by Sonya Lalli
“Oh. Hi.”
He didn’t reply, and she considered his face. Tanned, angular, dark eyes, and black lashes thicker than hers, even though she was wearing mascara. She didn’t recognize him.
“Do we know each other? I’m Anusha. . . .”
He still didn’t respond, stared at her like a deer caught in headlights. She saw his Adam’s apple bob out of his white crewneck.
“Are you too afraid to talk to me or something?”
His eyes wide, he shook his head adamantly.
“See, this is why I don’t like Indian boys. Either you’re cocky and unbearable and think you’re just so good-looking, or you can’t string two words together to save your life.”
He buckled over coughing, and she rounded the table toward him.
“Are you OK?”
He shot back up, nodding, and she realized he was laughing. And choking.
“Are you dying?”
He had a good six inches on her, and she had to reach up to pat his back. She knocked a few times, then harder. He turned to her, shaking his head; then he heaved and a gooey brown chunk splatted on her chest.
“I’m so sorry!” He grabbed a tea towel off the table and lunged for her.
“Get away!”
They scrambled with the towel, and Anu eventually got it from him and peeled off the glob, which she realized was a half-chewed gulab jamun. It left a stain. She looked up. The boy was smiling at her.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Neil.”
“Neil, you just threw up on me.”
“I did. I’m sorry?” He pressed his lips together, and an odd sensation floated around in her stomach. Like she was nauseous and had just eaten way, way too much.
“I’m just, like, starving, and had snuck a gulab jamun when you walked in, and—”
“And you thought I’d tell on you for sneaking malai?”
“Well, in my experience there are two types of Indian girls. . . .”
Anu raised an eyebrow.
“Girls that are tattletales, and girls that are fun.”
“I’m fun.”
“And since we’re speaking, I must be a cocky Indian boy who knows how good-looking he is.”
She felt herself blushing. “I never said you were good-looking.”
“Now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings, Anush.”
Anush. No one had ever called her that before. Halfway between her Western-sounding nickname, Anu, and the Indian mouthful her parents had given her. It was smack-dab in the middle.
Anush, she thought, watching his mouth curl up into a smile. She liked it.
He crooked his head, and she suspected he was looking at the length of her neck, where her pale cotton shirt drooped midchest.
“Why haven’t I seen you around before, anyway?”
“I’m from Calgary.”
Her heart dropped.
“Auntie Jayani is my mom’s childhood best friend.”
“So you’re just visiting.” She reached for the plate of jalebi and broke off a sticky orange chunk, popped it into her mouth.
“For now.”
“For now?”
“I got into the University of British Columbia, but we wanted to check out the program before moving here.”
“UBC?” She tried to play it cool. “I’m starting there in the fall. . . .”
“Arts and sciences?”
She nodded. “You, too?”
“Computer sciences.” He inched closer and grabbed the other half of the jalebi she’d picked at. “What is—”
“Aho. Neil!”
He froze, dropping the jalebi.
“You will ruin your appetite,” an auntie muttered in Punjabi. Anu didn’t recognize her, either, but she could tell she was Neil’s mother. They had the same eyes and lips, and though she wasn’t wearing any makeup and had gray strands streaked through her hair, she was absolutely beautiful.
“How many times have I told you not to snack? This is not even our house. Have you no respect?” She turned to look at Anu, and her face relaxed. “Was my son sneaking sweetmeats? It’s OK. You can tell me.”
Anu hesitated.
“He was, wasn’t he?”
“No, Auntie. We were just talking.”
“Call me Priya Auntie,” the woman said, switching to English. While Anu was slightly embarrassed that the woman had noticed how bad her Punjabi was so quickly, she was more relieved she wasn’t being forced to speak it.
“Mom, this is Anusha.”
“Do you know, Anusha, how often this boy used to sneak laddoo?” She sidled toward Neil and started rubbing his stomach. “He used to be so fat!”
“Mom!”
