The Invitation

by Anne Cherian

  Lali scrutinized the gray-haired man. She didn’t recall meeting him at UCLA. Had Frances gone out with him before she met Jay? She was sure that Jay and Frances had started dating in the very beginning, right after the orientation party where they had all met.

  “Did you go to UCLA?” Lali thought she’d end the silence and assuage her curiosity.

  “I went to Berkeley,” Ricardo replied. “Why didn’t you tell me you were at UCLA?” he asked Frances.

  “Sweetheart, sweetheart,” Carmen said, clasping his hand in hers. “Do you want me to get jealous again?” She turned to the others and said, “We met when he was studying at Berkeley. He came into the restaurant where I was a waitress, and six months later we were married.”

  So he had even married quickly, Frances thought. All the reasons she had invented crumbled. He hadn’t married a blonde woman, or someone he had known for years. He just hadn’t wanted her.

  Frances wanted to turn her back and walk away from this man who had done the same thing to her so long ago. How could he, the one who had promised to send her his new address in America, ask why she hadn’t kept in touch? The humiliating wait of those days and weeks and months knocked down her teetering self-esteem.

  She had come to this party in her best dress to cover up their present circumstances. Now Rich was exposing the past she had thought was behind her. All her life she had concealed things. When they were young, Mama made sure they dressed nicely, even though there were days when they ate only rice and dal. In Hyderabad, she told the other rich girls that her house was on the beach. It was even easier to pretend in America. No one could check up on her stories.

  Now Rich, with his big mouth, could tell everyone the things she had so desperately hoped would never become public.

  She wished she could send him away with some well-chosen words. But anything she said to show that he had been a boor could boomerang and hit her in the face. For the first time in her life, Frances had nowhere to hide.

  Frances grappled to find an answer that would close him down. Finally she said, trying to coat her words with lightness, “I met quite a few Americans who were traveling through Goa. I didn’t tell any of them that I was coming to study at UCLA.”

  “Oh, come on, Fran,” Rich said. “I wasn’t one of those smelly hippies we used to laugh at. Remember? We had something going.”

  “It’s okay,” Carmen said, “you don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings. I am no longer jealous that Ricardo was engaged to you before he married me.”

  “Oh, man, that was such a trip,” Rich said. “I loved India, and meeting Fran’s parents. I tell everyone about that Christmas I spent at your house. It was so old-fashioned. We sang carols, and ate, and your neighbors kept coming by to wish you . . . it wasn’t Merry Christmas, it was something else,” Rich paused, then said triumphantly, “Happy Christmas, that’s it, Happy Christmas. It was all so quaint to me.”

  Vic said, “You never told me that you had gone to Goa, Ricardo. I thought you would want to talk to Jay because you were working in a place that was near Delhi. If you had told me you were in Goa, I could have arranged for you to meet Frances a long time ago.”

  Just then Rajesh came up and told Vic that the caterer wanted to know whether he should put the meat items on a separate table.

  “I must go and check on it,” Vic said and took off, followed by Priya.

  Vic’s departure left them without someone to direct the conversation.

  Lali kept staring at Ricardo but seeing Aakash. Thank God Aakash wasn’t at the party. Then she would be like Frances, standing still amid the debris of her past indiscretion. Something about that stillness alerted Lali. Frances used to say that when things went wrong, she just wanted to crawl back into her mother’s womb, and since she could not do so, she would just stay quiet and hope the moment passed by quickly.

  “My knuckles get white,” she had told Lali years ago. “Jay can say that my tongue is white, but the only thing white about me are my knuckles when I get anxious.”

  Lali glanced down at her friend’s clenched hands. The fingers were curved into the palms, and the knuckles were large, protrudant, and very white.

  Until Ricardo spilled the news of their engagement, Lali had been amused, especially by the ridiculous idea that Frances could have been related to Bartolomeu Dias. Such a story would never work with an Indian.

  Then she remembered the story Frances told her the day she confessed that Jay might not marry her.

  “It’s the curse of being the youngest of five,” she explained. “My sisters got all the good stuff. One’s the beauty, another’s the brains. It’s as if my parents ran out of things to give me. Now I won’t even have a husband.”

  Lali turned to Jay. He looked as though he had just seen an alien life form. For the first time since Lali had known him, he was quiet—no quip, no joke leavening the situation. Then Lali swung back to the tightly held fists that Frances was holding close to her sides. She recalled Frances banging on her apartment door, demanding to be let in. Frances had listened so patiently while she told her about Aakash. She had not asked many questions, had simply wanted to send some gundas after Aakash. Lali had been very grateful that Frances was not being the typical inquisitive Indian. Now, years later, she understood why. Frances had gone through the same experience. Instead of poking away at Lali, she had turned her fury on the person who deserved it. It had given Lali comfort to know she wasn’t the only person who wanted to get rid of Aakash.

  Lali realized she could do the same now.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Lali told Ricardo, “but do you mind very much if I steal Frances and Jay away? We were just about to find a table so we can sit down and eat. I’m famished, and since I haven’t seen my friends in a while, we have a lot of catching-up to do.”

