The Sari Shop Widow

by Shobhan Bantwal

  With no thought other than to get herself and everyone in the family out of the house, she opened the bedroom door and ran down the hallway yelling, “Fire, you guys! Get out!”

  Her heartbeat thundering in her ears, she managed to turn on the hallway light and sped down the stairs. Downstairs in the foyer, she skidded to a stop. Oh God! Nilesh was sleeping in the basement. What if the fire had started there? That boy was so careless sometimes.

  She ran to the kitchen, opened the door that led to the basement, and stumbled downstairs in the dark, yelling again. “Nil! Honey, get out! Fire!”

  Turning on the basement light with shaking fingers, she looked around. Nilesh was stretched out on his stomach, his head buried under the pillow. Her heart skipped a beat. Was her baby brother unconscious from breathing carbon monoxide fumes? She rushed up to the sofa bed and poked a finger at the long, hairy leg that stuck out of the covers. “Nil?” No response. “Nilesh?”

  Nilesh stirred a little, shifted, and went right back to sleep. Fear zipped through her chest. He wasn’t waking up. Oh boy! That wasn’t a good sign. She poked him hard in the back this time. “Nil…baby…”

  “Damn it!” Nilesh turned onto his back and tore the pillow off his face. “What the fuck are you doing?” He squinted at her.

  She bent down and peered at him. He seemed okay. “There’s a fire, you silly boy. Get out of bed. Now!”

  He frowned at her and snorted like a cantankerous horse. “What fire?”

  “Don’t you hear the alarm? It’s been screaming for several minutes.”

  He sat up groggily. “What the—” He shook his head. “That’s not what our fire alarm sounds like. That sounds like…” He listened more carefully. “Like temple bells.”

  Several sets of quick footsteps could be heard stomping on the floor above. The others had obviously woken up and rushed downstairs. Anjali cocked her ears. “You’re right; it does sound like bells.”

  Her father came down, his hair standing on end and his hunter green pajamas looking rumpled. “What are you two doing? Your mom and I are trying to get some sleep.”

  Nilesh pointed an accusing finger at Anjali. “It’s her fault. She’s running around screaming like a damn lunatic. She stabbed me in the back and disturbed my sleep, too.”

  “Oh stop it, you big crybaby. I didn’t stab you.” Anjali turned to her father with a sheepish look. “It sounded like a fire alarm, so I decided to wake everyone up.”

  “And you did a fine job! Now we’re all up.” Her father ran all ten fingers through his hair and stared at her.

  Before Anjali could say anything else, her mother appeared on the steps, wrapped in a pretty pink robe, frowning delicately. “What is all this commotion about?”

  Anjali glanced at her mother, wondering how she could look so good at such an ungodly hour while her father looked like a troll. “Mom, what on earth is that sound if it’s not the fire alarm?”

  Usha sighed long and loud. “It’s your uncle doing his morning pooja. He has brought a big brass bell for the purpose. I forgot to tell you last night.”

  “Oh man, I should have known it was Jeevan-kaka. The guy’s a menace.” Nilesh stuck his fingers in his ears and fell back on his bed. “Just shut the fucking door, you guys, and let me get some sleep.”

  “No need for obscenities,” Usha warned Nilesh, then turned around and started up the stairs, with Mohan in tow. “Let’s all get some sleep. It’s only four-fifty in the morning.”

  Anjali stood still for a second, the clanging bell wreaking havoc on her already frayed nerves. “Oh, Jeevan-kaka, what am I going to do with you?” She stomped up the stairs and shut off the stairway light before closing the door. “The man needs to be brought under control,” she murmured to herself.

  The sound of the bell was coming from the family room and the light was on in there, so she headed toward it, fully prepared to deliver a lecture to her uncle.

  She found Jeevan-kaka dressed in nothing but white pajamas. Sitting cross-legged on the floor with his bare, hairy back to her, he looked like a hunched-up teddy bear. His bald head was sprinkled with age spots of various sizes and shades of brown. A low stool with silver idols of Krishna and Ganesh was placed in front of him. In his right hand he had a huge bell that he was swinging with all his might.

