The Object of Your Affections

by Falguni Kothari

  And that was my maternal history. I’d been abandoned by two mothers and been a thorn in the side of the third. Was it any wonder that I had no sparkly feelings toward motherhood?

  “I have to get back to work, Lily. I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  chapter ten

  Naira

  Bright and early one morning in November, I found myself in Englewood, New Jersey, ringing the doorbell of a lavish ivy-ridden Tudor-style mansion. I had an appointment with the owner of the house, one of the largest private urn collectors in the world. We’d been introduced at Rothman’s Auction House last week, and Gerald Cutler had indicated interest in the twelfth-century Buddhist monk urn and the limited edition colored-glass vase by Daum that I wanted to sell. Both the items lay at my feet, carefully wrapped in their individual boxes—the Daum in its original packaging.

  I was ushered into a long museum-like drawing room that smelled strongly of orange furniture spray by a man about my age who introduced himself as, “Sam. Mr. Cutler’s assistant.”

  We set the boxes down on a semicircular console table by a large grilled window that overlooked a sprawling garden, a tennis court and a swimming pool with an attached clubhouse.

  It seemed Mr. Cutler had been detained at the doctor’s, and I was brought a pot of chamomile tea while I waited. I hoped he wouldn’t be too long. I had about three hours before I had to meet Crystal Lang at 2:00 p.m. She was supposed to show me three more flats today.

  The euphoria of a quick sale of the Central Park West flat had died a morose death in these past two weeks since I hadn’t found a corresponding apartment to move into. Not one I liked anyway. Time was running out. I had barely a week left before I had to move out of the apartment, and if I didn’t find something by then, I’d have to either move into a hotel or in with Paris, and each option had its pitfalls.

  I wanted my own space. A place I could be blessedly alone and relatively Paris-free. I hated that I felt like I needed to avoid her, but she’d become relentless in her pursuit of the “Big Idea” as she put it. She’d given me a two-day grace period after her initial proposal before launching a full attack, starting with formally asking me to be a surrogate with Neal in tow.

  The chamomile tea did nothing to calm my nerves. I was too...jittery. Of course, I’d been jittery ever since I’d landed in New York—even before that—but recent events had shot my anxiety up several levels.

  I wasn’t being fair. Paris wasn’t attacking me, she was simply being Paris. And I got it completely—got her. Even if she and Neal hadn’t individually explained their motivations, I knew Paris. I wasn’t exactly appalled by the idea. Well, not anymore. As Paris had said we lived in the twenty-first century. Movie stars had surrogate babies all the time. So did alternative lifestyle couples and people who had difficulty conceiving. It wasn’t the idea itself that was shocking, but what my role in it would be.

  I couldn’t get Paris’s dramatic words out of my head. “Naira, I’m asking you—I’m begging you to take the kid off my hands!”

  I hated that she felt that way about her own future child. I was beginning to feel some sympathy for Neal. Not to mention the child.

  I’d researched surrogacy on the internet. It was a rapidly growing industry worldwide which—I sighed—was neither here nor there. I didn’t have time to get muddled up in yet another project, whether personally or peripherally. My priority was to find a residence and decide about the new business. Everything else would have to wait.

  Gerald Cutler came home just before noon—a tall, debonair man in his seventies who carried a gentleman’s umbrella like a walking stick. It was drizzling outside. The weather had suddenly turned in the last hour. Shit. I hadn’t checked the weather before leaving my house this morning, and I didn’t have a coat or an umbrella with me.

  “I’m so sorry, Naira. But it’s my prostate, you see? Sam. Sam!” Gerald shouted after kissing me on both cheeks. Sam appeared at the drawing room door. “Bring us champagne, and tell the cook to set out brunch.”

  I protested, but not hard enough to offend Gerald. I couldn’t afford to put off patrons, not when they were avid collectors and paid in cash. Cash was good for me right now. I didn’t need to tell my father or Vinay about the cash transactions.

  When our brunch ran into lunch and Gerald still showed no signs of winding down or letting me go, I excused myself and called Paris. “Can you meet Crystal at two? I don’t think I can make it back before two thirty. I’m still in New Jersey.”