“Eating ghee right out of the container.”
“Ew, ghee?” Anu laughed, and she caught Neil’s eye. Why was he looking at her like that?
“I did not,” Neil said grumpily, trying to hide a smile. “Like, not that often.”
“So you are a Vancouver girl?” Priya Auntie said to her. “You must be Lakshmi-ji’s daughter—you look just like her!”
Anu beamed.
“Pretty soon, I may become a Vancouver girl, too, hah, Neil?”
“You’re going to move with him, Auntie?”
“Hah. Where else would I go?” She pulled out a dining room chair and sat on it, tugged on Neil’s hand until he was standing close beside her. “Neil’s papa passed away when he was very young. It is just us two.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“But it has been a long time now. And we must stick together, like the musketeers.” She tugged on Neil’s hand. “Hah, beta?”
“Hah, Mom.”
“So if he finds a program he likes, we will stay.” Priya smiled at her suspiciously. “If he finds something else he likes . . .”
“Mom.”
“What?” Priya turned to him, switching back to Punjabi. “What did I say that is so wrong?”
chapter eighteen
TINA: Anu, hi! We haven’t seen you around school this week. Monet is DYING to have a playdate with Kanika before the holidays. Maybe at yours again? I’m totally swamped RN. . . . Call me back! x
A latte and one of those, please.” Anu pointed at a batch of cinnamon rolls steaming up the display window. Her stomach growling, she glanced at a neighboring stack of scones. “And one of those. Thanks.”
The barista behind the counter was about Imogen’s age with white blond hair and a pimply chin. After he told her he’d bring it all out to her table, she found a seat at a high top near the back and plugged in her phone to a nearby power outlet. Although she had packed in a rush and hadn’t even bothered to shower, luckily she had remembered to swipe one of Kunal’s UK phone chargers.
She looked out the window, half expecting him and Lakshmi to be standing there, tapping on the glass, pleading with her to come back upstairs.
But they weren’t there. They had stood in the front hall with their arms crossed as she mumbled a goodbye and wheeled her suitcase out the door, and they hadn’t followed her down. Anu restaged the fight in her mind as the barista brought out the latte and pastries. Anu swallowed each bite hard as she felt her throat constricting. They were loving, doting, supportive parents—but only because Anu had never given them a reason not to be. Only until she became a single mother, someone who wanted more than what good Indian daughters, wives, and mothers were supposed to want.
She wanted to experience London the way everyone on Instagram seemed to. She wanted to see other parts of Europe too—the Highlands of Scotland, a wall of graffiti in Berlin, the setting of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels—and finally do that yoga course.
She opened her group chat with Jenny and Monica. The last two messages were from Anu: one right before she got off the plane, telling them she loved them, and ano
ther after she had landed in London. They hadn’t replied to either.
They were mad at her, and Anu couldn’t really blame them.
She checked the world clock app on her phone. It was late at night in both Vancouver and Santiago. Monica would be with Tom, cuddling in bed with a book or already asleep. Jenny would be out dancing with her sister, painting the town Red Delicious.
She knew they would answer her if she called, but she was too embarrassed. Sitting here in a coffee shop with a suitcase tucked between her legs, she wouldn’t know what to say.
She scanned the tube map, followed the blue, red, brown, and pink lines up, down, and around the city. There were so many options. Too many options. Fleetingly, she almost wished she had someone to tell her which one to choose, which one she would want.
From what she’d been told by friends who had visited before, there were several ways to do London. She could go see all the hit shows on the West End—like Kinky Boots, which she’d seen advertised on a tube poster the day before. She could slip on a pair of heels and click them up and down Regent Street, and in and out of Soho boutiques, and shop her way through London. Certainly, she could buy a pass for one of those big red buses that toured around the city. Although that option was a cliché, at least then she wouldn’t miss anything.
Sweating, Anu unwrapped her scarf from her neck and hung it on the back of her chair. She tried to imagine how Imogen would do London, if she had the money and the inclination.
