by Sonya Lalli
Finally, the class was drawing to a close. Alexa instructed everyone to lie flat on their backs for shavasana, breathe deeply into their relxation. Anu heard something fall to the ground, and she opened her eyes and chanced a look at the front. Alexa was fetching an acoustic guitar from the corner and bringing it back to her mat. Was she kidding with this? Anu had often been to classes where teachers chanted om several times toward the end or mantras, which were meant to aid with meditation—but this?
Anu tried not giggle as Alexa started strumming on the guitar. She could hear a few others chuckling near her feet, too. The melody sounded a bit like a Coldplay song, but then Alexa started to sing. And it wasn’t the lyrics to “Yellow” or “The Scientist” or “Viva la Vida.” It was in Sanskrit, the words to a religious hymn Anu knew well, and Alexa had remixed it with freaking Coldplay.
Anu coughed, pressing both hands flat over her mouth to keep from laughing. The past few days, whenever Anu had thought about Mags’ Studio waiting for her at home, her stomach sank. She’d been terrified, utterly overwhelmed by the reality that her dream was ready for her, and quite possibly, Anu could fail.
But if Alexa could do this, if a fraud could run a yoga studio, surely anyone could. And realizing this, Anu wondered if she had flown so hastily to Europe not to pursue something but to escape what was waiting for her at home.
Anu stretched as she stood up from the mat. She knew every single butchered, mispronounced word Alexa was singing. Anu had been singing them since she was a little girl.
“Please stay seated, class,” Alexa said in a singsong voice, still strumming on the guitar. Now it sounded a lot like “Clocks.”
Anu continued rolling up her mat, and a beat later, Alexa stopped playing.
“For those of you who are new to this, I must say, it’s very important to lie down for a while. It gives your body a chance to rest after such a tough workout.”
Anu’s eyes widened. She bit her tongue. Tough workout? Yoga was never intended to be a tough workout; it was to prepare one’s body for meditation.
Anu raised her hand, and after a moment, Alexa stopped singing.
“Thank you, class. You may stay seated, and I can take questions.”
Anu remained upright, her hand high.
“Yes?” Alexa flexed her palm against the guitar strings. “What’s your question?”
“I wanted to know more about the song you’re singing right now.”
Alexa stiffened. “How about I tell you all about it when you take my seminar?”
Anu narrowed her eyes as she picked her mat up off the floor. So she had “impressed” Alexa enough to be allowed to take the seminar?
“I think we’re all curious, though,” Anu continued, and a few others in the class nodded as they, too, sat up from their mats. Alexa’s face was getting redder, but she kept her cool as she set her guitar to the side.
“I’m singing ‘Om Jai Jagdish.’ It’s a mantra. Can I continue now?”
“I thought it was a hymn.”
“Mantra . . . hymn. Potato, patato.”
“Sorry, no. A mantra is chanted to prepare the body for meditation. What you’re ‘singing’ is a religious hymn that Hindus only sing during aarti, a pooja where we offer light to our dieties.” She gestured to the stereotypically Hindu artifacts plastered around the practice room. “So I’m thinking I’ll skip the seminar. Thanks. I’m not a big fan of potatoes.”
Anu heard a giggle behind her, and she snuck a look. It was another woman about Anu’s age, also of South Asian heritage. The woman gave her a discreet thumbs-up, and Anu smiled in return, her head held high as she walked out of the room.
Old Anu, always so sweet and polite, would have never called out somebody else’s bullshit. Jenny and Monica would have been proud of her. Hell, Anu was proud of herself.
Suddenly deflated, Anu realized that her mother would have been proud of her, too. Lakshmi had been the one to introduce her to yoga. Anu had resisted for years, rolling her eyes whenever Lakshmi meditated or prayed or practiced yoga in the corner of the living room, where she’d set up a small shrine. Lakshmi had never forced her beliefs on Anu or insisted she come to temple or pressured Anu to join her for a yoga class.
One day it simply clicked. Anu had found it on her own.
* * *
• • •
It was dark outside by the time she took the London Overground back to her hostel, her train car crowded with merry, tipsy Londoners on their way to or from some Christmassy thing or another.
Maybe it was time to leave. Time to travel somewhere new. Surely, she could find a yoga retreat somewhere in Italy, maybe in Greece. It had been less than a week, and she couldn’t go home yet, could she? She couldn’t go home without having accomplished any of the things she’d come here for.
Her dorm room was messy and, yet again, entirely empty. She’d found the female-only hostel on TripAdvisor, and although her roommates seemed like fun from the belongings they kept on leaving everywhere, Anu had barely even seen them. Anu was always fast asleep by the time they stumbled home, and in the morning—Anu up and ready before nine a.m., her shoulder bag packed for a day of sightseeing—they were still passed out cold in their bunk beds.
And so all week Anu had done London on her own. She ate mouthwatering masala prawns and black dal at the bar in Dishoom. She walked the South Bank and wandered the streets of East London taking photographs of the vintage shops and graffiti, spent way, way too much buying the clothes all the fashionable Londoners seemed to wear. She went to all the sights, the museums, the tours—and after nearly a week, there was still more to do.