  “Done,” Paris said brusquely and hung up, clearly busy at her own work.

  I sighed and rejoined Gerald in the solarium. I hated taking favors. Especially ones I knew would come to bite me on my ass.

  Three hours later, our business satisfactorily concluded, I sat ensconced beside Gerald in his chauffeur-driven SUV. He’d insisted on driving me back to the city, as he had errands to run there too. However, we were stuck in a tunnel traffic nightmare, and Gerald’s nonstop commentary was giving me a migraine.

  I winced at the uncharitable thought. He was just a lonely old man. I should have more sympathy for him as that would probably be me in forty years—alone and desperate for company.

  I opened my eyes, lifting my head off the headrest when the SUV jerked, sputtered and jerked again. I looked out of the rain-splattered window at the rows of gloomy, blurry buildings. We’d barely moved in the past twenty minutes. I could still see the red canopy of the pizzeria a block away. We were about five, maybe six blocks from my destination—Neal’s uncle’s bar on Howard Street—and it looked like the rain had let up temporarily.

  “I’ll walk from here. Thank you so much, Gerald. I hope you enjoy the urns.” I asked the driver to pull over to the curb, and before Gerald objected, I got out and dashed down Canal Street.

  The day had grown even more dismal and cold. It had been incredibly sweet of Neal to check out the flats with Crystal Lang for me. Paris had sent him in her stead as she hadn’t been able to go herself. I couldn’t understand why he was being so nice to me. Was it the surrogacy? Was his wife forcing him to be nice?

  Paris I understood. I knew what drove her. We were best friends. I could fight with her during the day and still enjoy partying with her at night. We simply shared that kind of friendship—the kind where she could ask me to be her surrogate without any awkwardness. The kind where I thought of her as the sister of my heart.

  But Neal? Why was he going out of his way to help me even though I wasn’t sure of Fraser Bespoke? About that, he’d asked me not to make any decisions until I’d spoken to his brother, who was coming down for Thanksgiving just to meet me. We’d hash it out then, he’d said.

  Paris had warned me about Neal’s brother. “If you think I’m stubborn, Deven’s a freaking bulldozer. He’ll just steamroll over all your objections. Good luck with that.”

  I wasn’t worried about Deven Singh Fraser. I’d cut my baby teeth dealing with businessmen like him—my father, Kaivan. I knew what I wanted. I was used to being my own boss. I had a certain vision of my work. I wasn’t sure Fraser Bespoke was for me. But being part of an exciting venture was tempting. It was also a huge opportunity on a global scale. And I’d be doing exactly what I loved without personal risk. If I was on their payroll, I wouldn’t need to use the trust fund at all, and maybe the noose around my neck would loosen. If I promised to hand over my monthly stipend to Vinay, would he be satisfied?

  About halfway down the third block, the heavens ripped open in a sudden rainbow-enhanced thunderstorm. Within seconds, I was soaked through my jeans and my pale blue cashmere sweater to my bones. Every time a gust of wind whooshed past—which was every ten seconds—my nipples turned into pebbles and my skin, my scalp included, puckered into a demoralized mass of frigid gooseflesh. The only saving grace were my waterproof Wellington boots and my handbag, which I used to shield my head. I arrived outside Liam’s Bar breathless and utt
erly squelchy.

  Howard Street was undergoing major construction. Some of the old brick buildings were getting a face-lift. Some already had. The architects or building designers had gone for the gentrified yet classic look, maintaining the signature style of the area.

  I ran up a set of thick concrete steps to a stone-gray portico built on top of the pavement and took shelter under its striped blue-and-white awning. The portico led into a squat two-story building, its white brick facade marred with fire escapes. There were two doors at street level. A glass-paneled door on the left opened to Liam’s Bar, and the blue door to the right into the main building that Neal’s uncle owned where apparently Neal had his artist’s studio. On either side of the building were construction barriers, blocking my view beyond them.

