by Diksha Basu
“Ah, New York,” Mr. Chopra said. “The city that never sleeps. The Windy City. The Sunshine State. What a wonderful little town. One never tires of Times Square. Does your son live close to there?”
“No, no. He is in upstate New York. Ithaca. You know—where Cornell University is,” Mr. Jha said.
“Ithaca. That is a town in Italy if I am not mistaken,” Mr. Chopra said. He did not want Mr. Jha thinking they were the only international family on the street. “I am a big fan of Michelangelo.”
“He is just finishing his MBA,” Mrs. Jha added. “Let’s see what he does after this.”
“Excellent,” Mr. Chopra said. “He will have good career prospects. I have heard Cornell University is one of the best places in the world. Good. Very good for him.”
“Well, he’s not studying at—” Mrs. Jha said.
“That is what we are hoping, yes,” Mr. Jha interrupted.
“Is he married?” Mrs. Chopra asked.
“Oh no. Not yet,” Mrs. Jha answered.
Fine, let her husband keep up the pretense that Rupak was studying at Cornell. Mrs. Jha was enjoying the evening, as long as one of the maids wasn’t in the room. Contrary to her expectations, the Chopras did not talk constantly about business or jewelry or obscure luxury resorts in distant parts of the world. They had clearly been around money for long enough to not get too excited by it. Mrs. Jha hoped that seeing them would make her husband calm down. It was true that she had pulled out her gold necklace for tonight, but he was taking things too far. He had even insisted on hiding the mug downstairs and having toilet paper placed in every bathroom. Mrs. Jha did not consider toilet paper sufficiently hygienic. There was no way it cleaned better than water. At least he had agreed to have water guns installed near the toilets. Her reverie on the toilets of Gurgaon was broken by the same maid in the purple sari coming into the room again.
“Drinks. What can I get everyone to drink? Mrs. Jha, are you still insisting on sticking to the club soda? How about soda with a splash of wine in it? We can open the bottle you brought or try one of ours? Geeta loves her white wine spritzers. It’s quite a ladies’ drink, isn’t it?”
So that’s what a white wine spritzer is, Mrs. Jha thought.
“I’m fine with soda, thank you,” she said. She had never really cared for the taste of alcohol.
“Soda for you. Rekha, ek soda,” Mr. Chopra said to the maid. Mrs. Jha smiled at the maid. The maid did not smile back. Mrs. Jha decided not to ask about the agency where she was from because there was no way she would feel comfortable with such a fancy maid. She would have to clean the house before the maid cleaned the house.
“And for you, Anil-ji?” Mr. Chopra said to Mr. Jha.
“I’ll have an Old Monk, please. With—” Mr. Jha was going to ask for the familiar Indian dark rum, with a splash of water to release the flavors, but before he could complete his request, Mr. Chopra had started laughing.
“Ah, Old Monk. Oh, that’s a good one, Anil. Old Monk. How did we ever drink that in college? Am I right? Will Black Label do? Rekha, ek soda aur Black Label ka bottle le aao. And the ice bucket also. Mr. Jha, do you take soda or water with your whiskey?”
“Water. Just a splash of water,” Mr. Jha said.
“Perfect,” Mr. Chopra said. “Exactly how I take it this time of year. In summer, with two cubes of ice, rest of the year with a splash of water. Have you seen those giant ice cubes they have in restaurants these days? I don’t care for those. They get in the way of the whiskey and hit against my teeth. Regular ice cubes are just fine.”
Over drinks and galouti kebabs, Mr. Chopra started to create a profile of the Jhas in his mind. Yes, they had bought the house but they had no guard, only one car, and a son trying to work in finance, which all meant that no matter how much money Mr. Jha had, it was not enough to support his son. Even his poor wife used to work.
“Mrs. Jha, I must say. I admire that you were a career lady. Everything is changing these days,” Mr. Chopra said.
“Well, I hope that isn’t in the past tense,” Mrs. Jha said. “Now that we’re settled in, I want to see if I can go back to work. I don’t know if my husband told you, but I used to work with rural craftsmen and weavers to help them bring their goods to—”
“Oh, how nice,” Mr. Chopra said. “Aren’t these kebabs just so soft? But Mrs. Jha, I think it is very admirable of you. I was telling your husband the other day that with the way the economy is now, many households need a double income.”
“Well, my work isn’t the most financially rewarding, but it’s certainly emotionally rewarding,” Mrs. Jha said, with a small laugh.
“Opposite of financially rewarding,” Mr. Jha said with a louder laugh. “Financially draining. When the saris or the carpets don’t get sold to the shops, half the time Bindu buys them with our own money.”
“Sometimes. I don’t want the craftsmen to lose hope. In any case, their work makes wonderful gifts,” Mrs. Jha said. She considered offering to bring a hand-embroidered sari to Mrs. Chopra, but she noticed the expensive, and, she thought, rather ugly, designer sari Mrs. Chopra was wearing and realized her sari would likely be given to one of the maids.
“A double-income home.” Mr. Jha laughed again. This time, Mr. Chopra joined in and they clinked glasses and said, “Cheers.”
