Page 25 of Bad Seed
She scrunches her brow, hoping for an explanation. My instinct is to clam up and leave her wanting. I haven’t told anyone about Cebu in years. Why am I talking about it now?
“Sugar cane,” I say as if I meant that the whole time. There once was sugar cane, but it became impossible to compete with the factory farms and the easier tourist dollars. Every day new faces on the farm, every day someone else shouting at me to ‘Speak English’ as I tried to get to school. I hated it, but I loved Cebu.
“I had a piece of sugar cane once.”
Her response wrenches me out of my memories of smoke and ash. “Huh?”
“Part of a job. They wanted an all natural, organic photo for their sugar substitute so I got some sugar cane and mint leaves. Gave it a sun glare sort of feel like it was freshly picked from the field. I tried eating a piece after, but it was not easy.”
I wince and can’t help the laugh. “You don’t eat it.”
“Oh?”
“You chew on it, then spit out the pulp.”
Damn it. It doesn’t just sound like I’m laughing at her ignorance, I am.
She gazes down at her plate a moment as if collecting her thoughts, then smiles at me. “Now I know. Where were you two years ago?”
I know she doesn’t want to hear the real answer. “In the lobby of a Vegas casino, helping a drunk with more money than sense find the door,” I lie easily. So many people smile at the thought, maybe ask how I’d deal with the riffraff of Nevada, but her brows narrow again. “What about you?” I volley the question back, before remembering she started all of this. “What, um…brought you to Loomis?”
“Well, it wasn’t the eggplant festival,” she says with a chuckle. I smile, glad I wouldn’t have had to white knuckle through watching her down a plate of fried eggplant for dinner. “Ah, I had these roommates in college who got a job here. We figured why not all stay together. It went so well before. They stayed a year before finding something better, and I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. There’s a small town feel, the place is beautiful, I don’t have to see my mother every day.”
Sadie drops her fork, extends her spine, and points a finger at the air, “‘Sadhvi, where is your jacket? You’ll catch your death.’” She rolls her eyes. “It’s California, mom. I’m not going to freeze into a popsicle in Anaheim.”
“Sadhvi?” I ask.
Her smile flinches, and she flushes. “That’s my birth name. Sadhvi Nair. The little Indian girl who likes samosas so much she became the large Indian girl.” Her voice cracks and she keeps waving a hand around to tell me to laugh.
I catch her hand and cradle it. A wary eye watches me, as if expecting me to pounce. Running my thumbs over her palm, I gaze down at her. “If that’s what samosas do to a figure…” Boldly, I stare down her dress. The white cotton is fighting for its life to keep her breasts in place. A little tie cinches them up, threatening to snap. I want to tear the whole thing in half with my bare hands, run my palms under her thick thighs and clench them around my waist. “Mmmm…I have to learn how to make them.”
“Ha, uh…that’s um. Wow.”
“Have I driven you speechless, Sadhvi?”
I wait for her to melt in my hands, but she pulls back. “You can call me Sadie. Please. It’s… I don’t hate Sadhvi. But hearing other people call me it I either think, oh that’s my cousin, and boy do I not want to think of you as my cousin.”
I snicker, hoping for the same from her.
“Or, ya know, it’s school crap all over again. They only called me Sadhvi when the worst was coming. ‘Sadhvi smells. Get her away.’ Imagine being the only girl in seventh grade with sideburns whose last name is Nair? I don’t know how I survived without a murder charge.”
In a flurry, she tries to cross her leg nonchalantly while also hiding behind her hair. The air crackles with middle school tension threatening to turn into rain. I could easily ignore it and wait for the storm to pass. But as she shakes her leg, hitting the table by accident, my mouth opens. “Some of the other kids used to throw rocks at me.”
Sadie pauses, her gaze boring into me. “Why?”
“Because…” I was different and they knew it. They knew that farm, the kind of people who grew there. They knew the connections our family had, and feared what that could bring. Maybe the kids didn’t know, but their parents did, and infected them with the same hate that drove my mother and father to the states. That sent me back into it.
I can’t tell her that. “Hi, I turn into a vegetable. Bet you can’t guess which one.” She’ll think I’m insane, run out, maybe call a wellness check on me. The last thing I need are cops getting involved.
“Because I was new, and American. Oh, and scrawny.”
Her jaw drops, her eyes widening. “No way.”
I nod. “Until about sixteen, I was nothing but legs and arms. I looked like a piece of sugar cane standing up.”
“Well…” She traverses down my broad shoulders and built chest. “You filled out well. I bet all those kids are jealous as hell of you now.”
I really doubt it.
