Enchanting Lily
Page 1
PRAISE FOR
Haunting Jasmine
“The kind of book that makes me remember all the reasons I love to read. Anjali Banerjee writes in luminous prose about the deepest secrets of a woman’s heart. With a freshness of voice and a playfulness of the imagination, she brings her quirky characters to life. The gorgeous and multilayered language illuminates a story that will haunt the reader long after the final page is turned.”
—Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author
“Part love story, part ghost story, and all in all a thoroughly entertaining tale that will leave readers happy and satisfied by the surprising end. Banerjee intertwines traditions of her Bengali ancestry throughout the story, giving the tale an exotic twist that is as spicy and comforting as the delicious Indian dishes that are so appetizingly described. This is a book destined to become a perennial favorite with romance readers as well as fans of otherworldly tales.”
—Las Vegas Review-Journal
“Banerjee’s opulent prose is as colorful as Auntie’s cherished keepsakes, and gently ironic supernatural elements…add dimension to a romance that spins refreshingly into a quirky, surprising denouement.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A literary ghost story, a gentle romance, and an homage to the Bengali culture as transplanted to our region. It is a subtle and encouraging book.”
—The Bellingham Herald
“The recent spate of stories about life in America from the perspective of second-generation immigrants is wonderful, and Banerjee’s contribution is a welcome one…Jasmine’s interactions with the world, and even with the spirit world, are believable. The paranormal aspects of the novel are creative and fun.”
—RT Book Reviews
FURTHER PRAISE FOR
ANJALI BANERJEE AND HER NOVELS
“Fresh and highly entertaining. I loved every word.”
—Susan Elizabeth Phillips, New York Times bestselling author
“A masala-scented Like Water for Chocolate.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Delectable…recounted with hilarity and warmth.”
—The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“This book has a romantic, magical quality.”
—Booklist
“Fascinating, insightful, and delightful. The descriptions shimmer and sparkle. I intend to rush out and buy a copy for every woman I know.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author
“The author’s hip-hot style combines breezy storytelling, wry humor, and just enough poignant sauce in a romantic comedy equal to Bend It Like Beckham.”
—The Seattle Times
“A Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Monsoon Wedding–style escapade.”
—Publishers Weekly
Titles by Anjali Banerjee
HAUNTING JASMINE
ENCHANTING LILY
Enchanting Lily
ANJALI BANERJEE
BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2012 by Anjali Banerjee.
Excerpt from Haunting Jasmine copyright © 2010 by Anjali Banerjee.
Cover design by Laura Drew Design.
Cover photo by Shutterstock.
Text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / August 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Banerjee, Anjali.
Enchanting Lily / Anjali Banerjee.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-101-58125-4
1. Widows—Fiction. 2. Northwest, Pacific—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.A6355E53 2012
813’.6—dc23
2011046325
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
In memory of
Andrei I. Bazdyrev and Byron Sacre
The past scampers like an alley cat through the present, leaving the paw prints of memories scattered helter-skelter.
—CHARLES DE LINT, The Onion Girl
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Acknowledgments
Haunting Jasmine
Chapter One
Kitty
This morning, I take my usual route to the Fairport Inn for breakfast, enjoying the sweet smells of autumn leaves, salty ocean, and exquisite wild salmon. Here on our misty island, the day is beginning to hum. Quaint shops are opening their doors; proprietors are setting up
hand-painted signs on the sidewalks. Chickadees and juncos flit in the nearby trees. As always, I take the shortcut through the overgrown yard of a yellow cottage, the empty one with a sign in front, but this time I stop for a closer look.
I sense that someone will soon arrive on the ferry from Seattle, someone who belongs in the cottage, someone who needs me. On this island, she will seek her own island, a small castle of loneliness away from the world. It won’t be long now, so I crouch in the garden to wait.
Lily
Lily drove north from San Francisco in search of a dream. The farther she traveled, the more the possibilities unfurled before her. She began to envision a future beyond the heaviness of loss, and yet she could still feel her husband, Josh, sitting next to her, a faint reminder of the life she was leaving behind. On this route, he would’ve planned each detour, each stop, each hotel. She imagined his head bent forward over a crinkled map, making sure they stayed on track.
