by Anne Cherian
“Not bad for learning it only in school,” Pierre complimented.
“Nandan is quite good in your language,” Vic said. “He managed very nicely when we were in Paris. Food, taxis, everything he was doing for us.”
“You never told us you have been there,” Pierre said. “We could have set you up really nicely.”
“As nicely as you set him up at the bar when he got pulled over by the police?” Priya inquired from behind them.
When Vic had scanned the crowd for Nikhil, he had also looked for Priya. Despite what he had told her earlier in their bedroom, he did not want to introduce her to them. He did not mind them meeting his sons; there was nothing they could find to tease in Nikhil or Nandan. But these men had a low opinion of women, and he did not want their words to tarnish his wife.
He had also worried that she would say something stupid that they would bring up later. And sure enough, instead of greeting them in a normal way, she had said the words the Frenchmen claimed made every woman “a real pain to keep around.”
Music swirled around them. He took shelter in it. “Nandan, the music is too loud. Go and turn it down,” he said, as he tried to figure out how to avoid making the introductions. Should he tell Priya to check on the food? He had every right to, especially after the way she had sneaked up behind him and blurted out the one mistake he had made.
Nandan did not move. “What police?” His voice was heavy with interest.
Vic had forgotten that Nandan did not know about the DUI because he had been away on a school trip. Priya and he decided there was no need to tell him. As Priya said, it isn’t good for a son to know his father’s frailties.
“Nandan, you need to go and adjust the music so our neighbors don’t call the police,” Vic said, and only when the sentence was almost complete did he realize his mistake.
“What police?” Nandan repeated.
Vic had often warned his sons that drugs and other illicit things would not be tolerated in his house. He lectured them every now and then that he never wanted them to get in trouble with the police. It wasn’t just that he had been an obedient son to his own parents, it was that he himself had never gotten a single parking ticket in all his years in America.
So of course Nandan wanted to know the connection between his father and the dreaded police.
All the pride Vic had felt when Nandan spoke in French fled, and he wanted to slap his son, just as his father’s hand would shoot out any time he or his brother did something he did not like. Nandan was deliberately disobeying him, yet he wasn’t frightened to do so. Instead, Vic was the one who was uncomfortable. It was, as usual, Priya’s fault. She was standing there, her face serene, as if she hadn’t uttered the information they had promised each other their children would never know.
“That DUI was pure bad luck,” Pierre spoke up. “These American police are pigs. They were just waiting to get someone that night. If I had left the bar earlier, it would have been me.”
“You got a DUI? How come I don’t know about this?” Nandan demanded. “I knew you went riding with your biker friends, but Mom never told me you stopped off at bars.”
Vic raised the glass of whiskey in his hand and drained it in one gulp. He didn’t want his biker friends to think he was henpecked and chickpecked.
“Nandan, it is time for you to go and lower the sound volume. Who put it up so high? You know I never like the sound to be so loud that people cannot hear each other. Are you responsible for it?” Vic asked, sure of the answer.
“Oh, come on, Dad, it’s not a party without music.”
“When we have a party for you, you can turn up the sound. But not today. Go now and fix it.”
“I know you’re saying that to get rid of me, Dad, but I’ll go anyway,” Nandan said as he left.
“You have a great boy there,” Pierre said.
As bad luck would have it, the song ended, and there was a lull before the next one blasted forth.
“Vic—” Priya looked at him and then at the bikers.
He wished he could tell her in Hindi to go away. The lie he had told her in their bedroom weighed down his tongue.
“My wife, Priya,” Vic forced the words out of his mouth. “And these are the French fellows I go riding with.”
“So you are all from Paris?” Priya asked.
“No, no, only I am from there,” Pierre said. “The others are from the South.”
“Didn’t Vic tell you that you could bring your wives to the party?” she asked.
Vic sighed. Now the men would think it was even stranger that he hadn’t told Priya that simple fact about them. If only he could get rid of her. If only he hadn’t invited them.
