All about Skin (17 page)

The bushy-haired man thumbed through the passport and soon tossed it back on the desk toward her.

“You call this ID? She-et.”

Kumar spoke up.

“She can work the night shift. Starting right away.”

The bushy-haired man's mouth relaxed. “Why didn't you say so to start off with?”

Kumar shrugged. “Training day today.”

“She can fill the paperwork out tomorrow then.” The man yawned. “Nice to have meet yah, hon, and see you guys tomorrow, okay?”

So dismissed, Kumar and Reshma returned downstairs. Kumar walked her down each of the six aisles in the small store and, as their shift hadn't started yet, pointed out what went where. Then he gave her a broad white apron and showed her how to restock fruit and cheese and milk from the big refrigerated storage room directly onto the shelves. When their shift began, they stood at the cash register, which she quickly learned to operate. Unlike the motel, there was a steady stream of customers here and soon it was already two in the morning.

“People from bars will be coming soon,” said Kumar, and soon enough they were—mostly men with bloodshot eyes that squinted at the bright lights in the store and who bought packs of cigarettes and fistfuls of beef jerky.

Then at about three in the morning, when there was a lull and Reshma's eyes were beginning to get heavy, a young man with delicate features and straight blond hair that fell to his shoulders came in. He stared at Kumar and Reshma for several seconds before turning to his friend.

“We should nuke all them A-rabs, just fucking nuke 'em, dude.”

His friend was short and wiry with dark hair cropped close to his head. He looked at Reshma and Kumar standing behind the counter.

“Ye-ah! Nuke 'em all to hell.”

He added as an afterthought, “Ka-Boom!”

They both laughed loudly. Making “boom” noises, they stomped around the store. Reshma cupped both hands over her mouth in terror. What was going on? Why did these two men seem to want to hurt her? She slid slowly behind Kumar. Unfortunately, this show of fear only served to embolden the two boomers, and one of them promptly knocked down a display of paperback books in the center aisle. “Whoops,” he said, and they both laughed.

She was amazed that instead of being afraid, Kumar raised his voice.

“Get out of here,” he shouted. “Out! Out!”

He picked up the white phone on the wall and without dialing any numbers said, “Is this police station?” in a carrying voice, after which the two men stomped a hasty exit to the door.

“Police don't like no A-rabs either,” one of them shouted.

“They'll deport your asses right back to where y'all came from,” yelled the other.

Before they left, the dark-haired man paused and looked back for a moment. Then he turned away, pulled down his trousers, and exposed two bright white buttocks with a large pimple on one that glistened yellow under the store's florescent lights. Screeching with laughter, he pounded off behind his friend, into the warm Boston night.

After they left, Reshma's shaking knees needed a break, and she retired to the refrigerated room at the back of the store and sat there shivering for the rest of the night. Then she gave Kumar the big white apron back and asked him to tell the bushy-haired man that she was not coming back, ever.

Her husband soon came to pick her up, and when they were safely at home, she told him all that had happened. But to her astonishment, this time he was not as sympathetic.

“Just your bad luck,” he said, shaking his head. “Once in a while something like this happens, but not every day.”

“Once is enough!” she cried. “What if they had cut my throat? What if they are waiting for me tomorrow?”

“They were just talking,” he grumbled. “You don't understand how people just talk.”

But she was adamant.

“Why did they think we were Arabs? We don't even look like Arabs. I know Arab women are beautiful—much more beautiful than me.”

This last sentence she uttered with a quick sideways glance at her husband.

“You are the most beautiful woman in all the three worlds,” he replied quickly.

After a brief pause, he continued, with a look of shame spreading across his face, “Americans are not so used to Indians, so they get … confused. Sometimes they think I'm from Africa, other times they think I'm Mexican, but nowadays, well nowadays, mostly people think I'm Arab.”

He shifted in his chair uncomfortably.

