Page 71 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

THE NIGHT a fortuneteller outside KFC seized Radha by both hands and told her

that little by little she was falling for an invisible man, she was confounded and
kept me awake until dawn asking who on earth it could possibly be . . .
I couldn’t decide whether the Grimaldi boy was to be pitied, congratulated, or
scolded. Granted, this was one way to have a secret love affair, but there was no
telling what his own feelings were, or whether this was just a routine seduction
for him. Put yourself in his place: You’re descended from generations of people
who speak and have spoken primarily through puppets . . . as such you’re a kind

of champion at psychological limbo. And you happen to like girls with brilliant
eyes that see hidden things and dark hair from which they occasionally retrieve
forgotten notes to themselves. Then you meet a new one. Wouldn’t you try and
see how close you could get without her noticing?

—

RADHA TOOK to checking her phone constantly but with no clear objective—most
of her messages were from Tyche Shaw, who she felt both jealous and protective
of and would have preferred not to have to deal with at all. Tyche was in the
Orkney Isles with Myrna and her father, and in addition to relying on Radha to
keep her updated on puppet school assignments, the girl insisted on being
friendly and requesting personal news. Unaware that she had any, Radha settled

for sending pictures of herself sitting on the curbstone outside her house drinking
homemade smoothies with her brother. I was in the photo too, sat on Arjun’s
shoulders. I never spoke to him and so he viewed me as a kind of fashion
accessory of Radha’s. At that time I was getting some of my best fun from being
alone with him and sporadically opening and closing my mouth whenever he
blinked.

Me, Gepetta, and A.J. on the corner drinking heavy juice all day long. What about you and
my wife?

That was all the invitation Tyche needed to flood Radha’s in-box with angst
that Radha unintentionally increased by responding only with emoticons.

Where do I begin . . . well, everything I do pisses “your wife” off

I keep answering her rhetorical questions & then not daring to answer her non-rhetorical
questions

Oh and her specialty seems to be saying insanely awful stuff out of nowhere

The kind of things you have to forget in order to be able to go on living, you know?