The default world, p.10
The Default World, page 10
Jhanvi opened her arms, and Roshie acceded to a hug without returning it.
“Hey,” she said. “You ready to see the event space?”
“Err, I guess it’s not a dressing-up type thing?”
“What? No,” Roshie said. “We’re there to work.”
“Okay, okay …”
Jhanvi had huddled in Roshie’s room all morning, afraid to go out, less out of fear of being locked out—Roshie had given her the door code—and more to avoid the pain of potentially confronting the rest of the house.
But then Roshie had texted her a few hours ago, asking if Jhanvi wanted to check out the dungeon, and Jhanvi had said yes without revealing that she’d already asked Katie and Henry a few days before, and they’d basically said no. She hadn’t really spoken to Henry since the meeting two nights ago. She’d texted him today to ask if the wedding was still on, and he’d said: I’ll get back to you. Just have some things to research.
Jhanvi started talking nervously, telling Roshie that she’d gotten stir-crazy and had gone out for lunch, but not before getting a bag together in case Katie locked her out.
“That was dumb,” Roshie said. “I turn off my phone while I work.”
“Okay, okay,” Jhanvi said. “I just wandered around the Lower Haight and the Mission. It’s so gorgeous here, with the colors and the murals. I know this is a really basic thing to say, but it’s like living in Europe.”
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Roshie said.
They walked together with no conversation, and Jhanvi felt a flicker of resentment. She knew it was just the other girl’s social awkwardness, but Jhanvi didn’t want to live like this, sharing space with someone so sullen, so difficult.
“You sure they won’t mind me showing up?” Jhanvi said. “I asked before, and they said no.”
“No, that’s dumb,” Roshie said. “There’s a guest policy. And anyway, I’m the one paying for the place.”
“See,” Jhanvi said. “This is why white people don’t help each other out. What you have is a brown-person mentality. You paid, so you’re owed something. And I think that’s why you’re angry at them.”
“No, no,” Roshie said. “What you’re saying is so self-evidently stupid.”
Jhanvi smiled. She almost wanted her friend to repeat the words self-evidently stupid so she could hear the bite of emphasis at the beginning of each word.
Roshie said, “Don’t get into that whole ‘Fire-eaters suck and are selfish and only care about hedonism and sex’ mentality. That’s the kind of thing second-raters say: people who can’t do or build anything, so they just tear others down.”
“You sound like those books you have. The, uhh, the Anna Laurent books.”
“Don’t talk about that.”
“What? I like her work.”
“Huh?” Roshie said. “No. Shut up.”
“I do. I’ve always liked them.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“The Redness of Mars,” Jhanvi said. “Obviously.”
“Yesssssssss,” Roshie said. “That’s clearly the best. Okay, this is weird. You really like her? It’s not a joke?”
“I mean, the political philosophy is dumb—”
“Obviously.”
“But I like … the integrity of it, I guess,” Jhanvi said. “I like … you know, when the guy goes to Mars, and he works and works and works, and everyone writes him off. And then when he succeeds, the government comes to take it away. And he gives that speech. The one that’s like, I asked the people of Earth for aid, and you ignored me, and I accepted that as my due—I did not deserve your help, when there were so many more in such greater need. But I see now that your turning away was not due to principle, but to fear and greed and indolence …”
“Wow,” Roshie said. “So … like … you do get it. You actually get it. You really do get what I’m about.”
“Sure,” Jhanvi said. “I guess.”
“Good,” Roshie said. “I’m starting to get your sense of humor. But be careful, other people would think you’re serious about some of the shit you say.”
Roshie opened a gate, and they headed into a dark little alley. At the far end was a spot of sunshine, where Jhanvi saw tables and diners, but Roshie turned to the left, and she bent down, over a cellar door, heaving it up. A little light showed from the bottom of creaky wooden steps, reflecting off the stone foundation of a building.
“Watch your head,” Roshie said.
They walked down, Jhanvi behind Roshie, going through another stone corridor, with pipes and bare lightbulbs overhead.
