The old woman had no trouble understanding Daly's request this time. "For you, one thousand rupees only. Best price." The woman's grin displayed two holes in her faded, yellow smile.
"No, yaar," Mishti yelled from the next stall. She dropped the jewelry she held and rushed over to haggle on Daly's behalf. "One thousand is too much. We will pay one hundred only."
"One hundred? Very good quality!" the woman spat. She shook the tapestry to emphasize its durability. A sequin fell defiantly from the embellished border and landed on the paved walkway. The woman then made a counter offer in Hindi.
Mishti glowered at the old woman, and Daly shifted her gaze. She would have been happy to pay a thousand rupees for the beautiful peacock—an amount equal to only twenty-two American dollars. She plucked at her fingernails and chewed her lower lip, wishing she had some say in the matter.
"Hut! This is thievery," Mishti barked at the woman, cutting the conversation short. "Come, Dolly, we don't do business with crooks." She pulled Daly down the alley.
"Hey, I wanted to buy that!"
"It's okay," Mishti assured her. "We can go back later and find if she will agree to a lesser price. Sometimes you must get angry and walk away in order to do proper business."
"But what if she doesn't bring the price down? Can't we buy it anyway? I really liked it."
"No, we will send Kashi or Papa out later to buy, since they will be able to get a better price. So many of this kind are in the marketplaces. You will be able to find such things everywhere."
"Really? But that looked hand-made."
Mishti shrugged. "It was. These women just sit all day and make the crafts. They all have very similar designs because they know what the Westerners want to buy. They charge at least ten times the price to you, because you are not an Indian."
"Well," Daly mumbled. "I thought it was beautiful, and that the artist had a lot of talent."
Jaya rolled her eyes and pointed out a two-story glass shop across the street. "See, the Saree House is just here."
Daly and Mishti scampered after her.
A bell attached to a string of chili peppers rang when they entered. The shopkeeper craned her neck and turned on her brightest smile. "Ahh, welcome. Welcome," she crowed, then whispered to her young apprentice and motioned him toward the shop's other customers, giving Daly her full attention. "Will you have anything? Chai? Coffee?"
"Um, no thank you."
"No, no. You must have something. I will bring coffee. You like coffee, na? Please sit here." She motioned to a red velvet bench flanking the store's interior. A few holes from cigarette burns marred the fabric, which was otherwise pristine.
Daly lowered herself onto the plush bench while the shopkeeper ran to the back of the store. In less than two minutes, she returned holding a sterling silver tray with three small glasses filled with coffee.
"Thank you." Daly hesitated, not used to being treated like a celebrity while out shopping.
She'd never liked the taste of coffee, but since the woman had gone to such trouble, she felt obliged at least to take a sip. She coughed as the hot liquid hit her tongue. This was not what she considered coffee: two parts milk, two parts sugar, and maybe a half part espresso, it tasted like chai to her unpracticed palate. Not bad, actually.
"So, Madame, what would you like today? Saree? Suit?" The merchant's eyes twinkled with the promise of a big sale.
"I think a suit will suit her best." Mishti giggled at her obvious pun. "What do you think, Jaya?"
"I don't know." Jaya sighed, extracting the Blackberry from her purse. She'd gone almost an hour without checking her e-mail—probably a new record for her. "Why will you decide what she should wear? It's her body the clothes will be worn on. She should decide."
Mishti frowned.
The merchant took Jaya's cue and turned to Daly, hands clasped. "So, what you like to try? I think you will be very nice in both a saree and a suit. Very pretty. What color you like?"
Daly blinked, but then realized the shopkeeper was waiting for an answer. "Well, my favorite color is gray."
"I have perfect thing for you." The merchant stepped over the bench and ran her hands across the multitude of silks hanging on the wall. At last, she reached for one. "Ah-ha! This will suit you very well!" She rushed over to Daly with her selection, a majestic maroon saree with silver embroidery and fragile, glass beads.
Jaya's voice rose from the other side of the bench. "She said gray, not red."
