Bharati Mukherjee - Miss New India

But there were clouds on the horizon. The warnings from Dr. Ghosh. Parvati might wave them away, in her goodness, but Anjali couldn't. Objective outsiders saw her as something unsavory. Not just a small-town usurper, but someone with bad connections.

When the dog walker ushered Mr. GG's peon into the glassed-in breakfast patio, Anjali and Parvati were finishing their second round of Assam tea. Auro had switched to drinking strong Karnataka coffee since moving to Bangalore, but Parvati remained a tea snob. Anjali would have welcomed a huge caffeine hit that morning. She associated the smell and taste of brewed coffee with her first Barista cup during her first hour in Bangalore.

A heart-to-heart aimed at encouraging her to move out was inevitable, though Parvati, ever gracious, would deliver the "dump" notice obliquely. Anjali was waiting for the subtle questions: Your family must miss you so. Don't you miss your mother and sister? But Parvati procrastinated. She fed scraps of chapati to Ahilya and Malhar, who were sprawled on the dhurrie by her feet.

Ahilya stood, stretched, then laid her muzzle on Anjali's thigh. Do I pet her, rub her ears? Would she bite if I touched her? It was Anjali's first doggy moment.

Parvati launched into a monologue that sprinted from topic to topic, including her CCI lesson plans for the day, Usha Desai's mother's improving health, her fear that Dinesh was getting seriously involved with an international student from Norway, and the importance of getting fish oil and magnesium into people's diets, especially that of poor people. Her heavy briefcase was on the floor by the dogs, propped against a chair leg, ready for the driver to carry to the car.

Every few days she fed CCI questions to Anjali. "Keeping you on your toes," she'd say. Somehow, according to Parvati, whatever future she had would be attached to her ease with the English language.

The dogs made low growling noises when the peon, his terrified eyes fixed on them, approached Parvati. The peon backed away and took cover behind the dog walker. Anjali noted the dog walker's smug grin as he took officious custody of the envelope and bouquet, and laid the envelope on the bistro table. Parvati rubbed Malhar's broad bottom until his growl stopped. Anjali boldly scratched Ahilya's ears. "With these brave fellows, who needs an electronic security system?" Parvati joked. With an unused knife, she slit the envelope open and scanned the note inside.

Anjali recognized Mr. GG's handwriting on the discarded envelope: Mrs. Parvati Banerji, and under the name, RSVP per peon.

"The Bagehot Trust meeting lasted longer than Girish had expected," Parvati summarized. "Incendiary, apparently." She reached down to pull her roller-ball pen out of the briefcase. "He'd like to stop by this evening so he can apologize for missing the party. Not that that's necessary, but you've seen how Auro loves to argue politics with him!"

Mr. GG hadn't meant to stand her up. That buoyed Anjali's spirits. Mr. GG the assiduous networker was cultivating Auro and Parvati, and Dynamo the futurist was courting his muse. She missed Rabi, but he had left at dawn for another travel magazine assignment. With Rabi, she could blurt whatever outrageous thought came to her because he wasn't judgmental. Mr. GG was signaling his desire for her, wasn't he?-but in a respectful way. What they'd both let happen that one time in his apartment had to do with lust, with the quality of light in the bedroom, and, through an uncurtained window, with Cubbon Park's lushness. Her face felt hot. She needed to do something with her hands, pour more tea if the teapot hadn't been drained, or stick the flowers in a vase, something physical to tamp down her excitement.

"I'll get a vase," she said abruptly.

Parvati stared at her, baffled, so she pointed to the tiger lilies dripping greenish stains on the dog walker's shirt front. "Vase?" Parvati repeated. She had scribbled her RSVP at the bottom of Mr. GG's note and was about to slip it back into the original envelope. "Are you all right? Oh, of course, it's Bagehot House, isn't it? How insensitive of me to have let slip that name. I'm so sorry, Anjali, would you rather I disinvite Girish? He has business in Mexico next week, but we can have him for dinner when he gets back."

"Oh no," Anjali protested. "Please don't change your plans for my sake. I've already been enough of a burden. I feel like such a parasite."

"Stop!" Anjali couldn't remember Parvati ever sounding so sharp. "You are not a burden. Let's get you a flower vase. If you are here long enough, I'll make you an ikebana enthusiast."

The dog walker perked up when he heard the English word vase. The Banerjis joked that he knew more English than he let on so that he could eavesdrop. "Swati!" He shouted instructions in Kannada, and the younger kitchen sister bounced in with a cut-glass bowl nestled against her chest, a thick braid dancing down her back. A teenager in love, and not hiding it.

So that was her name. Swati. Anjali felt guilty that she hadn't learned the names of even the kitchen sisters, let alone the compound staff: the dog walker, the driver, the watchman. Swati pried the tightly bound bouquet out of the dog walker's bemused grip. Anjali didn't miss the intensity of that covert caress.

Mr. GG's peon dropped the resealed envelope into his bag. The dog walker responded to that stimulus and escorted the peon out to the waiting auto-rickshaw. Then he ran back into the room and handed one internal air-letter to Anjali, which the mailman had just left off in the mailbox nailed to the guardhouse. Anjali took a look at the address- P. Champion, Gauripur -and crumpled the letter. When she went back to her bedroom, she stuffed it into the top drawer of her dresser.

Girish Gujral texted Parvati: cu @ 7pm dnr raincheck?

By four in the afternoon Anjali had decided on her look for the special evening. (Artfully) simple, (effortlessly) sexy. She mixed and matched every piece of clothing in her made-to-measure Dollar Colony wardrobe, and by six in the evening she'd achieved that look: dusty rose linen capri pants; rosy dawn midriff-baring sleeveless top with daring neckline; silver anklets and high-heeled snakeskin sandals dyed neon pink; tiny rose-quartz ear studs; and as a hair ornament, one of Mr. GG's tiger lilies.

Anjali came down to the living room at six-thirty and installed herself in a corner chaise longue, where she knew the lamplight was pinkish and flattering. Parvati was on the phone with Rabi's mother in San Francisco, sharing kitchen chitchat twelve hours and half a world apart, including tips on shrimp malai curry (go crazy with the garlic; caramelize the diced onion; slow-sauté the spices so they don't taste and smell raw; canned coconut milk is for amateurs; steep, squeeze, discard coconut flakes and use just enough of the liquid so the jhol has thok-thok consistency). Auro was still showering. Anjali tuned out Parvati's voice, now gone on to serious topics with her sister, in Bangla, the hiss and sizzle of the kitchen sisters deep-frying pakoras, the gardener's son and nephew practicing birdcalls just outside the open window. Soon Mr. GG's car tires would scatter gravel on the unpaved road.

Auro slap-slapped noisily into the room in stiff-soled Kohlapuri sandals. He acknowledged Parvati with a shrug and a mumbled, "What's your sister up to now? " on his way to the bar trolley. "What an enchanting vision!" he exclaimed to Anjali. He made a camera with his fingers. "Click! Click! Pensive Woman Awaits Nightfall. Why isn't Rabi here to capture this?" Anjali responded with a half-wattage version of her halogen smile. Auro lifted the lid of the ice bucket. "What'll you have, Pensive Woman?" In his modish turquoise cotton kurta and loose white pajama, his bristly wet hair sleeked back, he looked a relaxed host. "The usual?"