  I was about to pull open the bar’s door when my phone rang inside my handbag. It was my mother. I noticed then that she’d called seventeen times in the past two hours. Strange. I hadn’t heard it ring or felt it vibrate even once. Maybe Gerald’s house was in a dead zone. When I mentally calculated the time in Mumbai, I was shocked. Why was my mother calling me at one thirty in the morning? Worried, I called her back. I had to dial twice before getting through.

  “Mummy. What’s wro—”

  “Why aren’t you returning my calls?” Despite the unpleasant slurring in his words, Vinay’s demand was clear.

  My heart began to gallop harder than it had when I’d run. Why did Vinay have my mother’s phone? Would I have to start screening her calls too?

  Shit, shit, shit. I clenched the phone hard, wondering what would happen if I smashed it to bits against the wall.

  “I’ve sent Papa an email detailing everything that has been sold. He’ll receive the money by the end of next month. Other than that, I have nothing to say.” That’s it. Stay calm.

  “But I have plenty to say to you.” Alcohol sloshed in his voice as he launched into a mildly abusive diatribe about how irresponsible and uncouth I’d become.

  He asked about the trust fund again.

  “I’m not breaking the trust, so stop harassing me about it. And I’m not coming back to India.” Somehow I found the courage to blurt that out. New York, Paris, Neal—they were making me bold.

  Vinay didn’t like that at all. His rage crashed down harder than a thunderstorm.

  It seemed surreal now but once upon a time I’d called this man jiju—an address reserved for a beloved brother-in-law. And I’d called my sister didi though we’d never really gotten along. We’d turned everything into a competition, vying for our parents’ affections, for our teachers’ praises. When I’d fought with Papa about college, Sarika had taken his side.

  “Why are you wasting money on a degree you won’t use?” She’d been perplexed that I’d aspired to be more than a wife and a mother. “What was the need to work?” she’d asked because in our family women didn’t work. They shopped and traveled and hosted kitty parties. But when I got accepted into NYU Stern, Sarika had been proud of me for a brief spell. She’d already been engaged to one of Mumbai’s eligible elites and had joined the Hostess with the Mostess sorority. She’d had no reason to be jealous of a nerdy younger sister.

  Then four years later, when my “useless degree” landed me the affections of Kaivan Dalmia, who was an even bigger catch than Vinay Singhal, Sarika had been jealous. And that jealousy had slowly boiled over into viciousness when my hobby had turned into a thriving business, and because my husband had been better-looking, a better businessman and a better husband than hers was.

  “Everything you do is my business. I tell you to stand, you stand. I tell you to sit, you fucking sit,” Vinay said in awful tones.

  I told him to go fuck himself and hung up on him. I was bloody tired of his threats.

  The next instant I froze, staring at my phone in shock. What had I done? He was going to punish me for this, surely. But how? He couldn’t turn me into any more of a pariah in the family than I already was. And he wouldn’t dare come after me legally in the US. Not if he wanted control of the trust fund. The policeman and the goons on his payroll in India had no clout in New York, did they?

  Oh, God. What had I done? I sagged against the wall and pressed trembling hands to my head.

  “Are ye okay, lass?” a soft voice asked above my head, a warm hand touched my arm.

  I was startled enough to scream but it came out like a squeak. I should just give Vinay what he wanted and end this torture.

  “Naira, what is the matter?” Neal asked sharply. Worriedly.

  Everything, I wanted to shout. I was in a freaking Game of Thrones–style blood feud with my family. And right now I was Sansa Stark, in the clutches of the Lannisters.

  I burst into hysterical laughter at my mental wittiness, making an ass of myself in front of Neal for the third time.

  * * *

  “There ye go. Not too hot, is it?”

  Neal’s eyes were a different hue today. Gray as the gloom outside, and my mood. I didn’t trust my voice not to wobble yet, so I shook my head and took another cautious sip of the hot chocolate. Ian, the bartender, had somehow conjured it up just for me.

  Liam’s Bar was a typical sports bar with one long wet bar running along the length of the place that could seat twenty-odd patrons. Opposite the bar were eight booths. I was sitting in one of the booths, Neal sprawled on the seat opposite me.