"For such a beautiful girl, gray is not nice. But red is very good. Come." The shopkeeper put the bolt of fabric in Daly's lap and hurried back into her stockroom to extract a petticoat and top. "You go, wear these things, then we will wrap the saree."
Daly squeezed herself into the tight fitting room, discomfited by the lack of a lock. Worse, her head and shoulders rose over the top of the stall. She took a deep breath, then balled her jeans and tee shirt into a pile and tossed them into the corner.
The form-fitting shirt came down only about an inch past her bra, exposing her entire midriff. She folded her arms protectively around her bare stomach and hobbled back into the main room.
The shopkeeper waited, saree in hand. She turned Daly with one hand and began wrapping the fabric with the other. In a flurry of deft motions, she wound it around her waist, creating delicate pleats in the font. She used a series of pins, which she held in her mouth, to set the outfit in place, finally bringing the saree up across Daly's chest and placing the remaining fabric into the crook of her arm.
Mishti's eyes grew wide. "Arey wah, you are looking very beautiful, Dolly."
"Come. You must see." The shopkeeper gestured for Daly to walk over to the mirror hanging near the fitting room.
Daly inched her way forward, afraid one of the few pins holding her outfit in place might rebel and drop the whole thing down around her ankles. She pictured tripping over the strange outfit and falling down the nearby stairs.
Daly barely recognized herself in the mirror. She actually looked pretty. The deep color of the saree gave her pale skin an ethereal glow, and cast a deep tone to her brown eyes. The tight wrapping enhanced the curves on her normally flat, boyish body. Even her tangled mess of hair glimmered. She'd never looked or felt quite so beautiful in her entire life.
"How much?" she asked, turning to beam at the shopkeeper.
"Twenty-five thousand rupees. Fixed price." She pointed to the price tag dangling from the end of the fabric.
Daly's eyes widened. She'd never spent anywhere near that much money on a single garment. I want this one, even if that means only getting one memento during this trip. "Okay, I'll take it."
Mishti drew her eyebrows together. "Dolly, what are you doing? It's very expensive! Sarees like this are only worn for marriages. You won't get the opportunity to wear it!"
"I think you should get it," said Jaya, unexpectedly. "If it makes you feel good, it should be yours. You should have it."
"Yes, I'll get it." Daly focused on the light playing on the tiny beads, forcing the expense from her mind.
"Let me get your measures. Then we will make a top and petticoat especially for you. Included in price." The shopkeeper used her worn yellow tape measure and the back of a Pepsi-Cola napkin to record the relevant figures. When she was finished, she handed the information to her assistant. "Everything will be ready in little while. You wait? Try on more things?"
"I'd like to, but I don't think I can afford anymore sarees. That one wiped out almost all my cash."
"Don't worry, Dolly," Mishti said. "We can go and find some bangles and jhumka to match. That way you will have the complete outfit." She pushed Daly out of the shop.
Before letting the door swing shut behind her, Jaya turned to the merchant. "We'll be back in one hour."
"Do you want to visit the sweet shop?" Mishti asked as they stood under the covered walkway outside the Saree House. "We can have a tasty kulfi-falooda."
"Okay." Daly had no idea what kulfi-falooda was. "But fir
st there's something I need to do." She turned on heel and pushed her way back down the alley.
"Wait," Mishti cried. "You don't know where you're going. Stop! You could get lost."
Daly hurried on, leaving Jaya and Mishti no choice but to scurry after her, ducking and darting through the crowd. She finally stopped at the covered tunnel where the old woman sat selling tapestries.
"Dolly, what are you doing?" Mishti panted. "She's not giving a good price."
"Hush, Mishti. Let her decide what is and isn't a good price."
"Jaya, I’m just trying to protect her from getting cheated!"
"Maybe she doesn't care if she's cheated!"
While the sisters bickered, Daly sorted through her wallet and pulled out one five hundred rupee note and three one hundred notes, taking care to hide the other thousand-rupee notes housed within from the prying merchant's eyes. She hunched down and held out the money to the woman. "Listen, I really like that tapestry with the peacock, but this is all the money I have on me right now. I know this normally sells for a lot less, but I'm willing to give you eight hundred. Won't you just sell it to me? No more negotiating. No more theatrics. You take the money. I'll take the tapestry. Okay?"
