Invisible Lives

by Anjali Banerjee

  “Come on—let’s go. Your lips are blue,” Nick says.

  Sean wouldn’t have cared if I was cold. He would’ve told me to slap on more lipstick.

  When we get back to the car, I find I don’t want to leave just yet. “What about that tearoom across the street? Why don’t we get a coffee?”

  “Are you allowed to fraternize with the help?” Nick gives me another half smile, and I’m blushing but hoping he can’t tell in this wind.

  The tea room is small, intimate, and noisy, and we’re squished at a round corner table near a glass case full of cinnamon rolls and scones. “The smell in here—it’s heavenly,” I say.

  “Reminds me of my mother’s baking,” Nick says.

  The warm air thaws me while outside the wind whips up to a screech.

  “So tell me about your guy in India,” Nick says over coffee. “Is this an arranged deal too?”

  I look at Nick, at the rugged lines of his profile, the strong jaw. “Arranged marriages have been working in India for generations.”

  “And young brides get burned and disfigured if they don’t pay enough dowry money to the man’s family,” he says. “I read about this stuff in the papers.”

  The foam bubbles make a renewed appearance. I become hyperaware of Nick’s body beside me, the scent of his aftershave and an underlying masculine smell. A curious fluttering begins in the center of my belly.

  “Bride burning still happens,” I say. “But not everywhere, and not in enlightened families.”

  “This guy in India—is he enlightened then?”

  “All I know is that he comes from a good family, has a good job, and he’s Bengali. He speaks my mother’s language—”

  “What about your language, Lakshmi? Why does your mother’s language matter so much?”

  “I suppose we are traditional in that way. Ma’s been waiting to tell our extended family that I’ve finally found the right guy. They keep pestering her about having an unmarried daughter.”

  “Families don’t know everything,” he says. “Neither do mothers.”

  “Mine do!”

  His laughter has a bitter edge. “Wake up, there’s a world out there, and you gotta live in it. Not with your whole family.”

  “Family is the most important thing in the world,” I say, and that’s when the room goes dark. The whir of the coffee machine stops abruptly, there’s a popping sound in a back room, and somebody says, “Oh, shit.”

  “What’s going on?” I say, then notice that although the sun is setting, there are no lights anywhere on the street.

  “The power’s out!” a woman says.

  People are talking excitedly and in that instant, Nick moves close to me and his lips brush mine in the darkness. Or am I imagining things? I’m mesmerized, points of crazy electricity buzzing in my mind, short-circuiting every thread of thought. I can’t see a thing, and then Nick is lifting me to my feet, his arms on mine, taking my elbow. The smell of him is so close, the scent of his aftershave and an underlying scent all his own, a mixture of soap and evergreen.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.” His hand is on my waist as he steers me to the door and then back to the car.

  Fifteen

  Monday morning at the shop, I can’t dispel the feeling of Nick’s lips brushing mine. On the way home from Port Gamble, we chatted about superficial subjects, while the kiss hovered like a secret balloon between us. And what of Pooja? Ma said that she went through with the wedding rehearsal but wept while repeating her vows.

  Today Pooja arrives at work in cotton shirt and jeans, surrounded by quiet contemplation. I want to ask all sorts of questions, and I finally corner her in the office as she’s coming out of the bathroom. “So spill, Pooja. What’s up?”

  “I’ve been accepted to the University in San Francisco. I’m going.”

  “Pooja, that’s fabulous. But what about Dipak?”

  “We discussed everything—and oh, Lakshmi, he must really love me.” She breaks into a smile. “He’s going to join me when he finishes his studies here. We’ll be apart for only a few months.”

  I rest my hands on her shoulders. “I knew all would work out for the best.” A soft cloud of promise floats up from her.

  “What about you, Lakshmi? You went off with that cute driver—what did you two do? Did you, you know—”

  “Pooja, it was nothing like that. I agreed to go to Nick’s sister’s birthday party Saturday night. I promised to help her try on saris.”

  “Oh, you’ll have fun. He’s picking you up?”

