by Veena Rao
“I’ll look for them at the library,” she managed to whisper.
“What book are you reading these days?”
“Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.” Her choice of books seemed suddenly ridiculous. She wished she were reading a spy novel or a thriller. Was Cyrus disappointed in her choice of books?
“Did you get that at the library?” No sign of disappointment.
Tara shook her head. “They are from my Daddy’s collection of English classics.”
She wished she had the courage to look into those bewitching eyes, rather than at the wall or the floor. But he was seated too close, his T-shirt was too stylish and the fall of his hair too charming over his forehead. Later, in the safety of her room, she would imagine brushing it back with her fingers, peering into his eyes, reflecting on their magical color; she would cross the threshold to immorality at leisure.
“She’s read all the classics. Can you imagine?” Annette said. “By the way, we are planning to see Chariots of Fire on Friday. Tara and Cyrus, I hope you two will come.”
Cyrus was in without a second thought. Tara whispered something about having to ask Mummy.
“Tell your mum our driver, Uncle Lobo, will take us to the theater and back. There is nothing to worry about,” Annette said.
“Tell Mum Cyrus will be your bodyguard. He will guard you with his life,” said Cyrus. Tara looked down at her hands as the others giggled.
Of course, Amma said no. She said Daddy would not allow it. She was too young to go out with friends. They had not met the Saldanhas and knew nothing about them. They would all go to Ideal Ice Cream Parlour in Hampankatta and have tall glasses of gadbad instead.
Tara escaped to Morgan Hill with Vijay and moped.
“So old-fashioned!” she complained to a rock, of her family.
Chapter 15
By mid-May, Daddy and Amma had found the perfect house. It was in Falnir, a nice neighborhood in the heart of Mangalore city, where fancy terraced houses blended with large traditional homes. Their home was on Model Street, in a colony of twenty-four houses, all painted white, with neat rose bushes in the front and a little patch to grow fruits and vegetables at the back. Pretty bougainvillea trees lined one end of the compound.
Daddy said they would move in by the end of May. Amma was thrilled that things had fallen so beautifully in place. Tara searched for some fragment of relief, of happiness in her heart. Day after day, year after year she had yearned to be reunited with her family. And yet, now, she found only despair. She wished for time to stand still, for the days to stretch on infinitely. She wished the end of May would never arrive. Falnir was so far away from Second Bridge; it seemed like a different world. How could she ever come to Annette’s house? If only Daddy would change his mind and take his wife and son back to Dubai.
She continued to run up to the Saldanah house every afternoon, but said nothing to her gang about moving. Every day, she counted the days left to be in Cyrus’s proximity. Would he miss her at all? Just a tiny bit? Even though she didn’t belong to his world of attractive, self-assured girls—girls who became class monitors and excelled at badminton and participated in school debates and danced gracefully in his arms at the Saldanah ball.
The day she dreaded came too soon; the more she wanted it to go in slow motion, the more it galloped to the finish line. That final afternoon, in a low voice, she told Annette that her family was moving to Falnir the next day.
“What!” cried Annette. “You bad girl. Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, I will miss you so much!” Annette wailed. “You will visit us, no?”
“I will try.”
The group continued to play their board games in silence. Cyrus refused to look up. His focus was entirely on his Ludo board, even when Annette sighed, and said, “Tara dear, you’ve made me so very sad today.”
“I wish you all the best, Tara,” said James, looking up from his board. “Annette, stop being a drama queen. Wish her good luck.”
That afternoon, Tara stayed as long as she could, through the anxious hours of being ignored by Cyrus. Eventually, she had to leave, or she would get into serious trouble at home. The girls hugged her. Even Mrs. Saldanha came out to say good-bye.
“Good-bye, sweet friend,” said Annette, planting a kiss on Tara’s cheek. “You are the nicest girl I have ever met. I am going to really, really miss you.”
Tara prepared to leave, then decided to linger a few minutes longer. Did she have the courage to say good-bye to Cyrus?