The woman seemed to understand the large sum of money clutched in Daly's hand—if not all her words. She bobbed her head from side to side as she extracted a crinkled pink plastic bag, folded up the peacock tapestry, and placed it delicately inside. She held her palm out and smiled.
Daly passed over the money and took her purchase proudly. The decision had been hers. She had negotiated the seller down all by herself, and this was her prize.
"Hey–" She interrupted the sisters' argument. "We can go to the sweet shop now. Which way?"
Mishti motioned to the left, and Daly led her companions through the busy marketplace streets once more.
Chapter 14
Sigh. When will I learn that things rarely go my way?
Daly pushed open the door to the Saree House for the second time that afternoon. This time, nobody greeted them in a flurry of fanfare, or offered free coffee. In fact, no one paid them any attention as they made their way up the flight of stairs leading to the main shop. The shopkeeper faced the enormous wall of fabric, her hands moving in a blur over the beautiful silks, satins, and brocades.
"I like the blue one there with all the beads." A middle-aged woman with a Southern accent motioned to the wall. She wore a sun visor and sturdy walking shoes.
"I want to try something in black. Do you have any black?" asked another middle-aged American. Her short spiky hair contrasted oddly with her dark sundress.
A third tourist gushed, "Got anything with lace? I so adore lace."
The shopkeeper raced around, doing her best to capitalize on the spend-happy tourists.
The lace enthusiast turned around and caught sight of Daly, Mishti, and Jaya standing near the staircase. "Well, hello there, darlings." She tromped over to them and stood directly in front of Daly. "Now where are you from, my dear? Not from these parts, I’d wager."
"What gave that away?" Jaya snorted, striding to the window to check her e-mail.
"No, I guess I’m not," Daly said.
Mishti said, "Dolly, you okay? I want to go see the dresses on the main floor. Jaya is here if you need her, na?" She galloped back down the stairs.
"Dolly? Well, isn't that a nice name. Where are you from, Dolly?" The tourist's wide-set eyes gave her a bovine appearance.
"It's Daly, actually. They just call me Dolly. I'm from Michigan."
"I thought I heard a Yankee accent! What tour are you here with? We're part of the Wondrous World travel group. We've only been here three days so far, but the tour is three weeks' long in its entirety. We'll be in Delhi for another coupla days. Tomorrow, we're going to visit this big, modern temple called the Akhshar-something. Our director says it's just the most beautiful thing! Can you imagine? Next we'll head north toward the Pink City and Taj Mahal. Speaking of the Taj—that's where we're staying while we're here. Such a beautiful resort! Oh! Are you staying there, too?"
"Actually, I'm not part of a tour. I'm here with my friends." She motioned toward Jaya, who tore her eyes away from her Blackberry to nod.
"How rude of me, I didn't introduce myself!" The woman wrapped her arm around Daly's shoulders and turned her toward the other tourists. "This is Jody from Texas. Marlene, she's from Boston. And I'm Belle. I come from Mississippi, the best state in the country!" She dropped her voice. "You know... our country."
"Nice to meet you all." Daly shifted from one foot to the other, feeling like a cornered rabbit desperate to escape. She should have gone with Mishti to the main floor of the shop.
"We get the entire day free to explore the market. And I said to Marlene and Jody here, I said, well we're gonna be taking lots of pictures, and we should make sure we're wearing the local fashions. That way people will know we got along just fine!"
Daly smiled and signaled to the shopkeeper. "Is my saree ready?"
"Yah, yah. Just a moment," she mumbled, searching through a stack of papers under the cash register.
"Did you get yourself a saree? I'm sure you're mighty pretty in it. I would get myself a saree, too, but I've got this tire around my midsection." Belle chortled, and the aforementioned tire jiggled beneath her pink tee shirt.
Daly's mind wandered as the tourist continued to chat. She began ticking off rolls of fabric, counting silently. By the time she reached seventy-nine, the shopkeeper interrupted.
"Everything is inside the bag," she said, jerking her chin toward the package her assistant held out.