  I took another grateful gulp of the soothing hot chocolate, which in turn soothed my nerves. Or was it simply Neal’s big, brawny presence? He was so tall and well built, who’d dare to threaten me in his presence? Certainly not short, ugly Vinay.

  I measured the breadth of Neal’s shoulders with my eyes, imagined the circumference of his biceps beneath the checked shirt that was rolled up to his elbows, gauged the knocking-power of his large fist, currently curled around the handle of a beer mug. He definitely exuded the right amount of menace to scare off any thugs Vinay might send after me. Let them come, I mentally shook my fist at the universe.

  “Are ye going to tell me what that was all about?”

  My brother-in-law was a psycho, that was what this was about. Had he hated Kaivan that much? What else could it be? Why else would Vinay behave in such a way? Why did he want me destitute and completely beholden to him? Worst of all, how could my father not see this?

  “I overreacted to a family squabble.” It was a version of the truth.

  Neal leveled a knowing look on me, but didn’t push. Instead, he started describing the apartments he’d seen that afternoon. As I’d suspected, none of them had been ideal. One flat had been too dim, the other closetless, and the one on Wooster Street was as “wee as a tree hoose.”

  “Twenty paces from wall to wall. That’s not a hoose. That’s a nest for a wee birdie, aye?”

  I laughed. His descriptions were always so entertaining. Neal had a wonderful sense of humor. Wry, British wit. Like my husband’s.

  “I’m sorry I wasted your time. And thank you for meeting Crystal for me.”

  He waved away my gratitude. “Now, if ye’ve finished the drink, I need ye to come with me. I have something to show ye.”

  I took one last sip and scooted out of the booth. I wondered if he wanted to show me his studio. I’d been dying to see it, but he hadn’t been working there of late.

  We had a couple hours to kill before our dinner reservation at a new Indian fusion place in NoHo that I’d wanted to try out. Paris and I had planned to hang out in SoHo before and get in some window-shopping. Neal was supposed to have joined us straight at the restaurant. But, my trip to New Jersey had jumbled up the plans.

  We chatted with Ian and some of the regular bar patrons as we made our way outside. It was barely drizzling now; still, I stepped under the awning.

  “Dinner will be my treat tonight. Please don’t argue.”

  Neal didn’t argue. His expression eloquently indicat
ed what I could do with my request. As in, stuff it. Neal didn’t let me pay for anything when we went out on the town.

  I sighed. “Fine. I’ll cook all the home meals for the next decade.”

  “I’d be a fool to say no to that.” He grinned, pulling open the blue door of the main building. “After ye.”

  We walked into a narrow T-shaped lobby with stairs but no elevator. Unspeakably curious, I followed him up the stairs. The building was old but well maintained. The walls were whitewashed and plain, but solid. The ground floor had two doors on opposite sides of the landing. As did the first; one was painted red and the other one was white. The next flight of stairs brought us to the top, where, again, there were two doors facing each other over the landing. They were metal brown. A matching set, with matching hardware. Neal opened the door on the right.

  I peered inside. “Is this your studio?”

  “That’s my studio.” He pointed at the door opposite. “This is Uncle Liam’s place.”

  Grinning broadly, he nudged me into a horrendously cluttered entryway that yawned into a horrendously cluttered living room. The sprawling loft-style flat had double vaulted ceilings and several skylights currently being bombarded with fat sporadic raindrops. Though it was rainy and cold outside, it felt much colder in here. My eyes, hands, my face, everything refroze. I began shaking so badly I could barely hug myself and rub my arms.

  “Jesus. Yer still frozen.” Neal looked me up and down. “Och. Let’s get ye dry first.”

  Dry sounded wonderful. I followed him into the flat. It looked very much lived-in and loved. Objects from all over the world filled it cheek by jowl. They hung from the walls, the ceiling. Colorful rugs and tartan throws littered the wooden floors and cozy sofas, and the sheer number of books lying around made the space a fire hazard.