Without considering what I was doing, I stood and excused myself, and left my friends. She saw me as I approached her. A smile as big as a gambler's promise unveiled her face as she opened her arms to hug me. And then she knew. One hand reached up to touch my face, her fingertips reading the braille of scars, while the other hand took my arm to lead me out of the restaurant and into the foyer.
"I haven't seen you for weeks," she said as we sat together in a quiet corner. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I lied. "Were you going in to have some lunch?"
"No. Just coffee. I've got a room here, in the old part, looking out over the Gateway. It's a million-dollar view, and a great room. I've got it for three days while Lettie sews up a deal with a big producer. This is one of the fringe benefits she managed to squeeze out of him. The movie business-what can I say?"
"How's it going?"
"Great," she smiled. "Lettie loves every minute of it. She deals with all the studios and the booking agents now. She's better at it than me. She drives a better deal for us every time. And I do the tourists. I like that part better. I like meeting them and working with them."
"And you like it that sooner or later, no matter how nice they are, they always go away?"
"Yeah. That, too."
"How's Vikram? I haven't seen him since-since the last time I saw you and Lettie."
"He's cool. You know Vikram. He's got a lot more time on his hands now. He misses the stunt thing. He was really big on that, and he was great at it. But it drove Lettie crazy. He was always jumping off moving trucks and crashing through windows and stuff.
And she worried a lot. So she made him give it up."
"What's he doing now?"
"He's kind of the boss, you know? Like the executive vice president of the company-the one Lettie started, with Kavita and Karla and Jeet. And me." She paused, on the verge of saying something, and then plunged on. "She was asking after you."
I stared back at her, saying nothing. "Karla," she explained. "She wants to see you, I think."
I held the silence. I was enjoying it, a little, that so many emotions were chasing one another across the soft, unblemished landscape of her face.
"Have you seen any of his stunts?" she asked.
"Vikram's?"
"Yeah. He did a whole lot before Lettie made him stop."
"I've been busy. But I really want to catch up with Vikram."
"Why don't you?"
"I will. I heard he's hanging out at the Colaba Market every day, and I've been wanting to see him. I'm working a lot of nights, so I haven't been to Leopold's lately. It's just... I've been... busy."
"I know," she said softly. "Maybe too busy, Lin. You don't look too good."
"Gimme a break," I sighed, trying to laugh. "I work out every day. I do boxing or karate every other day. I can't get any fitter than this."
"You know what I mean," she insisted.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Listen, I should let you go..."
"No. You shouldn't."
"I shouldn't?" I asked, faking a smile.
"No. You should come with me, now, to my room. We can have coffee sent up. Come on. Let's go."
And she was right: it was a spectacular view. Tourist ferries bound for the caves on Elephanta Island, or returning to shore, rose up the wavelets and rolled over them in proud, practised glissades. Hundreds of smaller craft dipped and nodded like preening birds in the shallow water while huge cargo vessels, anchored to the horizon, lay motionless on that cusp of calm where the ocean became the bay. On the street below us, parading tourists wove coloured garlands with their movements through and around the tall, stony gallery of the Gateway Monument.
She kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed. I sat near her on the edge of the bed. I stared at the floor near the door. We were quiet for a while, listening to the noises that pushed their way into the room with a breeze that caused the curtains to riffle, swell, and fall.
"I think," she began, taking a deep breath, "you should come and live with me."
"Well, that's-"
"Hear me out," she cut in, raising both palms to silence me.
"Please."
"I just don't think-"
"Please."
"Okay," I smiled, sitting further along the bed to rest my back against the bed-head.
"I found a new place. It's in Tardeo. I know you like Tardeo. So do I. And I know you'll like the apartment, because it's exactly the kind of place we both like. And I think that's what I'm trying to get at, or trying to say-we like the same things, Lin.
And we got a lot in common. We both beat the dope. That's a fuckin' hard thing to do, and you know it. And not many people do it. But we did-we both did-and I think that's because we're alike, you and me. We'd be good, Lin. We'd be... we'd be real good."
"I can't say... for sure... that I beat the dope, Lisa."
"You did, Lin."
"No. I can't say I won't ever touch it again, so I can't say I beat it."