She’d buy cheap, trendy clothes and drag Anu to a bar. A club. Force Anu to drink shots of syrupy blue liquid until Anu couldn’t see London at all, but feel it. She knew it was late in Vancouver, but on an impulse, she called her anyway. After three rings, it went to voice mail.
IMOGEN: Was that a butt dial?
ANUSHA: No, wanna talk?
IMOGEN: I’m talking to you right now.
ANUSHA: LOL. Texting isn’t talking. Just answer . . .
Anu dialed again and sighed in relief when Imogen picked up the phone. “Did I wake you?”
“No, I’m up. Gilmore Girls marathon.” She was slurring her words, and Anu half wondered if she was high or drunk. “Twelve hours and counting . . .”
There was heavy breathing in the background, and the TV sounds in the background went mute.
“Are you OK?”
“Am I OK?” Suddenly, she sounded more awake. More like Imogen. “The question is, are you OK? What’s up? Having fun?”
“I don’t know. I just got here.” Anu shrugged. “I sort of . . . fought with my parents.”
“Oh?”
“And had my first one-night stand.”
“Oh. Juicy.” Even though she was five thousand miles away, Anu could imagine the exact expression on Imogen’s face. “Spill the tea.”
Anu spilled, but she glossed over the reason she had fought with Lakshmi and Kunal; right then she didn’t want to even think about it.
“So what should I do next?” Anu asked, blushing after Imogen’s intimate line of questioning about her night with Theo. “I suppose I need to find a hotel.”
“A hotel?” Imogen scoffed. “Go to a hostel. How else are you going to meet people?”
A hostel? From everything she’d seen in travel guides, horror movies, and on TV, hostels were for twenty-year-old Australian boys looking to hook up or for groups of American girls traveling in Italy on a budget.
Serial killers.
“You don’t want to see London alone, do you?”
Anu considered Imogen’s question. She had wanted to go on a trip by herself, but did she really imagine that she would be alone the whole time? Getting a stranger to take a picture of her sitting on the steps of Trafalgar Square? Trying out that fancy restaurant in Soho with space pods in the bathroom, saying, “Table for one?”
The short time she’d been imagining the trip, she could only picture leaving. Once she got to her destination, well—that was a blank slate.
“No, I guess I don’t want to be alone.”
“Then stay at a hostel.” Something cracked and then shattered on the other end of the line. “Shit.”
“What was that?”
“Dropped my wineglass,” Imogen said nonchalantly. “Oh, well, I’ll sort it out in the morning.”
“Are you in Vancouver?”
Anu took Imogen’s silence to mean yes, and she tried again not to wonder why even though the studio was closed for the holidays, Imogen was spending the weekend before Christmas by herself and not with her family. But whenever Anu tried to ask about Imogen’s past—glean details about where she grew up, her siblings, her childhood home—she expertly switched the subject.
Anu tried again. “You’re going home for Christmas?” She was a mother; she couldn’t help it. If Kanika tried to skip Christmas when she was that age . . . Although if that situation ever happened, Anu couldn’t really say anything. Here Anu was skipping a Christmas herself.
“Are you excited?” After Imogen didn’t respond, Anu tried again. “Do you have any holiday traditions?”
“Not really.”
“Well, what—”
“Anu, it doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?” Silence again, and concern rose in Anu’s belly. “Imogen, is everything OK?”
“I’m drunk right now, so actually yes, everything is fabulous.”
Drunk. Imogen seemed to drink to excess quite a lot, although Anu supposed a lot of people her age went through a binge phase. She wondered if they binged by themselves.
“I’m fine, OK? I’m taking the bus home on Christmas Eve.”
Fine. Anu knew that tone. She’d said that word countless times just like that, and it wasn’t ever the truth.
“Now, go have fun,” said Imogen. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” And she hung up before Anu had a chance to say anything more.
chapter nineteen
ANUSHA: Hi, Neil. Just checking in. . . . How is Kanika? How was the concert?
