The washing machines showered colorful electric sparks and the doors flung open, spitting three young women out onto the concrete floor of the twenty four-hour Delhi laundromat.

 

Jaya glanced up from her comic book. The women had returned from their journey, looking disheveled—their sarees wrinkled, hair tangled, and makeup smudged; smelling of rosewater perfume and lemon laundry soap.

 

A girl in a cobalt saree lingered, studying Jaya’s face with her kohled almond eyes. Despite the makeup caking her face, Jaya could tell she was about her age, in her late teens.

 

“I’m going again tonight, if you want to come.” The girl flashed a pretty smile, exuding the same playful energy as Jaya’s old school chums.

 

Jaya blushed behind her comic’s colorful pages. Father didn’t like her talking to the women.

 

“What are you reading?”

 

Jaya played with her silken braid. “Aarushi’s Paper Heart.” Aarushi was a paper doll which came to life to fight demons. Sadly, her comic book characters had more fun than she did.

 

The doorbell tinkled, and the blue girl was gone.

 

During the day, the six mint-colored washers rattled and shook, rinsing Delhi’s stench of fire and diesel out of clothes. After midnight, the machines became portals, transporting women to another realm.

 

The laundromat had been in her family for generations. Jaya didn’t know what mysteries lay beyond the washers, but her curious heart ached to find out.

 

* * *

 

At dawn, insomniac Delhi was wide awake. Car horns blared, tea hawkers yelled, cow bells jingled.

 

Jaya swept laundry soap, false eyelashes, sparkling sequins, and gold thread off the concrete floor. Once she’d even found a turquoise ring and bartered it for vintage comics she’d found in a second-hand shop.

 

In the stifling heat, she fanned herself with comic #11, where Aarushi transforms constellations into modest weapons, defeating a demon with wooden stars even after he strings her paper heart.

 

Her father came down with breakfast.

 

Jaya bit into an omelet, and the green chili filling pleasantly burnt her tongue. Father was becoming quite the cook. “Abu, can I go through the portal tonight?” She sipped her steaming cardamon tea.

 

He shook his head.

 

“Please, just this once?”

 

“It’s your duty to mind the shop.”

 

“If mother was here—”

 

“Your mother died honoring this family, not gallivanting around the universe!”

 

Jaya’s paper heart fell.

 

Mother had traveled to the realm. She’d told Jaya herself right before she died.

 

Father was being so unfair. Jaya had given up her studies, friends—all to watch over the stupid shop, after mother passed. The laundromat could survive one night without her. She would go to the realm while father slept. He couldn’t control her life from his dreams.

 

* * *

 

At midnight, rickshaws sputtered down Delhi’s streets. The aroma of incense and cumin cut the night air. Silent on the laundromat walls, the washers waited for the night to begin.

 

Jaya sat behind the counter, doodling the realm in her mind—was it a galaxy where Maharanis had dominion over hovering space forts? An underwater Delhi where women swam uninhibited by men? Loneliness colored her imaginings. All the women in Jaya’s life were gone, and Aarushi wasn’t enough.

 

The blue girl rushed into the laundromat, smiling, smelling of sandalwood and jasmine. Her gold bangles jingled on her hennaed arms. “Shall we voyage to the stars?” She was quoting Aarushi.

 

Jaya nodded and put her comic book away. She couldn’t live inside its pages forever. The promise of companionship lay beyond the laundromat walls; that and the kiss of adventure.

 

The blue girl climbed into a washer. Who knows how she squeezed inside that machine with her enormous rustling turquoise lehenga, but she managed.

 

A kaleidoscope of sparks flew, and she disappeared.

 

Jaya said goodbye to Aarushi. Her school friends. Her mother.

 

She stepped into the washing machine.

 

The wooden stars in the sky summoned. Her paper heart was ready for what lay beyond.