But now she could do anything she wanted. She could lose her way. She could take a dirt road on a whim. She could disappear and nobody would know. She relished this new freedom, and yet she felt unmoored, anonymous. Who would care if she veered off a cliff? Her body might lie at the bottom of a ravine, decaying for weeks before anyone found her. The truck would rust and eventually fall apart.
She wondered if she had become invisible, a solitary young widow without community or connections, heading toward an uncertain fate. The farthest north she’d ever been was Seattle—she and Josh had taken a plane. The captain had pointed out Crater Lake, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Rainier, all tiny and manageable from a height of thirty thousand feet.
But this time, Lily stuck to the road, the terrain rushing by in life-sized color. She raced through the flat agricultural fields of central California, stopped to hike in the cool shadows of the redwood trees near the Oregon border. She took comfort in knowing that this ancient forest had existed virtually unchanged for millions of years; that it would likely remain long after her death. There was something immense and unknowable in nature, a mysterious truth that put her grief in perspective.
As she navigated the steep mountain highways of southern Oregon, she thought Josh would’ve loved the breathtaking views of Mount Shasta, the descent into the lush valleys, the density of firs. No longer bound by the material world, he could follow her into restaurants and parks, rest stops and motel rooms. He was everywhere and nowhere.
In an Ashland hotel, late at night, she awoke to his breath on her cheek. But when she turned over, she touched only the pillow, and the familiar pain settled into her chest. How could she do this alone? An experience had never seemed real unless she shared it with Josh. Had her existence become ephemeral? She half expected to lose her concrete sense of self, to become a fog that drifted across the planet.
Where was she going? When did she plan to stop? She sought the perfect destination, the kind of idyllic getaway that she and Josh had often discussed. She would know the town when she saw it, and she figured the Toyota Tacoma could reliably carry her there, even with the trailer hitched to the back. Inside the cargo space, she’d packed her most precious possessions, the ones she couldn’t bring herself to sell at the estate sale: Josh’s best costume creations and the dozens of vintage treasures she’d collected over the years, from Chanel pullovers to Halston dresses, Escada purses to rhinestone jewelry.
The truck and trailer carried her all the way to Seattle and then on the ferry to Shelter Island, a green dot of rain-soaked darkness in the middle of the Puget Sound. She expected to drive through wilderness and catch another boat and then another, but as she descended the ramp into the quaint town of Fairport, the island’s main community, a peculiar thing happened. Time slowed. A silver mist crept in from the ocean, gradually clearing to reveal cast-iron lampposts lining the waterfront road, giant old poplar trees, and moss growing through cracks in the redbrick sidewalks. Rose and lavender bushes swayed in a soft autumn breeze. Slanted sunlight lent an otherworldly glow to the rows of tiny shops, each nestled in an antique brick building or converted Craftsman-style cottage.
She drove past Island Eye Care, Classic Cycle, Le Pichet Restaurant, and Jasmine’s Bookstore perched on a hillside in a burnt umber and white Victorian.
Josh would’ve appreciated this old-world charm—islanders strolling along at a leisurely pace, enjoying a pristine morning. A woman in a tight blue jogging suit walked her golden retriever, the dog stopping to mark every lamppost. A white-haired couple strolled along, looking in windows, slurping from coffee cups. That was what Lily needed—caffeine.
She parked on Harborside Road and bought a mocha at the Java Hut, a warm shop in which watercolor paintings of the ocean and mountains adorned the walls. Locals in flannel shirts, jeans, and knit caps chatted at small tables, and the smells of coffee and baked goods swirled in the air. She imagined sitting by the window and reading for hours.
The barista, a handsome teenager with blue-black hair, lean muscle pulling at his T-shirt, and a tattoo of an anchor on his neck, gave her a friendly smile and put a chocolate espresso bean on the lid of her cup.
“The magic bean,” he said, handing her the paper cup.
The chocolate was beginning to melt on the lid. “What does it do?” she asked. “Does it grow a beanstalk?”
“You eat the bean, and anything can happen. Your wildest dreams fulfilled.” He gave her a few quarters in change, which she dropped into the tip jar.
“I’m not sure I have a wildest dream.” Maybe she could eat the bean and Josh would materialize, alive and well.