  He was chanting something in a low murmur and seemed entirely immersed in his ritualistic homage to the gods. An incense stick burned in a small silver holder, perfuming the air with some sort of tropical floral scent, and a tea light flickered before the idols.

  Anjali was tempted to rush in, seize the bell from his hand, and toss it out the window, but something stopped her. Her uncle looked peaceful, despite the racket created by the bell. All the rest of the noise—her yelling and the family running up and down the stairs—had apparently not made a dent in his concentration.

  She stood in the doorway, contemplating. Since when had the wily fox become so spiritual anyway? Five years ago he wasn’t into anything religious. She’d have remembered the bell, if nothing else. Back then, all he had cared about was money. How to make lots of it. And how to keep all of it.

  Gradually her irritation receded. He was just an odd old man praying. A bit extreme to conduct one’s pooja in such a thoughtless manner, but he was still being a devout Hindu. What could she do but overlook it?

  With a resigned sigh she headed back upstairs. With any luck, she’d be able to stuff some cotton balls in her ears and get a couple of hours of sleep. The pooja had to end at some point. She hadn’t been able to fall asleep until well after midnight. Jeevan-kaka’s gun and Rishi Shah’s silent flirtation with Sejal had bothered her.

  Speaking of Shah, as she reached the landing she saw him leaning against the frame of his bedroom door, arms folded across his middle. Other than the navy robe, worn over navy pajamas, and big bare feet, there was no other sign of his having been awakened unexpectedly. His hair looked neat and even the dark shadow of beard didn’t look all that out of place. His gaze was fixed on her. “Is the fire emergency over, Miss Kapadia?”

  She sent him an apologetic look. “Sorry, but Jeevan-kaka’s bell sounded like the fire alarm. It was a gut reaction on my part.”

  To her surprise, Shah smiled, sending a mild and unexpected flutter through her system. “I don’t blame you. It is rather loud.”

  “It’s enough to bust one’s eardrums. I don’t know when he became so religious. He wasn’t into this kind of stuff the last time he stayed with us.”

  “He’s been at it for a while now. And you’re not the first to mistake his bell for a fire alarm.”

  “No?” She wasn’t a lunatic after all.

  “We were in a hotel in Singapore last year and several of the guests on our floor ran out into the corridor half naked and screaming bloody fire because of his bell.”

  Anjali couldn’t help chuckling. “He performed his pooja in a hotel room?”

  “He takes his morning worship very seriously. I was in the bathroom when his bell pealed and I rushed out with just a towel covering me. I made a complete idiot of myself and sent one nice old English lady into a dead faint.”

  Despite her misgivings about Shah, Anjali burst out laughing. “A serious attack of the vapors, as some old-fashioned Brits would say.” She couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe because of the lingering effects of the adrenaline, she nearly doubled over with mirth.

  She could only imagine the chaos in a grand hotel, with those prim and proper rich folks running around, distressed about being seen in all their semi-naked glory. Her hilarity abruptly subsided when she remembered the last part of his anecdote. “You didn’t really run outside with just a…towel, did you?”

  His eyes danced with humor. “I did, and I must have looked like a clown, too. I had shaving cream over half my face.”

  Anjali’s stomach clenched. Holy cow, he looked good when he laughed. His eyes turned to pure smoke. She couldn’t help the hot color rising in her cheeks. She was picturing h
im wearing nothing but a scrap of cloth, and the image was…driving her pulse rate up. “W-what did you do?”

  “I convinced Jeevan-kaka to use a smaller and less boisterous bell. I even went out and bought him a small bell from a souvenir shop.”

  “Did the old tyrant agree to use it?”

  Shah drew a dramatic breath. “Yes, a bit reluctantly. But then we had another catastrophe the next morning.”

  “No!”

  “His incense sticks, those jasmine agarbattis he uses, set off the real smoke alarm and it was bedlam once again at five A.M. in the hotel.”

  She went into a hysterical fit of laughter again. She could picture the pandemonium the second time around. “So what happened then?”

  “We very nearly got ousted from the hotel, but I had a talk with the hotel’s management. The owner happens to be an acquaintance of mine.”

