by Divya Sood
I watched darkness settle over everything as I sipped my coffee. I felt uneasy and wished the summer had been longer. I settled my gaze on two boys kicking a soccer ball. They were in the distance, the ball looking small and insignificant from where I was. I wondered if they ever thought of impending darkness or of how things are different in winter months. I watched the ball travel back and forth. I looked at my wristwatch and decided to go home. He would still be there but it was my home more than it would ever be his. I looked away from the ball and finished my coffee.
As I walked home, I became agitated at the thought of having to speak to Abhay. I didn’t like his demeanor and I knew, for sure, that he was disingenuous because his shoes were never polished. I wondered if there was a possibility that Anjali might be interested in Abhay but I shelved the thought away. She couldn’t be interested in him for many reasons the first of which was that she was in love with me as she had said herself. She also did not date men. And before Abhay, I had never suspected that a male friend in her life was any more than a friend or a nuisance. But something about him alerted me and raised questions in me that I didn’t necessarily want to ask myself. Perhaps after the shock of Danny, I didn’t put anything past anybody. If Vanessa could allow a friend to fuck her, why not Anjali? After all, he had been there for her during her accident. Maybe she felt she owed him whatever he wanted.
I stopped before I made the turn towards Anjali’s apartment. I leaned against the brick façade of an insurance company and breathed. I watched people walk by, some quickly, some taking all the luxury time had to give. I didn’t want to go home. For the first time in a very long time, I admitted to myself that I didn’t really have a home. I had a situational partner to whom I had promised my loyalty because my betrayal had caused her to be dramatic, drink and walk in front of a taxicab with bad brakes. I missed Vanessa and the lightness that we could share. The days I had shared with her in Philly stayed etched like art in my mind. The days I was spending with Anjali each resembled one another and although they had their moments, that’s all there was that life had offered me since I had come back. I looked at the sky, a pale haze of dusk, and I wanted nothing more than to go to Central Park.
I turned the corner and turned my mind away from everything but finding Abhay laughing at his own jokes, sitting on the couch I was using as a bed. When I reached upstairs and turned the key, the apartment smelled like Chinese food. I closed the door behind me and Abhay looked at me, chopsticks held mid-air. He was sitting beside Anjali.
“Hey there, Jasbir.”
Why he still called me that, I didn’t know. He irritated me more than I ever realized anyone could.
“Hey. And it’s Jess.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Jasbir is just such a beautiful name.”
“Yeah.”
I looked at Anjali as she moved her rice around before putting a spoonful in her mouth. She was, I was sure, looking for the little pieces of egg. She loved the egg more than the chicken or shrimp or pork that was in the rice. I smiled despite myself.
“Anjali, how are you?”
“Hungry.”
“You should have told me. I would have gotten you food.”
“I’m here,” Abhay said as if I had been speaking to him.
I looked at him and wished he could understand that my gaze said, “Fuck you now leave” not “thank you please stay.”
“I wasn’t hungry then. But it’s okay. We got some food delivered from the new place a block down.”
So technically, Abhay hadn’t gotten her food, he had merely opened the door and, my guess was, tried to impress Anjali by paying for her Chinese food. Did he not know that Dr. Chopra’s practice was one of the most well-known practices in Manhattan? Chinese food would not make her melt. Neither would his visits. I resolved that I would not leave the next time he came over and eventually, I would tell him that he need not come because he was doing nothing but trying to get in Anjali’s pants and I disliked him.
“Jess, you okay?” Anjali asked.
“Yeah.”
“So, Jasbir, I mean Jess, tell me about yourself,” Abhay said as he stuffed his chopsticks and some chicken into his mouth.
“Why?” I asked.
He looked at me blankly.
“What kind of medicine do you practice?” I asked as I sat on the couch across from Anjali and him.
He swallowed. His Adam’s apple rose and fell back into place again.
“I’m in orthopedic surgery.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“It isn’t until one day, you run into an old friend and renew what you thought you’d lost,” he said.
I looked at Anjali and she averted her eyes. If there was a way that she could seek retribution for all the times she had looked up at breakfast to find a bedmate of mine helping herself to some coffee, this was it. I kept looking in her direction, waiting for her to look my way. She finally turned slightly and caught my gaze. She shrugged her shoulders lightly as if to say it wasn’t her fault that his dick was hard for her.
“Well, this has been fun,” I said. “But I do have things to do.”
“Anjali tells me you’re not working at the moment,” he said.
“I’m working on a project,” I said.
I knew I sounded stupid. Here I was, in the company of two medical doctors and I was insisting that I had a profession. Did I really believe that somehow my creating stories about women I’d love to fuck came close to what Anjali and Abhay did in their day-to-day routine? I felt small and wanted to slip through a crack in the wall so I could escape on the other side and fly away. I looked from him to her and back at him.
“Well, I was just suggesting to Anjali that if you wanted to do some office work, I could arrange it for you.”
His tone suggested that he was offering me a mine full of gold.
“I’m okay,” I said. “If I want work, I’ll return to where I was, thanks.”
