Read Online Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier - Free Book Online

outside my head.
    —Ansel Adams is your influence? said Julian.—Wow. But, uh, how do you apply that to shots of Gwyn in a Lenne Lenape High hallway?
    I couldn’t figure out what was up with this pop quiz. I felt like Iwas being held up to a meter I could never measure up to and the result was my coming up with a total blank even though I knew I had my reasons usually, at least somewhere inside me.
    —They’re black and white, I said.—And Ansel Adams’s photos are…well. Black and white.
    A pause hunched before us then sprang into trolling laughter.
    —Good one, dude! Julian sniggered. Why was I dude and Gwyn babe?
    —And both have breathtaking natural scenery as their focus, said Dylan, running his hand through Gwyn’s hair. She never let people touch her hair (too many hidden bobby pins, which she was now rearranging); all her exes had been denied this right.—That’s why I’m going to make Gwyneth Sexton a star one day.
    Her name was Gwyndolyne, but no one objected, including the lady in question. Was this a parallel universe?
    An alarm bell went off in my head, and so did the beeper.
    As Dylan and Julian jawed on about films— which were, apparently, not to be confused with movies— Gwyn watched attentively from our side of the table, a fixed smile on her face. And I drank and stuffed my face, and drank some more, till tipping time
    Life upright was revelatory, and walking was more like swimming. Everything seemed louder as we left Chimichanga’s, as if the sounds were all emanating from within my ears instead of coming into them from the outside. I was beginning to wonder what exactly had been in those strawberries. But it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, in fact it was a tingly wingy feeling, and when we got out to the lot something about the bright blue sunshine made it all seem quite normal. We piled into Dylan’s Mustang, Julian and me in back and Gwyn up front. The wind blew in, gusting hair across my face, and Julian smiled at me, his chestnut eyes gone Nutella now.
    —You look sexy like that, he said.—Windblown, wild. Like a wild animal.
    I didn’t know what to say. I think I mostly liked what he’d said but it didn’t seem to match the curtains in the usual (tiny) room where I stored compliments in my head for future emergencies. Still, it felt soft and fuzzy, so I folded it and put it in a corner for the winter.
    —Grrr, I said—did I?—and burst out laughing. He smiled at me, nodding to a slow beat as if a metronome, or bomb, were ticking somewhere in the car.
    By the time we walked into the cinema they were on the last preview and the only seats left were the ones front and side, where you had to crane your neck and the actors stretched out on the edges like in a close shot accidentally set to panoramic.
    As soon as we were seated, Dylan took back the duffel he’d given Gwyn to carry in. Unzipping it, he now produced several bottles, cups, and cans—and even an aluminum-foiled lemon! In the light of the screen I saw a rum label in the mix. The bottle belonging to which he now unscrewed and, in the darkness of the night scene unfolding above us, tipped generously into the cups.
    —To putting the sin into cinema! whispered Dylan, initiating a knee-level toast. He gave us the nod and we all took a sip. Gwyn leaned around him and winked at me. Julian took a slurp then held out his cup, which seemed unnecessary since I had my own. But I drank. It tasted pretty much like Coke, which I normally don’t like but which felt good on top of all those nachos and margaritas and that one clincher tequila shot.
    And then the movie began. Or at least it began for us. But it was tough concentrating. I was all too aware of Dylan bumping rhythmically against my right shoulder as he made out with Gwyn; he was turned all the way in her direction and she’d disappeared save for an occasional flash of gold hair in his grasp. And on my left, at regular intervals, the plastic cup materialized and Julian