Chapter 9 Rupi
Nine
Rupi
Simi looks like her heart has been ripped out of her chest. The last time I saw my sister look like this was after our mother told us that Glen had liver failure and had a few weeks left to live.
Glen Sequiera was Husband Number Four. The man who taught me how to wield a tattoo gun.
Tattoos deface the body. That’s what Husband Number Three loved to say.
Well, maybe they weren’t actually husbands.
Our mother simply announced herself married to the string of men who came and lived with us, and no one ever went looking for a marriage certificate.
This I had found to be true of most things in life.
People only went looking for the truth if it served them.
Otherwise looking the other way was the easier option.
Back then, it never struck me to not believe her, either, even though Simi and I never actually attended any of the weddings.
Weddings are a waste of hard-earned money, Ma loved to say. That’s what courthouses are for. If you want to live with someone you love, why do you have to pay a priest and feed a bunch of relatives who you never see when a free meal isn’t in the picture?
Sadly, my mother was often right. Especially when it came to seeing the world in all its dismal and bitter glory.
Ma was a sieve for catching life’s ugliest bits.
I would be delusional if I didn’t recognize that it was a skill I had inherited in its entirety.
Or maybe there were only ugly bits. Maybe the beautiful bits you saw in other people’s sieves were a lie to keep us all restless like fish on a hook, unable to let go even if it meant you couldn’t breathe.
This is why the beauty of ink under skin meant so much. It was beauty in an unexpected place. It was the human form subverted. Not that I was thinking any of those things when I first got inked. It was the first time in my life that running away led me to something serendipitous.
Mom’s Husband Number Three made the declaration about tattoos defacing bodies when Glen moved in to the flat below us.
And Glen, whose memory still makes my throat choke with tears, was inked all the way up and down his incredibly beautiful arms. I can no longer remember why I ran away that day, but I sneaked into the back of the building and hid in the nook that looked into Glen’s studio room.
He saw me hiding (and spying on him working) and invited me in.
He taught me everything I know about tattoos.
My first and last guru. The only ink I carry on my body that I haven’t put there myself is the trident Glen inked on my inner thigh.
I can still feel the back of his hand stroking between my legs as the ink pierced my skin.
There is no way to ink that high up on the thigh without touching someone there.
When Glen asked me where I wanted my first tattoo, that was the spot I chose.
So, yes, Glen taught me more than just how to use a tattoo gun.
I was fourteen years old, a fact he didn’t learn until much later.
He let me ink him back. In all my years, I’ve never seen work more beautiful than what Glen could do.
And an artist like that letting me, a novice, a child everyone else treated as worthless and strange, mark him permanently changed my life.
I would have let him do anything. I wanted him to.
When my mother found out, she was livid.
About the tattoo, of course. The rest I never shared with anyone.
Obviously Ma hadn’t noticed my feelings.
A woman with two little girls has to willfully block out many things when she lets so many men into her home.
Not that Ma would have cared if she did know how I felt about Glen.
She cared little about anything other than herself, her carousel of husbands, and getting back at our father for accusing her of cheating on him and then abandoning her for it.
The only reason Ma saw the tuberose I put on my own bicep under Glen’s careful guidance was that I let her. It was the first tattoo I gave myself. The thrill of her finding out was too much to stop and consider the consequences.
Ma marched down our building’s worn wooden steps to make sure Glen knew exactly what she thought about him teaching a fourteen-year-old how to give herself a tattoo. They had a screaming match all the neighbors heard. Six months later, Glen became Husband Number Four.
I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I loved him or anything.
All I knew was that I carried him in my art, in the ink that flowed from my gun.
Nothing in the world mattered more than that.
Everything and everyone other than the ink you shot under skin was temporary.
Even at fourteen, I knew two things for sure: Marriage and love had nothing to do with each other, and both those things were the surest way to destroy your life.
Seeing my sister’s heartbroken face now is even more proof. Obviously the rasgulla hadn’t lived up to all she’d made him out to be. People seldom do.
My anger at Glen and Ma helped me survive the blow of his death. By then, I’d already stopped feeling things enough to let them hurt, but Simi never did learn that skill.
Glen was the closest thing Simi had to a father.
Losing him was the first time I wasn’t able to protect my sister from hurt.
I had to watch every day for two weeks while Simi sat by Glen’s bed.
I, on the other hand, never went into his room.
Not once. I waited outside for Simi. I knew he asked for me, but I didn’t go in to see him.
Not until after he was gone. Ma wasn’t the only one who could carry a grudge to the grave.
Simi looks just like that again. Like she needs to do something to stop time, to turn it around, but she doesn’t know how.
“How bad is what you did to Ron’s family?” Simi asks, trying to reason and calculate her way out of this.
“How does that matter?”
“When was the last time you gave a straight answer to a question?”
“When there’s a straight question, I’ll give a straight answer.”
“What was crooked about my question?” Simi asks, her tone innocent. There was a time when I could tell if Simi’s innocence was an act to get something she wanted, or more likely, if she was avoiding something. I can’t seem to tell anymore.
“The whole thing,” I say, restlessness gripping me. “There’s nothing straightforward about that whole situation, so expecting an answer that’s straightforward is absurd.”
“Fair. So, give me the twisted version.”
“To what end?” I say. “Ron’s dead. His wife hates me. Until yesterday, I had leverage to get her to return my passport. But now, the leverage is gone and all I have is my name on a computer that’s going to get immigration knocking on my door.”