“Come on, everyone does. Eat it and make a wish.”
“Tall order for a tiny bean, don’t you think? Fulfilling a grand, impossible wish?”
He draped a dish towel over his shoulder. “Hey, there’s no such thing as impossible. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“I guess it’s obvious.” She felt her face flushing, and she instinctively patted her hair, although she could easily have been the boy’s mother. What did she look like to him? Disheveled and crazy, probably. An almost forty-year-old woman with crow’s-feet and a wild, wavy mane streaked with gray. Full lips, smudged mascara. She wasn’t fashionable in her travel clothes—wrinkled sweater, faded jeans, and running shoes. Who could know that she harbored vintage Sue Wong and Valentino in the trailer?
He tilted his head to the side. “You just have the visitor kind of look. Enjoy your stay!” He turned to the next customer, a husky man in a rain jacket. The tide of noise rushed in—laughter, the buzz of conversation, the click of laptop keys.
She hurried out to the truck and sat in the driver’s seat, not starting the engine. In the rearview mirror, she tried to see what had given her away. She detected no obvious signs on her face. Maybe it was just that everyone knew everyone here, but nobody knew her.
She ate the crunchy, bitter coffee bean and licked the sweet, melted chocolate off her fingers. Feeling a bit silly, she waited a moment for the magic to take effect, but nothing happened. So she started the truck and pulled out into the empty street. How relaxing, she thought, not to worry about traffic.
She’d nearly reached the end of Harborside Road when she saw it—a Victorian cottage the color of churned butter, with white shutters, blue porch, brick chimney, and cracked sidewalk leading up through an overgrown yard. A Fairport Realty sign read For Sale, Residential/Commercial.
As she parked at the curb, her heartbeat kicked up. This was it—the cottage of her imagination. She pictured vintage black dresses on a carousel, jewelry in a glass case, silk scarves displayed on an antique table. But perhaps someone had already tried opening a shop and had failed—hence the empty rooms and neglected garden. She thought she saw a white cat crouched in the grass, but when she parked and got out of the truck, the cat had disappeared.
She traipsed through the yard and peered into the windows. On the downstairs level were two front rooms, sparsely furnished with an antique red armchair, a rugged oak table. The wa
lls were cream-colored with pale blue trim and painted ivy vines. Blue! Josh’s favorite color. A wide hallway led back to a narrow kitchen. The floors were a dark burnished hardwood.
She walked around the house to peer into the kitchen window. The previous tenants had left behind a pine breakfast nook and stainless-steel appliances. Josh had loved stainless steel. She could move in immediately, and she would have a place to sit while waiting for the furniture to arrive from storage.
Too soon to think this way, the practical side of her warned. One step at a time. In the back, a gravel path wound through weedy flowerbeds to a ramshackle shed. A lone, majestic maple tree grew in the center of the garden, dropping yellow leaves in a fairy ring around its base. On either side of the property, tall privet hedges formed a privacy barrier between the house and the shops next door. On the right, in an old brick building, Island Creamery sold handmade ice cream in sugar cones. On the left, in a gray Victorian, Apothecary Shop carried a hodgepodge of touristy items displayed in stained glass windows. Across the street, the sign for a small, modern clothing store swung in the wind: The Newest Thing.
Maybe it wouldn’t be wise to open another boutique right across the street, but how could she resist the charm of this little yellow cottage? She imagined that on the attic level, she would find two bedrooms with slanted ceilings and perhaps a bathroom in between. She would sleep up there and sell clothes downstairs. But a moment later, sudden fright overtook her. Here she was, a single woman in a strange town on a remote island, with limited funds and a trailer filled with dusty remnants of a past life. What did she think she was doing? Okay, breathe. In and out through the nose.
What price was the owner asking? What would it cost to set up shop? She needed fixtures, a computer system, a loan. What if she failed? One step at a time.
A robin took off from the garden, a worm in its beak, and overhead a bald eagle soared, spreading its magnificent wings, and Lily felt Josh beside her. He didn’t speak, didn’t give her a sign, but she turned on her cell phone anyway and punched in the number for Fairport Realty. What would she say? Hello, I’m a wandering young widow looking for a home. And by the way, can I move in tonight?