ANUSHA: And how are you?
(three hours later)
ANUSHA: You must be busy. Sorry. If you’re home tomorrow I’d love to call her. . . . Let me know what you think.
Anu took a deep breath and pushed through the door, which was hidden in a back alley between a microbrewery and a “cold brew only” coffee shop in Dalston, one of London’s cooler neighborhoods. Inside, there was a long, narrow hallway, and she emerged on the other side in what appeared to be some sort of religious shrine. There were almost as many Buddhas or Ganeshas or Lord Shiva statues as students sitting on bean bags in the waiting room, and there were garlands of marigolds strung about in every which way, like they would be during a special function at temple.
Was this place serious?
It wasn’t just culturally appropriating yoga, Hinduism, and Buddhism; it was making a mockery of them. The space was warm, and she hastily took off her coat. Here and there, she had visited studios that had culturally insensitive aspects that irritated her—like that one on Vancouver’s east side that kept the Bhagavad Gita—a holy script—in the women’s washroom. But this place was so outrageously offensive, it was almost funny.
“Welcome. Nooh-maah-sti.” A fit blond woman appeared in front of her as if out of thin air. She was wearing stylish patterned leggings and a canary yellow yoga bra, and when she bowed low to Anu, her hands in prayer, her six-pack didn’t bulge out over the elastic band like it did for most women. Like Anu.
“Are you here for the six thirty p.m. vinyasa flow?” The woman looked Anu up and down but couldn’t hide the look of disapproval. Anu, here in her fading joggers from the Gap and an old T-shirt with a bleach stain, surely wasn’t her average customer.
“Maybe,” Anu said, stepping forward and lifting her chin higher. “But I also wanted to sign up for the yoga seminar that starts on Boxing Day. Your
website said to come in to inquire.”
“The seminar?” The woman pursed her lips at Anu. “The seminar is quite . . . strenuous. Ten days back to back. Six hours a day . . .”
Anu forced out a smile. “I’m up for the challenge.”
“I reckon it’s booked up.” The woman nodded. “Or very nearly. You might want to start with today’s class to get you started.” She wiggled a manicured finger at Anu. “You can follow me to sign up. It’s only twenty pounds.”
Anu hesitated, annoyed that she needed to somehow prove herself to enroll. The seminar was advertised online as intermediate and as a course even some beginners would be able to manage.
“Coming?” The woman looked back at Anu, and Anu hesitated to follow her to the sign-up sheet, but she did anyway because Blissed Out Yoga was her last shot. Besides sightseeing, she’d spent the past five days in London looking for a yoga seminar or retreat anywhere in the UK that wasn’t already booked up or started soon enough.
It was nearly the Christmas holidays, they all told her. She was either too late or too early. Of course she was. This should have occurred to her sooner.
The woman never bothered introducing herself to the class, and so Anu started thinking of her as Alexa. After all, she sounded exactly like Jenny’s irritating smart speaker. That Alexa had lasted a week and a half before Jenny, tearing her hair out, returned the damn thing to Best Buy for a full refund.
This Alexa . . . well, Anu wasn’t sure she would be able to get through an hour-and-a-half class. Everything seemed wrong. Some of the students had self-proclaimed to be brand-new, yet Alexa was encouraging them to push themselves into deep backbends and forward folds, moving everyone in and out of poses at an alarming, even dangerous rate.
“Breathe in and tone those bottoms, ladies,” she said during a disturbingly long hold of bridge prose. “Isn’t that why we’re all here?”
Anu’s eyes rolled far back in her head, and she wished Jenny and her entire yoga-skeptic worldview was here to laugh at this with her. These sorts of teachers and studios were the reason yoga culture had started to get a bad rap. It wasn’t like Anu had a problem with white people doing yoga; the more, the merrier. What she had a problem with was studios like Blissed Out that packaged up all yoga like it was a good workout class or some sort of hipster status symbol.
