London isn't exactly what she'd expected.

It's weird here, she says to Marta, her good-natured Peruvian friend. Good, sweet Marta, blind without her spectacles, always distracted, pale, clumsy as all get out. C's best friend, in every way opposite of the shrew she'd played in high school in the all-girl production of the musical of Kiss-Me-Kate.

What do you mean weird, said Marta, pushing a pair of bookish glasses higher up on her nose.

Weird. I don't know. Wet. Gloomy.

At present, the two girls -- women -- were riding an escalator up and out of the local tube station. The Plexiglas over the entrance gave no indication whether the rain had let up. But as the stairs rounded and began to flatten, reminding them of the long neck of a large brontosaurus, Marta wondered, just for a moment, if they hadn't taken a wrong turn somewhere because it had grown humid to the point of being tropical, as if they'd taken a train to the Maldives by accident. This, of course, was not the case. It's just that C. had been complaining, and they'd only just started their trip, and so Marta, who'd known C. for years, literally years!, had done what she always did when people refused to look on the bright side which is close her eyes and zone them out. She rode that way the entire length moving staircase, forgetting not only to Mind [Her] Step as the sign so clearly stated, but what country they were in exactly, until the inevitable happened. Marta tripped, which was a very Marta-like thing to do. Ooh! she said. But that wasn't all. The dangly end of her umbrella strap which, if used properly, should have been fashionably over one shoulder, became hooked beneath the grate behind her. Kaboom! Several things happened at once. There was a loud crack as the umbrella was whipped from Marta's hand and became wedged across the mouth of the escalator like some ridiculous gymnasium bar her friend would have to vault. The stairs continued to fold into on another, bringing C. dangerously close to indecision. At which point they both may have screamed (Oh, dear!, says Marta. Shit, Marta!, says C.). Then at the last instant, as C. adroitly braced her hands to either side of the moving handrails, determined to spring over any obstacle in her path, the umbrella, which was beige with the exceedingly large jaws of a green crocodile across it that Marta had bought recently on a trip to Florida's Everglades, popped open, sending C. sprawling. No damage done, thank God. A scuffed guide book was all. The croc did not bite. A sunburst greeted them from outside like so much silent applause.

I'm sorry, said Marta.

It's ok, said C., brushing herself off.

Are you ok? asked Marta.

Fine, she said, vaguely proud that she hadn't broken her neck.

You almost cleared it, Marta admired, beginning to smile.

Shit no…(for now she was smiling too)…not even Carl Lewis would made that jump.
You made a valiant attempt.

Thanks, I guess.

No, really, you're very athletic.

Ok, Marta.

I'm just glad you're ok.

I'm just glad that strap wasn't around your neck.

There was a pause as Marta brushed a scuff mark near her friends knee and, as with any relief accompanying serious danger, they broke down into hysterics.

Did you see the way that thing flew open!

That alligator nearly gave me a heart attack.

An a-hee sound escaped Marta's throat.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to break my neck or be eaten!
A-hee….a-hee.

The ordeal had left them both sweaty. It may have been rainy in London that summer, but it definitely wasn't cold. The two stopped under a large shade tree outside the tube entrance to get their bearings.

Where are we again? asked C.

Hee…London…I think.

Duh, said C. in response. She was still a little pissed, but the effect silenced Marta.

Let's see if that kiosk has any cold drinks. Then maybe we can orient ourselves and find a café or something.
Good idea.

-----------------

Two scrawny Brits leaned against two BMX bicycles facing an Indian on a park bench.

It' s like I'm telling you, Bhagirathi said. You chaps are too old to be riding girls' bikes.

But…

He interrupted their duet with a wave of his hand. Yeah, yeah, BMX ain't girlie, gottcha, right. The point ain't what brand you ride, it's that you ride at all. Bikes is the point. They're not cool. The bench he was sitting on had its own sound system, courtesy of Bhagirathi Panda Mookherjee Music & Records, his father's store in Willesden. Two miniature Aiwa speakers hung from two make-shift hooks off the back of the fading green Whembley Park Association bench to either side of him. A sleek Sony Discman 941 hummed to his right looking like it might take flight at any moment. An AC Power Pack hunkered in slightly behind the Sony and alongside it sat an open, cellophane-wrapped 10-set of D-cell Duracell batteries. Four were missing, the loose cellophane fluttered in the breeze. With one hand Bhagirathi realigned a pile of cd's.

