Lucky T (10 page)

"Hey. You're awake."

At the sound of Doreen's voice Carrie fully woke up and it hit her. India. Riiiight.

She rolled over, her cot letting out a zil ion squeaks, and saw Doreen kicked back on her own bed, a magazine open in front of her. A single lamp was tilted toward her bed so she could read.

"What time is it?" Carrie asked, scratching an itch on her shoulder.

"It's about nine thirty," Doreen said. She gestured behind her at the desk against the wall. "Saved you some dinner. It's pretty good."

Al at once Carrie's stomach grumbled and her head started to throb. She was happy to note that the yummy smel seemed to be coming from the food Doreen had brought her, although there was a fifty-fifty chance it might be laced with anthrax. But at this point Carrie was so hungry she decided that she'd give her archrival the benefit of the doubt and prayed that the only thing Dor-mean had done was spit in it.

She pushed herself out of bed and sat down at the desk. She poured a glass of water from a full pitcher and took a long drink. The cool liquid wound its way down her throat and into her empty stomach. Then she lifted a cloth napkin from the top of the plate and was greeted with a mound of rice, chicken, and vegetables in some kind of spicy- scented brown sauce. She grabbed the fork and dug in.

The first bite sent an explosion of hot flavors through her mouth, throat, and nose. It was as if the entire dish had been soaked in jalapeno pepper juice.

Carrie grabbed her water and took another long gulp.

"Too spicy for ya?" Doreen asked.

"No," Carrie said, coughing up her left lung. "It's good, actually."

Even though every one of her taste buds was on fire, there was no way she was going to crack in front of Doreen. She'd eat every last morsel even if it killed her.

As Carrie ate each forkful of food, she downed a huge gulp of water, which barely extinguished the flames in her mouth. After a while the burning sensation on her gums subsided, which made her relieved at first, but then suddenly her lips went numb: could she have suffered permanent nerve damage from Indian food? Knowing her luck without the T, most likely.

The only good thing about singeing the inside of her mouth was that it kept Carrie's mind off the persistent itch on her leg. After the novocaine effect set in, she was really able to focus on how irritated her skin was. She scratched at her upper arms and her inner thighs. When the center of her back started to angrily cry out for her fingernails, she dropped her fork and decided to see what the heck was going on. When she looked down at her legs, she almost screamed. They were covered with red bumps.

"Oh my God!" Carrie said.

"What?" Doreen asked.

"What are those?"

Doreen lifted her chin and looked over with minor interest. "Mosquito bites, duh," she said.

"But I don't get mosquito bites," Carrie cried, scratching at her arms.

Doreen screwed up her face in false sympathy. "Should've lit the coil before you went to sleep."

"How about I light the mosquito coil under your butt?" Carrie snapped. The pain from her bites was so severe, she was afraid it might push her to homicide.

"Aren't we sensitive," Dor-mean said mockingly. "Too bad you didn't bring any of this."

She pulled a bottle of Skin-So-Soft out from under her pillow. "I really wish I could spare some."

Yep, this girl is going down! Carrie thought. She is evil and must be destroyed.

"Doreen, give me the Skin-So-Soft or else," she said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips.

"Or else what, Jockstrap?" Dor-mean said, getting off her bed and crossing her arms in front of her nonexistent chest.

Okay, Carrie hadn't really thought things through beyond this point. Yes, she was taller than Doreen and she had more muscle. But something told Carrie that if she were betting on this fight, she would put all her money on her opponent. The girl had enough rage in her to fuel a Mack truck. If they were to go at it Kil -Bil style, Doreen would probably be the last one standing.

"Or else ..." Carrie said, hoping that something really smart would come out next. "I'll tell Celia."

That would have been smart if she were five years old.

Dor-mean laughed so hard she was red in the face. "So you're going to tell my mommy on me?"

Then after a few more hearty chuckles, she plopped back down on her bed and got back to her magazine.

Outside in the alley a dog barked and then howled, sending a chil straight through Carrie. A howling dog meant death was near, which at the moment seemed perfectly fitting. If Carrie and Doreen were going to be roommates for a good part of the summer, someone was certainly getting carried out of there in a body bag.