Annette noticed. “Cyrus,” she yelled. “Stop being a donkey, man. Say bye to Tara.”
Cyrus raised his head from his game and waved at Tara.
“Bye,” he said.
“Bye,” she whispered. There could be no more stalling. She embarked on the excruciating walk to the gate. So, this was it. She wondered if she should allow the tears she was holding back to flow. He hadn’t even said a proper good-bye. He had acted like she was invisible, like she didn’t matter, like all that teasing and wanting to be on her team was a joke. Yes, that is what she had been to him. A stupid, insignificant, irrelevant joke.
She pushed open the gate and fastened her pace once on the road. The sun was in the far west, the paved road that led to Morgan Hill almost deserted. She had gone a few yards down the street when she heard footsteps. They were close behind her, she could tell. She looked over her shoulder, too consumed with her turmoil to even be alarmed. Then, her breath caught in her chest. What was he doing following her? She stopped and looked at his tan shoes in utter bewilderment.
“May I walk with you till the end of the street?” he asked. She said nothing.
“May I?”
She nodded.
They walked in silence. The sound of their footsteps on tar amplified. She wondered what Grandfather Madhava or Daddy might say if they saw her walking down the street with a boy.
“God, why do you have to leave?” he said after a while.
“Because my family has come back. . . .” she started to say.
“Oh, I know that. But why do they have to move you so far away?”
She didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Star, I will miss you.”
Tara looked down at her feet, dumbfounded.
“I like you. Very much.” The intensity in his voice shocked her. She said nothing, her tongue was in knots.
“Do you like me?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to say something. But what? What was the appropriate thing to say? She felt his fingertips on her elbow. She recoiled; it was her stupid reflexes again. How was she going to muster enough courage to not behave like a completely terror-struck idiot?
Cyrus let go of her elbow. “Okay, okay, don’t be scared,” he said.
They continued to walk in silence, two unlikely figures in the early evening light. They were almost up to the end of the paved street, and the Pentecostal Church at the northern end of Morgan Hill loomed into view. He couldn’t possibly walk with her beyond the church. She stopped, and in a sudden burst of urgency, the courage she was searching for finally came to her lips.
“Yes,” she said.
“What?”
“Yes.”
“You like me?”
“Yes.”
From the corner of her eye, through her moist lashes, she saw Cyrus smile. It was the most heartwarming, disarming smile she had seen on a human face. He touched her cheek softly with the palm of his hand. This time she did not recoil.
“Can you look at me for a minute? Please?” he implored. She obeyed. He dropped his hand from her cheek, stuffed it in his pocket. “I’ve always wanted to tell you a little story. I will make it fast,” he said. “When I was little, my nanny had a framed picture of the Madonna in her room. It was a small print of a Renaissance painting, I think: Madonna with son, on a throne surrounded by white lilies. When I first saw you, Star, I was stunned. You look every bit like the Madonna in that pictur
e, the same divine face. Unfortunately, Nanny took it with her when she left, or I would have brought it to show you.”
Cyrus touched her cheek again, then gently cupped her chin. She closed her eyes. She hoped nobody from her neighborhood would see her like this. She wished she could still the trembling of her foolish lips. She wondered if there were women at the nearby water station. She wished for the warmth of that hand to never leave her.
“You have an aura around you of deep peace. You are so different from the other girls, so unique. Don’t ever change, okay?”
Tara nodded. She, the Madonna? Aura of deep peace? He was wrong, of course. He had equated silence with peace. Little did he know that the sea was calm in the doldrums. Perhaps this was a dream. She’d wake up any minute and see that none of this had actually happened, that it was her heart’s yearnings creating foolish fantasies while she slept. She kept her eyes closed.
“Will you be in touch?” she heard him say. She nodded. The gentle pressure of his fingers moved back up to her cheek. Then she felt his breath on her face, warm and moist. She snapped her eyes open in alarm. His face was just an inch away from hers. She looked straight into those eyes, the magnificent prisms that reflected light so eloquently, and then turned and fled down Morgan Hill. She didn’t look back once.
