The Invitation

by Anne Cherian

  Too overwrought to sleep, he went to find the pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment. He didn’t want to risk opening the noisy garage door, so went back into the house. He pushed open the front door carefully and then walked to the edge of the lawn, away from the bedroom windows, before lighting his Marlboro.

  It was a cool night, and the scent of jasmine drifted from across the street. Every now and then, Sherman Oaks felt like India. Lucy Margolis had a guava tree, and she allowed Jay to eat as much fruit as he wanted.

  “I didn’t know what they were until you came along,” Lucy said. “I’m glad the fruit isn’t going to waste.”

  Jay took a deep drag, then held the glowing red tip away from him. He had come halfway around the world and was still sneaking cigarettes like a schoolboy. He had started the habit in boarding school because it was the cool thing to do. His best friend, whose parents lived in Washington, DC, always brought back a few cartons of cigarettes, and they would wait till lights out before sitting by the window, puffing away. Frances had asked him to stop smoking shortly after Mandy was born, and the doctor warned him that he was too old to play around with his lungs.

  These days, he smoked when he didn’t know what to do about his anxieties.

  Mandy.

  He wished she would just go back to being a good student. Perhaps all she needed was something positive, something wonderful happening to her that would plug the desire to do well back into her.

  Footsteps intruded into his worries.

  He quickly ground down the cigarette and waved away the smoke. He didn’t want anyone to tell Frances, however jokingly, that he smoked.

  Griffin Zlotnick, the tall boy who lived three houses away, came into view. He was staring at their house and slowed down as he approached it.

  Jay coughed. He didn’t want to startle the boy.

  “Hey, Mr. Bakshi,” Griffin nodded.

  “I’m not sure whether to wish you goodnight or good morning,” Jay smiled.

  Griffin shuffled his feet and glanced again at the house.

  “Are you looking for Mandy?” The question burst out before he could contain it. He had always promised himself he would never act like the stereotypical Indian father.

  “Mandy? No, no. I was out jamming with my friends, and we forgot the time.”

  His answer—complete with the guitar slung over his back—was honest. But the boy’s forlorn air, the snap of the eyes when he said, “Mandy,” took Jay back to his own youth.

  This boy, with his long blond hair and torn jeans, liked his daughter!

  Jay almost laughed out loud. Who would have thought that? He used to see Griffin daily when the kids were young and routinely played together. But it had been years since he had spoken to Griffin, and Jay only knew that he was going to the same high school as Mandy.

  Did Mandy also like Griffin? Had she faked being tired so Jay would leave her room and she could sneak out of the house?

  He recalled their interaction. Mandy had been wearing pajamas. Girls don’t meet boys they like in old flannel nightwear.

  Besides, Mandy showed no interest in boys. She never brought them up, and didn’t ask to go out on dates. When he and Frances talked about it, they were relieved that Mandy wasn’t in any danger of getting pregnant, but worried that she might be a social outcast. “She’ll go out when she’s ready,” Jay had assuaged his concern. “We will never stop her.”

  “Tell Mandy I said, ‘Hi,’ ” Griffin said.

  He definitely liked Mandy.

  “Why don’t you come by sometime and tell her that yourself?” Jay suggested.

  Griffin grinned. “Right,” he said, and saluted Jay as he walked away.

  Jay was surprised at how happy he was that Griffin seemed to have a crush on Mandy. He had wondered who his children would go out with, and he had always told them they were Caucasians, the same as everyone else on their street, except that God had left them in the oven a little longer, so they were brown. That was his way of informing them that though they were minorities like the African Americans, they were more white than anything else. He knew that he should feel a kinship with the other groups who are marginalized in white America, but he could not help his prejudice. It had come with him from India, where, being rich, and with skin paler than the others, he was considered superior.

  He sighed. As he looked at Griffin’s retreating figure, he suddenly remembered Griffin’s mother saying that her son was taking math classes at the community college because he was so advanced. He’d been tagged as highly gifted in math ever since first grade, and teachers had always had a difficult time keeping him challenged.

