by Sonya Lalli
“Nice to meet you, Jake.”
Their conversation started and stalled, and Anu wondered if Jake was acting awkward or she was. Where the hell was Imogen? Anu tried asking Jake questions about where he worked, what area of Vancouver he lived in, but he kept switching the conversation away from himself. And so, beer after beer, they mostly talked about her. How she’d come out with Imogen only on a lark after learning her boyfriend had to work late. By the time Imogen and Haruto came back in, the bar was even more crowded, and inadvertently, Anu was drunk.
Quite drunk.
Imogen pulled her up to the dance floor, and Anu obliged, her limbs loosening with each R&B song. Haruto, Jake, and the others joined them, and when a Tupac song came on, nobody but Anu knew the words. They formed a circle around her as she rapped the lyrics, jerking her torso up and down with the beat.
Everyone was egging her on, and pretty soon the whole dance floor was cheering, and Anu felt completely exhilarated by the time she bowed and the DJ transitioned to a different track.
“Girl, you’ve got some moves!” Imogen squeezed her shoulder, pulling her toward the edge of the dance floor. “And here I thought you were a square.”
“I’m not a square!” Anu laughed, fanning herself with her hand. “Are you hot? I’m hot.”
“You are hot, Anusha. You just don’t act like it.”
“I am not.”
“Don’t fish!” Imogen’s eyes were wide. “You are hot, and you don’t need to pretend like you don’t know that”—she paused, rushing and stumbling over her words—“or fish for compliments.”
“I wasn’t fishing.” She threw Imogen Tupac’s signature “west side” hand sign. “I was rapping.”
Suddenly, the room spun as she tried to remember how many beers she had drunk. She could feel a breeze on her face, and she positioned her body toward it. The entrance door was open, with people pushing their way in and out. She blinked at the blur of them coming into focus.
Her chest tightened.
She wasn’t seeing straight, was she? She was drunk.
She blinked again, and her arms went limp as she caught sight of the familiar face in the doorway.
“What is it?” Imogen turned on her heels, followed her eyes to the door. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know about ‘they.’” Anu swallowed hard. “But he is my boyfriend.”
Her mind raced, and there was barely time to process any of it as she spotted Ryan’s hand slip around a woman’s waist. It was like Anu’s feet were glued to the floor, her eyes glued to him as he moved his hand from her waist to her shoulder.
“Maybe it’s . . .” Imogen trailed off as Ryan bent down and kissed the woman’s neck. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”
Anu couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t move, even as Ryan and the woman started walking in her direction. A deer caught in headlights, she couldn’t do anything but stare at them, the floor spinning beneath her.
“Are you going to say something?” Imogen grabbed her by the elbow, squeezed her until she felt more alert. “Anusha, do something.”
Do something. But what exactly?
Anu nodded and, shaking her arm free, stepped forward just as Ryan and the other woman were about to pass.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to slap him, but when their eyes met, she couldn’t do a thing.
“Anu?” His face went beet red as he stepped toward her, recoiled away from the other woman. “I—I was just . . . finishing up, and the team wanted a quick drink. . . .” He paused as if waiting for her to intervene, but she didn’t. What was there even to say?
“Tammy”—he gestured to the woman—“is one of my associates. The rest are coming in a minute. Aren’t they, Tammy?”
The woman smiled nervously and then looked down at the floor.
Do something. Anu’s ears rang as she tried to muster the courage, but her lips wouldn’t stop trembling, and her hands stayed limp.
“His associate,” Imogen muttered. “What a fucking cliché.”
“I should have texted you I wasn’t coming straight home,” Ryan said, his eyes briefly leaving Anu for Imogen. “Anu, I’m so sorr—”
“You can stuff your sorrys up Tammy’s asshole.”
“Imogen!” Anu waved her off, just as Ryan’s face drained of color. The way he was staring at her reminded her of Monica’s rescue dog when he had been only a puppy and he would have accidents all over the floor.
What would she say, if she allowed herself to scream?
“Anu, it’s not what it looks like.”
But what did it all look like, really?
The man she had taken a chance on, the one who held the promise of a new start and a new kind of life, was a jerk.
A goddamn cheater.
Like Imogen had said, the whole thing was a fucking cliché.
Without tears, without words, she walked out the door. A beat later, she felt a coat on her shoulders, Imogen’s hands helping her arms into the holes.
They walked in silence onto a less crowded street. The air was soggy and suffocating, and her chest hurt and her head pounded, and she wondered if anything on earth that she’d touched or felt had ever been real.
Her face felt wet. She licked her lips and tasted the salt.
chapter eight
Eleven months earlier
She’d seen him around for months, maybe even years. He stood out from among the bluish gray rainbow of suits that rode up and down her building’s elevator, all of them conventionally handsome—but not too handsome. He easily could have blended in with the rest of them, but for that charisma of his, that way he held open the door for women or always remembered to bring his eco-friendly coffee mug with him to the lobby Starbucks.
