The Sari Shop Widow (3 page)

But now it looked like all that hype and hard work were for naught. Anjali and her parents were in danger of losing their boutique. Her dad had estimated that if they didn’t start turning a profit within the next six to nine months, they might have to sell, or worse, declare bankruptcy.

They’d never been exactly rich, but they’d been comfortable. Her education had been entirely paid for by her parents, and at this late age they were paying Nilesh’s college bills.

They still lived in a decent home and drove late-model cars. Going from relative middle-class comfort to possible bankruptcy was inconceivable to Anjali. What in heaven’s name were they going to do if things got really bad?

She closed her eyes and tried to dispel the dark image of potential poverty.
No. Please, God, no.

Despite all her initial ranting at the idea of having the autocratic Jeevan come down to stick his large nose into their private affairs, when faced with the frightening prospect of bankruptcy, Anjali was beginning to have second thoughts. She’d also had a little while to simmer down.

Maybe the old curmudgeon would be of some use after all. Her dad was right. There was never any doubt that Jeevan had a gift for business. He had the uncanny combined instincts of a lion, a bloodhound, and a fox.

Placing the last sari in the cabinet, Anjali looked at her wristwatch. It was nearly closing time. She needed to get her mind off work and business—and her uncle’s impending visit. Maybe she’d call Kip and meet him later over a drink. He’d help her relax.

For lack of a better term, she thought of Kip as her boyfriend. He was her friend for sure, a patient pal, her lover, and a comfort to have at times. But he wasn’t a boyfriend in the true sense of the word. Their relationship was neither sweet nor romantic. It didn’t involve whispered sweet nothings, flowers or chocolates, holding hands, or walks in the moonlight. It was just a friendship with some free drinks and sex thrown in when it was mutually convenient.

She’d been seeing Kip Rowling secretly for nearly two years, mainly because widowhood was lonely and frustrating. All her Indian girlfriends were married and enjoying husbands, homes, and children. They were involved in a variety of careers, too. As a single woman who worked seven days a week, Anjali didn’t fit into their social circle anymore. She was the odd one out, the one to be pitied and condescended, and occasionally the one to be eyed with suspicion as a potential husband snatcher.

She had some non-Indian girlfriends—women she’d gone to college with. They were single like her, but they’d never been married. She got together with them for drinks or dinner once in a while. But she didn’t have any close friends. Her work was her life.

Although she was a mature woman, in charge of her own life, if her parents ever found out about Kip, a white Protestant guy who owned a bar and lounge in the heart of New Brunswick, had little formal education, and wore an earring in one ear, she’d be in deep trouble. Respectable Gujarati women with solid family values, especially thirty-seven-year-old Hindu widows, weren’t expected to fraternize with barkeepers.

She was lucky to be born and raised in the U.S. If this was India, she’d probably have to live the semi-reclusive life of a widow. Widows were supposed to keep their inauspicious shadow from falling over the rest of society and bringing a similar curse upon it. Indian society had evolved considerably in the past decade or so, but widows still had a rough life over there.

All the Indian guys her parents and relatives tried to fix her up with wanted marriage, but she was afraid of marriage after what had happened to Vik. A few of those men were widowed, or even divorced, but almost all of them had kids, and she didn’t want to play mom to anyone’s children, not when her life was consumed by business.

It wasn’t that she disliked children. She’d hoped to have her own when she was married to Vik, but that dream, too, had become a blur and then vanished.

Besides, so far, every Gujarati man she’d been introduced to had turned out as interesting as plain boiled potatoes. They all lacked sophistication.
Desis
—countrymen—as Indians in America affectionately referred to themselves, were a homogenous bunch of people—essentially decent, honest, hardworking, and obsessively goal-oriented, but the one thing about them that bored Anjali to tears was their lack of humor. They laughed at others and felt no guilt at ridiculing the guy next door, but they could never poke fun at themselves.

