Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [124]
And then he gave his take on Dollar Colony, where Auro-Uncle had chosen to settle as the CFO of a startup after retiring from the Mumbai branch of a multinational behemoth. "He lived in Hong Kong, Boston, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and he picked Bangalore for building his dream house! What does that say about Bangalore? What does it say about him?"
"The only places I know, or maybe I think I know, are Gauripur and Rock City, Illinois."
"Not a very high standard, Angie." Rabi scooped out a tiny, slippery black papaya seed the maid had missed when she was preparing the fruit platter.
"Shall I tell you about Rock City?"
"Please, spare me the mysteries of Rock City. I've read the CCI training manual: learn about one little town and you've learned about the whole country. Learn some specialized vocabulary and you'll discover the whole language. Was Rock City all you hoped for?" He flicked the seed at her. "Bottom line, as they like to say, you were right to back out of CCI."
Easy for you to say, she thought. You're the richest eighteen-year-old Indian in the world. "I didn't back out. I screwed up. I failed."
"You didn't screw up—you just couldn't take the bullshit. There's something our friend Peter Champion said about you, way back in Gauripur. He said there was a war going on for your soul, or something melodramatic like that. And he was right. Something in your soul wouldn't let you settle for a call center. Something in your soul made me want to take that picture of you. You're cut out for something bigger."
She rolled her eyes. He smiled. She smiled. She hadn't interacted with anyone for three weeks. "What's your hometown?"
"A place called Atherton. It's like Dollar Colony, only bigger, with gates. But I'm a nomad. I can't get stuck in one country or one city or even one house. Neither can you."
Anjali whacked his forearm with her napkin. "Even this one?" The napkin was still folded and pleated in a whimsical shape and inserted like a bouquet into a silver-filigree napkin ring. "This is the fanciest, comfiest house I've ever been in!"
He seemed to be looking at his cousin's hockey sticks and cricket paddles. "They expect poor Dinesh to go for a Rhodes scholarship. He's a wicked tennis player. When we were kids, I used to call him 'Dimmest.'"
"What's not to like about it?" she asked.
"That's the point. They've never even thought about what's not to like."
RABI ASSURED ANJALI that she wasn't in any way a burden to Parvati-Auntie and Auro-Uncle. In addition to the two young "kitchen sisters," there was a live-in watchman, a live-in multitasking dog walker, a full-time gardener who always brought along a nephew or a son as assistant, a chauffeur, and a part-time elderly woman who came twice a day to sweep and mop floors, clean bathrooms and do the laundry. The sisters had a large room of their own on the roof and an adjoining bathroom, shared with the rest of the household staff. The sisters' room had a TV, and when not on call, the younger sister and the dog walker/handyman liked to watch shows, sitting side by side on the older sister's bed.
Were they already lovers? she wondered. A year ago, such a question would not have entered her mind. Unthinkable! Even for Parvati and Auro, it was impossible. But she could read body language, she could read a girl's gaze.
Several times, as she collected her bras and panties from the clothesline on the roof, Anjali heard the TV going in the sisters' room and envied the laughing couple on the narrow cot, sitting so close,