by Sonya Lalli
But she didn’t feel ashamed, not even a bit. She had smoked a joint and then made out with a stranger. Jake’s age aside, she was oddly rather proud of herself. She felt better than she had in months, even years.
Had Jenny been right all along? Did she need to be single, to “live a little”?
She was struck with a surprising pang of jealousy as she imagined Jake, on his own, traveling the world. Why hadn’t Anu left Vancouver when she still could? Why hadn’t she ever gone to Europe, gone on a yoga retreat like she’d always dreamed? The joint had fully worn off now. She rested her palm against the car window, the glass pane moist and warm.
If she could turn back time, would Anu have gone? Would she have had a different sort of life?
But the more burning question, the one that overloaded her with guilt just thinking how tempting it sounded, was: If she could have a do-over, if right now she could just leave everything and everyone behind, would she?
chapter twelve
MONICA: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I just . . . Well, with things ending with Ryan and all. But now that you’ve moved on with a TEENAGER (LOL!!!), we figured you could handle it.
ANUSHA: A) Thanks for telling me. How long have you known? B) OMG. Shut. Up.
JENNY: She’s known since the honeymoon. Neil texted Tom a few dirty messages that were apparently meant for her.
MONICA: Jen wtf I told you we didn’t need to tell her that part!
ANUSHA: Dirty . . . messages?
Anu threw her phone on the coffee table. It hit the edge and bounced down to the floor, and when she bent to pick it up, she noticed a new crack in the top-right corner of the screen.
“Shit.”
She slumped back into the couch, tracing the crack with her fingers. She’d taken two Tylenol and drunk three glasses of water since she woke up, yet she still had a hangover.
The fact that Neil had a new girlfriend suddenly made her headache a lot worse.
Flipping over her screen, Anu tried to remain calm. Neil had made her feel so terribly for bringing Ryan to the wedding, yet he had been seeing some other woman the whole time? Sending her dirty messages?
The Neil Anu knew didn’t do stuff like that. He hadn’t ever once done or asked Anu to do anything even remotely adventurous.
Kanika was away, and so she let herself sulk for the next four hours with a bad made-for-TV movie while surfing the Internet, pinning images of mandala lights and indoor-water-features meditation corners on her new yoga studio Pinterest board as the ideas appeared. Ignoring text messages from her dad and even Monica, she started to let herself become sucked in by the idea that her dream of running a yoga studio could still be real and she could allow herself to want more.
Her landline started to ring, and the volume of it startled her upright. No one ever called her home phone anymore. She reached for it. It was an unknown number. It was likely a telemarketer, but for some reason, she answered anyway. “Hello?” she said, a trace of irritation in her voice. “Can you tell me who this is?”
“Can you tell me why you never answer your telephone?”
She swallowed hard. Lakshmi.
“Hi . . . Mom.”
“I am here, too,” Kunal said.
“Hi, Dad.”
“I knew she would answer,” Lakshmi said.
“Your mother had a thesis,” Kunal interjected. “You would answer if we blocked our telephone number. Evidently, this thesis is valid, Anu.”
He was using a tone with her, one she didn’t hear often—the one that meant this was serious. She swallowed hard and pulled her legs onto the couch. She contemplated simply hanging up.
“You’ve stopped answering our phone calls and now even our texting messages?” Lakshmi sighed, and Anu could sense her mother was shaking her head at the phone. “I have not heard your voice in— How many weeks, Kunal?”
“Three, nearly four—”
“Four weeks!” Another sigh, one carefully crafted to evoke the feeling of guilt in its recipient. “I am lucky Neil still answers our calls. Otherwise I would not hear our Kanika’s voice, either.”
Anu prickled at the mention of Neil’s name.
“We phoned over there this morning. Did you drop her early this week?”
“No,” Anu said, taking pains to relax her voice. “No, Mom. It’s Sunday. She went over yesterday evening, same as always.”
“Today is Sunday?”
Kunal laughed. “Your mother is a student now. Every day is both a workday and a holiday.”
“Then this is my first holiday since Anu was born. And your father is my butler.”
“Can you believe it, Anu? Thirty-four years as a mathematics professor, but my most difficult job has been making sure your mother eats a proper breakfast.”
“Choco Pops is proper—”
“Lucky it is sugar. The calories are empty.”
“How can a calorie be ‘empty’? I am not idiot. A calorie has to be full. Otherwise it would not be a calorie—”
“Oatmeal is more nutritious.”
“Nutritious but boring. Tell me, my dear husband, am I boring . . . ?”
They went on like this for a few more minutes, momentarily forgetting Anu was listening in. She’d always known that their marriage was one to look up to. But right now she couldn’t help but resent it. She couldn’t help but wonder even if her parents—her traditional elderly parents—had ever sent each other dirty messages.
“Anu,” Kunal said after they had settled the dispute, Lakshmi having agreed to limit her sugary cereals to weekends. “Tell me, beti, where have you been? We never hear from you.”
“Sorry, Dad. . . .” Anu paused, thinking of an excuse and failing to come up with one. “I guess I’ve been busy.”