  I nod, dismissing my interlude with him as temporary insanity. This Saturday will be a job, all business. But the week shuffles by so slowly. Asha does not return, but she yells orders over the phone, keeping us busy. Ma prepares for her weekend playing bridge with her good friend, Sonia, in Kent. We’ll close the shop early Saturday, and she’ll spend the night at Sonia’s and return Sunday.

  My Thursday lunch with Nisha and Mitra takes forever to arrive. Nisha’s in a soft black suit, her hair done up in a bun.

  Decked out in a loud orange sweater and a tight black skirt, Mitra chews her salad with gusto. “Are you ready to meet Mr. Ravi?” she asks me.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” I think of the brief messages I’ve traded with Ravi Ganguli all week. I’m getting to know him from a distance, email by email, photo by photo. He already feels like a friend.

  “How’s the big Bollywood wedding coming along?” Nisha asks.

  I stir my lemonade with a straw. “Asha’s demanding. I got to see her on the set. She wasn’t actually filming. They do a lot of waiting around, preparing the set, and there are way more people involved than I ever imagined.”

  “I read in Star magazine that her marriage to Vijay was arranged,” Nisha said. “They’re deeply in love. She expounds upon the virtues of arranged marriages. See, they do work. Mine worked, and Asha’s happy. So I hope you’re not getting cold feet.”

  “I don’t have cold feet!” I say. “Besides, Ravi and I haven’t actually met. I haven’t decided.”

  Mitra pats my arm, her eyes shining with hope. “Lakshmi, I have to thank you. I took your advice and went to see my parents. It was really hard to talk to my father, but I was glad I went. He looked so fragile.” Her voice breaks, and I catch a glimpse of her father, who is made of wrinkled skin and bone in a white dhoti punjabi, the pants gently flaring at the ankles, his feet clad in brown chappals. After twenty-five years in America, he still looks as if he’s just stepped off the plane from India and hasn’t had time to iron his shirt.

  “I’m proud of you, Mitra,” I say.

  “I invited them to my dance performance,” she says. “My father said nothing, but my mother said she would try to convince him to come. There’s something in that costume you gave me, a magic that gave me strength to face him again, even if he disapproves of me. I don’t know how much longer he has, and, well…” She gazes into her olives and onions.

  “He missed you, even if he doesn’t show it.” I take a bite of my veggie sandwich.

  “I wish I could see my father more often,” Nisha says, moving the stir-fried vegetables around on her plate. “I miss my parents terribly. They may come for a visit soon, when the weather gets hot in Delhi.”

  I see her running through the alley again, stopping at an apartment building and glancing up at a light in a window. Is this a memory of childhood? Was she playing a game? Hide-and-seek?

  “How’s Rakesh?” I ask her. “What about your trip to Baja?”

  “He’s on a business trip in San Diego. We postponed Baja to next month, maybe.”

  “He’ll postpone forever if you don’t pin him down,” Mitra says. “Tell him you’ll get a divorce—”

  “He’s a wonderful husband!” Nisha says. “I can’t imagine even considering a divorce. He gives me everything I ask for. He even cooks for me when he’s home, does the laundry, takes me out for dinner. He’s just terribly busy and I’m lonely. He’s so ambitious.
I want him around more often. He’s a workaholic, always has been.”

  “Then tell him,” Mitra says. “Tell him you need him at home.”

  A watery image flows toward me. Nisha’s climbing the steps of the apartment building, her knuckles white as they grip the railing. Then the image vanishes, her mind locking itself away.

  Sixteen

  Thursday evening, when I email Nisha about a sari she ordered, I get an automated reply saying she’s gone for three days. Did she finally get Rakesh to go to Baja?

  Friday slides by in slow motion, and late Saturday morning, Ma leaves the shop early for Sonia’s house in Kent. I have the jitters, knowing that Nick will soon arrive to take me to his sister’s party.

  Pooja and I close the shop around noon. I quickly let my hair down, remove my glasses, and apply a thin layer of pink lipstick. I put on a soft, mauve sari and gather up a few other saris, petticoats, and cholis to take with me. “Take the organza saris,” Pooja says. She’s the only other person left in the store. “Women always like those.”

  She strides to the front door, ready to lock up. Then she freezes, backs up. “Holy smokes,” she whispers. “Is that him? He looks different. He looks—oh my.”