  “Hey, that’s cool,” Rich said. “We’re about ready for dinner too. Maybe I’ll see you around later?” he asked Frances.

  Frances could not believe she was still standing. Thank God the children hadn’t heard this. Thank God Lali had gotten rid of Rich.

  What was she going to tell Jay? Would he understand?

  Jay watched Rich walk away. That dirty-looking fellow had been engaged to Frances? Knew her so well that he had a pet name for her? Fran. He remembered once when he had called her Frannie. Frances had told him to please use her full name. He tried to recall that first month at UCLA when they had started going out. He had been surprised when she said, ‘Yes.’ The few Goans he knew always made much of their Western connections, and he assumed that she would prefer to be with an American.

  “You mean you chose Jay when you could have had Tom, Dick, or Harry?” one of his college friends had asked Frances when they were visiting in Delhi.

  “I had no competition, man,” Jay had laughed. “She didn’t want a Great American Nope.”

  Jay now looked at the Great American Nope that Frances had met before him. Had she given her virginity to this bozo? Was that why she was so keen, so desperate to get married? One time they had been kissing, and Jay had put his hand under her skirt. Frances had reacted very strongly, pulling away immediately, telling him that was only allowed after marriage. She had finally slept with him after they became man and wife. There had been no blood on the sheets, and he hadn’t planned to say anything, but Frances had quickly explained that her gynecologist had suggested she switch to using tampons six months ago.

  He needed to talk to Frances. Now.

  “Lali, Jonathan, can you save a spot for us?” Jay asked. “I’m going to get us a drink,” he lied. He took hold of Fran’s hand and pulled her to the side of the house. It was dark, no one was there, and they could talk. Music still poured onto the lawn, and people were laughing, chatting with each other in Hindi, English, loudly, softly. No one would miss them or know they were here.

  “What else haven’t you told me?” he demanded.

  Frances just wanted to go home. The headache that had started when Rich sai
d, “Fran?” had become a steady, excruciating pain in both temples. As always when she had headaches, her stomach, too, was upset. Her mouth was dry, and it felt as if she were going to throw up. She knew from past experience that though the sensation would remain, nothing would come up.

  But she was feeling bad enough to legitimately say that she was unwell. They could collect the children and get away from here.

  Instead, Jay—the man whose favorite Hindi word was bindaas, who told her to give Mandy some space and time, who kept suggesting she “relax, be bindaas,” when they put money in the meter for an hour and were late, because, as he claimed, things always work out—Jay was making a spectacle of them.

  He had also lied to Lali. It was clear that they weren’t going to get drinks. Lali would also know exactly what they were talking about.

  Or would she?

  Frances ignored the raging blood vessels in her head and met Jay’s accusing eyes. “And you have told me everything?”

  “Of course I have. I never had another girlfriend. I even told you that my parents expected me to marry Geet, their best friends’ daughter, though we haven’t spent five minutes alone together. I am not the one who was engaged,” he reminded her.

  “I’m not talking about that,” Frances said. “I know about UCLA.”

  “I never had another girl when I was a student. That was Vic.”

  For a brief moment, the pounding stopped. Frances felt the—release—of being sidetracked from her own anxiety. “Vic had women?”

  “Lots,” Jay said, “but we’re not here to talk about him. This is about you.”

  “Before we talk about Rich, I need to know why you lied that you got your degree from UCLA.”

  The angry words Jay had been formulating in his mind evaporated. He had never discussed his classes with her, so of course he hadn’t mentioned the one incomplete paper. How had she found out about it? Had she known all these years that he could never exchange the blank piece of paper everyone received at graduation for the real thing? Yet she hadn’t said a word when he told her he didn’t want to pay money to pick up his degree, that he would rather celebrate by going out to dinner.

  “You see, Jay, I’m not the only one with secrets.”

  “I can easily fix mine,” Jay said brazenly. “I just need to finish one lousy paper. How can you fix your past? You were engaged, practically married to another man, but you never thought to tell me?”

  “Because I knew how you would react,” Frances said, starting to cry. She tried to control the tears, but they kept gushing out.

  Jay had never been able to stand tears. His school had taught him early on that no one cried, no matter what the circumstances. Any boy who showed moist eyes was immediately dubbed a sissy, a moniker that would follow him the rest of his school life. His own mother was stoic, and he had never known her to weep, or raise her voice. Even when he had called to say he was going to marry Frances, she had sighed and said, “Geet’s parents will be so disappointed.” It was Papa who had yelled, and Jay had imagined the Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, the large eyes. He’d been relieved there was an ocean between them. He didn’t have sisters who might have prepared him to deal with tears. Mandy had learned of his weakness when she was very little. All she needed to do was pretend to cry, and Jay would give her whatever she wanted.

  Frances wasn’t a crier. When they argued, she grew quiet and retreated into herself, her face hard, her voice cold. It was usually Jay who had to seek her out, say the first word.

  But now Frances was sobbing, her body trembling, the tears leaving black lines on her cheeks as the mascara came off her eyelashes.

  “Don’t cry,” Jay said. Then he added, “People will see.”

  People had already seen so much of her life, Frances thought. What did a few tears matter?

