Miss New India - Bharati Mukherjee [133]
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.
7
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