The bed just beside hers was typically littered with clothes, books, makeup, and bottles of cheap neon-colored bottles of conditioner. Anu turned to her own bed, which was perfectly made. Her backpack and belongings were neatly folded into the locker beneath her bed.
Anu had all but told her parents and Neil to screw off, and at the age of thirty, she was traveling and living life like everyone else seemed to.
Still, she didn’t know how to be like these other girls. She hadn’t even met them.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and Anu would yet again be alone. Everything would shut early, the hostel receptionist had said. London would turn into a ghost town, and she’d find herself back here at the hostel with nothing to do. No one to spend the day with. Her parents hadn’t called her, and what would it say if she called them first, that she was happy for them to continue running her life?
She swirled into a pool of pity when she remembered she did know someone. Theo. Hazily, she tried to recall their conversation—him utterly charming, disarming, while Anu sat there doe-eyed and took it all in. She felt silly wondering, but maybe he wanted to see her again. She pulled out her phone and clicked on his contact details; he’d saved them in her phone while they were still in bed that morning. Didn’t he live close? She could have sworn he said he lived in East London.
“There you are. We keep missing each other.”
Blinking, Anu looked up. It was one of the girls from her dorm, the one she’d seen sleeping in the messy bottom bunk just opposite. “Hey.”
“It’s Marianne. What’s your name again?”
“Anu.” She smiled “From Canada.”
“Kiwi over here,” she said, just as Anu was about to guess out loud that her accent was Australian. She sat down next to Anu. “What are you doing? Texting a guy, are we?”
Laughing, Anu set her phone down on the bed. “I was thinking about it.”
“Tell him to come out with us.” A comb appeared from the floor, and Anu watched Marianne as she teased the back of her thick black hair. “You should change. We’re leaving in twenty.”
“Leaving for where?”
Marianne threw her a glance as she grabbed a bottle of hair spray from the sideboard. “Where do you think?”<
br />
Anu glanced at the clock on the wall. It was getting late, and she hadn’t eaten dinner or decided where she was going the next day. She was exhausted from her day of sightseeing, shopping, and yoga, but then again, she didn’t want to be alone, either.
“Text him. Come on,” the girl said as if they were best friends. The familiarity of it made Anu smile. “You can bring him back here. We won’t even watch.”
Anu laughed, grabbed her phone. “I don’t know. It was a onetime thing—”
“So make it a two-time thing.”
Anu hesitated as she watched Marianne peel herself from the bed and scrounge through the pile of clothes on the floor between them.
It would be nice to see him again, wouldn’t it? To be close to someone? To share London with someone?
ANUSHA: Hi, Theo. It was great meeting you the other night! I’m staying in Shoreditch. Would you like to get together??
Get together.
The words sounded so lame, like she was setting up one of Kanika’s playdates, but she didn’t know how else to imply what she meant. She typed and retyped the text, and then without thinking about it anymore, she pushed SEND. Marianne ushered her to hurry up, and so she dragged herself off the bed and dug through some of the purchases she’d made in Soho the evening before. A coat very similar to the one she’d seen on Marianne’s bunk earlier that week. Boots with laces and all sorts of nylons and tights with interesting patterns and colors. A skirt so short Anu doubted even Jenny would wear it. Tops that looked like dishrags on the hanger but surprisingly managed to narrow Anu’s waist and hips.
“That one,” Marianne said as Anu pulled on a slinky red shirt. “With the skirt, the boots. I love it. I love it so much, I kind of hate you.”
Anu laughed, not sure if she was being serious. She didn’t have time for foundation, and so turning to the mirror on the back of the dorm door, she went heavy on the eye makeup and then picked out dark pink lipstick.
“Perfect,” she heard Marianne say as Anu reached again for her eyeliner. “Ready?”
Anu nodded and quickly dabbed a touch of black eyeliner behind her right ear. When she turned around, Marianne was staring at her intently.
“What was that for?”
Anu hesitated, reaching for her coat and purse. “It was nothing. You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“I’ll think you’re crazy if you don’t tell me.”
She followed Marianne out of the dorm and down the hall. “It’s something I’ve picked up from my mom. A superstition.” She glanced over, wondering why she felt the need to say all this—explain herself—to a perfect stranger. “A black mark is an imperfection, or so she thinks. It wards off the evil eye.”
Marianne snorted a laugh. “Is there someone out to get you?”
Anu didn’t respond as they continued down the corridor, past the Italian guy asleep at the front desk who had checked Anu in earlier that week. She snuck a look at her phone. Theo hadn’t texted back.
“It’s kind of like the story about the black cat,” Marianne added. “We’re not supposed to let it cross our path, right?”
Anu laughed. “Right.”
What was Lakshmi doing at that very moment? Anu imagined her hunched over her textbook by the fire as Kunal—who seemed to be the one cooking now that Lakshmi was back in school—made a simple dinner of dal and rice. Did it feel like a holiday without her there?
“Are there more?” she heard Marianne say. She sounded interested, not dismissive like Ryan had been when she had explained the superstition.