  But as much as she had just been frantic that the past had come before her, now she was terrified of the future. She had never before seen that bewildered, devastated look on Jay’s face. He had crushed her hand so hard it still hurt.

  Was Jay going to divorce her because she had been engaged to another man? His family was modern in many ways, but not when it came to marriage. He was the only person in his extended family to have made a love marriage. It had infuriated his parents so much that they had quickly arranged a girl for his younger brother.

  Would he now feel that he should never have gone against his parents?

  She had lost Rich years ago. Was she about to lose Jay? The thought of getting a divorce, of having to tell Mama, the women at the office that she was going to be like them, a single mother, paralyzed her.

  “So I didn’t tell you about Rich,” Frances admitted, hiccupping a little. “It happened a long time ago. We were only engaged for ten days.”

  “Ten days is a long time,” Jay reminded her. “Vic got married in less time than that.”

  Frances took a long breath, her body shuddering. Jay had lived a rather Western life, but she instinctively knew that, like every other Indian man, he preferred an unsullied wife. She had heard about Indian men who slept with prostitutes yet demanded their bride be a virgin. Since Jay himself had never had a girlfriend, his purity had rendered her youthful mistake a catastrophe.

  She had come to America with the idea of meeting someone. Mama had advised her to concentrate on boys more than on her studies. Everything had been new to her at UCLA—except Jay and the idea of getting a husband. His brown face had been familiar; his Western manner, reassuring. She had not so much fallen in love with him as fallen in with him. He was just like her, an Indian who fit into America.

  But since he was Indian, she knew that he knew they could not simply date; they would need to marry. This time, she made sure she did everything correctly. Chaste kisses, plenty of hand-holding, but no sex. In anticipation of their becoming husband and wife, she had switched to using tampons.

  Everything had gone well, and when they went to India, she asked Mama to meet them up north. She allowed Jay to believe she was doing him a favor by letting him spend all his time in India with his family. Mama knew, without being told, never to mention Rich. Frances never did take Jay to Goa. Years went by, and her fear that Jay would somehow find out about Rich faded. Even this morning, at the dining room table, her fear had been a flicker, a moment, not an avalanche. The episode in the car had confirmed that her secret was safe.

  “Well?” Jay asked.

  Frances looked at his face. She had never wanted him this much, not even during those weeks right before graduation when it seemed that he was not going to propose.

  This is it, she thought, I’m going to lose everything. He will leave me. Jay was a Hindu. She had been engaged. And never told him. Two very bad things. There was no Catholic guilt to keep him with her.

  “I was ashamed,” Frances said honestly. If she was going to lose everything, she might as well speak the truth.

  Jay hadn’t expected that. He didn’t know how to respond.

  “I met him, he asked me to marry him, and then he went back to America.”

  “Did you come here to look for him?”

  “I came here almost two years after he had left. I came because I was so tired of people in my town asking me when I was going to America. You know how people love to gossip, love to make you more sad than you are already.”

  Rich hadn’t written or sent for her, but he had left behind the idea that she should plan for her future. He had not gotten into Berkeley on his first attempt and knew that universities paid special attention to Peace Corps applicants. She did some of her own research and discovered that universities like applicants who are focused and have things in place. She had gone to church all her life. She knew the priest, knew the country, and so she put down her dissertation idea in her application.

  “So you wanted to marry him?”

  “What did I really know about marriage at that time?” Frances shook her head. “My mother told me he was a good man. Dada was excited that I was finall
y going to get married. I was the only one of my sisters who didn’t have a boyfriend. I didn’t lie when I told you that I hadn’t had an Indian boyfriend.”

  “Did you sleep with him?” Jay asked the question that bothered him the most. He had been a virgin when he married. He didn’t know what he would do if Frances said she had given up the most sacred part of herself to that dirty scumbag. First he needed to hear her answer.

  “I didn’t.” Frances did not hesitate to lie, but as soon as the words left her mouth, her tongue grew dry. What if Rich told everyone at the party about that night? He was so unpredictable. He might even have told his wife, and she might confess that she wasn’t jealous that they had been intimate.

  Jay closed his eyes and put his head back. He breathed out. Opened his eyes. A few stars speckled the smoggy sky. Virgo was up there. Frances had been born in late August.

  “You’re a virgin,” he used to tease her, and Lali would make a face and say, “Only you would keep saying virgin instead of Virgo.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Frances felt the lie tickle her throat. She coughed and then could not stop.

  “Are you all right?” Jay asked, suddenly alarmed. “Do you need water?”

  Frances managed to shake her head. When she turned her back to him, he realized she needed him to pound the dip between her shoulders. One, two, three—he counted just to occupy his mind. She stopped when he got to twenty-three. It was the number of years they had been married.

  “Thanks,” Frances said shyly, as if this was their first date.

  “I guess we should go back,” Jay suggested.

  Neither of them moved.

  Of all the unknowns in her life—Mandy, her job—this particular one was something she could not live with, or fix on her own. She needed to know what Jay was going to do.

  But before she could ask him, Jay spoke. “You should have been honest with me. I felt like an idiot out there.”

  And just like that, she was furious at him. He was thinking about himself.