Grown-Up Pose

by Sonya Lalli

  “Should we see Dadima?”

  Her get-well-soon cards pressed against her chest, Kanika nodded and followed Neil down the corridor toward the den, where Neil had set up a bed for Priya. Anu couldn’t do anything but watch and, after she composed herself, finish the last two dirty dishes sitting in the sink. The rest of the kitchen was clean, as were the living room and bathrooms; Auntie Jayani must have cleaned up. Anu paced from room to room and eventually forced herself to sit down.

  Her phone dinged, and she glanced at it. It was a notification from Tinder, a message from Damien, the first of several guys she had matched with the evening before after Jenny had signed her up. She deleted the notification without reading the message; at work the next day, she knew Jenny would take the intiative to reply to it.

  Jenny had been the one to write up Anu’s profile and choose the photo, a selfie Jenny had taken of the two of them at Sunset Beach Park the previous summer. Anu had initially protested the selection: A pair of giant Armani sunglasses covered Anu’s eyes, and she’d taken a dip in the water, so her salty, wet hair curled awkwardly around her shoulders. Meanwhile, Jenny hadn’t gone into the water, so in the picture, her hair looked great.

  Another notification appeared from Tinder, and again Anu swiped it away without reading it. She wondered if she’d ever be ready to be with someone new. Somebody like Neil whom she could trust and build a life with. Someone stable, and age appropriate, who respected her values and culture. Someone she could marry not because she felt pressure to but because it was what they both wanted.

  Anu glanced at the end table by the window. The pictures she was looking for were still there: Anu and Neil’s wedding photos. There was a montage of them: one of just Anu and Neil, standing next to each other and chastely embracing by the water in Coal Harbour. Two more of the whole family: Kunal, Lakshmi, Priya, Neil, and Anu.

  Did moving forward mean letting go?

  “Dadima’s tired now.”

  Anu glanced up. Kanika and Neil were standing in the hallway, his hands secured protectively around his daughter’s shoulders. He looked better. Twenty minutes with Kanika, and already he looked better.

  “She’d like to see you.”

  “She does?”

  Neil nodded, tugging on Kanika’s left pigtail. “Kanu, should we have some ice cream?”

  “But, Daddy, it’s winter!”

  Neil took her by the hand toward the kitchen. “So?”

  Anu walked slowly, dragging her feet through the seventies shag that still carpeted the hallway. Several times Neil had volunteered to pay for new carpet, and Anu was never sure whether Priya genuinely liked it or was too proud to accept more help than she already did.

  She’d raised Neil herself, first in Calgary—where she’d been a cashier, then a manager at the same neighborhood Safeway where she bought groceries—and then in Vancouver, after they moved so Neil could go to the university he wanted. Then she worked at one of the three clothing stores Auntie Jayani and her husband owned on Main Street until a few years earlier, when Neil paid down the last of his student debt and insisted she retire. Anu knew that she had savings and that Neil helped with the rest. It was something they had discussed early and often, even as teenagers.

  “I’m going to help my mom out,” he’d say over and over, and every time, she replied, “I understand,” because she did understand. Priya was her mother, too.

  Priya’s eyes were closed when Anu walked into the room, and they didn’t open as Anu sat down next to her and squeezed her hand. Her face had a gray tinge to it, and her plump features seemed entirely frail, like a tiny speck on the bed. Despite the tube of Vaseline on her pillow, Priya’s lips were cracking, dry and white, and there was sleep crusted at the corners of her eyes.

  Anu gently touched Priya’s lips to the Vaseline. There was a washcloth on the desk, wet, and with it, she gently dabbed at the corners of Priya’s eyes.

  “I’m awake.” A voice, soft and vulnerable. “Thank you, beti.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  Priya smiled, and slowly, her eyes opened. “Like brand-new.”

  “You look brand-new,” Anu said, smiling down at her. “Like a million dollars.”

  “Million dollars.” Priya gently turned her head from side to side. “Maybe not. Maybe one million rupees.”

  Anu laughed, pulling the duvet farther up Priya’s arms. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Nah. This is all I need,” Priya said. “We are all home.”