She had the rest of her life to replay this scene a million times in her head, each time with a different ending.
The photographer’s eyes danced with hope when she said a definitive okay to his request.
“Okay? You mean, you will work on the campaign?”
“Yes.”
Shyamala, Anita, and Yasmin looked at her in surprise, while Abhi punched the table in triumph, his lips cracking wide open to reveal glistening teeth.
The photo session lasted several hours on a Saturday afternoon. Abhi’s wife, Sania, who was a beautician and owned a salon at the mall, worked on Tara’s makeup and clothes. Shyamala and Yasmin could not make it to the shoot, but Anita stood guard outside the dressing room. The clothes were from the nearby Hi Fashion Boutique. Tara posed in a variety of saris and salwars, Abhi gently goading her to pull her shoulders back, to stand erect, to look into the camera, to get the expression right. Then they dressed her as a demure north Indian bride, a red silk embellished chunni over her head, gold jewelry in the parting of her hair, a large nose ring. After they were done with the second shoot, Sania washed Tara’s face, wiped off all the residual makeup, and worked afresh to create glamour. She held out a royal blue off-shoulder gown, causing Tara to almost back off from the shoot.
“I-I’m sorry, but can I wear something else?”
Sania sensed Tara’s problem. “Don’t worry, this is not revealing, just off-shoulder to show off the jewelry.”
Tara hesitated, stalled. She couldn’t imagine leaving her shoulders uncovered.
“Don’t be a prude, Tara!” Anita urged, from outside the door. “You are so slim, you can carry it off. Even I wear off-shoulder dresses.”
The majority opinion won, and Tara surrendered her inhibitions to the camera. During the shoot, she kept pulling her dress up at the bust, much to Sania’s chagrin. “Your dress is hiding the choker, stop pulling it up.” She glowered at Tara, like a teacher would a disobedient child, while Abhi only laughed.
“Focus here,” he said, tapping at the camera on the tripod. “Forget everything else. Trust me, you are going to look beautiful. Who knows, Hollywood might come calling.” He guffawed at his own joke, as he moved the spotlights closer to his subject.
Chapter 16
The girl on the billboard smiled coyly, a thick, ruby encrusted, twenty-two-carat gold choker around her long, swan-like neck. She looked striking. Hair perfectly coiffed into a top knot. Nose sharp under the spotlight. Rosebud lips painted red. Doe-like eyes highlighted with mascara, kohl, and blue-black shades of perfectly blended eye shadow. Her face and creamy bare shoulders dominated the billboard, with the advertiser’s message occupying minimal space in the right-hand corner. “Shop our new collection at Raj Jewelers,” it said, fancy white font against a dark background, then the address and phone number, in smaller size.
Tara cupped her hand over her mouth and squealed, “Oh my God, oh my God! No!”
Alyona, who stood next to her in the parking lot of the strip adjacent to the large billboard in Decatur, laughed excitedly. “No? You mean yes. You look like Cleopatra!”
Tara cracked her right eye open, and all she could see was her bare shoulders and the tiny hint of cleavage. “I wish they hadn’t chosen this photo. Oh my God, I look like I have no clothes on.”
“Don’t be silly. Nothing is seen except your shoulders. You look like a million dollars, my dear. And look at that nose. You have perfect nose.”
Alyona grabbed Tara by her shoulders, shook her excitedly. “You are going places, girl. You are a model now.”
“You think Sanjay will see it?”
“Of course he will see it. A lot of other handsome, rich men will see it, too.” Alyona winked.
Tara cupped her cheeks, shook her head. “I still can’t believe how all this happened.” She hoped Sanjay would see her, looking alluring. She tried her best to make that happen. When the same ad appeared in all the Indian publications in town, she picked up a copy of the largest circulated magazine, where her face stared out of the glossy back page. She laid the magazine on the coffee table. She agonized over whether she ought to leave it backside up. Would that seem too obvious? A tug-of-war ensued, in which humility finally triumphed over vanity. She left the magazine face up, but cleared her coffee table of recent issues of Time. Surely, Sanjay would pick it up, read it, then turn over to look at the back. Surely, he would.