  “Damage control, huh?” Suddenly conscious that her hair was a complete mess and she was dressed in a skimpy, emerald green nightgown with no sleeves and a low neck, she moved quickly toward her bedroom door. The hemline barely came down to mid-thigh and her legs were completely bare. Now she felt almost naked. “I…uh…think I’ll try to get some sleep now. You might want to do the same.”

  “Miss Kapadia.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You have splendid legs.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “Oh.” She frowned. “Oh.” She had no idea how to handle that.

  “A modern American woman like you ought to be able to handle a simple compliment.” The amusement still lurked in his eyes.

  She stepped inside her room and shut the door, then stood leaning against it, shaking. He was definitely a very strange man.

  But he sure looked good in his monogrammed silk robe, and his smile was brilliant. And best of all, he’d laughed at himself when he’d recounted his hotel escapade and Jeevan-kaka’s bells. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure if Shah had made it all up just to amuse her.

  She had a weakness for men with a self-deprecating sense of humor. And oh boy, she couldn’t get the nearly nude image of him out of her mind.

  Groaning, she went back to her bed. She wasn’t supposed to like Rishi Shah. He was the man who had exploded into her life when she’d least expected it. He was the guy who was going to take over her business and turn her graceful Silk & Sapphires into something gaudy and grotesque.

  No, she couldn’t like Shah. Or could she?

  Chapter 9

  Rishi emerged from the shower feeling considerably more refreshed than he’d felt an hour ago. His leg felt slightly better, too. The cursed knee was acting up again. He had tossed and turned on the narrow single bed belonging to Nilesh. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but Rishi was used to more lavish beds at his townhouse in London and his apartment in Delhi.

  And Jeevan-kaka’s bell had created the worst sort of disturbance, giving him a headache to match the throbbing in his leg.

  Besides, it wasn’t the feel of the bed or the level of the air-conditioning that had left him with practically no sleep. It was the whole bloody setup. He was a stranger to these people. They had been kind and hospitable to him, and young Nilesh was already treating him like a mentor of sorts, an older friend.

  The Kapadias were a nice, wholesome family, but he was imposing on them. If Jeevan-kaka hadn’t insisted that Rishi stay here instead of at a hotel, this never would have happened. He hated hurting Jeevan-kaka’s feelings and that meant staying here at least for a few days.

  Plus, the pretty and intriguing Anjali’s presence only a few feet from where he slept was mildly disquieting. He didn’t like the fact that she was stealing his thoughts away from Samantha, his girlfriend in London. He’d promised Samantha he’d invite her to join him soon so they could take a much-needed holiday.

  Maybe he could take Samantha to one of the Caribbean island resorts where they could swim in a crystal-blue ocean, lie on the beach for hours and bake themselves till they turned the color of lightly grilled pork chops. And Samantha looked magnificent in a bikini—especially that little white number with the tiny black bows.

  Lately he hadn’t had time for lying idle anywhere. His life was mostly work-work-work and travel-travel-travel. He’d been so busy tending to his multiple stores and offering consulting services to other businesses that he hadn’t given a thought to anything else.

  All the money he was raking in was nice, but sometime in the near future he’d have to slow down and give himself a moment to enjoy some of it. Jeevan-kaka had been lecturing him on acquiring a wife. But Rishi had come to the conclusion that Samantha wasn’t the wifely sort. She was good in bed, efficient as a business associate, marvelous as the woman on his arm at business and social functions, but she was certainly not the wife-and-mother type.

  Oh well, for now he wasn’t keen on marriage anyway. He had no time for a wife. Besides, he was too old for marriage and too set in his ways. Forty-two was rather late to think about a wife and a family, wasn’t it? However, Jeevan-kaka was convinced otherwise. The old man thought forty-two was not in the least unrealistic to get married and start a family. Maybe he was right. The old fox often was.

  Rishi grabbed a towel. The Kapadias apparently had two full-size bathrooms upstairs and a small powder room downstairs. Assuming the master bath was exclusively for Mohan and Usha’s use, Rishi would obviously be sharing this bathroom with Jeevan-kaka, Anjali, and Nilesh. Though she was cute and alluring, sharing a bathroom with Anjali was a bit too intimate for him.