Oh, like…like red polyester is real cool.

Bhag didn't need to even look up. It didn't matter which of them spoke. It usually took them over a minute to come up with any sort of comeback, long enough for the average dick to forget what it was they were talking about in the first place.

First off, it's not polyester, it's velour -- for indeed, Bhagarathi was wearing a red velour suit -- and as a matter of fact, to be quite honest, he said, poking a finger at each of them, I saw Lenny Kravits wearing this same shag outside the Tate week last, yeah, so I know I'm cool.

Bullshit.

Bullshit. You ain't seen no Lenny Ker-a-vits.

Since they weren't allowed in the Kinsington Café or the bookstore anymore, or that atrocious American bookstore-café that had taken over the entire south end of the block, they were giving the news kiosk a crack. Chicks dug magazines. Everybody knew that. Powder. Sample perfume. New bathing costume. Ricky Martin. Orgasms guaranteed.

Yeah, but outside? Outside's not a year-round thing, mate, complained one of the Brits at the time. He wore baggy MTV Generation pants and had a flat top hair cut that vaguely resembled Vanilla Ice. His name was Ted.

Yeah, said Ned, who might have been Ted's brother, but wasn't. It looks like it's fecking gonna rain and I fecking just got over a cold. And here Ned sniffled to emphasize the "cold" aspect of what he was saying and wiped an imaginary trickle of nose goo off his upper lip in slo-mo. Ned wanted to be an actor, or an over-actor.

Right, said Ted.

Right.

There was a long pause as Bhagirathi stared at them, or at least they assumed he was staring at them because neither Ted or Ned could see his eyes behind the super-dark glasses he wore. Fucking white people, he mumbled under his breath.

What's dat, mate, asked Ted.

I said, repeated Bhag, pulling a KC and The Sunshine Band cd out of the pile, that it’s a wonder you fucking white people colonized anybody if you're so scared of a little rain.
Ain't rain I'm worried about, Paki, it's pigeons.

When he was mad, Bhagirathi's eyeballs came dangerously close to touching the lenses of his 5£ St. Vincent de Paul super-dark glasses. He was mad now because he'd told these wankers a hundred times if he'd told them once, he wasn't a god damn Pakistani. And why the fuck was everyone always assuming that? He was Indian pure and simple, and not one of those run for the border before the split muther fuckers either, he was Bombay-walla, Mr. Bollywood, from a long line of Bombay Brahmin, yeah. But Bhag said nothing.

Yeah, said Ned. Un a them birds shat in my har week last.
They're all over this fecking park.

For Christ sake…

Whoa, said Ned, cutting Mr. Bhagavagita off mid-sentence.

Hello thar, said Ted, as the long tongue of the tube deposited two travel-weary but still quite chipper American girls onto the sidewalk like the latest rave queen proffering her newly pierced organ in sexual innuendo.

---------------

Can I be of help to you birds, came the deep-throated voice. Bag was leaning very cool-like against one of the kiosk's partitions, unlit fag poking Bogart-style from his thin upper lip.

They both looked up. C. smirked and went back to her tab. The British had a whole world of magazines that she'd never seen before. Magazines were her good-thing. They were escapism.
Bhag cleared his throat. Ned and Ted stood a good ten paces back. They appeared to be in conference.

Oh, said Marta, not capable of being rude. No. Thanks. We, uh…we were just getting something to drink. She held up her orange juice and, forgetting that the lid was off, waggled it back and forth, spraying her forearm. Ooh!

Bhagirathi was good in these situations. Smooth is how he'd explain it to Ted later, very David Copperfieldy, a now you see it, now you don't kind of moment. From out of nowhere he produced a fake Coco-Channel handkerchief. May I, he asked with an almost aristocratic tilt of his head and was dabbing Marta's juice-speckled sleeve before she had time to react. He fingered the fleshy part of her arm above the elbow with his other hand, drawing her toward him slightly.

