Girls I've Known

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• Girls I've Known
• Urvi Kumbhat (bio)

Nikki. Under the sprawling banyan tree, we promised to be best friends forever—it was easy like that, in kindergarten. I met her first, so she was mine. We both knew Santa Claus wasn't real. We both loved lizards. We spent all day gathering smooth pebbles from the grounds, hurtling down the slides and up the swings. We separated after that perfect year, sorted into different sections by the Class I teachers, constantly missing each other in the school's din, my rock collection inherited by my brother. I forgot as easily as I loved.

Anya. An anti-abortion advocate and a good Christian woman, now. In Class VIII, she tried to run away during school because her older sisters called her ugly and unlovable and fat. No one loves me, she sobbed on the filthy bathroom floor. Anya vanished in the middle of PE, the rest of us absorbed in games of kabaddi, in hanging upside down on the jungle gym like bats, wondering how far we could push our bodies. Her mother showed up in a maroon skirt suit and interrogated the whole class. Anya was found in the broom closet, [End Page 372] her face thick with dust. Her mother dragged her home by the ears, hundreds of girl-eyes trained on her retreating back.

Jessica. Who introduced me to Adi with a smirk, pushing us together at her fourteenth birthday party. You're both geniuses at math, she said, as if that was reason enough to offer up your short, flickering years of existence like a prayer, to stay awake all night talking even when your brother complained he couldn't sleep, to feel for the first time that your body was a living thing, elastic and lustrous. When I saw his high cheekbones and heard his lopsided laugh, I knew. He was so sure of himself, in a boy's mysterious way—unlike me, who changed from one moment to the next.

Jessica had been right. She could do that, pull everything together like she was the only gravitational force in the world. Maybe I was only fulfilling her prophecies, so unshakeable was my faith in her. Jessica's was where I spent my days when I wasn't at school, or bharatanatyam class, or physics tuition, or attending mandated family-time, or with Adi. Sometimes Adi was at Jessica's. Sometimes I told my parents I was at Jessica's, but really, I was at Adi's. They trusted me, never asked twice. Jessica's mother even covered for me when I was running late and my phone had died and my mom called to check if I was coming home for dinner because we were eating white sauce pasta and she wanted to make sure I didn't miss it.

Meera. My skinnier, older, American cousin. Those were the things that used to matter. We saw each other once a year at my grandparents' house in Bombay, with the other cousins. All ten of us grew close, then distant in turns, the difference in our years spinning us forward or backward. When I turned thirteen, I was allowed to hang out with my older cousins. They said I was sensible and calm and would do whatever they asked. I entered the room, and [End Page 373] my brother remained locked out, seven years old, thumping on the wood with his small knuckles. I hate you, he yelled into the closed door. I didn't care. Inside, we traded secrets like spare change. She'd kissed boys, gone even further. After I returned home, I messaged her on Facebook and she filled my head with sisterly advice: how to ask questions so my mom would say yes, how to hide gifts received from boyfriends, which movies to watch after a breakup.

Zoya, Anna, and Maryam. The month before Jessica's birthday party, the four of us formed a biology lab clique. We copied flower specimens neatly into our lab books, labeling the stamen, the petal, the ovules, the thalamus. It thrilled me, the complexity of this thing I could crush in my hands, turn to pink...