Invisible Lives (3 page)

M
a’s golden bubbles become dandelions that dissipate in the air, replaced by pink rhododendrons. Flowers bloom from her when she’s happy. And when Ma’s happy, I’m happy. She drags me into the office and collapses into her squeaky chair. “They say good fortune comes in threes, nah? First Asha, and now this. What shall be the third thing?”

“Who is this perfect bachelor, Ma?” I ask as I perch on the desk in front of her.

“My dearest, do you remember the Gangulis?”

“Baba’s old friends from Kolkata? Dilip Ganguli went to college with Baba, right?”

“Baba always wanted you to marry well. He adored Dilip and Dilip’s only son, Ravi. Do you remember?”

“Baba spoke of him, a long time ago, I think.”
Ravi,
a boy mentioned in my father’s last letter to me before he died.

“He’s only a few years older than you.” Ma takes my hands in hers. “Ravi is unmarried, and he’s coming to Seattle for a job! He’s a doctor. Can you imagine? He wants to meet you. He’s very much looking for a wife.”

“Ma, you’ve outdone yourself.”

“He’s quite handsome, and he is your match in every way. Well-educated, highly cultured, kind, and considerate. He has always taken great care of his family. I’ve spoken to his ma at length. I’ve told her you cook well, you’ve got your degree in business to help with the shop, that you’re a good girl, living with your ma, that you are so beautiful and quite bright. I think this is what attracted Ravi, you know.” Ma’s face is aglow with happiness.

“Ma, you’re amazing.”

“We must go to India to meet him in three weeks—”

“So soon!”

“I’ve already got our tickets. Besides, I must go to consult with a distributor for my spring fashion line,” Ma says. “What luck! You will meet him, won’t you, Bibu?”

“Of course I will.” I embrace her in a tight hug. She feels fragile, her bones insubstantial despite the illusion of strength she projects for the customers. The goddess’s words return.
Love will be a long journey.
This is it. I must go to India.

“He’s going to send you an email with a snap of himself,” Ma says. “I’ve already sent him a snap of you without the glasses, with your hair down. You must put your best foot forward.”

“I doubt it’s my feet he’s interested in, Ma. I’ll be beautiful for him.” I twist my hands in my lap. She already sent a picture? From my bio-data portfolio? I lean forward and take Ma’s hands in mine. Her fingers are warm, the skin slightly rough. Mrs. Dasgupta’s voice echoes in my mind.
She has been saving your dowry since you were choto
. “Ma, you need to dip into my dowry money to help with rent, just until the store is on solid ground—”

Ma yanks her hands away and sits square and straight, shoulders back. “I’ll not touch your dowry, Bibu. That is your money, for your happiness, for your future. Besides, I carry only the finest fabrics. I am the only one in the Seattle area who imports a variety of saris from the farthest corners of India. My customers know this. I have no shortage of business.”

I bite my lip. “But our overhead has skyrocketed. The rent has risen, and—”

“We’ll pay. We always pay. This new business will help!”

“But you can’t always wait until the fifteenth of the month—”

Her voice softens the way it does when she’s angry. “Are you trying to tell me how to run the business, Lakshmi Sen?”

“No, Ma.” But I’m taking care of the books, taking care of you, taking care of your happiness. “You’ve done a lovely job with the store.”

She smoothes her sari and runs her fingers across the red stain of vermilion in her hair part. She still wears that stain, indicating her married status, although my father has been dead twenty years. That small gesture, her fingers on that memory in her hair, touches my heart. I wish she could find another man, but she claims not to be lonely. I wish I could see inside her, to the private longings that will not be revealed. The
knowing
does not penetrate the deeper secrets of her heart, where I’m sure my father still lives.

T
he world is my sari, the sari my world.

