When Aria opened the door of his car to step out onto the lawn of the church, Omkar grabbed her hand and kissed it. It was something he had seen in the movies and had always wanted to do. They both smiled, aware of the unoriginal (though endearing) nature of the gesture.
Aria didn’t watch him drive away. Instead, she walked toward the church steps with a mind to wait there for the lunch service to start. Only a few people were milling around the building, like actors in a play before the stage was set. She had been sitting there for only a few minutes when a man came bounding toward her, holding up one side of the belt of his oversized jeans. Aria had seen the man here before, talking to Imani while he ate his lunch.
“Hey, what a do?” the man said, with his deep voice. “You know when this place opens up?” He pointed loosely toward the church.
“I think it’s open now,” Aria said.
“Nah, I mean when they start servin’ food,” he said.
“Not exactly, what time is it now?” Aria asked.
The man looked down at the face of his knock-off gold watch and replied, “It 10:55.”
“Well, I imagine they might start at like 11:30 or 12, but it’s just a guess,” Aria said.
The man looked around, as if dissuaded by her answer. “Min’ if I sit here until it open?” The man sat down beside her roughly, before Aria could start indicating no.
“So what’s your name?” he asked, folding his arms across his raised knees.
“Aria,” she responded.
The man extended his very large hand toward her. “Good to meetcha Aria, my name’s Kendrik.”
Aria stared at the purple of his palms when she shook his hand. “Are you friends with Imani?” she asked.
“Ah yeah. I known Imani for a long, long time. She’s a good woman, definitely a good woman.”
“Do you have a job or why do you come eat here?” Aria asked.
Kendrik laughed at the bluntness of her obvious insult. “You think just ’cause I’m black that I ain’t got a job?”
Aria hadn’t even realized her question could be misinterpreted in that way. “No, shit, that’s not what I meant. I mean no one comes to eat at these kinds of places unless there’s some kind of story … Like, I don’t have a place to live or a job, for example.”
“I could have a job. I’m just lyin’ low for a while. Plus I’m on probation.”
“On probation for what?” Aria’s bluntness got the better of her again.
Kendrik cracked a one-sided smile, amused by the lack of social sense inherent in her question. “Nothin’ big, just stealin’ some stuff. What about you, Little Miss Thing, shouldn’t you be in school or somethin’?” He asked the question as a friendly strike-back.
“I already graduated,” Aria responded.
Kendrik cocked one of his eyebrows in doubt. “OK, whatever you say.”
She felt bad for lying to him, especially seeing as Kendrik seemed obviously the last person on earth who would ever turn her in.
Kendrik’s phone rang in his pocket. When he answered it, he turned slightly away from Aria. “Baby, your brother ain’t gonna do shit cause he broke. Baby, you know nobody got it worse than he do … No, I gotta wait ’til I get off work … OK, love ya baby.”
Aria tried to interpret his conversation through his short, one-sided replies. “That’s my girlfriend,” he said, putting the phone back into his pocket. “You got a boyfriend?”
“Yeah, actually. We haven’t been together very long, but …”
“You got nothin’ else to do but tell me about ’im,” Kendrik said, prying further.
“Well, he’s Indian …” Aria began and was stopped.
“Wait, you mean like an Indian Indian or like one of them cowboys and Indians types?” he asked.
“Like an Indian Indian.”
Her response made Kendrik erupt in laughter. “I did not see that comin’ … OK, so he’s an Indian Indian. What else?”
“He’s in college, studying to be an engineer,” Aria replied.
Again, Kendrik erupted in laughter. “Oh my God, you just pickin’ the low-hangin’ fruit, ain’tcha?”
Though the humor of the stereotype of an Indian boy being in engineering school was not lost on Aria, she didn’t laugh with him.
“Wait, wait, this here’s my woman.” Kendrik pulled his phone back out of his pocket. It took him a second to find a succession of pictures of his girlfriend in the gallery.
Aria swiped through them. In almost every picture, her face was turned at a flirtatious three-quarter angle. Her hair was straightened and dyed purple-red. Her eyebrows had been drawn on to match the color of her hair, and big fake eyelashes framed a sassy look in her brown eyes.
Kendrik watched Aria scan through the pictures proudly, waiting to hear a comment on her beauty, which he knew he could expect. Aria giggled when one of the pictures she clicked to was a topless one. Kendrik jumped to take the phone out of her hand. “You don’t needa see those. They be triple-X.” He paused for a minute, trying to figure out how to cut through the embarrassment. “She Brianna. She work at Foot Locker down in Crenshaw,” he announced.
“She’s pretty. How did you guys meet?” Aria asked.
“Her cousin be a friend o’ mine. Yeah, I met her at a kid’s birthday party. She was tryin’ to hit this piñata and was swingin’ the stick all around. It was pretty cute.” Nostalgia was heavy in his smile when he remembered it.
“Are you from LA?” Aria asked him.
“Yeah, I been here all my life.” Kendrik’s response trailed off when Imani caught his attention. “Hey, I gotta go