“What did you do exactly?”
“I sold glasses for a living.”
“Eyeglasses?”
“No,” I wanted to say, “I sold drinking glasses door- to- door you jackass.”
Instead I said, “Yes, eyeglasses.”
“I need a checkup,” he said, “I can’t read as well anymore.”
“Yes, well when you get old and gray, these things happen,” I said.
“Jess!” Anjali almost screamed.
“What? It’s the truth.”
“So why did you quit?” Abhay asked.
“Because I felt like it.”
I got up and walked to my room. I felt Anjali watching me and I wondered if she was enjoying the evening. I was the first to admit that I deserved to feel insignificant and unimportant. I deserved all the revenge she could possibly deliver. But did it have to be with Dr. I-Don’t-Bother-Polishing-My-Shoes?
I opened the paisley cover and leafed through the journal as I settled onto the bed.
After all the nights I’d spent on the couch, the bed felt foreign. Anjali insisted on sleeping on the couch. Her reasoning was that she didn’t want visitors, which I interpreted to mean Abhay, in her bedroom and she didn’t feel like getting up every time someone stopped by. I accepted the excuse although I would much rather have slept in the bed. For someone who bought the best and latest of everything, I wondered why Anjali’s couch didn’t pull out.
I scribbled Abhay’s words across the back of a page that was nearly filled with writing:
Renew what you thought you’d lost.
I lay back and wondered what I had lost and what I might have gained in the past year. I had lost my ability or energy to hook up randomly and frequently. I didn’t know where the drive went but I hadn’t gone in search of a bedmate in a very long time, ever since I’d met Vanessa. Was that because I liked Vanessa or because circumstances had been such that I couldn’t have? I definitely could have. During all the time Abhay admired Anjali and tried to impress her with his stupidity, I could have gone out for th
e night. But I hadn’t.
I took the yellow folder where I kept the story that I had begun a few weeks ago. It was a rough draft and I read it to get a sense of what story I was trying to create. I read through the pages and felt nothing. It was dry and brittle and had no heart. How could I write a story full of heart when my own heart was so jaded that nothing excited me anymore? I sat and looked through the journal as I did every night and I was reminded of Vanessa’s laughter. I remembered the arch of her hand as she held a pen and wrote across the pages. I remembered the look she held when she read her words to me, telling me that someday, she hoped it was she who inspired me.
I lay back and closed my eyes, wishing there was something that would move me. I imagined being in the same place next year, thinking the same thoughts. I heard laughter and imagined what he might have said to make her laugh. I disentangled her laughter from his and listened to the sounds of her amusement. I remembered the first few months that I had moved in, when I was oblivious as to how strange our situation would eventually become. Anjali and I had laughed often back then. We had enjoyed this apartment and this closeness. We had not tainted our enjoyment with streaks of desire or nights of senseless fucking. Back then, we had enjoyed the simple things devoid of desire and love and sex.
I must have fallen asleep. All I know is that I awoke to Anjali shaking me awake, hunched over her crutches, standing and waiting for me to open my eyes.
“Jess.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay, baby?”
I sat up and leaned back against the headboard.
“You want to sit down?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
She maneuvered herself carefully so she could sit on the edge of the bed. I heard her wince and realized that she had probably concentrated so hard on making sure her leg was comfortable that she had forgotten about her ribs.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You were acting kind of strange with Abhay. Anything you want to talk about?”
“I don’t like him,” I said simply.
Anjali smiled. She looked amazingly beautiful as if the last few months had enhanced her beauty. She used to look pretty but empty to me. At that moment, she seemed full of all that I could ever desire. I thought of Abhay and it made me sad as if sharing her with him was making her slowly seep away from me.
“Jess, you know I love you. You know that.”
“Then tell him that.”
“You know I can’t do that. I can’t do that. But how are you even going to think anything’s going on between us? He might like me but I don’t like him. If he were a hot Indian woman named Jasbir Banerjee, then maybe. If he had that mix of Punjabi rawness and Bengali intellect, I would jump his bones. But he’s just a dick lost in expensive clothing.”
I laughed. I held her face in my palms and kissed her with gratitude. When I pulled back, I kissed her neck with tender butterfly kisses. She arched her head back and made sounds of pleasure in the depths of her throat.
“I love you so much, jaan.”
“I’m here,” I said, “Tell him not to come here anymore.”
“Is that what you want, baby? Does he bother you that much?”
“Yes. I just don’t like him.”
I wanted to tell Anjali that he was insincere because he did not polish his shoes but I didn’t think she would understand. I looked into her eyes and felt myself starting to cry. I was crying because I felt threatened and I knew that. But whether I was threatened because I was scared Abhay would win Anjali’s heart in some bizarre way or I was threatened because I felt I had lost control of every situation in my life, I did not know.
“Baby, don’t. I’ll tell him that you’re here and you’ll take care of me. I promise.”
“And I will take care of you. I will. Why does he have to be here?”
“He doesn’t. And he won’t.”