Obviously she doesn’t like the answer she demanded.
“Can we talk her into giving us the passport?”
I have to laugh at that. “All we’ll achieve is giving away my current location. You already know you can’t convince anyone to do anything unless they stand to gain something from it. I’m guessing your rasgulla didn’t let you squeeze the syrup out of him.”
“Please stop calling him that.”
“But it’s such a delicious metaphor. He’s all soft and sweet, but there’s no spine inside, is there?”
“That’s not true. Prem is a rock, not just for me but for everyone who knows him.”
Right. I want to yawn. “So, he’s going to help us, then?”
Simi squeezes her forehead. “It’s not that simple.”
“Now who’s not giving a straight answer to a straight question.”
Before Simi can respond, there’s a knock on the door and a nurse comes in.
“How are we feeling?” she says with all the chirpiness of someone who has to ask that question twenty times a day.
“I’m ready to go ho— Well, I’m ready to be discharged. What are my chances?”
“Your vitals look good, and you’ve kept your last meal down, so let’s get a urine sample, and then if you’re not dehydrated anymore, we can get you on your way. Who’s taking you home today?” Is this really happening? I tamp down the hope that rises inside me.
“I am,” Simi says. “I’m her sister.”
“No way!” the nurse says with a wink. “Does anyone not immediately get that when they see the two of you together?”
Simi and the nurse start chatting about all the ways in which Simi and I look similar and different. Then the nurse walks me to a bathroom (evidently word of my “getting lost” has traveled), where I produce a urine sample while she waits outside.
Once the nurse has dunked a paper strip into the sample, she declares me good to go.
I’m lightheaded with relief as she gets my IV off.
Just as she tapes a bandage on, another knock sounds.
The door is already open, and I watch with utter horror as two cops enter the room: a gorgeous petite woman with dark eyes and the curliest lashes I’ve ever seen, and a completely bald giant of a man with beefy shoulders that make his swinging arms look like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
The officers introduce themselves, but my ears are ringing, and I miss their names. This is the moment that’s been chasing me ever since I landed in this country and the immigration officer asked why I was here. “I’m visiting a friend,” I said and told myself it wasn’t a lie.
Ron did a great job pretending to be my friend. Or maybe he was my friend. If friends took away your passport, didn’t pay you for your work, and only put a roof over your head when you slept with them.
Great, all this reminiscing meant I missed what the officers said about why they were here.
“Sorry,” Simi says to them, giving my shoulder a gentle shake. “She’s been pretty disoriented. Rupi, hey, the officers want to ask you a few questions, okay?”
I nod, playing up my exhaustion. My sad-stoic face has gotten me out of many a jam.
“We heard you went missing this afternoon,” the lady officer says, her gaze hovering somewhere between empathetic and alert.
“She got lost looking for a restroom,” my sister says. “It was a misunderstanding.”
The cops exchange glances.
“You were also robbed?” the curly-lashed one asks.
“Yes,” a voice that’s much deeper than mine says just as I say it too.
Simi’s rasgulla rolls into the room.
He walks straight to me and takes my hand. “She fell asleep on the bus, and someone took everything she was traveling with. What a horrible way to welcome someone to Kentucky. After all the nice things I’d told her about our beautiful state.”
“And you are?”
He reaches over and shakes their hands. “Prem Gupta, Rupi’s fiancé.”
“Congratulations,” both the cops say at once.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” the lady officer says.
“Well, my family owns all the Dominic’s Pizza places in southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee.” I hadn’t noticed until this minute that the guy has a heavy southern drawl. Or maybe he’s suddenly leaning hard into it.
I’ve always had the urge to laugh when an Indian person opens their mouth and an American drawl comes out, but this is even more comical.
“Oh my god, I love Dominic’s,” she says, brightening. “The honey barbecue chicken. How do you get the chicken to taste like that?”
“It’s marinated in orange juice overnight. My mother’s recipe to tenderize chicken breasts for chicken curry.”
“I have to try that. My chicken breasts always get dry. I love chicken curry.”
The beefy officer clears his throat, evidently uninterested in sharing his opinion on chicken curry.
“How long have you two been engaged?” he asks.
“A week.” Prem attempts smitten eyes at me. I know I should be grateful, but I can’t push away the urge to poke at his middle.
“How did you meet?” The curly-lashed cop’s tone is friendly.
“Simi introduced us,” the rasgulla says.
My heart races even as I smile.
“That’s me. I’m her sister.” Simi pops in, smiling her most angelic smile.
Simi explains how she works as a nanny for Prem’s sister. Together they spin an impressive tale about how Prem met me when he visited Chicago a few months ago. Apparently, we’d talked for three months, and Prem had convinced me to move to Hochkinsville.
Is it usual for the officers to be carrying out a full-fledged inquisition like this for a stolen backpack?
“Is it okay if we take down some information, and then you can come into the station and file a report about the lost paperwork?”
“Can we choose not to report the theft?” Prem asks.
“Well, filing a police report will help when you apply for new documents. But you can speak to a lawyer about the details. We’re here to help.”
“Thank you,” Prem says, taking the notepad Officer Curly Lashes holds out.
I watch in horror as he fills out the information that means the cops know where to find me and hands it back. And with that, the nurse announces that I’m free to walk out of the hospital.