  If Griffin came back into Mandy’s sphere, it might improve her grades and her social life. He’d mention this encounter to Mandy tomorrow, ask her if she wanted to invite Griffin for a barbecue.

  Jay rubbed his hands together and looked up at the dark sky.

  There was a ring around the moon. He sniffed the air but did not smell rain. Not everything is what it seems, he thought.

  That was true also for Mandy.

  Who knew what might happen by June eleventh, when they had to drive down to Newport Beach?

  LALI PULLED INTO the last parking space and slung her computer case and handbag over her shoulder before heading for the glass door. She did not like staying in the house while it was being cleaned, so she left for Starbucks as soon as she reminded Rosa that the fridge and the freezer needed a thorough wipe-down.

  “Hi, Mrs. Feinstein, the usual?” Ellen called out as she approached the counter. Ellen Krueger had been in her son Aaron’s class in high school and now worked weekends to pay for college. Lali remembered her because she was the only girl who had worn shorts even in the cold.

  “It’s to show off her genetically modified legs,” Aaron had commented, and Lali had laughed and said, “It’s a good thing your father didn’t think that way. Otherwise he would have thought I wore a saree just to display my genetically unmodified midriff.”

  Lali glanced up to see if the chalkboard would tempt her, then said, “Yes, my usual boring chai, Ellen.”

  She used to feel awkward coming here on her own, but after four months, it was almost normal. The other patrons didn’t notice or care that she was solo. Cafés had changed so much since her UCLA days. Back then, students spread their books on tables and cappuccino was the most exciting option on the menu. Now no one had books. Old and young carried laptops, taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi to read the news or check e-mail.

  The corner table she preferred was unoccupied, so she booted up the computer and went into her Yahoo account.

  One new message.

  She waited impatiently for the page to open and then was immediately nervous to see Aaron’s name. He hardly wrote, and when she called him, he only stayed on the phone long enough to assure her that he was fine. “I’m eating and studying and behaving,” he repeated the same sentence every time they spoke, and Lali knew he was just placating her.

  Something must have happened for him to write.

  “Mom, I’m going to Vermont for the weekend with my roommate. He says there’s no cell reception in their cabin because it’s in the woods. I’ll call on Sunday or Monday.”

  She reread the message to make sure she wasn’t making it up. Aaron was fine! She imagined him in his dorm at Harvard, sitting at a desk that had served thousands of students before him. He was making friends and having fun. And now he was off on a trip. This was the first time he was going away for the weekend, and Lali was thrilled.

  His college experience was so different from the nun-run establishment she had suffered through in Bangalore for the three years it took to get a BA degree.

  “The dorm, or hostel as we called it, was right next to the college buildings, and the campus was encircled by a thick, high wall,” she had told him when they strolled through Harvard Square. “We were only allowed to walk through the gates on weekends, from nine to five. And any male visitor had to ring a bell, wa
it for the maid to answer it, and write down his name, which was checked against a list every parent gave the school. Only then was the girl called.”

  Aaron had narrowed his eyes and asked, “You aren’t going to turn this into one of your ‘India is wonderful’ stories, are you?”

  Lali had laughed and said, “No, not this time. My poor cousin once waited a whole hour for me! I just think it’s wonderful that you can have such a different experience. You’re not just going to a fabulous university; you have the freedom to enjoy everything, from a late-night coffee to weekends away.”

  She looked at her mailbox again. She had been expecting another e-mail.

  Aakash hadn’t written. He usually sent her an e-mail early on Saturday mornings, reminding her that he would be available for instant messaging at ten, which was right now.

  He must be busy.

  She, too, used to be busy on Saturdays, and never dreamed that one day she would while away the morning in a café.