  Anu’s stomach tossed. What did Priya mean by that? Any other day, Anu’s words would have been a prompt for an underhanded remark about the separation, their broken vows. But the wall Priya had put up seemed to have vanished. Staring into Priya’s eyes, Anu realized how dilated they were. Vapid.

  So Priya hadn’t really forgiven her. She was heavily medicated.

  “Yes, Auntie, we’re all home.”

  “I spoke with your parents this morning. Neil spoke. I listened.”

  “They want to come home. They are worried about you.”

  “I am glad they will stay. They should make the most of England. I am all right now.”

  “That’s what I told them, Auntie, that you would have wanted them to stay.”

  “England,” Priya repeated, blinking hard at the ceiling. “I would have loved to visit England. . . .”

  “When you’re better—”

  “I was supposed to go, you know.” Priya’s eyes were wide-open now, and they were trained straight on her. “Neil’s papa. He had secured a job there when my baccha was newborn. He sent me a picture once, of the house.” Her gaze moved back to the ceiling. “It was so, so square, dark bricks, no light. But there were two whole bedrooms, beti. Neil was to have his own room.”

  Anu squeezed Priya’s hands, trying to bring her back, wondering if she should get Neil. Did the pain medication make her like this?

  “And when the letter came, it was like—like I could not believe. This could not happen to me, to my boy—”

  “Auntie, are you feeling OK?” She scooted forward on the bed. “Do you—”

  “And Jayani told me, forget him. Forget England. Even, forget India. I will sponsor you and Neil for Canada—”

  “Auntie, your husband never lived in England. He died in India, remember? Before —”

  “Nah.” There were tears now. Bubbling out from the corners of her eyes, pooling, before rolling down the hills of her cheeks. “There was a woman in his office. She had a very rich father.”

  Anu was frozen next to the bed, her hands against Priya’s.

  “He left. He said he would come for us, but he never came.”

  Anu’s stomach was bubbling, churning so hard and fast, she wasn’t sure she could keep her last meal down.

  “It was common thing then. Our Indian men working abroad, leaving their families for some American woman. Englishwoman . . . But I never thought it would happen to me.”

  He left? Neil’s father was alive?

  “Aunie . . . does . . . does Neil know?”

  Priya’s eyes closed, and a beat later, she nodded.

  chapter twenty-four

  ANUSHA: Hi, Aman. I’m the new owner of Mags’ Studio (new name pending). We’ve recently lost a few yoga teachers and are looking to hire. I saw your ad. What’s your rate? Call me if you’re interested. Thanks.—Anusha Desai

  ANUSHA: Hi, Sasha. I’m the new owner of Mags’ Studio (new name pending). We’ve recently lost a few yoga teachers and are looking to hire. I saw your ad. What’s your rate? Call me if you’re interested. Thanks.—Anusha Desai

  ANUSHA: Hi, Jinjing. I’m the new owner of Mags’ Studio (new name pending). We’ve recently lost a few yoga teachers and are looking to hire. I saw your ad. What’s your rate? Call me if you’re interested. Thanks.—Anusha Desai

  Facebook ad
vertising. I’m telling you—”

  “You’ve told me already.”

  “And Instagram. Instagram, too. It needs to be online, Anusha. You think anyone’s going to see your flyers?”

  Imogen grabbed the last stack of posters from her backpack and set them down on the desk with a thud. They’d papered all the coffee shops, grocers, college campuses, and independent shops this side of Vancouver. The paper and printing had cost two hundred dollars, and even that Anu had parted with reluctantly. But it had been over a week since they went up, three weeks since the studio had reopened, and they hadn’t made a dent.

  Anu didn’t fully go through the paperwork before actually buying the place, and only recently had she noticed that Mags had barely broken even the year before she sold it. She paid her teachers the bare minimum someone decent would be willing to accept, and some months didn’t even give herself a salary. And even though Anu had bumped up the wages for all the teachers—especially Imogen, whom she was paying a small salary to help her manage everything—several teachers have already jumped ship to other studios, disappointed that Anu’s plans for a grand redesign weren’t happening.