“How can she be so busy?” Lakshmi mumbled, as if Anu weren’t even there. “Neil and Priya are looking after her daughter half time.”
Anu’s jaw dropped. Her daughter? Only Anu’s daughter?
There was a lump growing in her throat, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Why was she so surprised Lakshmi would say something like that, think something like that?
They’d been gone only four months, yet she’d forgotten what it was like. This feeling, as if she’d been pinned down on the floor with a boot flattened to her chest. She’d forgotten why she was almost relieved when they left.
Would she have dated Ryan if they were still living nearby, hovering around, supervising her life, judging her every move? She wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t have found Imogen and the yoga studio or tried weed or kissed a stranger in a club.
Still, she wouldn’t have done anything.
“Anu?” her dad said softly. “Are you there?”
Her breath hitching, she wondered what they’d say if she told them she regretted having always obeyed them. Coming home early to study, to sit nicely on the couch with her legs crossed and her back straight, like a good Indian girl.
Dating and marrying the appropriate man. Buying the right house. Choosing the right profession.
What if she told them that she should have gone to Europe and pursued yoga when she’d had the chance? That she should have gone after her dreams.
“Yes. I’m here.”
“You are acting very strange.”
“Am I?”
“What is going on with you, beti? What is this new attitude?”
She didn’t know what to say to them anymore or how to be the good girl who never disobeyed, biting her lip whenever she was tempted to say something they wouldn’t want to hear.
“Beti,” Kunal continued, “we love you very much.”
They loved her, but didn’t they know how much it hurt? Obsessing, obtruding, berating—that was the way so many Indian parents loved.
Was that the way she would love Kanika, too
? Trampling on her until her daughter didn’t want to share her life, didn’t even want her around. She took a deep breath, wondering where to go from here.
Until she moved to England, Lakshmi hadn’t had her own life, and so she forced her way into Anu’s. Knowing that history tended to repeat itself, Anu imagined herself in ten years, even twenty—single, biding her time between yoga classes, days at the clinics, and drinks with Jenny and Monica . . . while she waited for Kanika to come home. Kanika to smile. Kanika to tell Anu about her day.
“Anu?” Her dad’s voice.
The silence stretched between them. The distance was palpable.
It wouldn’t be easy, but she wanted to buy Mags’ Studio. She wanted to go traveling through Europe. Having a responsibility to raise her daughter didn’t mean she couldn’t pursue what she wanted and not let her sense of responsibility rule her life.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
“No,” Kunal said sternly. “You must say something. We must discuss.”
“I love you guys,” she said, smiling, happier than she’d been in weeks. “And I know it’s not what you want me to say, but I really do have to go.”
After the call, she breathed in and out slowly three times, just like Lakshmi had taught her. Kunal and Lakshmi were five thousand miles away and they weren’t ready to hear it all—not yet. But Anu knew what she wanted, didn’t she? And finally, she was ready to go for it.
chapter thirteen
ANUSHA: Hi, David. Margaret Barton (Mags) gave me your phone number. I’m planning to make a formal offer to take over the lease on her studio, and she said you might be able to handle the legal side of this for us? I’d love to give you a quick call when you have a minute. Thanks!—Anusha Desai
Is this your version of a rebound?” Jenny asked, less than a week later. “Because I would much prefer you went to Vegas, rather than spontaneously bought a yoga studio.”
“It’s not spontaneous. I’ve wanted this for a long time.”
“Why don’t you come with me to Chile next week?” Jenny asked. She’d been looking forward to her pre-Christmas trip to Santiago for months. “You get along with my sister. Come with us.”
“I don’t want to go to Chile, Jen,” Anu said as they squished into one compartment of a revolving door. “If I’m going to go anywhere, it would be Europe. I’ve never even been to London.”
“Oh, look who’s here,” Jenny said as they circled into their building.
Straight ahead, Ryan was standing in line at the Starbucks in the lobby.
Of course he would be there, and of course he’d be with a woman. Ryan wasn’t faithful, but he sure was predictable. He couldn’t do a thing without his post-lunch coffee. Anu should have taken the back entrance.
“Coffee, Anu?”
“I’m good,” she whispered, making a move for the elevator.
Jenny put her arm out to stop her. “Tell me you’re not still avoiding him.”
“I’m not.”
“Didn’t you say at lunch you wanted a chai latte on the way back?”
“I changed my mind—”
“Anu,” Jenny chided, “I thought you said you were over him.”
“I am. I want to be.” Anu shrugged. “It’s just easier not to think about him or see him and pretend the whole thing never happened.”
“Did you love him?”
She shook her head. At the word “love,” she thought of Neil and then, irritatingly, Ms. Dirty Messages.
“Anu, it did happen. You were humiliated, and it’s OK. He took a meat pulverizer to your confidence and pasted its chunky bits all over the wall and—”
“Thanks, Jen. That’s very vivid.”
“You’re not the only woman who’s ever been cheated on. You’re not the only one who’s ever felt like a fool.”