“Geeta, you see? Not all women spend their days shopping,” Mr. Chopra said. “Can you imagine if we needed another income? My wife here certainly would not be of help.”
Mrs. Chopra shook her head and laughed at the absurd thought of having a job and continued sipping her white wine spritzer.
Mr. Chopra looked at Mrs. Jha, sitting at the edge of the sofa, drinking her soda. She took up so much less physical space than his own wife. And not just because his own wife was fat. Mrs. Chopra took up space in every sense of the word—her jewelry sparkled, her voice was loud, her clothes were bright, and she wore her self-confidence around her like a halo. Mrs. Jha was undoubtedly more beautiful than Mrs. Chopra, and he would have expected a woman like her to carry herself with that same confidence, but she didn’t.
Mrs. Jha was annoyed that she was getting distracted every time the maid went in or out of the room. Yes, perhaps she and the maid were wearing similar saris, but that hardly mattered. That was nothing to be embarrassed about. Mrs. Jha had spent her life working toward helping the less fortunate. She knew that the sari she was wearing was more valuable than some silly overpriced designer sari. The exploitation of the craftsmen by these designers was, after all, exactly what she was trying to work against. Just because the Chopras were more used to money did not mean she was any less than them. Her husband had worked hard and now her son was working hard and she used to work hard, and would again. Mrs. Chopra did not add much to the conversation, and Mrs. Jha couldn’t imagine her doing anything interesting. No, she was being unfair. She did not have to counter her own insecurities by being nasty about Mrs. Chopra.
“Indian Idol will be on soon,” Mrs. Chopra said. “Have you been following this season? It’s becoming quite heated.”
“Oh, I don’t watch much television,” Mrs. Jha said. “But we should be heading home in any case. This has been such a wonderful evening.”
Of course Mrs. Jha didn’t watch Indian Idol, Mrs. Chopra thought. Mrs. Jha probably never did anything enjoyable. Everything probably had to become an issue with her. She did not like the way Mrs. Jha was sitting upright in her simple sari and gold chain looking around the Chopras’ house. Mrs. Chopra knew the type—the so-called intellectual ones who come into money and then buy up homes in the fancy neighborhoods but think they’re too good for the others. They think there’s some moral code to how you spend your money. Mrs. Jha was just this type. She would be the kind to put her arm around a homeless person to make a whole production out of it and then look down her nose at Mrs. Chopra simply because Mrs. Chopra had no desire to get lice herself.
As the Chopras were standing at the door saying good night to the Jhas
, Johnny pulled into the driveway in his new Honda Civic. He stepped out, beeped the car doors locked, and walked over to the house.
Mr. Chopra looked at the silver car and worried for a moment that he had given in to his wife too easily. Perhaps he should have ignored her and splurged and bought his son a Lexus. It wasn’t just his wife’s fault, though; he himself couldn’t justify the cost given the import taxes. It would have felt wasteful.
“Johnny, young man,” Mr. Chopra said. “Where have you been? Come meet our new neighbors. These are the Jhas. They have just moved in next door. This is Johnny, our son.”
Johnny said hello and walked straight past them to the coffee table to pour himself a whiskey on the rocks.
“Like father, like son,” Mr. Chopra said, laughing. “Johnny, no drinking and driving. At least not when your mother sees. He’s just got a new car and now his mother is forever nervous. You know how it is.”
Mr. and Mrs. Jha smiled at Mr. Chopra.
“And what do you do, Johnny? Are you studying?” Mrs. Jha asked.
“Studying!” Mr. Chopra said. “Oh, that’s rich. Tell them, Johnny. Tell them what you do.”
“I’m a poet. Well, I want to be,” Johnny said.
“Oh, how nice,” Mrs. Jha said. “A poet. That’s lovely.”
“Lovely for him that I can support him,” Mr. Chopra said. “Johnny, you should learn from their son. He is studying in America, doing his MBA. From Cornell University, no less. It is a top university.”
“They will meet soon. Rupak will be back for his winter break,” Mrs. Jha said.
“Not Cornell University,” Mr. Jha said. “Ithaca College. Near Cornell University. It isn’t very good. But so expensive! I don’t know how most people can afford sending their children. We are lucky. Anyway, let’s see what he does next. If anything.”
Mrs. Jha looked over at her husband. What was he doing? He was the one who had always whispered the word near when saying Cornell University. Maybe he had had too much to drink. He wasn’t used to drinking whiskey.
“It’s a good university,” Mrs. Jha said. “It’s a lot of hard work.”
“Hardly working is more like it,” Mr. Jha added with a laugh.
“Well, Johnny, hopefully you will see him and learn that some young people have to work,” Mr. Chopra said, shaking his head toward the Jhas and laughing. “Chalo then, we will see you again soon.”