“We are not married, sadly,” Pierre shook his head.
“That’s too bad,” Priya responded.
“We are always teasing your husband that he is married, but of course he is the lucky one. This big house, your son, you. . . . He is a very lucky man.”
This time, Vic didn’t hear the sarcasm that always accompanied any sentence that had to do with his family. “Oh, yes, you have to go home now because your wife is cold,” they ribbed one night when he had wanted to leave because the forecast called for heavy rain.
He was assessing Pierre’s tone when Priya spoke: “Well, I think he is also lucky to have you as friends. I know that Vic always wanted a motorbike, but it is lonely to ride alone. I had thought that maybe I should get one to keep him company, but then he met all of you, so now I have to thank you.”
“You can join us anytime,” Pierre said gallantly, while Vic was still trying to comprehend what Priya had just confessed. She had wanted to go riding with him? Then he remembered that she had told him about a bike show, and had even looked up a few bikes on the Internet. But ride a bike on her own?
“Riding bikes is not for women,” Vic said sternly.
“It’s not for some women,” Priya clarified. She paused and then continued, “Like me, for example. Thanks for the invitation to ride with you, but I prefer sitting in a comfortable car.”
“Your husband’s BMW is very comfortable,” Pierre said. “It is not as nice as our Harleys, but you might like it.”
“Hey, you two, stop talking as if I am not here,” Vic protested.
“Vic, we could never forget that you are here,” Priya said. “Don’t panic, I will leave your beloved bike in your hands. Now I must make sure that the caterers are doing their job. Please, enjoy yourselves, and if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask us.” Priya smiled and walked away.
“You never told us your wife was beautiful,” Pierre said.
“Maybe she has a sister?” Antoine asked.
“All her sisters are married to doctors,” Vic said and quickly changed the subject. “Let me show you the food and the drinks.”
“Didn’t you say you have another son?” Pierre asked.
“Yes, yes, the one for whom I am having this party. Ah, I see him there. Nikhil!” he called out. He watched as his son spoke quickly to Jeff, his best friend since kindergarten, and then came toward them.
“These are the people I go riding with,” Vic said. “My oldest son, Nikhil, who just graduated from MIT.”
“Congratulations. Your father is very proud of you. He tells us you know everything about computers.”
“He’s the one who is the computer whiz. I’m just a sous-chef.”
“Ah, you also know French?” Pierre asked.
“I studied Italian in school, but I picked up a little French because I love your cuisine.”
“Enough about food,” Vic interrupted. “Let me take you to the bar.”
“Dad, did you tell the bartenders to bring some good French wines?” Nikhil asked. “Napa might have won a few prizes, but I’m going to guess your friends would prefer French wines.”
“I ordered everything,” Vic said. “I am sure they will find something to their liking.”
“Well, thank you for coming this evening. I hope you have a good time,” Nik
hil said.
LALI SAW FRANCES, Jay, and their children walk toward the front door. After being surrounded by people she had never met, and would never meet again, she was thrilled to see the familiar faces of her old friends.
Almost as soon as Thomas left, another man had approached them. Since Thomas had been so well informed and useful, Lali greeted the newcomer with a big smile. It turned out to be a big mistake. The man proved to be the epitome of the droning-on detail-oriented Indian. When he heard that Jonathan had gone to Harvard, he began to tell him about the apartment he had rented when he had worked in Boston for a year. He wasn’t content with the general location—he told them the street, apartment number, the bus line, and exactly how long it used to take him to go to the Indian store. He was starting to tell them about the vegetables he had grown, when Lali noticed Frances and Jay.
Unprepared for the gush of emotion that pricked her eyes, she blinked rapidly to hold back the tears. She hadn’t seen them in decades, and they hadn’t spoken for almost that long, yet, as their faces became clear in the dark, she was happy. She had been thinking of this encounter, had visualized Frances looking her up and down, when she selected her black dress. She wanted to look her best, wanted to dispel any image Frances might have of “poor Lali.”