  “The class sizes are just too small,” some of them had said, while others hadn’t even bothered to give a reason.

  Every time Anu walked through the front door, she tried to remember what had prompted her to buy the studio in the first place. How she had summoned up the courage, the audacity, to run a yoga studio when she knew absolutely nothing about it.

  Anu couldn’t afford the aesthetic changes she had envisioned. She wanted to create something new, find her own purpose, but here she was, trying to keep afloat someone else’s dream, a dream that maybe should have been converted into another hipster coffee shop.

  Anu turned back to her laptop. She had already gone over with Imogen dozens of times that she couldn’t afford advertising or any other changes. It would be irresponsible to deplete her family’s savings for the studio; she had a mortgage and a daughter, and she could never ask Neil to take on more than his share, especially now that he was on unpaid leave indefinitely to stay home with Priya.

  Priya. Anu didn’t often let herself follow that train of thought, dwell on her and what she’d shared with Anu, anymore than she already had. Neil’s father had left them, but he never told her. They had been together for twelve years, married for seven of them, yet he had never told her. Why? She didn’t have the right to ask him anymore.

  “Class starts in fifteen minutes,” she heard Imogen say, “and no one’s here.”

  Anu glanced at the class schedule open in her browser and noted that only five of the regulars had turned up for early-bird yoga with Imogen that morning. Mags’ records—paper records, in a brown binder in the bottom drawer—showed that the midmorning Wednesday classes typically hosted a dozen. Where were they?

  “They’ll come,” Anu said decidedly. “Who’s teaching today?”

  “I’m here during the day, and Charlie’s taking both the evening classes,” Imogen said. “You’re OK with her locking up?”

  “Did Mags let her lock up?”

  “She didn’t let anyone lock up.”

  Anu nodded, sitting up straighter in the chair. “Well, I say it’s fine. You can make her a key, tell her the alarm code. There’s nothing in here anyone would steal, anyway.”

  “The computer?”

  “Good thinking. Would you mind buying a padlock for the top desk drawer? Tell her to stick it in there. Thanks.” A beat later the bell on the front door rang, and needing to stretch her legs, Anu raced to stand before Imogen. “See? Someone’s here.”

  “I got it.” Imogen stood up, too, and when they moved to brush past each other, Anu knocked her backpack off the desk. “Sorry—”

  “Leave it.”

  They bent down at the same time to pick it up. A few things had fallen out, and Anu’s hands found a scarf, a hairbrush, and then something that gave her pause.

  She stood up slowly, trying not to stare at the pill bottle, but she couldn’t help it. She was a nurse.

  It was a prescription antidepressant.

  “Sorry.” She set down the bottle on the desk, averting her eyes, and Imogen quickly picked it up and stuffed it into the pocket of her hoodie.

  Anu wasn’t a doctor, but she knew alcohol and/or marijuana and antidepressants didn’t mix well together, and in some cases could even be dangerous. Had Imogen stopped drinking and smoking? Anu hadn’t seen her do either since before Christmas, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t. Concern rose in Anu’s belly.

  “I’m worried about—”

  “This doesn’t concern you. This is my own shit.”

  “I know, but . . .” But what could Anu say? This was Imogen’s business, and she was free to share and discuss it with Anu if and how she liked, and on her own terms. But what if Imogen wasn’t talking to anyone about it?

  “Tonight. Why don’t you come over?” Anu paused, trying to suss out Imogen’s reaction. “We can just hang out and talk if—”

  “It’s not your place, Anusha.”

  “I know that. I know.” She pressed her lips together. “Did your doctor—”

  “Yes, I have one, and you’re not her. OK?”

  “OK.” Anu smiled, placing her arm lightly on Imogen’s forearm. “But I am your friend. So will you let me know if you change your mind? You can call me anytime, day or night, about anything. Deal?”

  Imogen didn’t answer, avoiding eye contact as she played with the hem of her hoodie.

  “Deal?” Anu asked, and finally, Imogen nodded.