  For years she had waited for Rosa’s 9:30 a.m. arrival, because she and her husband, Jonathan, always went out for breakfast, except when he was called into the hospital, or Aaron had a game. She used to jokingly call it a “forced date,” though Jonathan knew that she looked forward to it—starting from Wednesday, when she flipped through the food section of the San Francisco Chronicle, hoping a restaurant in Marin County had been reviewed. Jonathan refused to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on the weekends, because he said it was crowded with tourists so busy looking at the scenery they forgot to stay in their lanes.

  Aaron used to join them until he reached the age when he preferred sleeping in, and brunching with one’s parents was just weird.

  Lali took a sip of tea and gazed through the glass wall. If she tilted her head, she could see the Golden Gate Bridge. As always at this time of the morning, the bridge was a giant orange divider, silhouetted against the fog that hadn’t lifted from the ocean side, while rising magnificently over the blue waters of the bay where the sun had burned off the haze.

  It was as if she were looking at her life. One side reflected the halcyon days she used to spend with Jonathan. They had season tickets to the symphony and ballet, and when they married twenty-two years ago, she was usually the only Indian in attendance, her sarees garnering lots of attention. She and Jonathan often took bets on how many people would come up and compliment her. They went to plays, packing a picnic when they drove across the bridge to see the Berkeley Shakespeare Company’s production of Romeo and Juliet, and watched movies the first weekend they were released.

  She became pregnant with Aaron, and they both marveled as slowly, over the forty weeks, her stomach rose above the bath waters. He didn’t object when she moved the crib into their bedroom, and laughed when she told him that the Swedes had gotten the idea of a family bed from the Indians. Though Jonathan’s job as a cardiologist in a San Francisco hospital kept him busy, he tried to keep his weekends free for family-centered activities. They went to parks, fairs, and museums, and Lali was always trying to find interesting, out-of-the-ordinary things to do.

  Lali had gloried in their family togetherness, which was so different from the way she had been raised. Appa had been the typical Indian father, more absent than present, and though she loved him, she had never felt comfortable around him. Amma, like the other mothers, spent more time in the kitchen and visiting her women friends than with Lali. Every day after school, Lali would finish her homework, race outside, and return only in time for dinner. The weekends meant endless hours of playing badminton, seven sisters, hide-and-seek with the neighborhood children. The only times her parents took her anywhere were to Sunday church, and events like weddings and funerals, where she had to behave. Her friends had similar experiences, and until she married Jonathan, Lali had thought that only books and movies portrayed families where people spent fun time together and parents were interested in more than report cards.

  She and Jonathan kept pace with all of Aaron’s changing interests. They attended his music recitals, clapped loudly when he played a turkey in the school play, and when he entered the talent contest, they bought extra strings for his guitar in case his broke. When Aaron became sports-crazy, Jonathan coached, and she turned into a team mom. She learned to wrap hot dogs in foil to keep them warm, and bought a wheeled Igloo that was easy to maneuver on bumpy grounds. The quantity of the snacks grew to accommodate the teenagers’ vacuumlike stomachs, and there were days when they stayed out till late evening, because Aaron had two games back-to-back.

  Then, just like that, the previous September, the fog had set in.

  Aaron started his freshman year at Harvard, and suddenly the house was too big. Lali had anticipated the empty-nest syndrome everyone warned her about, but had not realized how much she would miss picking up his dirty clothes from the floor, taking him for burgers after an evening game, sitting in the theater with her eyes closed, fingers clutching Jonathan’s hand, because Aaron wanted to see a scary movie.

  Once she realized those “what shall I do with my mothering ways?” days were going to stay, she thought it was the perfect opportunity to return to the early years of her marriage.

