." He pointed to the series of arches spanning the river. "They're so ma.s.sive, and all so different. Like giant sculptures." One bridge was made up of a series of green arched trusses above the roadway, and another had gray trusses underneath. "They're so big, so industrial. I mean, I prefer nature, but this is amazing. I sometimes wonder what this river was like when Lewis and Clark arrived. It's hard to even imagine what it looked like then."

Rasika dangled her purse on a handlebar, and they rode along the path by the Willamette River. "I haven't been on a bike since I was a kid!" she shouted, wobbling her way down the asphalt. As they approached the black trusses of one of the bridges, Rasika stopped and straddled her bike. "I'm supposed to ride on that thing?"

"The bike path is lower down, so we won't be up there with the traffic. But if you're afraid, we can just keep riding on this side of the river."

She boosted herself onto her seat again. "I'm here for adventure, so let's do it. But you go first."

On the other side, Abhay stopped and looked back at her. "You OK?"

She smiled breathlessly. "Good thing I'm not afraid of heights."

"I thought it was kind of scary, too, the first time I did it."

They rode on. The path widened into a small plaza with benches. They parked their bikes and stood next to the handrail. Rasika gazed down at the steel-blue water rippling past, while Abhay gazed at Rasika. She had gathered the end of her ponytail into one fist to keep it from blowing in the breeze. Her sungla.s.ses were perched on top of her head, and her eyelashes dipped over her eyes as she glanced from the water below to the sh.o.r.eline across the river. Behind her head a faint glow appeared and brightened.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked softly.

"Nothing."

"No, really."

She took a deep breath and let out a long, slow exhalation. "I really wasn't thinking about anything. Or-I guess I was just enjoying the idea of flowing, like the river. Just going, and not caring. You're so lucky, Abhay, to be living out here, away from everyone. You can do anything you want."

"You can live out here and do anything you want, too."

She leaned her back against the handrail. "No. It's different for me. Indian parents expect more obedience from their daughters." She settled her gla.s.ses over her eyes again.

"Seema has a boyfriend," he said.

Rasika's forehead dented.

"My sister," Abhay repeated. "Remember?"

"I know who Seema is." She removed her ponytail band and shook out her hair.

"She isn't letting my parents stop her from living her own life."

Rasika shrugged. "Seema is very different from me."

"That's true," Abhay said. Gulls swooped overhead, screeching to one another. A crowd of children swarmed onto the plaza, clambering on the benches, crowding against the railing. A few adults strolled after them. Rasika scooted closer to Abhay along the railing. "Do you come out here a lot?" she asked.

"Not since I first moved out here. I've been really busy."

"With what?"

"Work. I'm scheduled for thirty hours a week at the bookstore, and I put in thirty hours with Justin."

"Why? Is it that expensive to live here that you need to work all the time?"

"I don't have much else to do, so I figured I might as well earn money. I've got a lot saved up now, and it feels good. I have more money in the bank than I've ever had before. I don't even know what to do with it."

"Abhay." She lifted her gla.s.ses and looked at him reproachfully. "You're being silly. You've got this amazing city to play in, and all you do is hole up with books and papers. Is that why you moved out here? To slog away in a bookstore, and to organize papers for a creepy man who smells funny?"

"I moved out here partly to get away from you. I figured if I worked hard enough, I'd forget; I'd be able to move on. But, it's not working."

"You shouldn't have invited me, then."

"Are you sorry you're here?"

"I don't want to think about that." She twisted several strands of hair tightly around her fingers.

He untangled her fingers and kissed her fingertips. "What do you want to do now?"

She was motionless for a few moments. A gull sailed down and landed on the ground near her. She shook his hand away and regathered her hair into a ponytail. "Let's get lunch."

Chapter 12.

They ended up at a casual Pan-Asian place not too far from his neighborhood. He still couldn't figure out his bearings with her. During lunch she asked him all sorts of questions about his life in Portland and his friends in town. He carefully avoided mentioning Kianga and Ellen. He wasn't sure how Rasika would react to the idea that he had women friends.

When they exited the cafe, he had an inspiration. "I'm going to show you some beautiful old houses in this neighborhood."