“A few.” They stopped short outside the door to the common room, which muffled the rowdy sounds inside. “We’re not supposed to touch our feet to books or paper, out of respect. Taking or giving anything in threes is unlucky. Um, what else? Oh, don’t open only one eye in the morning—whatever that’s supposed to mean. If you shake your leg, you’ll lose money—”
“That’s a harsh one.”
Anu nodded. “And my mom also used to do this . . . thing . . . every Tuesday and Saturday night to ward off the evil eye. Or, as she calls it, nazzar.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Well, we’d stand around the stove. She’d put chili and mustard seeds and salt in her hands and do this”—Anu moved her wrist in small circles—“over the flame, and then blow on us.”
Anu watched Marianne’s face, which remained stony, transfixed on the door. What was she thinking, saying all that to her? Someone outside of her culture?
“Anyway,” Anu ventured, pedaling out her feet, “should we get the others?”
Blinking, Marianne nodded. She moved to open the door and then stopped. “It sounds like your mom is doing everything in her power to protect you.”
Taken aback, Anu could only shrug.
“Wanna know what my mom does?” Marianne laughed as she pushed on the door. “She buys me condoms.”
* * *
• • •
Marianne chose a club on Redchurch Street, and everyone followed. There was a group of them, and Marianne introduced them so quickly, Anu barely had a chance to learn their names. There were three women from Brazil, two from South Africa, and another from Sweden. Anu was the only one who wasn’t drunk already, and she half-wondered whether she should be for this. They were all so young. But then how did they project such confidence?
How did they charge through the streets, arms linked and voices high, like they had the authority to be there?
Anu was at the back of the group as they waited in line, and so she was the last to pay the cover charge, have her bag searched, and check her coat. She was surprised by how long it took to get in, the level of security—especially considering the club wasn’t even that full. She walked into what appeared to be the main area, lit up with blue and green strobe lights, black leather booths circling an empty dance floor.
Had they ditched her? There were a few people by the bar, and so she headed in that direction, adjusting to the low light. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the South African girls walk into the restroom, and she relaxed, shifting her purse to her other shoulder.
OK, they hadn’t ditched her.
As she moved farther into the club, she realized how big it was, and she appeared to be on one of several levels. She didn’t have to use the restroom, so she picked a spot by the edge of the dance floor near the bar—where everyone would surely see her when they came out.
Nobody was dancing, but that didn’t surprise her. The music—if you could call it that—was god-awful. Pulsing, whiny techno that made her feel like an extra in a sci-fi movie. She checked her phone. Theo hadn’t texted her back, and it hit her that he wasn’t ever going to. In retrospect, she didn’t even like him that much; he was conceited and had talked only about himself. Still, she couldn’t help but feel like a fool.
As she waited for the others, she checked Instagram, once in a while flicking her eyes toward the restroom, but the girls seemed to be taking their time. She refreshed her feed, and her stomach dropped as a new photo appeared, posted just a minute earlier by Tina, one of the moms in Kanika’s class.
It was a photo of Kanika and a dozen other kids, posed in front of the backdrop Anu had built for the holiday concert. Of course. It was still afternoon in Vancouver, and the day of the concert. Right now the concert would be over, and they’d be back in Kanika’s classroom, the kids hopped up on the sugar they were never allowed to eat on a regular school day. All the parents would be there, too. Some grandparents. The art table by the window would be covered in the large snowflake tablecloth Anu had bought at a craft sale that fall and gifted to Ms. Finch. It would be covered by juice and water and coffee, a potluck of treats and desserts and savory snacks.
Neil would have left work early to go, picking up Priya along the way. Would he remember to take photos? Was Kanika asking where she was? The curi
osity bit at her, pulling at her skin until she felt a shiver run up from her arm and down her spine.
“India or Pakistan?”
Anu looked up, startled. She hadn’t noticed being approached, the beefy guy in the thin white T-shirt creeping up next to her and setting his hand on her wrist. She recoiled away from him and crossed her arms.
“India or Pakistan, love?” he repeated, smirking. “Usually, I can tell.”
“Excuse me?” She was tempted to tell this asshole she was from Canada, and because of Partition instigated by his bloody ancestors, her family was from both present-day India and Pakistan.
“You should smile more,” the guy said, still smirking. “And tuck that phone away. You’ll have better luck.”
She rolled her eyes and couldn’t contain a sigh. Without saying anything, she turned to walk away, but he grabbed her again by the wrist.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, whipping around, jerking her arm away.
“Doll, come on. The jig’s up.” He laughed, leering at her. “Where’s your boss?”
“What?”
“No boss. Is that right, hun?” He tried to sidle in closer, and again Anu inched farther away. “I could be your boss.”
“Look, you’re making me uncomfortable,” Anu said, summoning her courage. “I need you to leave, or I will.”
“Babe, I mean no offense—”
“Do not call me ‘babe.’”
“This is business. I’m all business—you’ll figure me out in no time, love. What’s your rate?”
He stared at her again, and because of the way his eyes fell on her bare arms and chest, the slight snarl of his nose and lips, something clicked.
“If you come work for me, I’ll make sure you get double.”
