How to Be Single (43 page)

By the time I got to the hotel, my stomach was feeling a bit upset. But ever since I arrived in Mumbai, due to the spicy food, the air that smells like burning rubber, and the overall misery, my stomach had been in a general state of displeasure anyway. So I didn't think much of it. I walked into the hotel elevator and breathed a sigh of relief. I'm telling you, those car rides in Mumbai could suck the light out of the sun.

As I rode the elevator to my room, the images of those children popped into my head again. They wouldn't go away. It was like a horror movie that played in a loop, that I was unable to turn off.

I took a shower, hoping that would somehow soothe my stomach and clean off the car ride. I thought about how concerned these families were for one another, concerned with getting everyone married off, making a family, becoming part of the larger society. And here were these people, these families, just outside on the street, who would never be allowed into this society for the entirety of their lives. And these other families, the families in the houses and apartment complexes with the champagne and the education, these families didn't care one bit about those others.

As the water hit my face, I tried to tell myself that this is such a complicated issue, something that I couldn't begin to understand in just a few days. But all I could think of was the emptiness in those children's eyes. Their robotic waves as I drove on, as if they were merely shells of flesh, impersonating children.

By the time I got out of the shower, I felt nauseous. I went to the bathroom and discovered I had diarrhea. And that, folks, was the rest of my night: bathroom runs and sweating, all the while having images of small dark figures sleeping on the streets, standing in their huts, begging for food. I was sick and alone in Mumbai.

I slept till noon the next day. Then, I stayed there. I couldn't bear the thought of going outside one more time. I needed a Time Out Mumbai.

Then I thought about Amrita's mother. She was right. We aren't meant to go through life alone. It is against our human nature. Single people should be pitied. We are living with a glaring deficiency in our lives. We are being denied love. And let's face it, it's kind of true, all you need is love. I have everything but that, and my life feels very empty.

I realized how pathetic I sounded, even to myself. But I didn't care. For me, when I am feeling sorry for myself, which is often, I like to just really indulge in it, to really push myself to feel as badly as I can. Call the cops if you want to shut it down; otherwise this pity party is going to go on all night.

But here I was, in India. Where literally the streets were teeming with people in the worst cases of need. Children with no homes, no food, no clothes, no
hands.
Could I really sit there and cry because I didn't have a boyfriend?

I hoped the answer was no, but I wasn't sure. I got on some clothes and went down to the tiny concierge desk. There was a beautiful woman with thick dark eyeliner working the desk. My hair was disheveled and my eyes were puffy. I can't imagine what she must have thought of me.

“Excuse me,” I asked, my voice rough from not having spoken all day. “I was wondering if you knew of any organization I could volunteer for. You know, to help.”

The woman at the desk looked very confused. This was not the sort of request she was used to.

“I'm sorry, what do you mean?”

“I'm just wondering, if I could spend a few days helping, you know, the people here. On the streets.”

I assume she thought I was a madwoman. She smiled politely and said, “Just one moment, I'll ask my colleague.” There was a door that led to some back room, it seemed, and she disappeared behind it, for ten minutes. Finally, she came back.

“I'm sorry, but we really don't have any kind of recommendations like that for you. I'm sorry.”

“Really, there's no place I could go to just volunteer for a bit?” I asked again.

The woman bobbled her head. “I'm sorry, no. It's not possible.”

Just then, a young woman who worked at the front desk, around twenty, interrupted.

“Excuse me, are you interested in volunteering somewhere?”

I nodded and said, “Yes.”

Her eyes lit up. “Three of my friends and I get together on Saturday nights and we go to the outdoor festivals. We buy food for the kids who are standing around and we take them on the rides. We're going tonight.”

“Can I join you?”

She bobbled her head. “Of course, I will meet you here in the lobby at six. You can come in my car.”

I almost smiled. “Thank you so much.”

“It's no problem.” And then she stuck out her hand. “I'm Hamida, by the way.”

“It's nice to meet you. I'm Julie.”

“It's nice to meet you, Julie.”

That night, I stood in a sea of what seemed to be the entire population of India. We were at an outdoor festival for some important Muslim Baba (spiritual leader) in Mumbai. There were crowds of teenagers, there were families, there were couples, all shouting and laughing. There were about a half dozen big Ferris wheels, all lit up, which made the entire scene feel like one big dusty circus. Indian music came out of the loudspeakers, as well as a man's voice talking nonstop in Hindi. It was absolute chaos.

I was standing with Hamida and her friends Jaya and Kavita, who were sisters. They were both very modern-looking young women, with nice jeans and cute designer tops. Jaya and Kavita were born in London and their father was a businessman who had come back here for work. Never having seen that kind of poverty before coming to Mumbai, they were appalled. They had met Hamida at the fancy private school in Mumbai that they attended, and they all decided to do something to help.

So this was what they did. They would go to fairs and find children who were running around unescorted or who were out begging for money, and offer to take them on rides and buy them food. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Of course, since I was there, the white lady, it was like bees to honey. In a matter of moments, five children came up to me altogether, with their hands to their lips. I looked at Hamida and her friends, waiting for them to take charge. Hamida started speaking to them in Hindi. They suddenly got very quiet, as if they didn't understand what she was saying and were slightly afraid.

“This happens all the time,” Jaya whispered to me. “They're confused. They never heard of someone asking if they want to go on the rides.”

Hamida kept talking to them, pointing to the stands of food and the Ferris wheels.

