Grown-Up Pose

by Sonya Lalli

  “Anu . . .”

  “You know it’s true.” Anu slid her hand down to “role model to Kanika.” “And what makes me think I am a role model? How is me turning into Lakshmi and Priya something she would ever look up to?”

  “Kanika thinks the world of you. You’re her everything, her mother—”

  “Right now she does. She’s five years old. What about when she’s fifteen, twenty-five? She won’t want to hang out with me or answer my calls.” Anu was on the verge of tears, and she stopped herself as she crumpled up the hot pink magazine page and tossed it behind her into Monica’s backseat. “If I don’t get on this plane, what is she ever going to admire in me?”

  “I’m not going to pretend I understand, but sure.” Monica cleared her throat. She wouldn’t look Anu in the eye. “Do you have everything?”

  Anu nodded just as Monica reached for Anu’s itinerary sitting by the stick shift between them.

  “It’s OK. It’s on my phone.”

  “Take it anyway,” Monica said, but right before she handed over the paper she pulled it back, her eyes flicking over the page. “Wait. . . . You bought a one-way ticket?”

  Anu opened her mouth, closing it again when Monica caught her eye.

  “I thought . . . Didn’t you only take a few weeks off work?”

  “Yeah,” Anu said. “But . . . I don’t know.”

  “I get that you’re lost. But none of this makes sense. Fuck”—which made Anu wince, because Monica swore so rarely—“Anu, what about your daughter?”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I feel like I need to find myself for Kanika.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.” Monica nodded, wrapping her sweater tighter around her chest. “And go. With no plan or return ticket. No idea about when you’re coming back.”

  Anu rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m coming back—”

  “Can you promise me that? Can you swear, on your life, that you will?”

  Anu didn’t answer, and she still didn’t answer a minute later when she got out of the car and grabbed her suitcase from the trunk, and Monica drove away.

  * * *

  • • •

  There is this baking show,” Kunal said, looking at the Persian rug instead of Anu, “your mother and I have been enjoying. The Brits indeed love their cake.”

  “Really.” Even though the fireplace was on, Anu was freezing, and she pulled a wool blanket tighter around her shoulders.

  “They find very creative ways to make cake, hah, Lakshmi?” Kunal looked to his wife. “Perhaps we can create a television show for Indian sweets.”

  Lakshmi, fixated on her cold cup of tea on the end table, ignored him.

  “Gulab jamun. Jalebi . . .”

  A pause, and feeling bad, Anu said, “Ras malai?”

  “Amitabh Bachchan would be the host, clearly.”

  “Too old,” Anu said, briefly forgetting she was supposed to be fighting with them. “How about Shah Rukh Khan?”

  “No. He is much too busy producing action movies in which he stars opposite women half his age.” Kunal vehemently shook his head. “Bachchan or bust.”

  “With catchphrases like that, why don’t you host?”

  “Not a bad idea. What do you think, Lucky?” After Lakshmi didn’t reply, he continued. “I might need an assistant. Anu, would you like to audition?”

  “You’re going to make your own daughter audition?”

  She and Kunal went into preproduction mode, brainstorming ideas for their TV show, while Lakshmi sulked on her side of the couch. It had been more than three hours, and her parents had yet to acknowledge the elephant in the room: What the hell was Anu doing there? Not during lunch—soup and sandwiches whipped up by Kunal while Lakshmi studied and Anu showered. Not while they washed the dishes, listening to a BBC Four radio program that her dad said he’d grown to enjoy.

  Not in the living room, perched on those uncomfortable moss green couches, while everyone sipped tea and Kunal and Anu made a feeble attempt at conversation.

  “Lucky,” her father said, after they’d run out of sweets to list, actors to audition, “it is already four o’clock.”

  Lakshmi nodded, standing up slowly. “I must take shower.”

  “Do you have plans tonight?” Anu asked them.

  “My professor is cooking dinner for all of the students. It is a Christmas party.” For the first time that afternoon, she met Anu’s gaze. “She is not married, you know.”

  Not married.

  Two little words were all it took to set Anu off, to make her muscles tense and her eyes narrow. Lakshmi always loved to point out when a woman over a certain age wasn’t married, and usually that age was about twenty-five.

  “Jenny has broken up with that nice young chap?” she liked to say whenever Anu shared details about her friend’s life. “She is much too pretty to be single.”

  “Why doesn’t Anu come along?” Kunal said. “Silke is very hospitable. A very lovely woman.”

  Lakshmi nodded slightly in agreement. “I will let her know. I am sure there will be enough food.”

  “It’s OK. You guys go,” Anu said.

  “It is a Christmas party—”

  “Mom, I’m really tired.”

  Lakshmi, silent, disappeared around the corner, and another wave of guilt washed over Anu.

  Could she manage a dinner party with strangers? With her parents? She was tired and wanted to groan at the very thought of having to spend an evening with a smile glued on her face. She had come all this way to spend her time involving herself not in their lives but to get her own.

  “Come.” Kunal stood up and offered his hand to pull her off the couch. “Staying awake now will help you beat the jet lag.”

  “Dad . . .”

