Imaginary Men (14 page)

Cups clink as we sip our tea in awkward silence, and then a car rumbles into the garage below us. The house shakes as if an earthquake has struck. Soon the woman in question bursts in, wearing jeans and a pullover, her long hair in tendrils around her face. She looks ten years younger than she did in her photograph.

She squints at Raja and me. “Got stuck in traffic. Who are you?”

“We've been waiting twenty minutes, Uma,” her father says.

She shrugs. “Can I control traffic? Can I? There was a fucking tanker overturned on the Bay Bridge. I hate coming home to the fifth degree.”

Her mother flinches. “Uma, darling. We did mention the matchmaker would be coming this afternoon.”

“Oh, right. Better get it over with. I'll be right back.” Uma sighs, and I catch a whiff of stale smoke on her clothes. I thought she was a nonsmoker. She stomps off in a huff.

“She is the same Uma in the photograph?” Raja asks.

“No other.” Her father nods his head sideways.

“This is why we're worried,” Mrs. Dewan says. “We're thinking a good marriage will take care of this problem.”

I try not to look at Raja. My fingers curl around the teacup. A series of noises—doors slamming, music blaring, heavy objects dropping with thuds—emanates from upstairs, and then Uma emerges, physically transformed. How could she put on a sari and
bindi
so quickly?

She slumps on the couch next to her parents and stares down Raja and me as if we're rival outlaws at the OK Corral.

“I can't tell you how sick I am of living here. I can't wait to get out of the house, so I might consider your offer.” She grabs the teapot, pours herself tea as if it's whisky, and downs the whole cup in one noisy gulp.

“You're prepared to move back to India?” Raja asks, although we've not actually made an offer.

She stops the cup in midair. “What?” She looks at her parents in horror. “I gotta go to India to marry this guy?”

“To live.” Raja steeples his fingers, his elbows resting on the arms of his chair.

“To live?” she parrots, her voice shrill.

Her shock reverberates in my bones.

“Your profile shows you're adept at all household tasks. You're prepared to clean, cook, and care for your mother-in-law?”

I glance at Raja Prasad. Is he really asking those questions? Can't he tell she's not the one? I could be her, sitting awkwardly in that sari.

She slams her teacup down on the saucer and glares at her parents. “I'm not moving to India. You said I would move?”

Her mother winces.

Her father's expression doesn't change. “Uma, you're adept, if you put your mind to it.”

“I'm not cleaning some guy's house because he's too lazy to clean up after himself. I live here. I grew up here. Why would I want to fly back and live in some backward place where people don't even use toilet paper?”

I stare at Uma. She could be my alter ego.

Mrs. Dewan gives us an apologetic look. “You see why I believe she'll do well in India? She needs discipline.”

The blood drains from my face. How could Donna have misjudged this girl? She doesn't belong with Dev.

Raja stands. “Thank you for your time.”

We scramble to our feet.

“That's all?” Mr. Dewan says. “When will she meet your brother?”

“I hope never.” Uma bites her lip and shifts from foot to
foot. Either she's impatient to leave, or she has to go to the bathroom.

“We'll be in touch.” Raja takes Uma's hand and kisses the back of it in his usual smooth gesture. The parents follow us to the door and wave as we walk down the street, then they disappear into their darkened home.

An unexplainable melancholy wafts through me as I look back at the house, now bland and unreadable behind its closed curtains. Have Uma's parents lost her? Why does she still live at home? I can imagine the verbal abuse she rains on them, and how they take it because she's the only family they have here.

Raja stops next to the Lexus, but doesn't get in.

“Look,” I say. “I'm sorry about Uma. She wasn't anything like her profile. Sometimes American-born Indians reject their heritage. It's hard not to. The pressures are all around you. Kids leave home early. They're legally independent at eighteen. I bet her friends all have jobs and apartments—”

“This does not excuse the way she spoke to her elders. Her poor mother, pining for her family. Can her daughter not see her pain? Ah well, sometimes people are not who we think they are.” He offers his arm. “Shall we walk? The day is young.”