  Anu volunteered to sign up the customer for the class while Imogen changed. Leaving Imogen in the office, she rounded the corner toward the lobby, and standing there in his old newsboy cap and woolly parka was the last person she expected.

  “Dad?”

  He was beaming at her, and she felt like crying as she ran toward him. He held her for a moment, and the comfort of it was breaking her down. He was home. He had come to see her.

  “Dad, what are you doing here?”

  He patted her shoulder, gently pulling away from the hug. “Aacha, so this is the place?”

  Anu shrugged, trying to see it through his eyes—the uneven walls, like parchment, the water-cracked floors. “It’s a bit shabby, I know.”

  “Shabby or shabby chic?”

  Anu laughed. Except for Kanika the week earlier, she’d never been so happy to see someone. “Who taught you that phrase?”

  “I heard it on some British television program. No matter, it is very nice studio, Anu. I can see why you are here.”

  He was making an effort, she could tell. He was the business-minded one, the penny-pincher, the one who grilled Anu every year on her income tax filing, deductions, and registered retirement savings plan. The few times they’d spoken about the studio in the past few weeks, he’d held back—she assumed because he had nothing to say. A studio like this was a terrible investment. It had made no business sense, if any sense at all.

  Yet he was here. He’d come all the way here.

  Kunal chatted with Imogen as Anu signed in the seven students who showed up, all of them regulars. Imogen seemed taken by Kunal—his fatherly charm, his soft accent—and ended up starting the class a few minutes late. After, Anu took Kunal to a café down the road. She knew her dad would insist on paying, but still she only ordered a drip coffee with milk and nothing to eat—even though the lattes there were great, not to mention the avocado and feta on toast. . . .

  “That’s all? You’re not on a diet, are you?” Kunal asked her after he ordered a full breakfast and chai latte. He patted his stomach. “Beti, bellies are very in style this year.”

  Anu laughed. “I already ate.” She didn’t bother to tell him about her new routine of not buying things she didn’t need. He’d worry, and then he’d offer to lend her m
oney; she didn’t want him to do either.

  Her whole life she’d taken for granted the fact that her parents were never more than a twenty-minute drive away. Forty-five, at most, with traffic. And except for the few days she’d spent in London at Christmas, this was the most she’d seen of her dad in over six months. Seeing him here, back in Vancouver, back in familiar surroundings, she realized again how much she had missed him and Lakshmi.

  “How long are you here?” She was surprised by the coolness in her voice, even the fear.

  The waiter arrived with his chai latte. Kunal smiled at him and, after he left, said, “I purchased a one-way ticket.”

  “Why?”

  “Why else?” He took a sip. “You kept insisting that your mother shouldn’t come to help, that she should finish her studies, and I agree.” He wiped the froth on his lips. “However, you never said I could not come help. . . .”

  She laughed. “Dad, what are you trying to say?”

  “I’m saying, I am a nuisance for your mother anyway as she tries to finish this thesis of hers.” He leaned forward, his eyes twinkling. “I am saying, I am still on sabbatical and can be here with you. I can be a help with . . . your life. With Kanika.”

  “You want to be my babysitter?”

  “Why do you seem so shocked?”

  “I’m . . . not.” She wrapped her hands around her mug, pulling away only when the tips of her fingers started to burn. “It’s just that usually Mom was the one who helped.”

  “So maybe it is my turn. . . .” He cleaned the grit behind his nails with another nail, wiped the end of it down with the same handkerchief he’d been using since she was a girl. “This was my idea. I wanted to come.”

  “Dad . . .” She felt completely overwhelmed—full of so much gratitude that she was afraid it’d get taken away, that he didn’t really mean it. He would leave Lakshmi and come live with her, help her take care of Kanika? Kunal was always a mess whenever her mother wasn’t around. A few times, Lakshmi had gone home to India without them—when her mother was sick, for a family wedding—and Anu would go home to find her father staring blankly at the freezer, at one of the meals of biryani or subji or dal that Lakshmi had spent weeks preparing and freezing ahead of her departure.