She kissed me softly on my forehead. Of all the places Anjali ever kissed me, her kisses upon my forehead lingered the longest. I kissed her where I loved to kiss her, at the corner of her eye, close to her temple. I undressed her slowly, despite her injuries and despite my hesitation. I was gentle and made sure I didn’t press on her as I kissed her body. I made love to her again and again that night and when I came, it was the sweetest release I had ever known.
As we fell asleep on the bed, Anjali stroked my cheek with the back of her hand.
“Baby?” she said quietly.
“Yes, my love?”
“I miss my life. I miss going to work. I miss going to the park. I miss going out to dinner. And I’d kill for a martini.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “This is all my fault. But I’ll take you everywhere once you’re a little better.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
“Well it kind of is.”
“I wasn’t blaming you.”
“I know.”
We were silent, the air filled with guilt and forgiveness and sadness all at the same time.
“Here’s an idea,” I finally said, “What if we rent a wheelchair and take you to Central Park tomorrow?”
As soon as I made the suggestion I realized that maybe Central Park was a foolish idea. Would we stand in front of Vanessa and her photos and admire them together? What had I been thinking?
“I don’t want to go out like this, Jess,” Anjali said, “My eyebrows aren’t even done. And besides I don’t like Central Park.”
I laughed so hard I almost fell off the bed.
“So what you’re worried about is people seeing your eyebrows?”
She placed her hand on my chest and her head at my shoulder.
“Not just that. I just feel ugly and disgusting. I don’t even know what you see when you look at me anymore.”
I kissed the bruise on her forehead.
“I see the same beautiful Anjali I have always known. With hairy eyebrows.”
I looked at her to see if she would laugh or smile. She didn’t. I kissed her temple.
She didn’t move.
“So why do you dislike Central Park?” I asked.
“It’s too pretentious for me.”
I laughed a little.
“It is,” she said. “I like Washington Square. It’s intimate and I feel safe and at home.”
“So if you should ever get lost, Anjali Chopra, I will find you at your fountain at Washington Square and I will take you home with me.”
“Promise.”
“I promise, jaan,” I said as I kissed her lips.
I don’t think I had ever felt safer and if there was ever a time that I realized how much I loved Anjali, it was then. I learned that night how and why I clung to her. Anjali made me feel safer than anyone I knew, even Vanessa. Anjali promised me without ever telling me that all she offered me was unconditional. It may not have been fair to her but it was a decision that she made and I felt. There had never been a time that Anjali had held pushed me away regardless of what I had or had not done. It was easy to take advantage of such great love and I had. As I held her close to me and closed my eyes, I felt lucky to be there with her and for the first time since knowing her, believed in the possibility that she could be more than my situational partner.
Chapter Thirty
True to her word, Anjali spoke to Abhay and he didn’t come by anymore. I honored my word and stayed with her all the time. I never left her for anything and although I had thought I would feel stifled, I felt relaxed and comfortable. I helped her to the bathroom and made coffee for us in the mornings. I read the The New York Times as she watched reruns of Law and Order. Since Abhay was not interfering in our lives any longer and she could maneuver better with the crutches, we moved into the bedroom and stayed there most of the day.
I became accustomed to staying with Anjali. She could move enough to go to physical therapy four times a week and I accompanied her there and back in a taxicab. Once we had a Punjabi driver who wouldn’t stop hitting on me. Anjali grabbed my collar and ki
ssed me for what felt like eternity. He was quiet the rest of the ride and did not complain when she made me pay him exactly the fair minus any tip he may have gotten.
“Asshole,” she said.
I kissed her softly and grazed my lips across her face and her neck.
“Bet he had a hard on,” I said.
“That just was not necessary,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“Not what you said. You’re probably right. Just the way he spoke to you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I helped her up the curb.
There was a small clean coffee shop across the massive building where Anjali went for physical therapy. I spent all my afternoons there while I waited for her, before I went and helped her back into a taxicab and then home. I sat at the café every other day and ordered the same skim latte. I wanted to start to write and I looked at all the attempts that I had made but they did not satisfy me. I flipped through the journal every time I sat there, stopping at different places and allowing the words to marinate within me. I thought that maybe something would set off a train of thoughts that would allow me to create something that excited me. And although I found a lot of things that I liked the sound and meaning of, there was nothing that moved me to create.
I wondered where all my excitement had gone. I felt constipated with words and I yearned for some release. I wanted a catharsis of sorts. I wanted to rid myself of whatever it was that was rising within me but stuck inside me. But those days at the café nothing came to me that allowed me to set myself in motion.
After an hour and a half, I went and helped Anjali to a taxicab, stopped and ordered four hotdogs from the vendor around the corner and asked the driver to head towards the apartment. We ate hotdogs on the way home, making sure not to spill anything in the cab although it really wouldn’t have affected the smells or cleanliness of the cab anyway. From those trips I learned that Anjali didn’t like ketchup but liked mustard. She preferred her hotdogs with mustard and sauerkraut while I liked mine with sauerkraut and onions. It was a habit of hers that would stay with me and even now if ever I order two hotdogs, I have the urge to order two more according to Anjali’s specifications.