After Carrie made her way to the bathroom and saw her reflection in a severely broken mirror (why not tack on another seven years of bad luck?), the answer was obvious. Carrie hardly recognized the person looking back at her. Her skin was sal ow, her eyes were droopy, and her hair was dirty and frizzed. She looked like she had walked out of a Wes Craven movie. Carrie splashed some cool water on her face and then looked up again. Lovely.

Streaks of mascara were now running down her cheeks.

Just then Carrie thought of Piper. Her heart turned around and around in her chest. This whole trip would have been a lot more fun if she were here.

Piper would have saved her from Dor-mean on the plane, would never have let her barf in front of complete strangers (or at least would have told them off for laughing while Carrie was too weak to do so), and would have made even the bug bite situation seem hilarious somehow.

Don't think about her, she told herself. Just remember why you're here. You have to find your shirt and get your life back. . . .

Trying to put the aggravating itch, Piper, and Dormean out of her mind, Carrie returned to her room, lay down on her squeaky cot, and pulled the sheets over her head. The cool fabric felt good against her raw skin. Carrie finally drifted off to sleep once again. This time she did dream. She dreamed that she was in the backseat of a tiny auto. Outside the car, on the teeming streets of Calcutta, a mil ion people walked and shopped and shouted and laughed. And every last one of them, every man, woman, and child Carrie saw, was wearing her lucky T. But no matter what she did, no matter how hard she stretched out the window, she couldn't touch any of them, and no one seemed to notice she was even there.

Carrie woke up to another prayer call and this time the bright morning sun was streaming through the window of her tiny room. She sat up and stretched, feeling wel - rested, refreshed, and determined. Today she was going to get out there and start her search for the lucky T. Today was the first day of the most important mission of her life.

Doreen's bed was already made. (Whoop-de-do.) On the desk were a few flyers with the Help India logo on them. Carrie scanned through the first one and found the address for the organization's Calcutta headquarters. Then she pulled out one of the guides Doreen had "lent" her and checked the map.

The address was only eight blocks away from the hostel. Sweet! Already things were picking up.

Carrie stuffed the flyer and the guide into her backpack, grabbed her toiletry bag, and was about to head for the bathroom when a bril iant thought lit up her mind. She lifted Doreen's pillow so that she could snatch the bottle of Skin-So-Soft and slip it into her own bag. But all that was there was a handwritten note from Dor-mean that read, Nice try, loser!

Grrrrrrrr . . . Carrie thought. This girl is practically the first cousin to Ursula, the nasty octopus in The Little Mermaid But Carrie shook it off very quickly.

Doreen wasn't going to ruin her resolve.

After taking a shower in the now smel -free bathroom (God bless whoever fixed the toilet), throwing on a pair of jean shorts and a pink racer-back tank top, and wrapping her hair up in a soggy bun, Carrie grabbed her backpack on her way downstairs and stashed it in the corner by the front door. She was planning on waiting for the moment when everyone was distracted and then slipping out to the Help India headquarters. Since she had no idea when that moment might come, she figured it would be best to have her stuff within grabbing distance.

"Good morning!" Carrie said as she traipsed into the dining area. Sunlight filtered in through three large windows. The wooden floor was dotted with multicolored rugs in various states of wear and tear. Celia was pouring tea into faded china cups at each setting and Doreen was folding mismatched napkins.

"Someone's in a good mood," Celia commented with a smile.

"What can I say? I slept wel , I'm clean, and I'm no longer puking," Carrie replied, knocking on the nearest wooden chair.

She took a seat at the large communal table. Celia and Doreen joined her as a pair of men in their mid- thirties delivered the food from the kitchen through swinging doors, depositing heaping bowls and trays on the table. There was a huge platter of yellow rice that appeared to be mixed up with onions, a plate full of doughnuts and fluffy biscuits, and some kind of brown stew that smelled amazing.

This was going to be a good day. Carrie could feel it. She was taking charge and she hadn't felt this optimistic in weeks. Maybe that meant she was going to find her T-shirt today. She felt as if it were already in her grasp.

Celia stopped the two men on one of their many trips back to the kitchen. "Sanjee, Dan, this is Carrie," she said, smiling in her direction. "Sanjee and Dan run the hostel. They wanted to meet you yesterday, but by the time I brought them upstairs, you were already napping."

"Sorry. It was kind of a long flight," Carrie explained. "But it's nice to meet you."

