Amizhdini Eswaramoorthy | forthesonorous

Innocence

“If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” Anita said to herself, parroting what she’d just read in Junie B. Jones as she shook her head with exasperation. She went to the door and jiggled with the lock for a second before hearing it click open. She took Kate’s pink tricycle by the back handle, started down the paved walk, and continued to the road. She walked through the parking spaces that lined the road like the bumpers that prevented gutter balls in a bowling alley. She tried to ride the trike, but abandoned the idea when she realized how slow it proved to be. Instead, she pushed it along beside her. She tolerated the rumbling of the plastic wheels on the tar in light of the beautiful rays that were just visible above the apartment rooftops. She saw a tattooed man mounting a motorcycle and waved, smiling. She held her nose and walked fast as she passed the dumpsters. Finally, she was at Kate’s house. She jumped to reach the doorbell but couldn’t, so she ended up knocking. After a few minutes, Kate’s mom answered the door. She smiled, but her eyebrows furrowed in consternation.

“Anita! What’s up?” she asked with a brisk bounce in her voice. Kate’s mom was a preschool teacher, so baby-talk was second-nature. “We weren’t expecting you. Where’s your mom?” Her gaze shifted up to the empty road.

“She didn’t come,” Anita replied offhandedly. “So, can I play with Kate?” She tried to peer into the house to find her friend.

“Hold on, where are your parents?” Her tone became serious.

“Home.”

“Really? Are you tricking me?” Kate’s mom asked with her hand on her hip and her cooing voice reinstated.

“No. I came myself—I had to return this. Remember?” She motioned at the tricycle.

Kate’s mom beckoned Anita inside and immediately called Anita’s mom, who arrived within a few minutes wearing a panic-stricken expression.

“Anita, you can’t just walk around by yourself—it’s dangerous!” she cried. An imploring desperation showed in her eyes.

“But Ma, you wouldn’t come!” Anita whined.

“No, you can’t do that, okay? Remember the rule: I have to be able to see you from the window when you go outside.”

“Okay.” After a pause, “Sorry.”

Anita’s mom barely said a word. When they arrived back home, Anita saw the neighbors outside enjoying the summer evening.

“Ma please, can I?”

“Okay,” she sighed, “but remember, window.”

Anita greeted her neighbors and her mother went inside with a wave. An enticing-looking tree caught Anita’s attention. She started climbing. She hung upside-down from the thick stub of a branch the community maintenance men had missed during the monthly yards cleanup.

“Courtney! Courtney! Look at me!” Anita squealed as her black ponytail swung side-to-side. Her friend trotted over from the bush she had been investigating.

Courtney’s mother looked up when she heard the commotion. Her green eyes widened. “Anita! Get down from there right now!” she shouted.

Anita dismounted with a somersault copied from a PBS Kids cartoon.

“You want me to get your mother?” Courtney’s mom fumed as she walked over.

“Woah! I want to try!” Courtney yelled.

“Sorry,” Anita grumbled.

“You could have gotten hurt!”

“But I’ve done it tons of times before. Nothing ever happened.”

Courtney’s mom gave Anita a stern look and Anita looked down at the grass with a frown.

Anita and Courtney drifted over to Olivia, Courtney’s younger sister, who was perched on the big green box in front of the building. Anita pressed her hands on its hard warm exterior as she jumped up beside Olivia. Its familiar faint hum was comforting to Anita.

“What’s the green box for, anyway?” Olivia asked.

“It’s the cable box for the TV,” Anita replied, even though she didn’t really know what that meant. “My mom said so.”

As if on cue, Anita’s mom came outside and joined the group.

“Anita, you’ve gotten so dirty, what have you been up to? Come in and take a shower,” she said with a laugh.

“But I want to play!” Anita protested.

“You can play after you get cleaned up. But not running around in the dirt anymore. ¡Vamos!” she directed.

Anita reluctantly followed her mom inside. She showered quickly and wrapped herself in an ice-blue towel. Just then, Anita heard the faint jingle of the ice cream truck. It was low enough that she knew the truck was still on the other side of the neighborhood. The excitement made her thoughts race. I have to get outside in time! She grabbed a few coins from her bedside jar and ran to the door. She poked her head out the screen door and called to Courtney.

“Here, get me something from the ice cream man!”

“Okay.” Courtney had her own dollar bill tightly clutched in her palm.

Courtney ran over as the ice cream truck rounded the corner. She wasn’t fast enough so Anita stepped outside to get closer. Success! Anita handed off her change before the ice cream man pulled up, and both girls giggled with the glee of a mission accomplished. Courtney ran to the street to wait as Anita’s mother came outside.

“You can’t go outside in your towel! You need to get dressed!” she scolded, her forehead creasing as it often did. Anita gave the usual apology and went inside to finish getting dressed.

She went out to see what Courtney had gotten her. But before she could ask, Courtney’s dad pulled up in his used faded red Pontiac. It looked grayish in the twilight that had begun to settle. Anita remembered the tan leather seats and the shiny geometric logo from when she went along on Courtney’s family trip to see Disney on Ice in the city. Courtney ran up to the driver’s side window before her father could get out, so he rolled the window down. He said, in mock solemnity, “I had to go to court today.”

“Oh no! Did my daddy do something bad?” Courtney asked, half-smiling because she sensed his playful tone.

Anita remembered her second-grade teacher explaining that she would have to miss a day of school for jury duty, so she chimed in to pitch that as the explanation. Courtney’s dad turned to her. He looked impressed, and Anita swelled with pride even though she didn’t know what jury duty was. She asked Courtney what she had gotten from the truck. Courtney pulled out two packs of candy cigarettes and Anita’s extra change. Anita stuffed the coins into her pocket and the girls walked around pretending to smoke. They later bit into the candy, chewing it and sucking on the sweet, chalky powder.

They made their way to the green box, where Courtney’s mom had placed her pack of Marlboros next to her keys. She was talking to Kenneth, one of the older neighborhood kids. Courtney’s mother lit up. Kenneth’s eyes looked sunken in and he seemed weary. But all Anita noticed was how tall he was. A real live eleventh-grader.

“Can I have one?” she heard Kenneth mumble.

“Fine. You can take one just this once,” Courtney’s mom answered.

Kenneth took a cigarette from the pack resting on the green box.

This upset Anita. That’s not allowed!

She didn’t comment though.

Courtney’s mother asked Kenneth about school. She handed him her box of matches.

“The usual. It sucks.”

At this, Anita could hold her tongue no longer. “But I love school!”

“You won’t be saying that when you’re my age,” Kenneth said.

“Yes I will!”

Courtney had wandered over, and her eyes mirrored Anita’s unease. Anita wanted to ask what was going on, but she couldn’t phrase her question properly. So she turned to Courtney and asked what the green box was, and how cable worked.

Amizhdini Eswaramoorthy is a senior at Vassar College studying biochemistry with a minor in English. She is interested in the portrayal of race and immigrant cultures in literature, particularly through translation of the Indian-American experience. Her writing focuses on the interplay of race and culture as it colors quotidian social encounters.