I wrap myself in the comfort of fragrant fabric, surround myself daily with the variety and subtlety of silk. I see golden brocade borders flapping in the sky, embedded in wisps of cloud. While a stranger might discern only the surface of organza, cotton, or chiffon, I hear the sigh of love, smell the thick smoke in Kolkata streets. I hear the calls of a street vendor, the squeak of a rickshaw.

If you look closely enough at a woven sari border, you’ll catch a woman’s history. She uses her pallu as a pocket for keys, to shield her face from pollution or from the advances of men. She plays with the fabric to be coy, lets her husband unravel the cloth in the privacy of their bedroom.

Since my earliest days, saris have carried the whispers of my ancestors. I keep a burgundy silk worn by my great-grandmother Kamala, for her arranged marriage to my great-grandfather Mohan. The imprint of his love for Kamala is trapped forever in silk. Kamala found her match and created a great, timeless bond with him.

My mother lives to find me such a match so that she will not have to endure her family’s pestering her—
Your daughter is still unmarried, what a burden on you, and you will have no grandchildren.

I hope that Ravi and I will share a bond, the kind that Pooja shares with Dipak. They’ve known each other since childhood.

Just before closing, Pooja comes to me with a tight, worried expression on her angular face. “Lakshmi—my parents want me to do a wedding rehearsal next weekend, at the Hindu temple in Bellevue.” She sits at my desk and fingers a paper clip.

“Congratulations, Pooja!” I pat her shoulder, and an image expands in my mind—Pooja rushing down a noisy, bright hallway, white coat flapping behind her, stethoscope around her neck. Then the picture whirls down into the paper clip and disappears. My fingers are gripping her shoulder. “Pooja, do your parents know that you want to be a doctor?”

She swivels the chair around and looks at me, her eyes wide. “Pediatrician. I love kids. Did you see it?”

I nod. “They would be very happy.”

She drops the paper clip and rubs her nose. “I know—it’s just—I want to go to San Francisco to study, and Dipak’s going to the UW here. I don’t know about the long-distance relationship thing. And my parents want me close to them. Our wedding wasn’t supposed to be so soon! But apparently the date is in the stars.”

“You think your parents won’t let you go to San Francisco? I worked in New York, and I came back, and all is well.”

“They would let me go, if they knew. But I love them and I love Dipak. We were friends first, and that’s a good thing, right?”

“Can you picture yourself married to him?”

Her eyes light with a spot of hope. “Yes—we talked about it when we were kids. We even pretended to be married.”

“How lovely.” A tiny knot twists below my ribs. Am I jealous? Do I wish I had a fiancé whom I’d known all my life, of whom I could be certain?

“But you know, Lakshmi, when Asha came in, I took one look at that driver, and I thought, he’s so cute!” She giggles.

“The chauffeur? Pooja!”

“I guess I got cold feet, wondering what it would be like to have a totally different life without Dipak. Silly of me.”

I take Pooja’s hands. “I’ll go with you to the rehearsal, how’s that?”

She gives me a grateful look. “Would you do that?”

“I’ll pick you up at your apartment.” Pooja lives on the hill, on the other side of the lake, and rides her bike to work.

“I owe you so much, Lakshmi.”

“You owe me nothing. And I want you to tell Dipak about your dream of going to medical school in San Francisco. And your parents. I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

But Pooja doesn’t look so sure.

That evening, Ma and Mr. Basu are still opening new shipments when I take off the glasses, let down my hair, and leave the shop in twilight. I don’t worry about Ma walking home alone. If she works past dark, Mr. Basu drives her.

“Hey, Lakshmi!” Chelsea calls from next door. “You’re leaving early today. It’s only six.” She’s leaning in the doorway of Cedarlake Outdoor Gear. She’s in lime-green jogging pants, a matching long sweater stretched across her ample figure, and she’s drinking her usual bottle of iced tea. No matter what the weather, she drinks iced tea and wears Birkenstocks sandals over woolen socks. Her short hair is dyed a pale blond this week. Last week it was red. She’s owned Cedarlake for a year, and although she’s not much of an outdoor enthusiast, she knows all the gear. Her longings are simple—dinner with a friend, a movie, a visit to her sister’s new bungalow. But she harbors a dark worry that I can’t yet discern—concern for someone in her family.