"And you," Dan said. "Hope you like puris."

"And if not, we have cornflakes," Sanjee added with a wink before they disappeared again into the kitchen.

"What's puris?" Carrie asked Celia.

"Here," Celia said, placing a biscuit from the bread platter onto Carrie's plate. "They're delicious. But don't eat yet. Wait until everyone's seated."

Carrie smiled. Her mother would have said exactly the same thing. She started thinking about what her mom might be doing at that very moment. A wave of homesickness crept over Carrie as she filled her plate. She was glad that her mom had always experimented with recipes and raised her as an adventurous eater. She was also glad her mom had called up her dad and arranged this whole trip. Carrie had been thinking a lot about what her mom did--how she reached out to her ex-husband, even though she rarely ever talked to him-- just so that her daughter could go off and chase a T-shirt. Carrie would have to bring back the best souvenir ever, like a huge sparkling bejeweled bindi dot or something.

"Ooh ... I see you've taken the usal and the poke," Prandya said, eyeing Carrie's plate as she sat down across the table. "Good choices. Very hearty.

They will help you work hard."

"Usal and . . . pohe?" Carrie repeated, the words strange on her tongue. "Which is which?"

"The usal is potato-and-lentil stew and the pohe is rice and onions," Doreen replied.

"Very good," Prandya said, clearly impressed.

"Doreen read every book and looked at every Internet site she could find before we came here," Celia said, giving her daughter a proud squeeze.

"I recognized the cornflakes," Carrie joked.

Other workers started to trickle in and Celia introduced Carrie, who had been the only one of the new arrivals to sleep straight through dinner the night before.

"This is Amelie and Alfred from Amsterdam," Celia said with a smile as a buff, blond couple sat across from Carrie at the table. "You've already met Ali and his friend Sanjay." Carrie sneered at the two scrawny boys from the day before. Then four older and gruff-looking men lumbered in, taking the last seats at the end of the table. "This is Taj, Satish, Ravi, and Paul," Celia said. "Everyone, this is Carrie."

"Hel o," Carrie said, smiling brightly.

One of the men nodded at her, but the others just talked among themselves. They didn't seem to be the most social group of guys, but that was okay by Carrie. They weren't even close to her age, so she wasn't going to be too upset if they didn't feel like making friends.

"Eat, everyone! We are all here!" Dan announced, coming out from the kitchen.

Carrie smiled. This hostel thing wasn't so bad after all .

After finishing off the spicy, garlicky usal, some puris and pohe, and a bowl of cornflakes in seriously sweet milk, Carrie helped the rest of the crew clear the table. Whenever someone left the kitchen, she glanced around, wondering if anyone would notice if she bolted. She was helping Sanjee scrub pots in the sink when everyone else started to trickle out.

"Let me finish here," Sanjee said. "The others will be meeting in the back room to hand out assignments."

"The back room?" Carrie said.

"Right through that door and to the left," Sanjee said, taking over the scrub brush.

If everyone was in the back, she could definitely get out the front. This was her chance.

"I think I left something in the dining room," she said, then turned and quickly pushed through the swinging door. The dining room was empty. Heart pounding, Carrie tiptoed through the room and into the hal . She could hear voices coming from the back room. Ali's nasal voice boomed, followed by Celia's belly laugh. Perfect. They were all occupied.

It's just for the morning, Carrie told herself, staving off any guilt that might try to push its way into her consciousness. You'll be back by lunch. They'll never even notice you're gone.

Creeping quickly to the doorway, Carrie grabbed her backpack, held her breath, and slipped out the front door, closing it quietly behind her. Wispy white clouds raced one another across the sun high above. Carrie had packed her umbrella, but it didn't look as if she would need it. This was a perfect day for some T-shirt hunting.

"Where you go?"

Carrie's heart thumped, but she set off anyway. Maybe whoever had spoken wasn't talking to her. She had no idea where she was going--the maps were still tucked away in her pack--but when she heard footsteps scurrying behind her, she quickly crossed the muddy street. As soon as her foot hit the sidewalk on the other side, Teensy appeared in front of her. The woman's tiny face was pinched into a mil ion wrinkles as her sharp eyes glared up at Carrie. Unreal. No one that old should be able to move that fast.