“Fabulous,” I lie, yawning. I drop my handbag in the foyer. “Auntie thinks I’m staying over at the shop. She says the house gets cranky if I don’t.”
“The house won’t know the difference.” Ma gives me a bright smile, lit by her twinkling silver earrings. “The Mauliks heard you were in town, and they’ve invited us all to dinner this evening.”
“On such short notice.” My heart sinks. She won’t let me escape from this one—the Mauliks are old family friends who retired on the island at my parents’ urging. Benoy Maulik, my de facto uncle, went to university in India with my father.
“You don’t need to dress up,” Ma says, patting her hair. “Just go like that.”
I glance down at my jeans and sneakers. She can’t be serious. Even Dad is dressed up in a silk shirt and slacks and spicy cologne. “I can’t go like this. I need to change.” Wait—did I just agree to go? I suppose I did.
“Hurry up, then. We need to leave in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes! “Why didn’t you give me some warning? I’m tired. I think I’ll stay home.”
Ma pushes me toward the stairs. “What will I tell the Mauliks? After all this time? They’re expecting you.”
Ten minutes later, I’m ready to go in a paisley blouse and skirt. I’m a kid again, sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car as we head to a party at the house of Indian friends. Our parents always left Gita and me in the children’s TV room with all the snotty-nosed brats. Gita didn’t seem to mind. Five years my junior, she had fun playing with the little ones.
“Has Charu’s hip healed?” Ma asks Dad in the front seat. She speaks of Uncle Benoy’s wife.
“She’s back at work, apparently. Translating Hindi texts for the university.”
“Is she still trying to write a novel?”
“She’s been writing that book for years,” Dad says and laughs.
“Benoy did better after his bypass surgery,” Ma says.
“He’s looking haggard,” Dad says.
“They both look haggard,” Ma says.
“He’s trying to do too much—always working on some kind of house project—”
“Why doesn’t he relax?” Ma says, checking her eyeliner in the overhead mirror. “He’ll end up having another heart attack.”
My parents’ gossip clogs the air like toxic smoke. I roll down the window and inhale the fresh scents of cedar and pine. Years have passed since I sat in the backseat, listening to Ma and Dad discuss other people who aren’t present to defend themselves. Do my parents talk about me this way when I’m not around?
That Jasmine, screwed up her marriage. She’ll grow old and gray and she’ll still be without a husband.
“The Mauliks have been through a lot, it sounds like,” I say, to balance the caustic comments with a dose of charity. “Give them a break.”
My parents say nothing as Dad turns onto a manicured, upscale side street and pulls over to the curb. Several cars are parked in front of the Mauliks’ house, a two-story stucco box surrounded by lush rhododendrons and fir trees.
I barely recognize the woman who answers the door. Her face is puffy, her black hair limp, her eyes glazed. Auntie Charu, dusky skinned and beautiful, has lost her luster. “Jasmine! So good to see you.”
I hug her tightly. “It’s been a long time.”
“Come in, come in.” She steps aside, hugs and kisses my parents. Inside, the Mauliks’ house exudes the essence of India. Kashmiri carpets cover the hardwood floors; statues of Hindu gods perch on teak side tables. In the dining room, silk wall hangings depict scenes from Hindu epics, and in the vast living room, which overlooks the water, an imported couch sits beneath a painting of a battle scene from the Mahabharata. The air carries the odors of wood smoke and heavy spices. The Mauliks have always preserved the memory of their homeland, with such intensity that their homesickness for Bengal seems to ooze from every surface.
My parents’ house, on the other hand, mixes artifacts in a blend of East and West, perhaps a result of my father’s love of travel and change. He, Ma, and Auntie Ruma were the first in our extended family to emigrate from India. They forged a new path, embracing America with exuberance.
Ma and Dad introduce me to several guests whom I only vaguely recognize. We all gather on the patio and nobody mentions my divorce or my lack of children. The house crawls with the offspring of Indian family friends. Children, especially boys, are the badges of success, and every friend or cousin my age has become a physician, an attorney, a professor.
My father tends the salmon on the barbecue. Uncle Benoy is pouring drinks. My mother is talking to an old friend from India—I recognize her face, but her name eludes me.
I stand awkwardly next to the stone garden wall, pretending to be interested in the rhododendron plants.
“So, Jasmine. You’re doing well in business now, nah?” Uncle Benoy shuffles over to give me a big hug. Since the last time I saw him, a decade ago, his hair has gone completely white.
“I’m doing all right,” I say, another lie. The fragility of my position at the firm hits me full force. “You look well, Uncle.” His face is lined and gaunt.
“How about that Gita, getting married, nah?”
“We’re all looking forward to it,” I say politely.
“Drink? Snack for you?” He pats my back.
“Water would be great.”
“Water, coming right up.” He saunters off.
“Jasmine, is that you?” A long-haired young woman sidles up to me, a cherubic baby girl on her hip.
“Sanchita?” I peer at her. She resembles an elongated version of her childhood self—same dark, oval face and bug eyes—with an added layer of downy black hair on her upper lip. Last time I saw her, she was barely eighteen, three years younger than me. Soon after that, she left for college.
A little boy runs up to her. He’s maybe three or four. He’s waving a big picture book,
Fuzzy-Paw Pajamas
! “Mom, can you read me this?”
Mom?
Sanchita, an only child who received everything her heart desired, has given birth to two children of her own. I’m flabbergasted, and I am feeling older by the minute.
“After supper,” she says.
“Ma-a-a.”
“Go and play.”
He wanders off, pouting.
“Vishnu!” she calls. “Wash your hands before supper.”
He nods, not looking back.