  “Hah, beti. Please?” He smiled at her, and her muscles started to thaw. “You have come all this way. And your mother is so excited for the party. She will be very sad to cancel.”

  Face-to-face, maybe she couldn’t lie, maybe she’d never be able to disobey them. Her father’s gentle, pleading eyes—how could she say no? Gathering every ounce of strength, she let go of her father’s hand and pushed herself off the couch.

  “Good girl,” he said, winking. “You will make your mother so happy.”

  Even though she didn’t want to be, Anu really was a good girl. It used to be enough for her, but now she fucking hated it.

  * * *

  • • •

  She threw on her best outfit and a bit of makeup, folded her hair into a messy bun. Silke’s house was only a short bus ride away, and it neighbored a wide-open green space that Kunal called the Clapham Common. The Clapham Common.

  How very British.

  They turned onto a side street. The sky was getting dark, and whether it was a coincidence or not, all the houses—cute, very English—dotting the lane were covered in fairy lights. Kanika would have loved this, Anu thought, and a moment later, she heard Lakshmi say the same thing out loud.

  Silke greeted them on the front stoop. Her mother’s professor was about forty and unmarried, yes, but she was also a lot of other words Lakshmi could have used to describe her. What about warm? Boisterous? Accomplished? Her walls were covered in artwork and degrees, photographs of her and other women in front of the Sydney Opera House, clad in rain gear at the height of Machu Picchu. Her name was on a stack of academic journals on the coffee table—society and the law, gender politics, reproductive justice.

  But she wasn’t married. So, to Lakshmi, what did all the rest even matter?

  There were several bottles of wine open in the kitchen, and Anu stayed close to the makeshift bar while she did her best to mingle with other guests. There was Silke’s brother, Theo, and the blond woman next to him whose name she forgot instantly; Pauline, who lived next door; a smattering of other students in
Lakshmi’s class—all international—who had also opted not to return home for the holidays.

  Anu scarfed down dinner, and by the time Silke was cutting up the banoffee pie, she was exhausted. Her parents were seated at the other end of the long table, and without saying anything, she slipped into another room.

  There was a couch, empty and enticing. She sat down, and just as she let her head drop back on the cushion, a nearby floorboard creaked.

  “It’s Anusha, right?”

  She looked up and found Silke’s brother standing in front of her.

  “Would you like some?” He was holding two plates of pie and extended one toward her. “It’s going fast.”

  “Thank you . . .” Anu took the plate, still looking at him.

  “It’s Theo. . . . We met earlier—”

  “Of course, yes.” She smiled apologetically. “You were with”—she caught sight of his hand, noticed the absence of a ring—“your partner? The blond woman? Sorry. I can’t remember her name. I’m pretty jet-lagged.”

  “She’s not my— Did it seem that way to you?” He sat down next to her, and Anu caught a whiff of his cologne. “That’s Silke’s friend from rowing.”

  Anu sat up on the couch, suddenly aware that she was alone with a man and that her parents were in the other room.

  “So how is your visit so far? I overheard your arrival was a bit of a surprise.”

  “Yeah . . . I guess you can say that.”

  Theo brought a forkful of pie to his mouth and stopped it just shy of his lips. “How lovely.”

  Anu snuck a glance in his direction, and her stomach lurched when he caught her.

  “This is great pie,” she said quickly.

  “Have you tried it?”

  “Oh . . .” Why did he make her so nervous? Why had she left her wineglass at the table?

  “Go on, then.”

  She smiled and then took a bite. It was good. Really good. She was not sure she’d tasted anything like it before.

  “You seem to be enjoying it.”

  “I am.”

  “Good. I made it.”

  “Are you a chef?”

  “I dabble.”

  Dabble. The way he said the word, weirdly, made her stomach flutter. She adored English accents, but who didn’t? Which North American woman wouldn’t get nervous around a guy who looked and sounded and probably even smelled like freaking Jude Law?

  She looked over, just as he took another bite of his pie. He was younger than she had first thought, although he was clean-shaven, so it was difficult to tell.

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m thirty-four. Would you like to see my passport?”

  “Sorry.” She shrugged. “I was just curious.”

  Curious or cautious?

  “Not a bother.”

  She muffled a smile. “So, Theo, when you’re not dabbling, what do you do?”

  “Coincidentally, I chose the only field that Silke didn’t excel in.”

  She glanced around the room. “Let me see. . . . You’re a fisherman?”

  He grinned, shaking his head.

  “Bullfighter?”

  “Have another guess.”

  She took a bite of pie. “Photographer?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I don’t know. It was just a guess. Silke has such beautiful photographs, yet she’s in most of them.”

  “They’re not all mine.” Theo pointed to a wild-looking landscape. “That was taken by our mother, same with that one,” he said, motioning toward the misty beach scene next to it. His eyes moved across the room, to a cluster of eight-by-eleven photographs near the fire, some of Silke, others of women she didn’t recognize. “Those are mine. I mostly photograph people.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “It’s really the subjects that are beautiful. My job is to bring it out.”

  Had the house just gotten hotter? There was a fireplace off to the side, roaring. Anu leaned away from it.