It was early summer, her birthday, and in the elevator she caught him glancing at her legs. The day before Thanksgiving he winked, while carrying a stack of steaming pumpkin pies through the lobby. Was it for her? (The wink, not the pies.) She didn’t know. Then the first day it was cold enough to wear her favorite parka—heavy wool, navy blue—he smiled at her, but this time just a bit too long. She felt guilty. Exhilarated. A passing crush on a stranger, one she was certain would depart as quickly as it came.
The chill set in; the mountains clouded over. One night in early winter, she went out for happy hour with Jenny at the bar and grill around the corner. Jenny was tipsy, and Anu, sober, made an excuse again for why she couldn’t attend their girls’ trip to Seattle. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and there he was, just inches away.
“It’s you.”
“It’s you.”
“And you are?” she heard Jenny say.
“I figured it’s time I finally say hello. Introduce myself.”
“I guess so, yeah.” Anu watched him catch sight of her wedding ring and spotted a flash of disappointment on his face.
“I’m Ryan. I work at the environmental law firm a few floors above your office,” he said, politely turning to face Jenny. “You’re both at the medical clinic on the tenth floor, right? I’ve seen you, too, I think.”
“We are. I’m Jenny,” she said. “And that’s Anu.”
Jenny took the lead on the conversation. The quintessential confident woman, she excelled at small talk and banter, the ability to remain professional, aloof, yet at other moments transform into a shameless flirt. Anu took a backseat as they discussed the flood in the parking garage, the Canucks’ chance at the Stanley Cup playoffs. It only made sense; Anu was married. She’d played the unavailable yet not completely unattractive wingwoman her whole adult life.
After a few minutes, Ryan told them he was on his way to his company’s Christmas party at the Pacific Rim Hotel, asked them to tag along. Before Anu had a chance to think twice, Jenny agreed for them both.
They shared a cab. The roads were icy, and the sleety rain turned to sno
w they were sure would melt before sunrise. Jenny was wedged between them in the middle seat, laughing, telling Ryan a funny story—one Anu had heard countless times before—about the time she was accused of being a drug runner by the US border guards on her way to Portland.
“They held me in purgatory for four hours. Me! Can you believe it? A five-foot nothing half-Chinese girl!”
She brought their driver into the conversation, and as Jenny leaned forward, Anu caught Ryan’s eye.
She looked away, but from that point on, she knew what he wanted. What, unless she put a stop to it, he’d inevitably try to do.
They were greeted by a drunken lot of men and women she vaguely recognized from around the building in the hotel’s front restaurant. A burst of light off the chandelier made her squint. She thought about leaving, but it was her first night out in who knew how long, and for a reason she wouldn’t admit to herself then, she decided to stay.
The hours passed quickly, and Anu—who had spent her whole life feeling in control—didn’t feel that way at all. She wasn’t drunk or hungry or sad or particularly enjoying herself—but she was there, participating in mindless chatter with a dozen new faces. Ryan kept looking at her from across the table. She liked it and wasn’t at all surprised when he went to the bar for another round and asked her to join him.
He needed help carrying the drinks, didn’t he? So she went with him. When they arrived at the bar, he rested his elbow on the counter, his head in his hand, and started off with broad, indirect questions. She showed him pictures of Kanika on her phone, and they talk about environmental law, his decision to leave “Big Law” and join a boutique firm that fought for the right side, instead of the wrong one. He asked her why she had chosen nursing, and when she didn’t have a good answer, just a practiced one, he shifted visibly closer.
“I had a crush on my nurse once. Shoulder surgery. I played hockey.”
She glanced past him and found Jenny across the room, with a much-younger man’s hand dipping into the small of her back.
“She was at least sixty.”
Anu nearly spit her drink in his face as she laughed. “Was her name Florence Nightingale?”
“What? She looked good for her age.” He bit his lip. “She took good care of me. And maybe it was also—I don’t know—a power thing?”
“That she could euthanize you if you got fresh?”
“Something like that.” He leaned in. He was inches away, and suddenly Anu felt more conscious about whether Jenny could see her than how close he was standing. “It’s snowing. Wow, it’s really snowing.”
She followed his eyes out the window. He was right. The street outside was covered in a white froth, parallel car tracks running straight through. She moved and stood next to the floor-to-ceiling window, and a moment later, he appeared. Usually, she liked to watch snowflakes as they trickled down, found a good spot, and settled, but tonight they were falling too hard, too fast to keep track of.
“I wonder how long it will last.” Ryan wiped the condensation off the window with his cuffs.
She pushed her forehead against the window. It was cold and sent a shiver along the length of her body.
“I can’t remember the last time it snowed like this,” he said quietly. “Can you?”
She looked over at him from the window, the side of her forehead still pressed against the glass. He was already looking at her.
The moment beforehand didn’t build or bloom, crescendo into a perfect storm of tension and sizzle. It was entirely ordinary. He moved toward her, and only at the very last second—just as she began to smell the whiskey on his breath—did she pull away.
She turned back to the window, to the snow piling higher outside, and only then did she think of Neil.
In a flash, something changed. Something shifted within her.
* * *
• • •
I’m going home,” Anu said to Jenny’s back. Jenny turned around, half-startled, half-drunk.