Now the old immigrant days, when they were young and new to America, returned. They had helped each other in so many ways. Frances had never before written a paper, because her college in Hyderabad only gave exams. She had come to Lali in tears, saying she was too embarrassed to ask her professor for help. Lali had explained the footnotes and bibliography and had shown her how to create a title page. Lali, meanwhile, had been plagued with foot pain, because the slippers she had brought for daily use had thin soles, not suited for concrete sidewalks and pathways. If this were India, she would have had a cobbler add some rubber to the soles. She had asked a few of her classmates whether there were cobblers around, but they said that only the extremely rich in America had the luxury of wearing made-to-order shoes. The general population went to shops that sold ready-made shoes, and no, they told her, she would never find a cobbler on a street corner.
Lali had exposed her aching, bruised feet to Frances, who had been wonderful. She immediately lent her a pair of shoes; then she took her shopping for a new pair. It was so much easier to answer the salesman’s questions, to size her feet, with a friend. The shoes were the first purchase she had made in America. She was still equating dollars to rupees, so she thought that forty dollars for sturdy walking shoes was cheap. How they laughed the following year when they walked past the same store, because by then they were savvy shoppers, looking for sales and discounted, out-of-season merchandise, and would never spend that much money on shoes.
Frances had urged her to throw away her slippers, and Lali had put all but the kolhapuris into the trash. Even in India, kolhapuris were special, and she liked wearing them on occasion.
They had often made meals together, and since neither of them had been taught to cook by their mothers (“our only similarity,” Frances used to claim), they would put teaspoons of curry powder into every dish and declare the outcome authentic.
Jay and Vic were the only ones who knew that Frances and Lali were terrible cooks. But they all longed for Indian cuisine, and because they could not afford to eat out often, the men (who couldn’t cook at all) were forced to put up with their cooking. Jay was the worst complainer. He used to say that while American food lacked taste, their food only had one taste: curry powder. One time Frances, who preferred sandwiches to anything Indian but nonetheless cooked curries for Jay, decided to play a trick on him.
He often wondered how she could have lived in India all her life and not be able to tolerate chilies—except in pork vindaloo, a Goan specialty. “When it comes to eating spicy food, Frances has a white tongue,” Jay used to laugh.
Frances told Lali what she planned to do, and together they made Jay a special meat dish—with ten chilies. Jay took a big mouthful of rice and meat, only to open and close his mouth like a fish, gasping in pain. That was when Frances taught Lali yet another trick. She gave Jay some sugar to blanket the hot taste of the chili, instead of the water that Lali had ready.
All those memories burst through her mind like fireworks, and she couldn’t pay attention to the long list of vegetables the garrulous man had grown in his tiny patch of garden. Frances and Jay were here, along with their children, who until now had been only names on a page.
The party was truly beginning.
“I just saw my friends,” she told the still-talking man, grabbed Jonathan’s hand, and rushed away.
“Frances! Jay! You finally made it!” Lali ran across the grass, careful to lift up her heels with every step.
“Lali Manali,” Jay said as he kissed her cheek. “You finally made it to Southern California.”
“I had to come because you never bothered to drive up north,” Lali shot right back. “Frances, it’s been ages,” Lali said, hugging her.
Frances was still chafing from Mandy’s brazen confession and hadn’t prepared herself to see her old friend. She had tried to spot Lali from the moment they arrived but had been looking for someone in a saree. Though she had encouraged her friend to switch from salwar kameezes to jeans when they were students, Lali had worn sarees to every special occasion. She had even worn a blue one to graduation, and so many people came up and complimented her that she told Frances she wished she had worn the interview suit she had bought.
Lali was wearing a beautifully cut black dress, with strappy, fashionable heels. Frances realized she had actually seen Lali in the crowd but had assumed the woman was another Western-dressing Indian.