That morning, at the institute, Samuel had been a little more attentive toward her, turning in her direction often during class, smiling widely, even a little lustily, said the girls afterward. If Samuel’s attention embarrassed her, there was more to come at the Indian mall, where people turned around to look at her a second time.
“We are in the company of Atlanta’s celebrity,” said Anita. “Soon people will be asking you for your autograph.”
“Stop,” Tara laughed. An elderly man sitting adjacent to them at the food court held up the back page of the magazine for the girls to see.
“You are in the magazine,” he said loudly, pointing to the page, causing everybody else within hearing range to look in their direction. He grinned broadly.
“Old man is letching after you,” whispered Anita. The girls broke into peals of laughter. Tara’s cheeks turned warm. She kept her gaze on her plate through the rest of the meal. This was all so unreal.
Not that she ever wanted or expected Hollywood to come calling, but the attention felt so good. She desperately wanted Sanjay to see the advertisement, preferably on the billboard, where she looked larger than life.
He did. On a Thursday afternoon. Tara, who had just reached home from the institute, was warming up a Lean Cuisine sandwich in the microwave for lunch. The girls had decided not to go to the Indian mall that day because Shyamala’s daughter was sick, so she had to rush home after class. Tara thought she heard the creak of the front door, then footsteps in the corridor. She stood still, listening, preparing to take flight into her room. But he was at the open kitchen doorway in no time, blocking it with his towering presence. He looked ominous, furrowed brows on a dark face, arms by his side, fingers curled tightly into his palms.
“Why are you on the billboard?”
She should have been thrilled that he had finally seen her in her glamour avatar, but the hiss in his voice caused her heart to flutter nervously.
“I was selected to model for Raj Jewelers.”
“Did it occur to you to ask me first?”
Tara looked away. She could think of several sharply worded retorts, but none came to her lips. She shook her head.
He took a few steps forward and loomed above her.
“You filthy whore, you posed nude on a billboard? Are you
that desperate for attention?”
Tara closed her eyes. Indignation welled inside her. “I was not nude. You are just angry because I look more beautiful than your whore.”
She heard him suck in air; a second later, a sharp shooting pain spread across her right cheek. She reeled, almost lost her balance in shock. He had actually struck her.
“Don’t ever call her that again.” He was a few inches away from her, a corner of his mouth dribbling fury. She clutched the edge of the counter for support, held the other hand over her burning cheek. She had never seen so much anger on his face before.
“Liz broke up with me today because of you and your filthy advertisement.”
“Was she jealous?” She looked at him squarely.
She felt another blow, this one was more vicious; it made contact across her ear and temple. She winced in pain, her ear rang, eyes watered. She looked at him again. He trembled in rage, yet her anger was stronger than her fear of him.
“The guys got talking about the billboard, and Avinash Godbole who had seen you at Target congratulated me, said he had seen my wife on the billboard—and Liz was right there. Right there. There was no getting away from it.”
“So, Liz didn’t know your wife’s in America and living with you? Too bad.” Tara laughed hysterically. She sounded, to her ears, like the hyenas from Lion King. “So, your double life got busted, huh?” She bent over in pain as she felt the impact of his shoe on her abdomen, then another. A series of blows rained on her face and head; she wiped the moistness off her upper lip and saw blood on her hand.
Suddenly, it dawned on her. She could die right there, a victim of Sanjay’s rage if she didn’t get away. She made a dash to the front door, tried to unlock it, but he was right behind her. He yanked her hand from the knob, twisted her arm until she screamed in pain.
“You are not leaving now. I am not done yet,” he barked.
“Sanjay, please. Don’t hit me, please,” she pleaded. “How is it my fault if Liz found out?”