Vik was different. She had yet to meet another Indian man with a self-deprecating sense of humor like Vik’s. Because of his highly recognizable last name, folks had often asked him if he was related to Mahatma Gandhi or Indira Gandhi. His stock answer used to be, “I’m related to both, except no one seemed to recognize my potential for political greatness or martyrdom, so I ended up in engineering school.” With his deadpan response, he’d always ended up getting a chuckle out of people.

And now there was Kip Rowling—a fun guy. He could make an idiot of himself and then laugh about it. She liked that about him, not to mention the fact that he was sexy as hell and made her bones melt into a puddle of warm soup with a single touch. She hadn’t experienced that kind of sexual high in years. At the moment, though, she badly needed a good belly laugh. And a roll between the sheets sounded pretty good, too.

Noticing her father still engrossed in his receipts, she quietly pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and slinked away through the rear door out into the parking lot. And she dialed Kip’s number.

Chapter 2

A
njali maneuvered her compact black sedan around Oak Tree Road’s busiest intersection. Even this late on a Wednesday evening, when most of the businesses were either closed or in the process of closing, the street was thick with traffic.

Pedestrians crossed the street at leisure and she had to keep a careful eye on them. Many of them behaved as if they were still in their native India, where traffic rules were made mostly to be disregarded. Some even appeared to derive perverse joy out of thumbing their noses at pedestrian crossing signs and honking cars. The same people who were willing to obey the laws two miles outside this neighborhood seemed to lose all sense of civic awareness when they set foot in Little India.

By the time she got to New Brunswick, a mild headache was beginning to set in, probably because she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She’d lied to her parents that she was going to meet some friends for dinner.

An old Beatles tune greeted her as she entered the Rowling Rok Bar & Lounge. The air inside was warm and humid. The bitter, yeasty smell of beer and a mix of perfumes hung in the air. Wednesday was “Ladies’ Night.” Women could buy drinks for half price. The place was comfortably filled with females of various ages but very few men. The hum of chatter was loud enough to muffle the music. The giant TV screen was off.

She headed straight for the bar that Kip was tending. He grinned and waved at her, motioning to her to grab a stool at the counter. A few seconds later, he put a tall glass of rum and cola in her hand. It was the only thing she drank and he knew it well.

“Hi, Angelface. You look a bit peaked,” he said and pinched her cheek briefly. “Hungry?” He pushed a bowl of pretzels toward her. “Want Billy to fry you some mozzarella sticks?”

Shaking her head, she gratefully took a thirsty gulp of her drink along with an aspirin tablet she’d dug out of her pocketbook. Mixing aspirin, cola, and alcohol wasn’t very prudent, but she was too tired to care about prudence this evening. In about twenty minutes her headache was likely to fade away.

She observed Kip return to his task and deftly handle several orders. He was so darn good at that. She often wondered how he could remember the recipes for all those exotic cocktails and stay even-tempered on the busiest of days. He always served with a smile and a friendly word. Even the most difficult customers, including the inebriated and abusive ones, turned to putty in his large, capable hands.

Kip had a way with people. With the number of customers in the bar tonight, it didn’t seem like he’d have much time for her. Just as well, she concluded. She wasn’t in much of a social mood. Maybe she shouldn’t have come at all. Why impose her drab sentiments on Kip?

But when there was a slight lull at the bar, Kip returned to her. Twirling a lock of her long dark hair around his index finger, he tugged gently. “What’s the matter? Had a bad day?”

She took a sip from her glass and stared vacantly at the crowded display of liquor bottles on the long shelf with its mirrored backsplash. She’d come here to forget her woes, but neither the prattling crowd in the bar nor the rum in her cola had helped so far.

A drink with more punch to it would have been nice to get smashed with, but common sense told her it would solve nothing. In fact, she’d be hungover and even more miserable the next day. And facing her mom and dad’s looks of shocked disappointment at seeing her drunk would be a whole lot worse. Instead she brought her gaze back to focus on Kip. “Sorry. I’m rotten company tonight.”

“Something bothering you?”

“A little.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“It’s just some…well…family stuff. I’m not sure I should burden you with it, Kip.”

“What are friends for, babe?” He leaned forward, elbows braced on the counter, his face cupped in his hands, his eyes studying hers. “About this family stuff, let me guess. Did your old man tell you to pitch in with the housework?”