Nothing was turning out as she had expected.
Taken aback by the totally fashionable person hugging her, Frances responded with a banal, “You look exactly the same,” though it was blatantly false. Lali might be dressed well, but her dark circles had grown darker. She also had an unfortunate haircut. Lali had once told Frances that her face was too Indian to carry off a Western cut. She should have followed her instinct. Lali had looked much lovelier with the long braid that used to hang down her back as far as her hips.
“I know I don’t, but thank you for the kind words,” Lali said, patting her midriff. She had been the chunkier one, had always struggled to lose pounds. “You actually do look the same. Did you even gain a single pound when you were pregnant?”
“She gained the pounds all right,” Jay laughed, “but I kept them.” He patted the soft bulge around his belt. “All part of the ‘no food left behind’ diet.”
Lali laughed and gave the pat answer she had heard when she was young: “Which means Frances has more of you to love.” She had been ecstatic—filled with memories of the old days—when she saw them, but now she didn’t know how to get past the stilted, trite conversation that made them almost strangers.
“I wish Frances would see it that way,” Jay complained. “Why is it that charity never begins at home?”
“I thought charity always begins at home,” Jonathan said, as he joined the conversation.
“Honey, once you get to know Jay, you will realize that he always likes to turn things upside down,” Lali told her husband. As soon as she said the words, she was swaddled in the comfortable familiarity of the old days.
“And now what I want to know is, how come we never met you?” Jay asked Jonathan. “One minute Lali was in Los Angeles, the next she was getting married up in the San Francisco area. She didn’t even invite us to the wedding,” he mock-grumbled.
“Well, we didn’t invite anyone except ourselves,” Jonathan replied.
Lali could tell that Jay was a little taken aback by Jonathan’s response. Jonathan didn’t realize he was supposed to laugh at Jay’s comment, not take it seriously. At the same time, it was nice to have someone speak for her. When she used to hang around with Frances and Jay, she had always been the kebab mein haddi, the bone in the kebab, though they were too polite t
o make her feel she was intruding. Now she, too, had someone. They were finally equals. She moved closer to her husband.
There was a brief pause, then insouciant Jay recovered enough to say, “Ah, but we are not just anyone. Lali was there to see us get hooked and cooked. I, for one, really wanted to see Lali get hooked, cooked, and curried, but alas, no invitation.”
So this, Frances scrutinized the man standing in front of her, was Lali’s cardiologist husband. He was smiling, holding Lali’s hand, their shoulders almost touching. She had, for some reason, pictured a tall American. Jonathan was short, with short hair and a clean-cut face that looked young. He was good looking, but, because of his height, would not command the same attention Lali’s previous boyfriend used to get every time he walked down Westwood Boulevard.
Frances wanted to know more about him, but instead of taking this chance to find out things, Jay was harping on about not being invited to the wedding. She, too, had felt slighted, but Lali had explained that it was a small, two-person affair.
“Oh, Jay, that was so long ago,” Frances said. “Let it go. We’re just happy to finally meet you,” she told Jonathan.
“Ditto here. It’s funny, though, that you’re a woman. When Lali would talk about her friends Frances and Jay, I thought you were American, and, well, gay.”
“Really?” Frances shot a look at her children.
Lali saw her unease and quickly said, “Jay may go on and on about not coming to our wedding, but I’ve never met any of your children. And you went and had three! Aren’t you lucky!”
“We started after you,” Frances reminded Lali. “I was sure we’d be playing catch-up.”
Lali felt as if every word was slowly erasing the smile on her face. She had, quite unexpectedly, given that she had married later, beaten Frances in the motherhood race. But after that easy pregnancy, she had suffered four miscarriages. The final one had been the worst. She had awakened Jonathan in the middle of the night and was so weak from losing blood that she fainted. They didn’t need the gynecologist to suggest they stop trying. They would be content with one child. At least she had ensured the Feinstein name.
