Читать книгу Rani Patel In Full Effect - Sonia Patel - Страница 8
Оглавление“Rani, whoa!”
I don’t hear Mark’s voice or the sound of his heavy work boots striking the rickety, wooden steps.
It’s a slow Sunday morning at Maunaloa General Store. No customers means I get time to sit on the front porch. It’s in bad shape, like the entire store building. Hardly matters, the porch is many things to many people. A town hall for some. A living room for many. A studio for others, allowing for spur-of-the-moment ukulele and percussion jam sessions. For me, it’s my clandestine lyrical lab. The place where I write my best rap.
Today I’m writing something different, something to write away my sadness and my worries. Hunched over my notebook, I’m lost in the words.
Mark taps my shoulder. I push my glasses further along my nose and look up. My eyes refocus. I see his baby blues fixated on my head. Uhh. Immediately I’m under the spell of his hotness.
He raises one eyebrow and gives me a closed mouth smile. Then he nods and says, “You look fierce, girl.”
Only I don’t take in what he’s saying because I’ve been cast into some kind of dreamlike state. And I can’t hear. All I can do is stare at his heavenly face.
Ahhh, Mark. Mark Thoren.
I’ve known him for a couple of years from the store. He’s by far my favorite customer. Even when he comes in dirty, sweaty, and shirtless. Especially when he comes in dirty, sweaty, and shirtless. He’s a groundskeeper for Moloka’i Ranch. His last name says it all. He’s strikingly handsome and built. Exactly how the god of thunder should be. His surname, blond hair, ocean eyes, square jaw, and height—about 6’2”—make me think he’s Swedish. His body is cut, like Tupac, only white. He looks like he’s in his late twenties. When I’m working the register, he’s always friendly, asking me about school and stuff. I get butterflies every time I see him, which is practically every afternoon. But all of this is strictly on the down low.
“Rani?”
“Huh?”
“Girl, you’re fierce.” He whistles in approval.
Embarrassed, I remember that I’m bald. I touch my scalp. “Oh. This. Thanks. It’s kind of crazy, right?”
“No way. You look fine.” He squints his eyes and bites the side of his lower lip. It’s like he’s gawking at a table of chafing dishes overflowing with kalua pig, lau lau, lomi lomi salmon, poi, and chicken long rice. And he wants to gobble it up ASAP.
I feel myself shrinking at the hungry look on his face and the generous words he spoke. Fine is not an adjective anyone has ever used to describe me. I’m not even that good-looking with a normal head of hair. He probably thinks it’s a rebellious teen angst thing. And pity compelled him to give me some feel-good comments.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I mumble.
My favorite customer sits down on the bench opposite me. Hmm. To what do I owe this privilege? I have nothing to offer Mr. Thunder God. And he’s never sat on the porch with me before. Usually he buys his packs—Salem Lights and Bud Light—and chit-chats a bit while I’m ringing him up. Then he leaves, with my eyes searing through his jeans as he exits. Little does he know he’s the sole reason I look forward to work. I’ve even fantasized about delivering groceries to his light blue plantation house near Maunaloa Elementary School.
I knock on his door. He opens it, shirtless of course, but this time smelling of Drakkar Noir. Leaning against the door frame, he asks me in. I set the grocery bag on the kitchen counter. An orange rolls out then falls to the floor. I bend down to pick it up…
“What’re you working on?” he asks, his incredible eyes perfectly matching the Pacific behind his head in the distance.
I hesitate. No one knows that I write.
Actually, no one knows much about me. Anonymity suits me just fine. I realize that’s about to change because Mark’s sexy smile drags the words out. “A poem, a slam poem,” I say, uncrossing my legs and pulling my jean shorts down a little. I close my notebook and lay it flat on my lap. I’m sweating. I don’t want to let go of any more secrets.
“Sorry, Mark, but I have to go finish stocking…”
Mark cuts me off before I can say “the beer,” which seemed way cooler than what I really do have to finish stocking—cans of Spam.
“A slam poem? Really?”
His curiousity is disconcerting. No one has ever been particularly interested in anything I do. Except Pono. But he doesn’t count because he only cares about the class council stuff we work on together.
