10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,59

said. “Wanna keep walking?”

Pinky turned to him, a mischievous glint in her eye as she smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights or something.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. May I remind you that heights are actually dangerous? Like, you can actually break something or die if you fall off something tall.”

“That’s what the cowards always say.” Pinky kicked off her boots and stepped on the first rung of the ladder. “Come on, wuss,” she said over her shoulder. “Let’s go look at the stars.” And then she clambered up like it was the most natural thing in the world to scurry up a rickety ladder in the darkness without even knowing exactly where it led.

“If that’s your idea of a pickup line, I can probably tell you why you have a problem landing good boyfriends,” Samir said, but she only laughed scathingly and retorted, “Yeah, like I’m gonna waste the good ones on you!

“Wow,” she called down a minute later. “It’s so pretty up here! You can see the lake and the lights.…” Her head peeked over the ledge a moment later. “Come on, Sam!”

“Is there a railing up there?” he called, his voice high and squeaky. “Because if there isn’t, you shouldn’t peek over like that.” He felt his palms getting sweaty on her behalf.

“It’s not even that high!” she protested. “Come up; you’ll see.”

Muttering under his breath, Samir pulled on the ladder, a few flecks of rusty paint coming off on his palms. It held steady. Putting his suit jacket back on, he began a slow, methodical climb up, testing each rung, making sure it wasn’t going to give way under him. Finally, he reached the roof.

“Ledge” had definitely been a more accurate descriptor, though. It was tiny and rectangular and kind of alarmingly uneven, as if it were intent on tipping its residents off onto the concrete below.

Blithely unaware of all Samir’s misgivings, Pinky sat in one of two flimsy little chairs, her legs thrown over one of the arms. In the darkness, he could barely make out the white glow of her teeth as she smiled. “Hey, you made it!”

“You say that like you were doubtful.” He walked across the rust-stained concrete in a crouch, the way he always did when he was somewhere really high. Taking a seat in the chair next to Pinky’s, Samir looked out over the edge of the roof at the lake beyond. Glimmering lights from the houses clustered around the lake—one of them Pinky’s—reflected on the black water.

Samir took a deep breath and listened to the cicadas whir for a moment. If he held really still, he thought he could hear the lapping waves of the ocean in the distance.

After a long moment, Pinky said, into the silence, “What do you think these chairs are doing up here?”

Samir tipped his head back to look at the stars. “Must be where the staff hang out when they need a break from all the rich people. The ones with a death wish, anyway.” He paused, and a cool breeze rolled across the rooftop. “It is kind of nice, though; you were right.”

“What?” Pinky asked.

Samir enunciated his words carefully, turning in her direction. “I said this is nice. You were right.”

“This is nice in the light?” Pinky asked, sounding confused.

Samir spoke up, slowly and loudly, wondering if she really had gotten into the wine. “You. Were. Right.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I heard you the whole time. And anyway, of course I was. Always am,” she finished, sounding smug.

Samir turned to her. There was something about not being able to fully see her face that made it seem like anything they said under this curtain of silver stars didn’t really count. So he decided to be honest and to ask for honesty in return. “Do you really believe that?”

Pinky began to say something swaggery and brash, appeared to reconsider, and then spoke again, quietly. “Not really. I know I make mistakes. A lot of them. And… I do worry about screwing up something that can’t be fixed more than I let on.” She took a breath and Samir waited, sensing there was more. “In fact, I think I’ve pretty much used up all my mom’s goodwill.”

Samir shook his head, even though it was possible Pinky couldn’t see that. “I’ve seen her interacting with you over this last week and a half, and I can tell she still trusts you. She just seems… frustrated. Like she wishes she could get through to