C. smirked again. If Marta persisted…if she didn't lose Mr. Smooth and his two creepy friends who were now totally engrossed in the physical attributes of women in an X-men comic ("Ned, have you ever noticed how cartoon women always wear thongs?"), she would positively kill her. An inability to extract oneself from poor social situations was, C. honestly believed, a personality defect. Everybody had them. C. too, she knew that; she was too quick to judge, too quick to drop (in an ok, now you're bugging me/see ya kind of way). She wished she had more tolerance, but was already thinking how nice it would be to ditch Marta. She was too nice for her own good. And too nice was too close to bimbodom as far as C. was concerned. Then for no reason at all she was thinking about Ifta. She wondered where he was right now. Had everything gone as scheduled, he'd have left New York by now and would be kicking his heals up at his parents' house in Salt Lake City, trying to finish that novel he'd showed her. She wanted to tell him that England sucked. Then she got a little sad remembering the second and last time they saw each other. It was the day before Europe. She would be leaving in the morning. He'd be gone in three weeks, returning home to Utah for the summer, then off to Asia for lord knows how long (people with Catholic upbringings use "lord" and "god" a lot when they write). She didn't know why, but she'd decided that if he tried to kiss her that night, she would not stop him. In fact, that was sort of the reason she'd invited him out to Brooklyn in the first place: she wanted to be kissed. There was something so romantic, so Hollywood about it -- the last embrace before a dash for the plane. But it was not to be.

There you are, said Bhag. He continued to hold Marta's arm while he leaned over and put the soiled handkerchief back on the rack. Marta smelled cinnamon and lost her train of thought. Bhag's chest was very close to her own. American discomfort was setting in. Unfamiliar with certain intimacies, the crushing of one's personal space was, if not unacceptable, unwanted. Marta looked as if she were drowning. She needed air. Sensing this, C. stepped forward.
Marta, she said, tapping the nice English/Indian man on the shoulder, I told you: no hugging the natives. And then to Bhag she said, I'm C., and held out her hand.

They shook. Bhagirathi stepped back. Right, he said, hip to what was going down. He liked the little one's forthrightness. Marta, momentarily free, began making little hupping sounds, almost like a hiccup. Then she blushed.

You're American, right?

They nodded.

What part?

Chicago.

Aaaah, Chicago, Bhag began (but don't get him going), looking from one quizzical face to the other. Bang bang, Al Capone, Windy City, Michael Jordan, cold as a witch's tity…thinking of immigrating there myself…England's over.

Because he looked like Elvis (from his pre-bloated, but not-so-young days), they believed him. He had on a red velour suit, pimpled ostrich skin boots, big square glasses, and the hair -- oh man -- this cat had hair. They believed him, but didn't want to encourage him because Bhag had that look about him, as if he expected them to be impressed.

My cousin lives on Devon Avenue. Purveyor. Dry goods and the like. Murthy's. Do you know it?
I know Devon Avenue, Marta said.

Famous for Indian people, innit?

Yeah, C. piped in, that and bad drivers.

Oh, sure. Bhag's face lit up as he spoke. Originally it was Marta, he digged that creamy skin, but the Asian, man, he liked the way she spoke. Indian people can't drive, he continued. They immigrate, buy a car in America because everyone in America has a car, cheat on the drivers' test and assume the rules are the same as they were back in Calcutta: there are no rules! Now he's laughing…and those poor bastards never knew how to drive in the first place. My advice? Next time you go to Devon, take mass transit and look three times before you cross the street.

---------------

It had taken a lot to shake Bhagirathi and his geeky friends and in the end they walked away with his email address and flat number written on the inside of a gum wrapper. Now it was just them and that park and the great little pond where someone had ingeniously planted trees patterned after rays of a big old sun or something.
The path was amiable, C. less somewhat.

Marta, I hate to say it, but when you get in awkward situations, you turn giddy. It's like who filled the dumb girl up with helium again? And that's just it. You're not dumb. So why do you act like it?

I do? I donnn't.

Yes, Marta, really.

It's just that…he…when he leaned in close, all I could think was that he smelled like cinnamon, and I like cinnamon and lost my train of thought because I started thinking maybe it was racist of me to think of Indians smelling "spicy" and then I realized he was chewing Big Red and I felt much better, but I also kind of wanted some. Is it flirting to ask for a stick of gum?

From the look on C.'s face, you could tell she didn't know how to react. She looked kind of frozen, her mouth slightly parted. In reality she was filing that shit away to examine later when she had a little down-time. Snap judgments didn't work well with friends. She'd known Marta for years and a) didn’t want to start a fight so early into the trip and b) she needed Marta. Europe was big territory.

christopher o'brien