“Yeah…but poems aren’t usually my thing.” I get up, hugging my notebook tight, and seal my lips so that the spontaneous freestyle flowing in my mind stays safely locked away.
Clutching my notebook close to my chest,
as if it’s a question-proof vest.
Boy, you got me stressed
and mentally undressed
with your direct requests.
I’m about to put myself under house arrest
lest you guess I’m
messed up and depressed.
“So, what’s your usual thing?” His attention holds me hostage. I settle back down on the bench.
“Oh, that. It’s kind of classified,” I say, relieved that my dark brown skin hides the blushing.
Mark leans forward. “Come on, Rani, you can tell me.”
Tell him about playing piano, not about the rap! I mean, that’s fully legit. Even if it’s really for Dad.
Mark’s like a male siren. I can’t resist his song. The truth leaks from my lips. I slide my palms under my thighs and study my bright pink toenails. “Rap is kinda my thing,” I confess, avoiding his eyes.
“Rap? Really? Who would’ve thunk?”
I half smile, shifting my eyes back to his glorious face. Then to his robust biceps. Then to the outline of his tight abs through his sweaty, white t-shirt.
“That’s cool. So do you call yourself Lil Rani or something?”
“Something a little more original than that. MC Sutra.”
Seriously, Rani? Shut the hell up!
“You know nothing much surprises me. But this, I never would’ve guessed this about you, Rani. I mean MC Sutra.” He pauses then asks, “You seventeen, yeah?”
“Yeah, just about.” I’m straining to keep my cool. I’m freaked out that he’ll leak my secret about MC Sutra. I end up clasping my hands and begging. “Please Mark, don’t tell anyone about the rap or about MC Sutra. Please, please!”
“I won’t if…” he says real slow, “…if you read me the poem.”
He stretches his arms onto each side of the railing. For a second they appear more sinewy than usual. But then I see something I’ve never noticed before—a dreamcatcher tattoo wrapping around his right upper arm. But before I can ask him about it, he says, “I’m ready.”
I take a deep breath. “It’s called ‘Widow,’” I mumble. I open my notebook and flip to the right page. As I start reading, the anxiety slowly melts away like a half-eaten shave ice in the summer sun. I change up the speed, the volume, and the tone to match the words, pausing strategically along the way. Full on Patricia Smith.
I shaved my head.
Waist length, thick, good Indian hair
gone in five minutes.
Hair shed,
saying the unsaid.
To my mom whose arranged marriage
my dad disparaged,
so daughter became child bride.
He divides
me and her.
He kept me close, his little princess,
his little missus
and witness
to Mom’s “accidents” from
years of banging her head on hard cold walls, numb.
Brandishing knives in desperate suicidal threats.
Rani betta, my little darling, just forget.
Let me comfort you
with teenage back rubs, taboo.
But they help him pull through.
A dark web of emotional and sexual merging,
and I am emerging
as his mirror.
He tries to make things clearer.
He says,
I escaped India,
my mother’s frustrations,
my father’s perversions,
my own victimization
by immigration to America.
A better life was my intention.
But he had no foundation.
So he made me his reincarnation.
Attempts at normal friendships
elicit Dad’s guilt trips
and snubs.
His revenge: psychological break-up.
By him I am now ignored.
His insatiable thirst for being adored
quenched by another, half his age.
At first, rage.
New lover?
New daughter?
Winds of fury
intensify waves of sorrow,
steadily, one after another,
they smother…me.
I’m worthless.
Nothing.
Dead.
Mom’s suicidal frustrations in my head.
I punish myself and shed
hair, self-worth, dignity.
It, not she.
I realize I’m standing up. And crying. I sit back down on the bench and look quick at Mark. His expression is somber and his eyes wet. I had no idea my words could move a grown man.
“Is this about what happened at Kanemitsu’s last night?”
“Yup,” I whisper.
Mark speaks softly. “That line about your Mom near the end, I can totally relate.”
He’s frowning and seems more sad. We sit in silence, reliving our own painful memories. And despite the solemn mood, I’m astonished at all the firsts. First time a hot guy paid attention to me. First time I told anyone about my passion for writing rap. First time I told anyone about some of my family problems. Somehow I don’t feel so alone.
Instead I feel connected and grateful. Also butterflies. But not the usual few. A thousand of them.