  She’s right. It’s Nick, nearly at the door. He’s in jeans, black boots, an open jacket, and a sweater, the rough lines of his face shadowed beneath the streetlights. There’s something about him—a suggestion of all the things I long to reach.

  A lump of sheer terror—and a great thrill—rises in my throat. My lips tingle with the memory of the phantom kiss in the darkness.

  Pooja opens the door, converses with him in a hushed tone. I give her a don’t leave look, but she’s already waving at me, out the door and disappearing.

  Nick’s piercing blue eyes cut laser swaths through me. As he strides over, the kameezes blush and gather for whispered conversations. I imagine the saris slipping off the rack to wrap around his feet.

  He takes my hand, my fingers lost in his. “Hey, Lakshmi,” he says then lets go of my hand, but his gaze doesn’t waver. “You look beautiful. That’s a…silk sari you’re wearing, right?”

  “You got it right. Thanks.” A soft heat spreads across my cheeks.

  “Amazing. Is that just one piece or many?”

  “It’s a long stretch of unstitched fabric, like this.” I take a silver silk sari off the shelf. “Indians believe that unstitched fabric is the most pure. Untouched.”

  “I like pure, untouched.” Nick gives me a look, runs his fingers along the cloth. “So soft, like a woman’s skin.”

  My breathing becomes shallow. “The story goes, the sari was born on the loom of a master weaver, who dreamed of women, of their shimmering tears, the drape of their hair, the rainbow colors of their many moods, their soft touch. And he kept weaving yards and yards of fabric—”

  “So the sari is a woman.” Nick picks up the silk and runs it through his fingers, stopping to capture the endpiece.

  “Yes, I suppose. And when he’d finished he kept smiling. The weaver had created a pure woven fabric that embodied every aspect of the feminine.”

  Nick’s watching me, his gaze traveling down to my bare navel above the sari hem.

  “Look, we should leave now.” I stride around, turning out the lights. “I have to set the alarm on the front door. We can go out the back way. I just need to use the restroom.” I rush to take a few minutes in the restroom, to catch my breath and my bearings. Okay, this will be a business evening, an outing to help Nick’s sister. So why am I breaking out in a sweat, and why are the invisible bubbles sprouting around my head?

  When I come out, he’s waiting in the hall. Just then, the doorknob jiggles. I hear a set of keys drop to the pavement, a muttered curse, someone picking up the keys.

  “Someone’s coming,” I whisper. “Maybe they forgot something.”

  Ma, Mr. Basu, Pooja, and I are the only people who have keys. I yank Nick’s sleeve and pull him back into the office, into the closet with the coats. If Ma is here, I don’t want her to find me alone with the American driver. She’s traditional in that way. She won’t understand, even if I try to explain. I shut the closet door, leaving only a sliver-sized opening.

  My heart pounds. I try to keep the sari from rustling. Nick’s so close, I can feel the firm muscle of his arm, his pulse, the heat through his shirt.

  The back door opens, shuts. Cold air wafts in. Footsteps in the hall! Breathing.

  Through the opening in the closet, I see Ma rush into the office, bend to pick up her black handbag from her chair. A cloud of sandalwood scent drifts into my nose. Ma never uses perfume!

  “Ah, thank the gods, it was here,” she says. “I thought I’d lost it! Where was my head? We can’t go to Vancouver without my passport!” Ma, going to Vancouver?

  “Thanda lege jabey,” an affectionate voice says in Bengali.

  Mr. Basu walks in, all dressed up in a suit, his two hairs slicked back. Mr. Basu!

  “Oh, Sanjay!” Ma says. She and Mr. Basu step out into the hall, out of view, their shadows falling across the office carpet. I try to keep my breathing silent, but the blood rushes in my ears. Nick is still holding my hand. What are Ma and Mr. Basu doing together? Ma’s supposed to be with Sonia in Kent!

  Then the shadows blend together, and the smack of lips colliding in a noisy kiss. Mr. Basu moans, and Ma makes a funny strangled sound.

  Oh, no. Ma!