“Where are we?” Jhanvi said.
“Just a basement,” Roshie said. “This used to be a furniture factory, and they’d use this for storage. Then I think people lived here for a while.”
The hallway didn’t have quite the look of a sewer system. It was more like leftover space, the butt-ends of many buildings coming together. The wall on one side was brick, on the other it was wooden siding. They came into a space where the sky opened up, and the sun beamed down on them.
“This trough runs behind this whole block of Mission Street.” Roshie bent to grab a cardboard box and propped it against the wall, shaking her head. “Remind me to bring that out when we leave. I don’t know what people think when they leave this stuff out—do they think the recycling truck comes back here?”
They passed a wrought-iron gateway going through the brick, which was screened by vines. Roshie hung on to the iron fence, peering through, then she laughed. “Hola, Adriana!” She followed with some schoolgirl Spanish that Jhanvi didn’t understand.
Looking through the gate, Jhanvi saw ladders, other branching alleyways, a little handcart, and flowering vines climbing up the side of the wall. A woman wearing gloves was hunched over a planter.
“Wow,” Jhanvi said. “Is she the gardener?”
“What?” Roshie said. “No, it’s her garden. She’s our upstairs neighbor.”
“So this is the building’s garden?”
“Uhh, it’s hers,” Roshie said.
Adriana walked toward them, smiling, and she gave a flower to Roshie, gesturing at Jhanvi. “For you to give,” she said.
“Oh,” Jhanvi said.
Roshie tried to hand back the flower, but Adriana gestured again, so Jhanvi took it and twisted the stem and put it behind her ear, hoping it didn’t look absurd.
“I love your garden,” Jhanvi said. “It’s incredible.”
Adriana looked around, trying to peek around the corner. “Anyone else here?”
“Oh …” Roshie looked further down the alley and noticed two guys, both clearly techies, one white and one Asian, who were wrangling a big metal bracket. “Uhh, yeah.”
“Later,” Adriana said. “I show you later.”
As they walked on, Jhanvi said, “She thought we were dating.”
“Adriana is great,” Roshie said. “Her husband’s really, really sick, which under the law makes her un-evictable, but the landlord tried anyway. Adri’s been organizing the other tenants to fight back. She thought I wouldn’t join in! I’ve been helping her do repairs.”
“Wow,” Jhanvi said.
Roshie smiled earnestly, her eyes wide. She bent down to pick up a little wrapper and tucked it in her pocket. “So you get it,” Roshie said.
“Get what? That this is awesome? I love this.”
“People act like the event space isn’t surrounded by anything. But this whole alley is so cool.”
Jhanvi’s skin was buzzing. She hopped up and down, her heels lightly touching the cobbled alley. Then they caught up to the two guys in leather vests, their bare arms showing—one wore goggles and the other had a pair hanging around his neck. They were holding an odd-shaped metal bracket and had chains looped around their arms and shoulders. As they turned, the bracket banged against the brick wall, and Roshie hissed, touching the crater.
“Hey,” said one of the guys.
“What is wrong with you?” Roshie said. “Haven’t we done enough damage here?”
“Oh shit,” said the Asian guy in vaguely British-inflected English. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.” He hefted the bracket again. “Can I fix it?”
That’s when Jhanvi saw the whole wall was blackened, and she grimaced. This must’ve been where the glory hole had been.
“I really have to do something about all this,” Roshie said. She rubbed at the blackened brick again. “I think it’s just a brick siding—we ought to be able to replace it. But getting it to look right …”
The guys looked at each other, and they kept trying to get the bracket through the door.
“Stupid,” Roshie said. “Here’s how you do it.” Then, getting underneath, she lifted from the bottom and executed a maneuver that flipped it around, hooking the edge through an open doorway nearby. She exhaled slowly, ducking underneath the bracket and through the dark door.
“Jeez,” said the Asian guy. “You’re a wizard.”
“Just don’t be such an idiot,” Roshie said. “If something doesn’t fit, don’t keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Move it around.”
