Cherry Garcia, Pistachio Cream

A mother, a daughter, a beach. Sky, water. Gulls, mynas, also tiny canaries, bougainvillaea. Mild surf. The soothing, repetitive sound of its wash.
Two women walk by, wearing swim suits the mother thinks resemble flowered underwear.
"Those suits," the daughter says. "They look like they came from KMart."
"Well, we don't."

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The Thing Around Them

It was because of the boy dragged behind the jeep that Vasuki gave Nadesan the money to buy the ticket. When she went to her brother with the bills tucked into her sari, she did not speak the language of the master countries, not did she know anyone who traveled there. She was aware that at some point the island had been occupied by foreign powers, but she was not sure which powers, or when. That the Portuguese had stayed until driven out by the Dutch; that the Dutch were driven out by the British; that the British had granted the island its independence when the Crown’s hand had been forced by its other colonies—these were facts she had never been told by anyone. Or if she had been told these things by a teacher, or heard them referred to by a politician campaigning for a seat in Parliament, they were not facts which seemed important. What she knew about the master countries was that there was abundance in such a degree that even the few poor were well off.

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