The assistant stood gaping at Daly. His short black hair was combed back, and the start of a moustache darkened his upper lip. Despite the cool winter air, he wore fabric sandals. Blushing, he handed over the bulky, red carrying case that held Daly's new saree.
Mishti tromped up the stairs. "All ready?"
"Yeah, I think so." Daly smiled awkwardly at the assistant.
He pressed his hands together and bobbed his head before returning to the back of the store.
"Well, don't just stand there looking lost," Belle said. "Put it on. I'm dying to see you all dolled-up."
Daly glanced to Mishti. "She's right. You must be sure your petticoats fit properly."
"Okay," Daly said shyly.
Maybe wearing the saree would bring back her confidence—like a superhero costume that could transform her into a different, better person. She hurried into the dressing room and put on the tailored undergarments. Dangling red earrings, dainty metal anklets, and a smattering of mismatched gold-plated bangles completed the outfit.
Mishti knocked on the side of the dressing room, and passed her a pair of silver-beaded sandals.
"What's this?" Daly asked, fingering the delicate fabric.
"As a token of our friendship," Mishti said.
Daly slipped them on, grinning. When she emerged, Mishti and Jaya wrapped her saree, since the shopkeeper had abandoned them in favor of the other tourists.
"Well, aren't you a vision!" Belle prattled. "I'd need at least seven procedures before I could look so young, so beautiful—it doesn't matter what I'm wearing." Her chubby cheeks shook merrily.
Daly spun on her toes to show off the outfit. "I've never felt so beautiful."
"Well, darling, you're a pretty girl, but in that there dress, you are breathtaking! Are you trying to impress some young fella?"
"No." Daly turned her gaze back to her feet. After one last look in the mirror, she slipped back to the fitting room to change into her boring jeans and tee shirt.
As she passed, Mishti gave her a conspiratorial little pinch.
Daly emerged from the dressing room and darted straight for the stairs, calling over her shoulder, "Goodbye then, Belle, Jody, Marlene. It was nice to meet you all."
***
Back at the apartment, Daly modeled her new saree. The outfit felt so right. Sure, it was expensive, but well-worth the admiration she recei
ved. Everyone sang high praises and declared Indian clothes were quite becoming on her slim frame.
She spun in circles, feeling like a princess in the spectacular dress.
Kashi, in particular, seemed enamored by the interplay of the rich delicate silk with her fair complexion. He only nodded and smiled while the others spoke ceaselessly of her beauty, but the expression of love on his face said everything.
As excited as Daly was, the busy day of shopping had taken a toll on her jetlagged body. A sudden wave of fatigue washed over her, and she yawned. "I think I'll go put on my pajamas."
Chai-ji, who had twitched uncomfortably during Daly's entire modeling stint, stopped her from leaving the room. The ancient matriarch pushed down on the handles of her walker, attempting to rise, then began shouting in Punjabi and shaking her finger at Mishti and Jaya.
Mishti whispered, "Chai-ji is worried you're too beautiful in your new outfit, Dolly. When a young girl is too anything, she's bound to attract the evil eye."
Daly's sudden drain, to the superstitious old woman, was proof she had already been cursed—by some jealous onlooker in the Saree House, no doubt.
"Nazar lag gayi," she screamed, jabbing a finger at Daly and clutching her chest.
The family did their best to calm Chai-ji. Rishi Uncle tried to explain that Daly was just experiencing jetlag.
Kashi quietly drew Daly aside. "Smile," he said. "Try to seem upbeat."
Jaya and Mishti stroked Chai-ji's hair. Meenu Auntie said something to Chai-ji in Punjabi—or was it Hindi?—then pulled Daly into the kitchen, where she performed a folk ritual that included placing a small amount of salt in her closed fist and circling it around Daly's head and toes three times.
"What's going on?" Daly whispered to Kashi.
"This ritual is supposed to ward off the evil eye, or at the very least, prevent further damage," he whispered back, a false grin plastered on his face.
She felt guilty for upsetting the frail old woman. Perhaps this was a sign that she was meant to be plain, that she shouldn't try to change that destiny.
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