“Busy day. I’m beat. How’re things for you? Slow this evening?” I stop and peer into her store, which stays open until nine. A few customers mill about in the rain gear section.

“Big bike race in the city today. Everyone must be over there. Who was that in your store? Some kind of celebrity? The whole neighborhood’s talking, I swear. She looked familiar, showed up in a limo—”

“Big Bollywood actress. She’s making a film here.”

“Bollywood? Isn’t that like the Indian Hollywood? Don’t they make a million musicals a year over there? What’s she doing here?”

“Filming her first American movie—”

“In this lousy weather? Those clouds are mocking me. Every time I head out for a walk”—she pats her fleshy hips and glances at the puckering sky—“the rain comes again. They don’t call Seattle the rainy city for nothing.”

“It’s also the Emerald City, Chelsea. A beautiful place for making a film.
Say Anything, An Officer and a Gentleman
—lots of movies were filmed in Seattle.
Get Carter,
with Sylvester Stallone—”

“Yeah, but a Bollywood-type movie? Oh!” She claps a hand over her mouth, and her hazel eyes widen. “Now I know where I saw her. Asha Rao! On TV,
Northwest Afternoon!
She was talking about a new movie being produced by this new indie company, Emerald Films. It’s a love story, a drama. An American guy falls for an Indian, or something…. It’s called
Who’s Sari Now?.
Kind of like
Bride and Prejudice.
She was talking about how hard it is to work while wearing a cast. She’s filming all the sit-down parts now. When she gets the cast off, she’ll do more stunts. Wow! She came into your store. You rock!”

“She’s been called the hottest bachelorette in Bollywood, but now she’s getting married.”

Chelsea swigs the last of her iced tea. “I’d like to get married someday, even have kids.”

“No boyfriend in the cards?”

“My only date for the weekend is with my nephew—his birthday party. He’s my sister’s son.” Her lips turn down in a slight frown, and I see her climbing the porch of a modest Craftsman bungalow, a gift box in her hands. Inside, a slim blond woman, probably Chelsea’s sister, kneels beside a small boy, who is throwing a tantrum on the hardwood floor. The woman tries to lift him into her arms, but he slaps her away, punches and pummels her, sending her stumbling backward, stunned. Chelsea stands in the open doorway, not moving, barely breathing.

The boy’s mother reaches out a trembling hand, palm forward, and finally he presses the palm of his hand to hers. As their fingers touch, I know that this is the closest he will ever let her come. He can’t handle spontaneous displays of affection, the usual cuddles and kisses we all take for granted. His mother, and Chelsea, and everyone who loves him, will have to settle for this distance.

His screaming has faded to a whimper.

Chelsea is watching me, pinpoints of pain in her eyes. She doesn’t know what I see in her mind, and I don’t yet know her well enough to tell her.

“If you ever want to talk about anything, just hang out sometime, I’m game,” I say.

She smiles absently. “Sure, we could grab a brew or something.”

“I don’t drink, but coffee would be okay.”

“Chai. Cool.”

“We could talk about—your sister.” Oh, lame, lame! I admonish myself.

Her eyes narrow. “Lillian? What about her? Do you know her?”

“Lillian, that’s a nice name,” I say. “I heard something about her. Doesn’t she come into your shop occasionally?”

“Sometimes—she talked about checking out your shop sometime, too.”

“I’ll give her a good deal,” I say.

Chelsea nods, gives me a funny look, and disappears into her shop. I let out a long breath. That was a close one—I nearly spilled the beans. If I do, Chelsea might think I’m prying, or worse, she might steer clear of me altogether.