“But in New Jersey, where there are more Indians, there are gangs called the Dotbusters, who go around attacking them.”

She had been listening to him with growing horror and was unable to contain herself at this.

“And knowing all this, you sent me out to face these kinds of people every day? Why don't you take a second job instead?” she cried.

He drew himself up. “You know I need time for my hobbies,” he said, in a hurt tone.

“Your hobbies?” She was beside herself. “You scribble your so-called stories once in a while or sketch some flowers by the lake like some big-big painter, what possible good can come of all that? Ai! Instead of behaving like a normal man, you send me, a poor, simple woman, to face those crazy people.”

He didn't reply to this but sat sad faced for a few seconds. Then he rose from his seat, shuffled into their bedroom, and lay stiffly down on the bed, face up. A few minutes later, she felt guilty, followed him into the bedroom, sat down next to him on the bed, and kissed him on his forehead.

“Never mind,” she said. “I'm only tired. You need time for your hobbies. Go and find another job for me.”

Almost exactly one week later, he returned from Star and produced from the pocket of the black trousers he wore to work a piece of paper that he had folded neatly into a square.

“It is a job with a family,” he said, “to take care of their child.”

She felt her face grow warm and heard him continue hastily, “Nice pay—enough for a deposit.”

“Ay-yeh! What are you saying? You want me to work as a servant?”

She had grown up poor—her father had owned a small, barely profitable general store in town, but he had made sure that neither she nor her mother would ever need to work in somebody else's home cooking and cleaning for some sharp-voiced harpy. Now here was her husband, asking her to do just that.

But he was saying with a swell in his voice that this was America, not India, and that in America working in other people's homes was nothing to be ashamed about. He said they called the people who took care of their children a nanny and that she wouldn't be expected to cook or clean, just take care of the child.

“And the pay,” he added, “is top-top.”

She looked at him with such undisguised contempt then that the words withered on his lips and no more was said about it. But that night's sleep was punctured by snores from the next room that rolled over them like the darkest thunder.

The next morning, she raised her red-lined eyes from the cardamom-infused cup of tea in her hands and said, “No harm in telephoning—as you say, this is America, not India.”

The small piece of paper was unfolded once more, and with her husband perched anxiously beside her, she dialed the number.

A soft-voiced woman answered the phone. Reshma said she was calling about the nanny job and the woman's voice perked up considerably. They agreed to meet the following evening.

Reshma's husband spread out a map on the floor and located the address. He jabbed excitedly.

“I knew it. The great American poet Emerson was born on Summer Street—very close. If you get this job, you are a lucky, lucky woman.”

Her husband dropped her off by the bus stop the following evening at the appointed hour.

“Third floor, on your right,” said the woman when Reshma rang, her voice sounding unnaturally loud and harsh through the buzzer.

Upstairs, the door to the apartment was ajar and immediately upon entering, she was somewhat disappointed by what she saw. From the great esteem with which her husband had spoken of Emerson, she had expected something altogether different from this couple who lived so close to where that great man had been born.

Clutter made the small apartment seem even smaller. Bulky pieces of furniture crowded each other on dark carpets that covered the blond wood floor. Heavy curtains draped the sides of the dusty windows and a crystal chandelier hung somewhat incongruously above it all. A small corridor led to what was presumably the bedroom door—now closed. Reshma's face must have betrayed her thoughts, for the young woman with the short yellow hair who had opened the door and who now stood towering over her said, “Sorry, it's a little untidy right now, but please do take a seat.” The woman introduced herself as Frances and the small, bespectacled man who had been sitting quietly in the chair in the corner as her husband.

When they were both seated Frances asked a few cursory questions without paying much attention to the answers. It seemed that she had already made up her mind about Reshma.

“Well, the important thing now is that you meet my daughter, Trish,” she said, and almost on cue, the bedroom door opened and a little girl not more than two years old emerged, pushing her golden locks sleepily away from blinking, wide green eyes.