“What’s going on? Here, I’ll leave with you.”
“Stay, honestly. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Anu shook her head as Jenny tried to stand up, gently pushing her back in her seat. “Please? Tomorrow.” And with a quick kiss on Jenny’s cheek, Anu was off.
The Pacific Rim concierge found her a taxi willing to cross the bridge and take her home. It took over an hour, and more than once they nearly smashed into another car, the tires screeching as they gave way to the ice, to the blizzard that had blown in and out and left treacherous walls of snow in its wake.
Ryan had tried to kiss her, and she’d nearly let him.
A few blocks from home, Anu noticed how different the roads looked from only that morning when she had raced off to work. The playground she and Kanika frequented was camouflaged by thick, choppy blankets of snow; the sidewalks and lawns of their neighborhood were buried. Her whole world had been completely transformed.
If she were to graph her marriage, the vortex was their wedding day. The parabola had climbed upward through their five-year relationship, but then overnight they were living together—Anu working long hours as a nurse in training, while Neil took pains to climb the ranks at Google, and then went out on his own as an independent contractor.
They were both busy, but that didn’t matter, and she learned that the good, decent man who Neil was didn’t know how to use a toilet brush, launder his own clothes, or wipe the crumbs off the counter after toasting a piece of bread—his one claim to cooking fame. Anu managed the household the best she could between lectures and days at the clinic, and after a few months, instead of getting fed up, she hired a cleaner.
They also had their mothers. An unending supply of everything from saag aloo to chole stored discreetly in the freezer, surprise Crock-Pots of minestrone with an Indian flare simmering when she got home from a long day.
The truth was, life was never that hard for either of them. So of course everything changed when Kanika came along. They were tired, always so tired, and despite their good intentions, their mothers hovering in the background only made it worse.
“Alone time” ceased to exist. Alone time became being not with each other—Neil with his headphones on in the basement, finishing off a project, while Anu put their daughter to bed. It was Anu finding an hour on a Sunday afternoon to go meet Jenny’s latest boyfriend or practice yoga on the lawn, help Monica pick out a light fixture, while Priya came over because she insisted Neil needed her help to “babysit.”
Constantly exhausted, irritated by Neil’s feeble attempts at parenting, after her maternity leave, Anu went down to three days a week at the clinic. Priya and Lakshmi would playfully bicker over whose turn it was to babysit, while Anu grew increasingly resentful of Neil’s flexible hours, which he chose to exercise to suit his own convenience rather than theirs. The way he would sweep in with smiles, ice cream, and Disney figurines, leaving Anu with what was left.
But wasn’t she being unfair? Did any of that give her the right to come so close to kissing another man?
The taxi pulled up beside the pavement in front of their house. When the driver refused to turn up on the drive because it hadn’t been shoveled, her guilt evaporated, and the familiar sting of resentment set in. Most of their neighbors’ drives were already clear, and one of them had even graciously shoveled the sidewalk in front of Anu and Neil’s house. Fuming, she handed a wad of cash to the driver and then started the laborious trek up the snowy drive in her heels.
The front door was ajar. All the lights were on, and Kanika’s backpack was open—games, books, crayons spilling out across the foyer. She followed a trail of coats and scarves down the hall, through the kitchen, and up the few stairs to the living room area. Neil was there, of course, with CNN on mute in the background. His legs dripped over the end of the love seat. She rounded the corner, and there he was in full view. One earphone in, his laptop open, a half-empty
French press and a china mug wedged between his thighs.
“How was your night?” He didn’t look up, and she didn’t respond. For a moment, she just stared at him, trying to figure out if this was in fact her life.
They’d been together so long, and for the first time—right in that moment—she wondered why they stayed together. It was more than Lakshmi’s and Priya’s insistence that they get married so young, make their “modern relationship” a legitimate one. It was more than practicality, that their families wouldn’t have approved of them living together—the way other couples their age did.
Or was it?
“Did you have a good time?”
“Did you?” she fired back.
He looked up, his face bewildered in that puppy dog “what did I do?” look she was growing to despise.
“You left the front door open again.”
“Really? I thought—”
“And there’s crap everywhere, and the driveway is—”
“It’s still snowing. I was going to do it when it stopped snowing.”
She was across the room in four strides and whipped open the blinds. She stepped aside, pointing to the pane glass window as if presenting an award. “The snow will turn to ice if we don’t do it right away. Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“It was still snowing the last time I checked.”
“What if our mothers show up early and slip? What if the delivery—”
“Anu, it’s not that late.” He glanced at the clock. “Are you still ovulating?”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
She took off her skirt and found a pair of Neil’s sweatpants in the front hall closet, pulled them up over her nylons. After locating a pair of winter boots at the back of the closet, a thick wooly coat, and gloves, she shut the door behind her.
The week before, the weather forecast had predicted it might snow. Hadn’t she asked Neil to pick up a shovel, just in case? She checked the shed, unsurprised to find no shovel. There were gardening tools, and then she spotted one plastic shovel, a toy almost, that one of the grandparents must have bought for Kanika.