  However, at the moment, as he dried himself, he was experiencing some cheap voyeuristic thrills in looking at her toiletries sitting on the counter: lotions, creams, and cleansers with ingredients like honey, yogurt, and wild berries; a purple razor with a rosebud on the handle; a hair dryer; a couple of brushes. Next to the tub were more scented shampoos and conditioners, and a shaving cream for women. The bathroom smelled like Anjali—a combination of…what was it? Strawberries and…gardenias was his guess.

  The house was quiet and the sun was already brightening the sky as he slipped back into Nilesh’s room and got dressed. It promised to be a hot day.

  Fortunately he had found an ironing board and an iron in the closet the previous evening, so he didn’t have to worry about wearing clothes wrinkled from having traveled in a suitcase. The iron was brand new and was still in its original box. When he’d seen Nilesh he’d realized why. The boy looked like he wouldn’t know what an iron was.

  Rishi couldn’t help smiling as he recalled meeting Nilesh the previous afternoon. The boy was a spoiled brat, but he was bright. He also had potential, at least in the technical field.

  Minutes later, dressed in a lightweight gray suit and a cream shirt and coordinated tie, Rishi tiptoed downstairs in search of a cup of tea. It was 7:13 A.M. The rest of the household was obviously sleeping after the morning’s perceived fire scare. He found Jeevan sitting bare-chested in white pajamas at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper.

  “Good morning,” he said to the older man.

  Jeevan looked up over his reading glasses. “Good morning, beta. You are up early.”

  “Jet lag,” Rishi replied.

  “Me, too. That is why I got up at dawn and finished my pooja.”

  Well before dawn. Rishi smiled. “I know. Your bell caused a bit of a stir in the house.”

  Jeevan appeared clueless. “You want some chai?”

  “Chai was exactly what I had in mind, but you don’t drink chai anymore,” said Rishi, wondering if he should say something about Jeevan disturbing the household before sunup. After a moment he decided it was best to let Mohan Kapadia handle his big brother on his own.

  Pointing to a stainless steel pan on the stove, Jeevan-kaka said, “I made masala milk for myself and chai for you. Cups are in the cabinet on the right. Help yourself.”

  Taking a sip of the thick, aromatic brew, Rishi turned to Jeevan with a pleased grin. “Not bad, sir…not bad at all.”

  “Rishi, I know
how to make the best chai. I used to make it for my brothers and sisters when I was young and unmarried.” He pointed a finger toward the ceiling. “I think Usha is in the bad habit of waking up late. So I made the milk and chai myself.”

  “I appreciate that.” It was very thoughtful of the old man—thoughtful and unexpected, but entirely inconsiderate in disturbing everyone with his bell, and unkind in his remarks about Usha. But then that was Jeevan-kaka—a man of contradictions.

  “Poor Auntie Usha was up late and she’d been slogging in the kitchen all day,” Rishi said in her defense. He raised his brows at Jeevan. “So, what are our plans for today? Personally, I think we should approach Mr. Tejmal first thing this morning and talk business.”

  “Perfect. I had the same thing in mind.” Jeevan folded the paper and laid it on the table. “I want you to take care of it.”

  “Are you sure?” Privately, Rishi had been hoping to do it on his own. Jeevan-kaka was about as subtle as a steamroller with a row of sharp steel teeth. He tended to put potential sellers on the defensive. Jeevan nodded, so he said, “Excellent. What time do the stores open in this area?”

  “I think around ten o’clock.”

  Rishi looked at his watch. “I’ll see if I can find a fitness club around here somewhere and sign up for a membership. If I don’t get some exercise soon, my leg is going to fall asleep.”

  A concerned expression came over Jeevan’s face. “Rishi, the long plane ride must have been bad for the leg?”

  “That’s all right. I travel all over the world. I can deal with it.”

  “Thank you, beta. You don’t know how important this is to me.”

  “I have some idea.”

  “If my brother and his family are having problems, it is my duty to help them. And I trust you to come up with a good plan for them.”

  Rising to put his cup in the sink, Rishi patted Jeevan’s shoulder. “I’d been planning to talk to you about expanding our market into the U.S. sometime in the future. This presents an opportunity.”