“Hi, Honey,” trilled her mother. “Meet Reshma, am I pronouncing that right?”

Reshma nodded. Such a pretty baby, she thought.

“Oh look, she seems to have taken a liking to you,” said Frances, her lips stretching into a tired smile.

Frances explained that they needed a nanny to look after Trish while she and her husband were vacationing in Europe—they were leaving at the end of the week for ten days. Trish would be staying with her grandmother in Rhode Island during this time and Reshma, if she took the job, would be expected to remain with her there.

“Have you seen the movie
Reversal of Fortune
?” asked Frances.

Reshma shook her head no.

“Anyway, our house is only a few minutes from Sunny von Bülow's. I'll point it out to you when we're there.”

Reshma arranged her features into an impressed look but she did not have any idea who this Sunny von Bülow was. Perhaps another famous American writer, like Emerson, she thought and made a mental note to ask her husband.

Meanwhile, Trish brought Reshma a small doll, shyly holding it up with one hand, and Reshma was instantly charmed. She decided at that moment that her husband had been right—this was America and things were different here. She was going to like being a nanny to this baby who was so sweet and pretty, almost like a little doll herself.

“I'll call you tomorrow to arrange,” promised Reshma as she left.

Frances opened the door, the husband looked up from his magazine to wave, and little Trish smiled and gurgled nonsensically at her, and outside in the waning sunshine, she thought of them and felt pleased. What a delightful family they were.

At home she told her husband, “It will only be for ten days and then we will have money to move from this place.”

He looked worried. “But we don't know anything about these people. They could be anyone—murderers even. And the job is not even in Boston.”

He shook his head and looked at the floor. “With your luck, who knows what will happen?”

She was pleased by his concern for her but also mildly annoyed. It had been his idea in the first place and now here he was, doubting her good judgment. She remembered what Frances had told her.

“Their house is close to that of the famous Sunny von Bülow,” she said, carefully pronouncing the name.

Her husband did not react well to this news. He began to pace.

She spoke in her authoritative voice. “They're a nice family; I could see that just by looking. So different from all the riff-raff people in those other two jobs you found me.”

She also thought that perhaps she could continue being a nanny to Trish in Boston and bring home a steady stream of money. She did not voice aloud that ambition though—hoping to spring it as a pleasant surprise for her husband when she got back. Instead, she reassured him of her talent to judge people accurately. He continued to look worried.

“As long as I can talk to you every day,” he said.

The next morning she called Frances to say that she was ready to take the job. “Terrific,” said Frances and gave her a time to meet that Friday. Just before she hung up, Reshma asked her for the telephone number in Rhode Island for her husband.

“Of course,” said Frances, “and you can call him anytime as well.”

On Friday, the day she was leaving, her husband looked into one of his books and said that she was a lucky woman to be going to Rhode Island because the great American author Henry James had lived there for some time. After rifling through his stacks of worn books on the table in the bedroom, he triumphantly pulled one out titled
The American Novels and Stories of Henry James
and slipped it into the side pocket of her packed bag along with a dictionary.

It was a rainy afternoon. When she got to the apartment, the little family was ready to leave and they all got into the silver car that had been parked in front of the building, Reshma and Trish in the backseat, Frances and her husband in the front. Trish soon fell asleep and Reshma almost did the same herself, listening to the rhythmic swishing of the wipers, the steady drumming of the rain on the roof, and the low whine of the car maneuvering over the wet road. Frances and her husband talked in low voices to each other for a while. Soon Frances twisted around to face Reshma. Her face had lost the wilted look that Reshma had noticed the other day and instead glowed with a happy anticipation. She began to talk animatedly about how nice a time Reshma was going to have this coming week, almost as good a time as she and her husband were going to have in Europe.

“We have a beautiful house on the ocean,” she said. “It has been in my father's family for a very long time. And my mother's very sweet. Everybody just adores her.”