“Not even close.” Kip always teased her about what a pampered life she led.

“Um…let’s see. Your parents aren’t having another baby, are they?” His bright green eyes twinkled with suppressed humor. The fact that she had a brother nearly young enough to be her son seemed to amuse Kip.

“Not funny.” Tonight she wasn’t in a mood for Kip’s sardonic wit. His tall, athletic build and raw masculinity rarely failed to heat her blood, but at the moment she looked with little interest at the way his T-shirt stretched across his wide chest and shoulders, or the way his snug jeans hugged his slim hips and sinewy legs. “I have real problems.”

“Sorry.” His voice turned serious. “Why don’t you tell Uncle Kip? He’s got a nice big shoulder to cry on.”

After a quick survey of the room, she shook her head. “Too many people. I think I’ll just go home.” She didn’t want to yell to be heard above the buzz, despite Kip’s offer of a sympathetic ear. Just because she was feeling blue it wasn’t fair to expect him to drop everything and console her.

“Don’t go yet. I could ask Billy to watch the bar for a few minutes,” he suggested. Despite his laid-back ways, he was a perceptive man. He must have guessed she was in genuine distress.

“Uh…if you’re sure.” Anjali slid off the stool and picked up her glass. “Shall I wait for you at the empty corner booth?”

“No, let’s go out to the patio in the back. It’s too damn hot in here.” He pressed a button on the intercom system located beneath the counter and called the guy in the kitchen. When he heard Billy’s muffled response, he said, “Can you cover for me for a little bit?”

“Yeah. Be there in a minute,” was the reply.

Meanwhile Kip went to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup.

Anjali cast an eye around the lounge. The patrons were scattered in small groups. One of the tables was occupied by what looked like young Indian women, most likely graduate students. They’d been eyeing her curiously since the moment she’d walked in. But she was used to it, that puzzled look reserved for a brown-skinned woman who walked into a bar alone and then sat on a bar stool and flirted with the bartender.

Rowling Rok wasn’t very large, but it was lucrative. From what Kip had told her, he’d inherited it from his late grandfather.

The business seemed to have worked out great for him. He had renovated the ancient bar, put in the giant television set for sports fans, and introduced live music on weekends to replace the old jukebox. Several performers including different types of amateur bands performed regularly to cater to the diverse ethnic groups that frequented his bar. He even had an Indian
Bhangra
group once a month. The pulsing beat of north Indian
Bhangra
music was perfect for fast dancing.

Billy came out of the kitchen, wiping the sweat off his brow with a napkin. Billy Rowling was a stocky blond man in his early forties, with a deceptively mean sneer on his round face. Maybe it came from having served in the Marine Corps for many years. In reality he was a sweet but reserved man. He served as short-order cook, bouncer, and substitute bartender. He was Kip’s cousin, right-hand man, friend, and business partner, all rolled into one handy package.

Billy cracked a rare smile at Anjali. “Hi, didn’t know you were here.”

Anjali returned the greeting. “Good to see you, Billy.”

“Likewise,” he said before turning to a customer claiming his attention.

Kip flipped open the hinged counter flap meant for employees to get behind the bar and pulled her in, then ushered her through the cluttered kitchen and out the back door. The aroma of mozzarella sticks and roasted peanuts followed them outside.

The rear patio was a small but neat square of concrete, enclosed by a six-foot-high brick wall. A picnic table and two benches were the only outdoor furniture. The temperature outside was refreshingly cool. Kip was right: it was too hot inside although it was only June and summer had barely begun.

They sat on a bench side by side, leaning against the edge of the table, their backs to the building. Anjali still nursed her drink while Kip sipped his coffee and stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He never drank alcohol while on duty and expected his staff to do the same.

He slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders. “So what’s bugging you, kid?”

She stared at the row of trash cans lined up like dark sentries standing guard against the wall and took a deep, shuddering breath. “We might lose the store, Kip.”

“Your old man’s selling the place?”

“He might be forced to,” she said. “Financial problems.”