The Reeds by Arjun Basu

Author:Arjun Basu [Basu, Arjun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781778522901
Amazon: B0D5RCCP2H
Barnesnoble: B0D5RCCP2H
Goodreads: 214063908
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2024-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

The sun finally hits summertime strength. Dee has just felt it and she wiggles out of her shorts, takes off her top, and Val whistles. Dee slaps her, but inside she’s beaming, she’s never been out in a bikini before, and she feels comfortable in her skin. She’s convinced this helped her during her exams even, and now school’s out, and her mother wants her to work for her, she promises to pay her properly, and Dee’s going to do it. She’s a girl in a bikini and she’s going to have money in her pocket and the summer’s ahead of her.

“Girl,” Val says, admiring her friend’s sparkling silver swimsuit.

“Shut up.”

“That’s the bikini.”

“I don’t look fat?”

“Shut up.”

Dee opens her eyes. The sun burns through them, and she sits up to rummage through her bag for her sunglasses. She puts them on and lies back again. “Not even my ass?” she says. Always her ass.

Val lies next to Dee. The sun beats down on them with purpose. There is nothing more magical than a Canadian sun, than the Canadian summer overall, the miraculousness of this kind of heat after so much cold. Dee knows her father always says that Canada isn’t underpopulated, that it’s a miracle that anyone lives here at all. “Where’s Coco Chanel?” Dee asks, because she wants Coco Chanel to see her in the bikini, and she wants Coco Chanel to comment on it, because this bikini is critic-proof, it is the best thing she’s ever bought.

“She said she was going to get some wine, as usual,” Val says.

Coco Chanel is not yet at the point where the drinking has gotten her into trouble, but Dee isn’t sure she would let her friend get to that point either. Coco Chanel can walk into any depanneur and buy a bottle of cheap white, because in Montreal that has always been possible for certain girls in certain deps. Coco Chanel knows the ones that are sympathetic to her or, even better, indifferent; that’s what she thrives on, the indifference of those around her, because indifference is what permits her to act the adult.

Val opens a paper bag and pulls out a round doughy thing, about the size of a golf ball, and passes it to Dee. “What are these?” Dee asks.

Val shrugs. “I think the guy said gluten balls, but that sounds dumb.”

Dee takes the paper bag. “It says they’re vegan.”

“So, vegan gluten balls?”

“Is gluten vegan?”

Val reaches for her phone. “I’m going to look that up.”

“No, seriously.”

“I’m looking it up.”

“Like gluten-free vegan balls maybe makes sense.”

“Gluten is vegan.” Val shows Dee her phone.

Dee bites into the ball, a combination of an egg-free dough and sugar. Lots of sugar. And perhaps vanilla. “It kind of sucks,” she announces.

Val takes one from the bag and sniffs it. She puts it down.

“It sucks a lot,” Dee says.

“That bikini.”

Dee loves that Val seems mesmerized by her bikini. She doesn’t know if she is turning her friend on, but the way Val studies her is kind of world-changing.

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