Anu turned back to the window. Over the years, more than one guy had screwed around on Jenny. Monica, too. It was part of the game, the tricky back-and-forth of dating men in the city as ambitious as themselves. The game Anu never had to play.
But didn’t she need to? Didn’t she need to be stupid for once? Experience everything she had missed out on, even if it hurt?
“So what are you going to do?” she heard Jenny ask.
Anu exhaled sharply as she watched Ryan. Her cheeks reddened when she realized that it wasn’t even a woman he worked with. He was chatting up a stranger, a woman he’d met right there in line.
She was at a crossroads, an opportunity before her to be bold and brave, be in charge of the course of her life. Her anger rose up, flashing hot and fierce. She had really cared about him. Like a total idiot, she had believed him when he said that he’d never settled down because he was married to his job, that he’d never found a woman like Anu.
What other lies had he spewed? What other bullshit had she gulped down as he wined and dined her over several months, convinced her that what they had was something real, something special.
She could admit she was naive—but she had never deserved this. And that rat bastard had never deserved her.
She marched through the lobby and could almost hear some empowering, upbeat song about feminine power in her ears as she stormed toward him, Jenny on her heels. She hadn’t done anything. She hadn’t even broken up with him, just walked away like a coward, like she was nothing without him.
But she was someone. She could be someone.
He turned around, coffee in hand. He cocked his head to the side as she caught his eye.
A deep breath and then another one. How dared he? How fucking dared he? She stopped short and held his gaze.
Had she truly cared for him, or had she only cared that he wasn’t Neil?
“Anu . . .” He stepped toward her.
“Ryan.”
He was inches away, and as his lips curled upward into a smile—those perfect lying lips—she punched him square in the mouth.
“Damn, girl!” She could hear Jenny hollering behind her. “You got him good.”
“Anu, what the fuck?”
Her whole right hand was on fire, and there was coffee everywhere, even on her.
“Are you out of your mind?” the woman next to him yelled.
Anu glanced at her and momentarily felt bad—not for Ryan or her in particular, but for whatever pathetic soul he would screw over next.
“Oh, you poor thing,” the woman said to Ryan, and that was when Anu noticed the trickle of blood on his nose, the cuff of his shirt.
“Here.” Anu grabbed a tissue from her purse and shoved it at him. As he wiped away the blood, for the first time she noticed people hovering nearby—including the building’s security guard, Ralph, who had worked in the building longer than she had.
“Well,” she said to Ryan, “I’m going to go now.”
“I’m sorry,” he said into his hands. “You know that I’m sorry.”
“For cheating on me? Lying to me?”
He nodded. He was still not looking at her.
From behind, Jenny yelled, “For assuming Anu would never figure out you’re completely full of shit?”
“Screw you, Jenny,” Ryan mumbled.
“Screw you, Ryan.” And with that, it was Jenny’s turn, and she punched him so hard, Anu thought she heard something crack. He stumbled backward and then dropped to his knees.
“Jenny!”
“That’s for fucking around on my best friend!” she yelled, Anu tugging her arm back as the crowd drew closer, and Ralph glared at them.
“Jenny, we gotta go now.” They walked briskly through the lobby, avoiding eye contact with everyone. “Are you trying to get us arrested?”
“It was my turn!”
“Nice right hook, though. Boxercise?”
“Jackie Chan movies.”
“Clearly, I need to watch more Jackie
Chan.”
They pushed through the revolving door. It had started to rain, and Jenny stayed beneath the overhang, but Anu stepped out into the street. Her hand was on fire, but the cold rain against her skin helped. She shut her eyes and, laughing, looked up into the sky.
Anu knew the financial risks. She knew that having a daughter would make running a business all the harder, but that she was going to do it anyway.
“Hey, Anu?” Jenny said after a while.
“Yeah?” Anu opened her eyes, smiled when she noticed that her best friend was standing next to her, also sopping wet in the rain.
“Are you done ‘catharting’ yet?”
“Why?”
Jenny nodded her head toward the building. “Because the security guard is looking at us.”
Anu turned around. Ralph was indeed staring. “Let’s take the service elevator?”
“Yep,” Jenny said as they hurried toward the back entrance of the building. “I’m way too hot to go to jail.”
chapter fourteen
NEIL: Mom and I both have plans tonight. Any chance you want to take her a day early? No problem if you’re busy we’ll find a babysitter.
ANUSHA: Sure that’s fine. I can pick her up around 5.
NEIL: Perfect, thanks a lot.
Anu pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. She knew what Priya had planned. For years, every Friday night, Priya and her best friend, Jayani, would go to watch a Hindi movie at the Indian theater in Richmond—something with Saif Ali Khan or Shah Rukh Khan or Priya’s favorite, Deepika Padukone.
But Neil?
He wouldn’t go out of his way to hire a babysitter unless he had important plans, like a date with Ms. Dirty Messages.
Anu stared through the sitting room window. The blinds were closed, and she wondered if his new girlfriend was in there. She knew that it wasn’t likely, that there wasn’t a chance he had told Priya he was dating anyone, but Anu couldn’t help but wonder in what ways Ms. Dirty Messages was sneaking into his life.