Here we are, in the middle of the avenues. We've just met a strange young woman who isn't who I thought she was. Mr. Sen wasn't who I thought he was, and neither is
Prince Raja Prasad. He's offering his arm and asking me to walk.

“Where will we go?” I gaze at drab lawns struggling up between driveways, the houses so dark and still, it's hard to believe anyone lives in them.

“I thought we might try the beach.”

O
cean Beach is a wide strip of golden sand imprinted with the tire tracks of off-road vehicles. A couple walks in the distance with a dog that zigzags along the water's edge. Gulls soar overhead, and whitecaps churn in a dance against the hazy sky.

Raja takes off his shoes and socks, tucks the socks into the shoes, and carries them. I follow suit. The sand squishes between my toes, and I dig my feet in as I rush to keep up with his strides.

“I've been out here so many times, but I've never walked on this beach,” I say.

“We often miss what's right in front of us.”

It sounds like a quote from some book, but it's true. I examine his profile, the breeze pushing back his hair, the lines of his face rugged against the foggy sky. I want to ask how he got the scar.

We wade in ankle-deep water, white foam rushing over our feet. He steps over a charred driftwood log floating soggy in the surf. My feet are going numb, so I move up to the dry sand.

“You intrigue me.” He gazes at me as if I'm a new species of starfish. “You live alone. You're unmarried.”

“Lots of single women live perfectly normal lives here in America.” My ears heat up. My face is probably already red and scoured by the wind.

“Is your life perfectly normal? Or perhaps your life is too normal. You forget to walk on beaches.”

“I'm busy.”

“And you're cold. Come on, let's run.” He breaks into a smooth trot, and I follow, running and running until we both collapse, gasping for breath.

Raja sits in the sand and squints out to sea. “This coast reminds me of Puri.”

“I've been there once. On the Bay of Bengal. My family stayed there when I was a kid.”

“We have a vacation home there, a house with steps right down to the beach. I go there to think, to listen to the sea.
The beach stretches for miles, and the sand is white and hot.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“You must come. You're welcome to stay at our home.”

“Wow—are you serious? Thanks. I'm honored.” I'm tongue-tied. Why does a prince want me to visit his vacation home? Maybe it's customary to invite everybody. Horror—maybe he doesn't expect me to
accept
the invitation. “I couldn't, though. I mean, it's expensive to fly to India, and I'm not sure I can take more time off. You know—”

“You'll love the ocean there. I remember when I was a boy lying in bed beneath the mosquito net and listening to the surf.”

“It's nice to have a place to go. When things get crazy, I mean.”

“I watch the fishermen take to sea in their wooden canoes. Somehow, they manage to ride the rogue waves, but it's a dangerous business. They often drown. I swim there anyway. Do you ever swim?”

“In southern California. Not here. It's too cold, and there are riptides—”

“I thought you liked swimming out far.” He leaps to his feet, grabs my hand, and yanks me toward the water.

“What are you doing? You're crazy!”

“It'll wake you up.” He heads straight for the sea, grabs me around the waist, and lifts me easily in his arms as he wades into the surf, the freezing spray, and then we both go
down. I come up gasping. He dunks me again, and I'm shivering.

“I'm wide awake now,” I gasp, my soaked clothes clinging to my skin.

He rides a shallow wave. “You only live once!”

“We'll get hypothermia! What if the current pulls us out? There's no lifeguard.” But I flop on my belly, teeth chattering, and bodysurf in. He takes my hand again. I feel like Deborah Kerr in
From Here to Eternity
.

The water warms around me, and then euphoria washes over me, or maybe I'm drowning. That must be it. I hear you experience euphoria right before losing consciousness. I float for a minute, hyper-aware of the sea. “Do you think there might be sharks too?”

“If there are, we'll ride with them.” I feel his powerful arms around my thighs, drawing me under. Someone's screaming, then I realize it's me. I'm screaming with laughter, and then he throws me in the air again, and I hit the water with a great splash. Not that I'm heavy or anything.

When Raja stands, I see the muscular outline of his body beneath his clothes, and I realize how much bigger he is than me, and a thrill rushes through me, and then I realize that if I can see his whole body, he must be able to see mine too. Too late to duck.