  Jonathan still worked at the same hospital, and was as busy as he had ever been, but his weekends remained open, and she began planning things for them to do. She started by buying a book on the trails around Marin County. “I know you dislike gyms,” she explained, “but you keep saying we are past the age when our bodies take care of themselves, so let’s hike.” They went to Sonoma and Mendocino, and liked the latter so much they considered buying a cottage—until Jonathan looked at their finances and said they could afford nothing extra while Aaron was going to Harvard. Saturday became their hiking day, and they walked the bluffs, trekked up to Mount Tamalpais, and one time crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on foot. When they were standing in the middle of the slightly swaying bridge, Jonathan had spread his legs apart and said, “Look, I’m in two places at one time: Marin and San Francisco.” A tourist heard him and did the same thing, and Lali had felt as happy and carefree as when they first started going out together and Jonathan had done cartwheels in Golden Gate Park. Once he had even rolled down the window of his car and shouted out, “I love this girl!”

  “It’s like a second honeymoon, only better,” Lali told Mary Kibrick, her coworker at Marin College. She had taken the job as secretary of the English Department when Aaron started his senior year in high school and didn’t need her to drive him anywhere. She had hoped to get back into advertising, but no firm wanted a woman who had stayed home for sixteen years to take care of her son. She was overqualified for the secretary position but enjoyed the simplicity, the fact that she could leave the office on Friday evening and not think about work the entire weekend. She liked the people in her department, especially Mary, and often got recommendations for hikes and restaurants from them.

  Then, on a day she thought they would go hiking, Jonathan said he was tired. He wanted to stay home and read. A few days later, she picked up one of his books and saw that it was on Judaism.

  When they started dating, he had told her that the only thing Jewish about him was his name. “My parents don’t go to synagogue,” he said, “and the first time I tasted matzo-ball soup was at a friend’s place.” Their decision to have a civil wedding was mutual, because neither of them was affiliated with a religious organization.

  When they moved into their first apartment together, he had seen her two cutting boards—one for meat, the other for vegetables­—and assured her that she didn’t need to keep a kosher household.

  “It’s not kosher,” Lali had explained. “My mother does the same thing.”

  Jonathan had been curious about why a Christian woman in India would keep food separate, and Lali said that almost all her friends’ mothers, including the Hindus, did the same thing. “I told you that India is a highly cultured country,” she reminded him.

  Jonathan had laughed and said, “So you keep saying—and yes,
yes, I do remember the Gandhi quotation you are always throwing my way—that Western civilization is a good idea. You’re probably going to tell me that the Jews got their kosher notion from the Indians.”

  They celebrated Christmas, not Chanukah, and Aaron grew up knowing his parents’ religious backgrounds but never wanting instruction in either one.

  The book with the Star of David emblazoned on it felt like an intruder. Then every week, it seemed to Lali, there was another Amazon delivery. She knew that when Jonathan got interested in something, he bought all the right things to help him learn and get ahead. Shortly after they were married, he had decided to study Spanish, and Lali had recently donated the stack of books to the local library. She told herself that this was just another flashing interest, a variant of the typical middle-age crisis. He would get bored and they could go back to their hikes and early dinners, followed by a movie.

  Instead, Jonathan found a Reform temple and started going to services every Saturday, because his Fridays were too unpredictable.

  He asked her to accompany him, and she went because she wanted to be supportive. Initially, she had been enchanted by the warm welcome. The people were so different from the members of the church she had attended in India.

  Church was serious religious business in Kerala, but Sundays were also social, an opportunity to swap information and show off new clothes. The girls of marriageable age wore their best, and nine-year-old Lali had been riveted by Sara, who was studying in a college in Bombay and came in a low-cut blouse and transparent chiffon saree that the older women gossiped made her look like a prostitute. When Lali was small, the older women grilled her about school; when she was older, they asked when she was going to get married. “I’ll send you an invitation to my wedding, Aunty,” she told one particularly annoying woman, who promptly asked, “That is very good and all, but when will the invitation be coming, when, when?”

  The Jewish congregation didn’t ask why she and Jonathan were suddenly attending services; they simply embraced them. She didn’t even mind that she could not understand Hebrew. The priest back home liked to intersperse his Malayalam services with Syriac, which no one understood.