“He’s cute,” I say. My stomach twists. Okay, I’m envious. I don’t want her life, but I’m envious of her happy little family, her ability to fulfill everyone else’s expectations, her obvious comfort in the role she is supposed to play.
“She’s the difficult one,” Sanchita says, nodding toward the baby on her hip. The little girl’s lips tremble. Her cheeks hang down past her chin. She’s beyond cute. She’s freshness and new life.
I touch the baby’s hot cheeks. “She’s adorable, absolutely precious.”
“When she wants to be.” Sanchita bounces the baby. In pale twilight, the gauntness of Sanchita’s face comes into focus, a touch of emptiness in her eyes, as if a part of her has vacated the premises.
“So, I haven’t spoken to you in a while. You went away to university. What are you doing now?”
“I’m a physician. Pediatrician.”
The word—
pediatrician
—shimmers on her like silk. She is doing what my parents wanted me to do. What her parents wanted her to do. What every Indian parent would want a child to do. She is the quintessential product of an upper-class Bengali family. She has chosen a highly esteemed profession, and she has given birth to a son and the token chubby girl whose cheeks are available for frequent pinching. Nobody could ask for more.
“Congratulations,” I say, my throat dry. “Must be a rewarding profession.” I bet she lives in a mansion and hires a nanny to care for the kids, unless her husband is a stay-at-home dad.
“Yes, usually pretty rewarding.” She’s looking over my shoulder at someone behind me. Perhaps I’m not important enough to merit her complete attention. “What about you?”
“I live in L.A. I manage money—retirement portfolios.”
She nods, only one-quarter interested. Her baby girl is playing with her hair.
Uncle Benoy returns with my glass of ice water and pinches the baby’s cheeks. “How is my little Durga today?” He coos to her in Bengali, which I don’t understand, lifts her out of Sanchita’s arms, and carries her away to show off to other guests.
Sanchita must expect great things from her children, having named them after powerful deities in the Hindu pantheon.
“And your husband?” I ask. “What does he do?”
“He’s a brain surgeon,” she says, watching Uncle Benoy walk away with Durga.
My eyebrows rise. What else would he be? “Is he here today? Or is he working? On call? Surgeons work long hours, don’t they?”
“Oh, he’s here. Family is so important to him.”
“That’s wonderful.” Family was important to Robert, too. He would have started several families with several women, if given half a chance. Lauren won’t last long. She’s only the latest in Robert’s series of fascinations.
“And you? You’re married?” Sanchita asks, then licks her lips. “No, you’re separated. Divorced.” Someone in her family must have mentioned my plight.
Did you hear about poor Jasmine?
“Nearly a year ago,” I say, keeping a careful smile on my face.
“That’s right. He was Indian, or American?”
Was
, as if he’s now dead. “American.” I expect her to say,
Well, that figures.
“How did you meet him?” she asks.
“Mutual friend, faculty party. He’s a professor of anthropology.”
She nods. “Wasn’t that your major, too?”
“At first, but I switched to something more practical.”
“And Gita? She’s getting married next spring? To an Indian?”
“So I hear,” I say.
A tall, dashing man strides up to us in an open-necked silk shirt and slacks. He could have stepped out of a Bollywood movie, the hero of an epic tale. He is comfortable, in command of his space. If I had married a man like him, would my life be different?
“Darling,” he says to Sanchita in a smooth voice, touched by a slight Bengali accent. His eyes fill with adoration for her. “Your mother would like help in the kitchen.”
“Tell her I’m coming,” Sanchita says.
He turns to me and smiles. Perfect white teeth. “I’m Sanchita’s husband, Mohan, and you are…?”
“Jasmine. Nobody’s wife.” I’m not a mother, and I’m a sorry excuse for a bookseller. I can manage stock portfolios like nobody’s business, but I’m almost out of a job.
Sanchita and Mohan look at me blankly.
“Never mind,” I say. “A lame joke.”
“Sanchita!” Auntie Charu calls.
“Ma, I’m coming!” Sanchita shouts back. Her voice regresses to childhood as she and Mohan rush off.
We all stay on the patio for supper, and the evening blurs into animated conversations about politics and religion, travel and physics, astronomy and literature. I start to enjoy the banter, the company of family friends, and the food—spicy salmon, basmati rice, savory
dal
, and sweet desserts.
For a time, the weight of expectations falls away. The wine helps, dulling my pain, soothing the sharpness of sad memories. My mind grows fuzzy, and later, back at my parents’ house, I have no trouble sleeping, for the first time in nearly a year.
But in the morning, when I return to the bookstore, Tony is bustling around, cursing under his breath. “You didn’t stay over, did you? I came in early. I had a bad feeling. Now look what we have to deal with.”
I look around, my mouth dropping open. “What the hell happened here?”
Chapter 13
The parlor is a mess—books pulled off shelves, furniture moved. Gertrude’s picture books are on the floor, the display replaced by a series of classics by Beatrix Potter, E. B. White, Lewis Carroll, and other dead authors.
I head for the door, my heart pounding. “I’ll call the police.”
“No, don’t.” Tony rushes up and blocks my way. “Nothing was stolen. I checked the till.”
“But the place has been vandalized.”
“Not vandalized. Rearranged.” He picks up a copy of
Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
“What do you mean, ‘rearranged’?”
“Happens sometimes. Everything’s here; it’s just not where it’s supposed to be.”
“How do you know? Have you accounted for all the books?”
“Pretty much. This is the only room affected.”
“My aunt needs an alarm system….”
“We don’t need an alarm system here. This is not L.A.” Tony pushes an armchair away from the wall.
“Obviously you do need one. Someone has broken in!”
“Nobody broke in.”