The sidewalk stretches away, voices and laughter coming at me in shards. I am so close to the world, so close to hidden longings, and yet separate, alone.

I stop in at Cedarlake Café for a latte. Heads turn to stare, but I’m used to it.

“So, Lakshmi the beautiful.” Marcus winks at me from behind the counter. He’s a tanned version of Brad Pitt with a sweep of auburn hair, a goatee, and small silver earrings. “When are you going to go out with me?
The Glass Menagerie
is playing at the Rep downtown.”

“And you’re not in it? How can that be?” I sidestep his question. He’s a handsome artist and actor, but no sparks fly between us. I place a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “My usual soy latte, please.”

“I didn’t make that play, but I got an audition for
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
.” He bites his lip, and I see him in a white spotlight onstage, reading from a script. His voice wobbles, but soon he relaxes and falls headlong into the role.

“You’ll do great,” I tell him. “This may be your big break.”

“You think?” His eyes twinkle with excitement.

“I have a good feeling—kind of like a sixth sense.”

He adds an extra shot to my latte. “No charge.”

I leave the café feeling light on my feet. My day can yield diamond moments like these, and as I pop open my umbrella against the mist, I wonder where else I would be if not here, helping people in small ways in the shop. Perhaps I would’ve made principal at Overseas Investments. I was good at crunching numbers, good at peering into the complex minds of my colleagues. I could climb the corporate ladder with ease, like an acrobat in a circus, never having to look down.

But New York proved too frenetic for the
knowing.
And then Sean and I met, and I tumbled head over heels, then stumbled flat on my face. How far can you go with a man who won’t admit his own prejudice? And how many more men would humiliate me that way?

I began to miss the Northwest, the cool cleanliness of the air, the mountaintops like whipped cream in the sky. I missed the cobblestone alleys of Pike Place Market, my friends, the easy, casual atmosphere of Seattle.

Then Ma’s business faltered, and one day her voice came through forlorn over the phone, and I knew I had to come back.

Now I take the long way home, walking the neighborhood to clear my head. So Ma has found me a man. She’s so happy, and the happiness of others has always been my concern. As a child, I felt I could see people in other lives, in other possibilities. I could hear the longings of finches in the blackberry bushes, of the mice in the underbrush. I adopted stray cats and plastered stickers on our windows to keep the pine siskins from hitting the panes. I sat in the woods for hours, letting the needs and fears of animals climb into me, then helping where I could.

“How does she know where to find these creatures?” Ma asked once when I brought home a litter of kittens whose mother had been killed by a car. Their hunger and thirst and fear had screamed at me in my sleep. I found the fur-balls hidden in a hollow log in the woods. We nursed the kittens to health and adopted them out.

My parents didn’t have the
knowing,
but they surmised that the gods had endowed me with increased sensitivity. I didn’t begin to understand my own ability until the week after Christmas, in the third grade.

I had Miss America Barbie, the peach-colored doll with a smooth complexion, torpedo breasts out of proportion with her stilt-long legs, a glittering crown on her head. At recess my friends and I ran around the playground, the dolls’ red satin capes trailing in the wind. Then a rock dropped and hit me in the head. I stumbled and fell.

I lay on my back, blinking at the open sky. I touched my forehead, expecting to find blood, but my fingers touched dry, unbroken skin. The rock had fallen into my head and lay smoking like a chunk of meteor. It wasn’t a real rock. It was a feeling, a longing.

Someone stared down at me from the monkey bars—Leslie, a thin, quiet girl with light gray eyes. Her arm had brushed mine as she’d climbed, and I’d felt an inkling of the longing.

She smiled, revealing a big gap where her front tooth had gone missing. You couldn’t tell by looking at her that the meteor of longing had come from her, that it had fallen from her mind into mine.

Miss America Barbie was still clutched in my right hand, but now her cape was muddy. A few boys gathered nearby, snickering. They were trying to peek up Leslie’s skirt. She didn’t seem to notice.