The children seemed truly puzzled. Kavita started talking to them as well. I could tell it was difficult to get them to switch gears from beggars to children—like someone asking a puppet to realize it's actually a little boy. Finally, after much cajoling, the women were able to walk the children over to a stand that was selling ice cream. They bought all the children ice cream and gave them the cones one by one. The children started licking away at them happily. Soon enough, they were smiling, and we were able to get them on a Ferris wheel. We piled them on it, making sure there was an adult with each group of kids. As the Ferris wheel turned round and round, the children began smiling and laughing. They pointed out to the horizon, amazed at what they could see up there. They screamed and waved at each other from the different seats they were on.

We did a variation of that for the entire night with as many kids as we could find. We ran around with them, bought them some real food and treats, and took them on a few other rides. I didn't speak any Hindi, obviously, but I was able to do some funny dances and make some funny faces that cracked them up. It was exhausting, I must admit. I looked at these three young Indian women and felt enormous admiration for them. They had figured out how to go straight to the heart of the matter. They spent their Saturday nights not with their boyfriends, at parties, or at bars, but at these noisy, dirty fairs, breathing life back into a few children if only for a few hours.

When I got back into my room, I collapsed on the bed, covered in dirt and ice cream. As I thought about the night and the children, I was filled with a lightness. I had helped some children. I was not a selfish person, but a kind one. I wasn't a pathetic crybaby but a noble mother to the world…But then, like having a scab that you just have to pick at, my mind started drifting toward the image of Thomas and his wife summering in the countryside with their baby crawling on the green grass; them opening presents on Christmas; them lying in bed all together, on a lazy Sunday morning. I tried to push them away, force them out of my mind. I began to pace, to clear my thoughts, and I happened to glance back at the full-length mirror with the overhead lighting. I saw the cellulite covering my upper thighs. I looked down and swore I saw the first signs of cellulite on my knees.

I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. I started to cry. And yes, I wasn't crying because of those poor little children, I was crying because my heart was broken and I now had knee cellulite.

This was certainly not my proudest moment.

Back in the States

Alice was in her bedroom, with the suitcase out on her bed, already packed for Iceland. They weren't leaving for three days but she was ready to go. It hadn't been that stressful a task, packing, as she assumed they were going to be in the dark the whole time, so it really didn't matter what she wore. But just as in finding a husband, Alice doesn't like to wait until the last minute.

She had spent some time picking out just the right dress for the big day. She found it last week with Jim's sister, Lisa. She had settled on a “winter white” skirt and jacket set, woolen, with the sleeves of the jacket and the hem of the skirt trimmed in mink. It wasn't politically correct, but it was cute, very
Doctor Zhivago.
She made a mental note to donate money to PETA after the honeymoon.

It was nine o'clock in the morning and she didn't have a damn thing left to do. She didn't have to go give Ruby her shot. Obviously, she didn't have to meet with any wedding planners or florists or deejays anymore, because there was no wedding. Alice had spun it to Jim (and Jim had subsequently spun it to his family) that she realized getting married was an incredibly intimate event, and she wanted to share it with just Jim. And that it always was Alice's dream to get married in Iceland—which it wasn't, so just add that lie to her guilty list along with the dead minks. The only way they got away with this plan, among all the families, was by promising to have some big party when they got back from their honeymoon.

So now Alice was sitting on her bed with not one thing to do that entire day. She wasn't being a lawyer, she wasn't being a bride-to-be, she wasn't even being a friend. She reminded herself to call Ruby in a few days to check in about the news. She wondered how to make that phone call:
Hey Ruby, I was just wondering—are you pregnant?
She then realized it was one of those situations where it's better not to ask. The news would get to you when it wanted to. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee and thought about how similar that was to dating. She couldn't bear the fake-casual phone calls the day after a big date.

“Hey Alice, it's Mom, I'm just sitting here vacuuming, and I was just wondering how it went last night…?”

“Hey, Al, it's Bob. Didn't you tell me you had a big date last night? How did it go?”

“Hey, Al, it's me, how'd it go with Hedge Fund Guy? Tell me everything.”

As Alice sat and sipped her second cup of coffee she let a feeling of relief wash over her. Those days were over. No more phone calls. Now she had the time to think about Ruby and be one of those annoying people, calling, saying,
Hey Ruby, are you pregnant?

Unfortunately, Alice's mind did have the time to think about the real current event—her marriage to Jim. She had the impulse to actually squeeze the sides of her temples together to somehow push whatever integrity or bravery she had left in her psyche out into some kind of action. But it never came. Because all she ever thought about was how she never wanted to go out on another date. She knew it was weak. She knew she was settling and she tried to care. She tried to feel guilty about that, as opposed to the minks. But instead, all she kept remembering were all those dates and all those phone calls and she knew that she wasn't going anywhere.

But she did decide to call Ruby anyway, and ask her how it all went. When she picked up the phone, Ruby answered and told her everything. How she had left at the last minute; how she saw her mother and realized she was from a long line of depressed women; how she was now
really
depressed. She also told Alice how she hadn't seen Serena in days. Alice was worried. She was worried for Ruby, and she was worried for Serena. Finally, she had something else to think about.

Mark Levine was sitting at the head of a conference table. Dale and Georgia were sitting across from each other, on opposite sides of Mark Levine. Georgia, of course, was a nervous wreck. She had no idea what the children had said to Mark Levine, and consequently, she had no idea what Mark Levine was going to say to them. If he recommended something that they didn't agree with, she would have to hire a lawyer and spend enormous amounts of money and end up in court. But she was ready to do that if need be. She wasn't going to let squirrelly Mark Levine be the final word about where her children should live if she didn't want it to be.