  “Enough about me. What about you, Anusha? Tell me about you.”

  I’m a mother.

  She glanced down at her plate. Here was where she would usually pull out her phone and proudly show off pictures of Kanika, her pride and joy. The very center of her universe. The existence of her daughter and her infinite qualities would anchor the conversation, always the starting point to learning about Anu.

  “You can call me Anu if you want. Most people do.”

  “So what do you do, Anu?”

  She was a mother. She was about to say it, but then she didn’t.

  “Guess.”

  “I reckon you’re an academic like Silke and your father.”

  She shook her head. Was she still a real mother even though she’d left her daughter at home for Christmas?

  Theo narrowed his eyes and then dropped his gaze to her chest, her arms.

  “Model?” He flashed a smile. “Call me cheesy, but I had to.”

  Anu blushed. “Good line.”

  “Good guess?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, and you have one left, so make it count.”

  He leaned forward onto his elbows, and she could smell his cologne again. He was studying her, and briefly she was tempted to ask what on earth it was he saw. “Entrepreneur?”

  She was about to say no and then remembered the yoga studio. Her grin widened. “How could you tell?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Anu wasn’t drunk, but the next glass of red—her third of the evening—certainly took the edge off. She tried not to think about Neil and Kanika back home, or whether her parents had noticed the way Theo barely left her side the rest of the evening, laughed at her terrible jokes, kept finding excuses to touch her arm.

  He told her about his photography business, the one that paid the bills, kept him traveling much of the year. Conferences, music festivals, the occasional freelance job for some red-carpet event or the other. About growing up in Germany—and, for brief periods, Turkey—and then staying in London after university: a city as diverse and ambitious as himself.

  He liked to talk, and right then she was enjoying listening. After all, he did sound like Jude Law.

  Much later, she found herself on the back terrace alone with him. Others had joined them at first—for a cigarette, to stargaze or marvel at Silke’s work space in the back shed—but now it was just the two of them. They were side by side on a bench, snuggled beneath a canvas blanket. Anu kept her hands warm with a mug of mulled wine. She had lost track of her parents; they had been in the kitchen chatting to Silke’s rowing friend the last time she checked. A few times, Anu could feel her mother watching her.

  Anu heard the door slide open, and they both turned to look at the patio door. Silke had exchanged her striking silk pantsuit for a pair of flannel pajamas.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said casually. “The sitting room is yours, if you’d like.”

  “Wait. What time is it?” Anu glanced at her watch. “Are my parents ready to go?”

  “Everyone’s left, but it’s no bother. I told Lakshmi Theo would drive you home.”

  Anu’s stomach suddenly felt odd, unsettled. They had left without her?

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll go—”

  “Don’t be daft. You can stay as long as you’d like.”

  “Your lips are blue,” she heard Theo say. “Shall we go in?”

  She squatted down by the fire to warm up as Theo hugged his sister good night, said something to her in German. Was it about Anu? She heard the floorboards creak from the stairwell, and a beat later she felt Theo just behind her. He crouched down next to where she was sitting and extended his hand toward the fire, only embers now.

  “Can I show you something?” He reached for his phone and held it out
in front of him. “I was in Budapest last week”—he scrolled through his camera roll and then angled the screen toward her—“for this. I’m not exhibited in galleries often. . . .”

  She inspected the photo. It was black-and-white, of a woman maybe her own age in an unimposing courtyard. Her legs stretched out in front of her, her head tilted up to the sun, eyes closed, arms out behind propping her up. Anu couldn’t help but stare. Her pose was striking. Her shopping bags were casually discarded by her feet, with leafy greens and round-shaped bread having fallen out on the pavement.

  The woman looked free. So pure. Briefly, Anu wished she were the woman in the photograph.

  “You seem to like it.”

  “Like it . . .” Anu touched his forearm. “Theo, I love it.”

  “It’s my favorite piece.”

  “Do you . . . know her?”

  He smiled, and Anu found herself blushing. “She’s my sister.”

  “Ah.”

  “Silke is my sister from my mother’s side,” he continued, as if anticipating Anu’s next question. “We grew up in Germany.” He glanced back at the photo. “Selma is my younger sister, from my father’s side. She lives in Turkey.”

  Anu turned back to the fire, inching away from him.

  “I haven’t had a drink in hours,” he said. “I can drive you home . . . if you’d like?”

  She knew exactly what she would have liked and blushed at the thought.

  How was it that Jenny, Imogen, and other women so easily let themselves do what they liked? It wasn’t a generational thing. Most of the women she knew—older or younger, Indian or otherwise—hadn’t waited until marriage, no longer believed that sex and love had boundaries. Why did she?

  “Anu, what is it?”

  “I”—she swallowed—“I’m not sure.”

  “About me?” His hand had found its way to her inner forearm, and she watched his fingers trace small circles on the flesh.

  Was it about him? Would he be just another Ryan—a man who worked hard and loved harder, whose passion would lead him to stray, make him unable to be faithful to anyone but himself? Or maybe he would be more like Neil, kindhearted, more likely to walk on the moon than purposely hurt even the smallest cell in her body.