Sound by Alexandra Duncan Page A

“What do you think?”
    I looked down at my dress. Definitely more iced fruit on Malabar Hill than club wear. And Pradeep’s . . . I liked the Salt, but I didn’t particularly like its clubs. Packed-in crowds, loud music, flashing lights, people screaming at oneanother over the bass, a miasma of smoke, sweat, spilled drinks, perfume, and cologne choking the air. I knew some people liked it—I knew Vishva liked it—but something about being trapped in a dark room where no one could hear me put me ill at ease.
    â€œCan’t we go down to the talkies instead?” I whispered.
    â€œWe go to the talkies every week.” Vishva drooped over like a marionette with her strings cut. “Come oooonn, Miyole.”
    I sighed. Siobhan and Chandra had gone back to their crows, but they were obviously still listening. Maybe it would be more fun than it looked. Maybe I’d love it. I liked dancing, after all, even if I wasn’t as coordinated as Vishva, and what were clubs for if not dancing?
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    Vishva squealed. “I knew it! This is going to be so jhakaas ! You’re going to love it, Mi.”
    We rode the train down to the Salt, everyone gabbing the whole way. Vishva dug in her purse and found gold shimmer cream to paint on my eyelids, and Chandra’s friend Drishti loaned me her belt so I’d look a little less like I was heading to a violin recital. Vishva tried to get me to undo my braids, but I slapped at her hands until she left me alone. I didn’t like anyone touching my hair except Soraya.
    We piled off the train at Sion Station and started up the hill. Vishva and the other girls huddled together, pointing and giggling at everything we passed and shrieking when they accidentally stepped in mud puddles. A chai vendor glared at them over his cart, and farther down the street, a twentysomething guy nudged his friend and ogled Siobhan as she stopped to take a picture of one of the street-sweeper bots someone had graffitied to look like a turtle shell.
    Unease fluttered in my stomach. Normally when I came to the Salt, I dressed in plain clothes and boots. I tried not to draw attention to myself. But my Revati friends were so obviously tourists, rich girls acting out every stereotype imaginable of the spoiled private-school girl slumming it on a weekend night.
    I walked a little slower, put another meter of distance between myself and the group.
    â€œMiyole!” Vishva shouted back down the street. “Hurry up! We don’t know where we’re going.”
    My heart fell. Not them. Us. I was one of them.
    We arrived at Pradeep’s as the sun disappeared behind the levee wall. Bass thumped through the red-painted cinder block walls, and the wind picked up, plastering my skirt against my legs and peppering us with grit from the streets.
    â€œBleh.” Vishva turned her back to the wind and shuffled closer to me. “This is going to be so jhakaas , Miyole. You’ll see.”
    A big man with close-cropped hair and a tight black shirt stood at the entrance, eyeing each person as they passed and occasionally cracking his stony face to wink at one of the girls.
    Vishva and the others giggled as he whistled at them and waved them through, but when I stepped up, he held out a hand.
    â€œWait a second.” He looked me up and down, and suddenly I wished I had let Vishva do something with my hair after all. “How old are you, kid?”
    I glanced at Vishva, standing openmouthed just inside the door.
    â€œNineteen?” My voice squeaked.
    The doorman shook his head. “I don’t think so. Let’s see some ID.”
    â€œShe’s with me.” Vishva stepped back into the entryway. “She’s my friend.”
    The doorman looked between the two of us and cocked an eyebrow at Vishva. “You nineteen, too?”
    She stepped back. “No. Um . . . eighteen. I’m eighteen.”
    He