Despite it being a Friday, Rupak had been studying at the library until nearly midnight, ignoring text messages from both Serena and Elizabeth. His parents had booked their tickets to New York, and he was supposed to book their bus tickets to Ithaca. He was at risk of failing two classes already, and that, combined with his academic probation from the previous year, meant he was at risk of not getting his degree. He had to focus. He was not the kind of student who started excelling in any one subject. There were no professors who wanted to take him under their wing. Some of his classmates had become friends with the professors. The young professors were practically the same age as the students themselves, but Rupak felt embarrassed to befriend any of them. He thought it was because he was fully dependent on his parents for money. He wished, in a way, that he could be like his American counterparts and work a part-time job as a bartender or a barista to make money, but, first of all, his parents would not want him having a job like that and, second of all, he would have to work far too many hours to make an amount that his father could easily transfer to him. But maybe he would have worked harder if he had to pay for it, or if he knew his parents were struggling to pay for it. No, of course not. How did that make any sense? If he were working part-time to make money, he’d have even less time to study. He just had no explanation.
Rupak left the library and decided to return Elizabeth’s text message first. He was beginning to feel guilty about keeping the relationship with her going when he knew it was not a reasonable option at the moment, at least not until after his parents’ visit. And he needed to talk to her honestly about it. Which he could do tomorrow morning after he spent the night with her, because he just wanted to relax tonight. He did not want to talk about India, or Delhi, or his parents. He did not want to have to think more about how to face them and how to tell them about his life. They knew almost nothing about his life in Ithaca and he preferred it that way. But now they had booked their tickets. Rupak was going to go to New York to spend two nights with them and then they would all come to Ithaca for three nights. He had not told Elizabeth they were coming but was keen, instead, on convincing Serena to come to dinner with them. It was all exhausting and he knew he had to be more honest with Elizabeth, but first he wanted just one night to relax.
So at around midnight, he left the library and went to Elizabeth’s apartment and when she opened the door, the familiar, comfortable smell of her lotion and her skin and her life drifted out from behind her and absorbed all his other problems. He dropped his bag on the floor and pressed his cold face into her warm neck.
“Your nose is freezing!” Elizabeth said.
“It’s really cold already,” Rupak said.
“How was the library? Did you get everything done?”
“Stop. Please stop. I don’t want to talk about work. I don’t want to talk about the library. Do you have anything to drink?”
Rupak sat down on Elizabeth’s sofa while she went to the kitchen to get beer for them both.
“Why are you in such a mood?” Elizabeth asked.
“What did you do tonight?” he asked.
“I went riding at the equestrian center. I told you. You should come with me some time. You’d enjoy it. You seem tense. Do you want to smoke?”
Rupak nodded, and Elizabeth pulled out the wooden pencil box from the drawer of her bedside table. She sat down cross-legged on the brown threadbare carpet of her apartment and opened the box in front of her.
“This is such a useful box. How would your mother react if she knew we used it for pot?” Elizabeth asked, laughing, dropping a small marijuana bud into her open palm.
“Maybe you should go back to using the old Altoid tin,” Rupak said.
“Why? I love this box.”
She shut the box, placed it on the floor near the coffee table, and licked the edge of the rolling paper.
“I was thinking,” she said. “Do you want to come to Pensacola with me for Thanksgiving? My parents would love to meet you, and I think you’d like it there.”
Rupak did want to go to Pensacola with her. He wanted to be part of a traditional American Thanksgiving with turkey and stuffing and whatever else Thanksgiving included. He wanted to be on the receiving end of jokes about an Indian coming to Thanksgiving. He wanted to eat oysters and drink wine on the beach with Elizabeth and go sailing with her friends. He wanted to know who her parents were who tithed ten percent of their income to the church. He wanted to see how he would react to staying in a house with a dog. But he knew it was not fair to his parents. They would be here in less than two weeks, and he had to sacrifice this beautiful blond woman sitting in front of him. And he had to do it now. It wasn’t fair to her to wait until morning.
“I don’t think that would be such a great idea, Lizzy. I’ve actually been thinking about it and I think I need to focus more on my work, you know. I’m not doing that well,” Rupak said. He thought he was going to say they should end the relationship because there was no chance of a future, they were from different worlds, and there was no point. But instead he found himself giving this excuse that left a window open for them to get back together if he managed to get his grades up and keep his parents happy.
“You aren’t going to just study over Thanksgiving break. You should come. It gets really lonely in Ithaca when everyone leaves.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You can study in Florida. I’ll tell my family that you’re coming with work. They would love it. My mother rented a Bollywood film from Netflix last week.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?
”
“Nothing, sorry. I just mean…do they…how much have you told your parents about us?”
“Just that I’m dating a guy from India. And they’ve seen a few pictures of you. That’s all. Why, what did you tell your parents?”
“The same. That I’m dating a girl from Florida. That’s all. Anyway, Lizzy, that’s not the point. The point is that I need to focus more on my work. Not just over Thanksgiving, but in general. And I don’t want to drag you into my boring life with me, you know.”
“I’m studying too. I hardly get in the way of your work. I’m doing fine in school,” Elizabeth said. She leaned up from the couch where she had been reclining against Rupak and reached for her beer, which was on a coaster on the coffee table. It was easier to speak to the back of her head, Rupak thought.
“Well, good for you. But I’m not. And I need to focus on my work. I can’t spend all my time hanging out with you.”