“Hey,” Jhanvi said to the Asian guy. He had a short beard, and his arms and shoulders were tanned a golden brown and covered in fine hairs that shone in the sunlight that swept across his upper body.
“Oh hey,” he said, awkwardly putting out one hand. “What’s up?”
“Roshie is just showing me the event space.”
“Aww yeah.” The Asian guy’s accent was not quite British, maybe from Australia or New Zealand. “I’m Xiao. So you’re friends with Roshie?”
Jhanvi held Xiao’s hand for a moment. His nail beds were short and broad, and she pulled at his fingers, seeing how they reddened under the pressure.
“Oh, okay,” Xiao said, wrenching his hand away. Sweat collected on the back of his neck as he shouldered the bracket. Then with much heaving and grunting, they navigated down a narrow stairwell into darkness. A clear plastic tarp fell around them, and Jhanvi had to bat it away from her ears, even as the sound of electronic music got louder and louder. Then they entered a large space suffused with blue light.
As they all were sorting themselves out, Xiao and the other guy dropped the bracket into a corner and shouted some words that were swallowed up by the music.
The room was a long chamber, running the whole length of the building above them. The floor was polished concrete. In one area, just to the left of the stairs, were a sink and kitchen island. Next to it, between two plywood partitions, a bunch of couches and oriental rugs and a lazy Susan on a low table formed a little hookah bar. But then, you looked farther, and saw an open toilet and a concert stage at the other end. The jumble of disparate settings made the dungeon look like a Hollywood backlot: a nothing-land where fantasies were constructed and taken down.
As her eyes focused, she noted a ten-foot-tall painting, done in an impressionist but still recognizably representational style. It was Audrey, larger than life, with her broad smile and broader shoulders. In the painting, she was completely naked, with a woman and a man kneeling between her legs, their tongues out like snakes, collars around their necks, looking toward the viewer. Jhanvi shivered. The girl had a high blond ponytail, but her eyes were X-ed out. Was it Katie? The guy, who was clean shaven, could’ve been any white guy.
Next to the painting there was a refrigerator and a set of sinks. On the other side were two toilets just out and about, rising from the concrete floor.
Suddenly, the lights turned bright white. There was a whirl of motion at the far end of the room, and Jhanvi blinked, taking a few steps toward the people who came in. The room was so long that they were still indistinct, but they were all clothed, albeit disheveled. There was a girl with her hair in high pigtails, in a white polo shirt and pleated skirt, like a Japanese schoolgirl. Jhanvi realized right away, Oh yeah, that’s Audrey.
“Is this my work crew?” Roshie said. “What’s left to get done today? Did we get the wood for the walls?”
The group of assorted guys and girls stared at her blankly. Most of them were dressed sensibly in jeans and boots, with work gloves hanging from a pocket.
“Hey, hey! Rosh, you’re here. Were you asking about the wood?” Henry was in a leather vest, his neck encircled by glowing lights. He stood with a circle of other men, all bearded or with long hair or, at the very least, showing chest hair, who were harrumphing and making vaguely man-like noises over a bunch of plywood partitions. The fire-eaters could be oddly gender conforming sometimes.
Roshie walked toward him, and with each step, the other girl lost her withdrawn body language. She straightened, puffed out her chest, and raised her chin, looking like the famous painting of the apes walking through the phases of evolution. When she got to Henry, she asked, “Hey, what’ve you all done?”
“Hi Rosh,” Henry said. “Just spitballing about how to put up these partitions. Achilles here thought we could …” Jhanvi didn’t understand what was at stake. She watched Roshie’s face as her friend talked. Her jaw set, and her lip thrust out.
“That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” Roshie said. “Do it like the plan.”
Achilles, who Jhanvi had last seen shirtless, groping Audrey, was wearing a blue unitard like a circus strongman, which displayed a rough, bushy-haired chest. But his voice was high and nasal as he said, “I saw on YouTube that if we use these tracks, we can move the partitions on the fly.”
“They’ll collapse,” Roshie said. “Don’t be a fucking idiot.”