His gaze sweeps from my knees to my head, and I dip beneath the water, crossing my arms over my chest.

He grabs my arm. “Your lips are blue. Let's get out.”

We run back to the car, our clothes slapping our bodies, our ankles covered in sand. We're sea creatures trying to shuffle along on land.

“I should go home and change clothes,” I say.

Raja puts his hand over mine. “Come to my hotel. It's closer. They have laundry service.”

A
t the Hilton, Raja ushers me into the bedroom, says he'll be right back, and disappears into the separate living room, complete with wet bar and fireplace.

I stand shivering, clasping my hands in front of me, my clothes dripping on the carpet. Okay, breathe. It's just a hotel room in pale blue, with no hint at Raja's inner self except the faint scent of his spicy, exotic aftershave.

I can't help glancing sidelong at the bed. King-sized hotel mattress covered with a shiny blue bedspread. What did I expect? An Indian brass bed with elephant-head knobs and a silk canopy? A harem of scantily clad women
waving massive palm frond fans, waiting for their master to return?

I try not to picture Raja Prasad sleeping in the bed. Does he lie on his side or sprawled on his back? Does he snore? Does he even sleep? Maybe he has wild sex every night with a different woman. If so, what kind of women? Does he think I'm going be one of them? Maybe, but right now my teeth chatter and my lips are numb. Some women like cold. Ice cubes and all that. I prefer warmth to hypothermia.

There's a book on the nightstand, and a tumbler on a coaster with what looks like a shot of whisky in the bottom of the glass. I imagine his Adam's apple moving up and down as he gulps the whisky. He'll wince as the sharp alcohol burns his throat. Sexy.

My teeth chatter, and my fingers are numb. He's rooting around in the entryway closet. What's he doing in there? I focus on the book:
India: An Area of Darkness
. There's a closed suitcase on an armchair, a laptop computer on a desk. A suit jacket hangs over the armchair.

“Please, have a shower,” Raja says behind me, making me jump. He hands me a folded white robe. “You'll find clean towels in the bathroom.” He points.

“What about you?”

“There's another bathroom.”

Another one? Of course. I rush into the bathroom, lock the door, and peel off my clothes. Goose bumps cover my
body. I can't stop shaking, but when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I'm smiling and my eyes shine. Am I feverish? Maybe I'm catching pneumonia.

I glance into the tile shower. Two showerheads.
Come in here with me, Raja. Keep me warm
, I'm thinking, but he's not going to hop into the shower with some Americanized pretend-Indian woman who resembles seaweed. I don't live with my parents. I rarely follow their advice. I can't wear virgin white at my wedding, but then, nobody wears white at Indian weddings. In India, white is the color of mourning.

I spend way too long beneath the delicious heat of the shower. I use the sandalwood soap and shave my legs with Raja's razor. I lather Mysore shampoo into my hair until I smell like a giant coconut. I imagine Raja naked in the other bathroom. Is he showering in there? Does he have extra soap, razors, and shampoo? Is he thinking of me naked in here? Does he wish he could be in here with me? I nearly drive myself crazy fantasizing, and then I realize my imaginary man is absent again.

When I emerge from the shower, I feel I've shared a new intimacy with Raja Prasad. Today I've seen an impulsive side of him. He dragged me into freezing surf, then walked waterlogged through the Hilton lobby. He didn't care that people stared, that we left puddles in our wake. Strange for a man obsessed with appearances.

I battle my reflection in the mirror, tell myself I'm here to
get dry and warm, but I can't help noticing his Sonicare toothbrush, a match to mine.

“Are you all right?” he says outside the door. “Do you need another robe?”

“No. Thanks! I'm just coming out.” I throw on the robe, tie the sash. The robe goes down to my ankles and the sleeves flop over my hands. Call me Shirley Temple in men's clothing.

He's whistling a Hindi tune in the living room, where I find a fake fire crackling in the hearth. He's wearing jeans and a gray turtleneck sweater, and I could swear he belongs in the Indian version of the L. L. Bean catalog.