Free Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra

hair.”
    “Angst, baby. Be crazy but cool.”
    So when she was beside me, looking down and trying not to spill her beer, I leaned over and said, into her ear: “Elvis has
not
left the building.”
    She laughed. We introduced ourselves: she was Amanda James, Scripps freshman from Houston, Texas. Tom and I laughed at that
     and teased her about being from Houston and the soft southern twang in her voice. Then Tom, maybe noticing something, maybe
     the way I was looking at her, disappeared discreetly, and Amanda and I stood there looking at each other silently.
    “They met in Los Angeles,” she said, smiling.
    “What?”
    “They met in Los Angeles,” she said, “at a party while Echo and the Bunnymen throbbed in the background.”
    “Feeling the cocaine rush through his brain,” I went on, “he wondered if he had seen her before. In New York at the Palladium
     or in L.A. at Parachute. Then he realized it didn’t matter.”
    “And then she —” Amanda stopped suddenly, and then asked: “Where are you from?”
    “India.”
    “Oh.” After a long pause: “Are you a Brahmin?”
    “No.”
    “What are you?”
    “Nothing.”
    She looked away, and then another girl tapped her on the arm. They whispered to each other.
    To me: “I have to go.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m here with the other girls on my floor,” she said, “and they want to leave.”
    “You don’t have to go with them.”
    “We’re going to hate each other soon anyway. I should be nice and loyal for a while.”
    “Okay.”
    “I’ll see you later.”
    “Okay.”
    I pushed through the crowd, nodding at people, looking for Tom. I felt a tap on my shoulder.
    “Hey. Abhay.” Kate was blond, beautiful in a kind of distant sculptured manner. We had slept together during our sophomore
     year, and still did sometimes, although we didn’t need to be as drunk as we used to be and didn’t hold on to each other as
     hard as we used to. That night she was dressed in a white sweater and looked like she was out of some purposely muted black-and-white
     picture from a fashion magazine.
    “Katie.”
    She smiled. “How’re you doing, Abi?”
    I shrugged and smiled, and she moved closer to me, and I had to get my beer out of the way and we put our arms around each
     other’s waist and we stood for a while. People pushed past us. Her hair was fresh, fine. I liked to touch it.
    When I came up out of the frat room a bunch of the brothers were hauling a large plaster statue of somebody vaguely Oriental
     seated in the lotus position toward the staircase. I stopped and listened as they argued. Finally they left the statue at
     the top of the stairs and went down to get a beer. I went home to New Dorm, my feet scraping over the concrete, and let myself
     in.
    I lay on my bed and peered at the pictures on the wall, darkened and indistinct in the silver light of the streetlight outside
     my window. Then I sat up and tried to unclench my jaw but couldn’t without having the muscles on my face flutter. I went out
     and down and back to the frat room. Echo and the Bunnymen were still doing “The Cutter.” Somebody really liked that song.
     I saw Kate talking to a girl I didn’t know, and I walked up behind her and laid my face on the back of her shoulder, rubbing
     my nose across the smooth furriness of her sweater. She reached back, without turning to look, and began to rub my neck. “Spare
     us the cutter,” said Echo and his Bunnymen.
    When I woke up, my legs were under Kate’s. She twitched suddenly and made a small sound at the back of her throat. I pulled
     my legs from under her and touched her hair and felt a slight sting in my fingertipsand she turned to me, still asleep. After a while I let go of her and got out of bed. As I put on my clothes I could see pictures
     of her on a closet door, Kate with her mother, Kate at high school with friends, Kate with her horse, Kate in Paris with a
     boyfriend, Kate with various red-faced white-haired