  “Oh, Sanjay!” Ma says again in a husky voice, and I hear clattering as something gets knocked over. They back up into the bathroom, and a bottle falls from the sink and lands with a thump.

  My heart races. The bathroom door slams, the giggling muffled inside. Ma screeches with laughter.

  I push open the closet. “We have to get out of here!” I whisper.

  Nick and I tiptoe down the hall and out the back door.

  Seventeen

  Nick brought a black BMW, not a limousine. I sit on a few CDs on the seat, maybe a box of tissues. There are hints of citrus and his metallic aftershave in the air. Ma’s perfume still lingers in my nose.

  Nick has his seat pushed all the way back to accommodate his legs. Long fingers curl over the steering wheel.

  I arrange the sari around me, pull the pallu tightly over my bare shoulders. I wish I’d brought a sweater.

  “I can’t believe it,” I say. “Ma and Mr. Basu!”

  “What’s wrong with the man? He seems cool to me.”

  “But she hates him! She always yells at him.” And he’s round!

  “A sign of true love.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me? Or anyone? Why didn’t I see this coming? The golden bubbles,” I say half to myself. “The yellow roses.”

  “Bubbles and roses? Is this Valentine’s Day?” He turns the car onto Main Street, past closed shops and the town hall.

  “I see them sometimes, I mean, thoughts coming out in bubbles and roses and things. You must think I’m crazy.”

  “I like crazy women.”

  Nick makes a smooth turn onto the waterfront road. The sky is a cloudless blue above us.

  “I see what’s important, what I need to see to make a difference—I feel so betrayed! I mean, how could she—”

  “Enjoy her life?”

  “No, no—that’s not what I mean at all. How could she sneak around? Mr. Basu is taking advantage of her.”

  “She’s a grown-up. She’s your mother, so you can’t imagine her having a life of her own, eh? I nearly hurled when I saw my mother in the nude master gardener calendar.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To raise funds for the county master gardeners, some of the members volunteer to be photographed nude in their gardens. It’s all tasteful—flowers strategically placed, but it’s really weird seeing your own mother that way. She’s a good-looking woman, mind you, but a son doesn’t want to see that. She posed behind her rusty wheelbarrow.”

  I can’t help laughing. “Your mom sounds like a lively character!”
/>   “So does yours, Lakshmi.”

  “Yes, but she’s lonely and vulnerable. My father was her only true love. Mr. Basu sees she’s lonely, and he pounced!”

  “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe she enjoys his company. Like you’re enjoying mine?” He raises an eyebrow at me.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Okay, I see your point.”

  “So what did that mean, what Mr. Basu said to your mother? At the store. Was that Bengali?”

  “Oh—” I make a sour face. I’m not sure I want to remember. “Thanda lege jabey. It means, ‘Careful, you’ll catch cold.’ Bengalis are known for wrapping themselves up at the slightest sign of cold. You might see a Bengali child wrapped in linen and wool, even on a warm summer day. It’s what Bengalis are most afraid of, catching cold. Even though they love to vacation in the mountains. Speaking of catching cold, would you mind stopping by my house so I can get a sweater?”

  “Sure thing.”

  When Nick steps into our house, the laws of physics change, altered by his breath. The strange heat between us dissipates in the ghostlike presence of my mother.

  “Cool place. Homey.” He follows me into the living room.

  “Please, sit down.” Suddenly I feel like a formal hostess.

  He sits on the couch, and Shiva promptly appears and settles in his lap. Nick strokes his fur and whispers to him in a secret language.

  “He never does that,” I say. “He never goes to a stranger like that.”

  “Animals like me.” He winks at me, and I blush.

  “I’ll be right back.” I rush off to my room, and when I return with a sweater, Nick’s scratching Shiva behind the ears. “What’s his name?”

  “Shiva. The girl is Parvati, Shiva’s consort in Hinduism. They’re eternal…lovers. But Parvati’s a bit shyer. She likes to hide.”

  “Let’s find her.” Nick puts Shiva gently on the floor and goes straight to the cabinet above the fridge, opens it, and there’s Parvati, blinking out at us. She lets out a plaintive meow and Nick brings her out, cradling her as he carries her to the floor.