“Roshie,” Jhanvi said. “Maybe let them …”
Now Henry reached out and put a hand around Jhanvi’s midsection in a weak hug. “Oh hey,” he said. “You made it.”
The sudden contact was intensely off-putting. She brushed off his clammy hand. He hadn’t touched her very much in public since she got to SF. He hadn’t said anything to her until she’d spoken.
“We’ll do it Roshie’s way, all right?” Henry said. “Come on, Rosh, tell us what to do.”
“See, be like Henry,” Roshie said. “He’s a pretty boy, built for fucking, like all of you. No need to think.”
Nobody laughed. Jhanvi was agog. This was not how people talked in Trial By Fire, and especially not Roshie.
Roshie’s face was twisted into a scowl of contempt. She harangued everyone standing around, got them working. Her bitter voice soured the mood, and conversations ceased when she got close.
“See,” Roshie said to Jhanvi. “People here are so incompetent. Don’t touch it. No, you can’t do anything. You don’t know anything. Just look pretty, Jhanvi. Someone’ll be railing you against this wall in two months, and you don’t want it to collapse and kill everyone.”
Jhanvi noticed that Henry was sort of a foreman. He trailed in Roshie’s wake, asking her questions, fielding questions from other guys. Almost none of the women talked to Roshie, except for Travesty—a short, sporty girl who doubled over laughing at everything Roshie said.
“Is Roshie always like this?” Jhanvi said.
“Oh yeah, she’s intense,” Henry said.
“Katie must be so pissed.”
Henry didn’t say anything. But Jhanvi could feel the dagger eyes coming at them from the girls. Everyone was slowly getting to work, but Roshie got more stressed and anxious. She seemed to barrel right into the little groups of people, busting them up, harassing them like flocks of pigeons that inevitably reassembled in their little groups the moment she left. The anxiety was so uncalled for, so outside of normal, that it felt like a solo act, like Roshie was purposefully working herself up.
“Won’t anyone tell her to chill?” Jhanvi asked.
“She gets things done,” Henry said.
“Come on …” Jhanvi said. “This really isn’t good.”
They threaded through piles of plywood and extension cords, past buckets of paint and big noisy ventilators. Roshie’s face got more pinched and her manner more dictatorial. Henry had fallen back as Roshie headed for Audrey’s little court—the assortment of colorfully dressed girls sitting on the edge of the stage, laughing, playing with strands of light, dressing the set.
A phone was on a tripod, and Audrey spoke into it, gesturing at various people in the space. Katie had a tablet in front of her, and she was very self-seriously writing something with a digital pen. Roshie muttered under her breath like an insane person. Jhanvi, heart pounding, smoothed down the edge of her dress—she felt lumbering and out of control, like she was flashing someone with each step.
“Hey,” Roshie said. “What’re you doing here?”
“Designing the trainings for the party,” Katie said. “It was the only time we could—”
“Today is for working,” Roshie said. “We have to work.”
Audrey spoke a few words into her headset, then walked to the phone, glanced at the screen. “We were filming a training. You ruined the take, Roshie. That is not acceptable.”
“There won’t be anything to train for, unless you guys do some work,” Roshie said.
“You are not in charge here.”
“I’m paying the bills,” Roshie said. “So it’s my responsibility.”
“That isn’t how things work,” Katie said, but her voice was more even, and she stayed sitting.
Audrey grimaced, her face turning ugly. It was a funny contrast with her fairy wings and hot pants, her nipples covered in purple pasties. She wore heavy foundation, with glittering purple eye shadow along the edges of her eyes. The wings were a good touch, they broke the outline of her blocky body and created a more sylph-like silhouette. She pressed one small fist into her hip, elbow out, purposefully standing closer to Roshie.
“You cannot act this way,” Audrey said.
“Then don’t be lazy,” Roshie said. “Even your fucktoys put in some work now and then.”
“Roshie …” Katie said.
“I will end this party,” Audrey said. “I’ll take it somewhere else.”
“Do it,” Roshie said. “Saves me the headache of building all this shit.”
