“Why would she look at you?” Mohan said. “You weren’t even singing.”
“I sang the before song.”
“Of course she was looking at Prem,” Amarleen said to Lucky. “Why would she look at you when she can look at him?”
“Shall we go inquire?” Shanta said. “Find out if she likes him really?”
“No, no, that will ruin everything,” Beena said. “Have you seen a Hindi movie in your life? She has to hit him with her bike now.”
“Is her father unmarried?” Urmila said.
Prem didn’t hear any of this as he was busy trying to decipher the tone in which Leena had said “Nice singing.” It wasn’t exuberant, and certainly not flirty; more matter-of-fact and casual, with a hint of playfulness.
“Prem, yaar,” Gopal said. “You going to make a move?”
Prem shrugged and watched as Leena tucked her father’s hand in the crook of her elbow and walked him down the path to Building 5.
* * *
Prem spent the following afternoon unloading a truck and stocking shelves with bags of Swad-brand atta in Hemant’s store. She was nowhere to be seen, but toward the end of the day, he heard her on a phone call in the backroom reprimanding a ginger paste vendor for a late delivery.
Mohan and Lucky were sweeping and dusting and laughing at Prem when he scratched his chest. They had conceded that, yes, Leena had indeed been speaking to Prem the previous night, but felt there wasn’t enough evidence to suggest she was interested. “Maybe she was feeling bad for you because you don’t understand the alphabet,” Lucky said.
“Maybe your mother doesn’t understand—” Prem began but quickly lost confidence in that strain of insult. After a while he moved to the last aisle in the back where he could scratch himself with abandon. He was deeply disappointed to not see her all day. The whole of his being, his entire notion of his future self, was tied to the question of whether he had a chance. He hoisted the last bag of atta onto the shelf and turned to look one last time at the backroom door.
7
It wasn’t until the following weekend that he saw her again, and this time, she was reading palms. A sizable youthful subset of the previous party’s crowd was gathered at apartment 3D Saturday afternoon while the Singhs were sightseeing with out-of-town relatives. Though Iqbal and Amarleen welcomed a full house, they did not permit alcohol to be consumed in their home. So, as if they were high schoolers whose parents were away, the young boarders seized the opportunity to throw a party.
“Are you sure they will be gone for a long time?” Mohan had asked.
“Yes,” Deepak had said.
“They are going to Empire State Building, UN tour, the Times Square?”
“Yes.”
“And Statue?”
“Naturally.”
“Any Broadway show?”
“Cats.”
“Okay, call everyone.”
Prem learned of the party when he walked in on it already underway.
“Did you bring beer?” Mohan asked. Behind him, a stranger was drinking water straight from the faucet while an assortment of tenants from Building 9 stood solemnly over a young man sprawled out on the kitchen floor.
“Why is everyone here?” Prem said. “Where are Iqbal, Amarleen? Did someone die?”
“Why would we need beer if someone died?”
“I don’t know, I just …” Prem lost his train of thought as he spotted Leena across the crowded room, peering into someone’s outstretched hand. Even as he was doing it, he recognized that he was staring at her in an aggressive and unsettling way, like Amitabh in Namak Halaal gawking at Smita Patil, he in a pink turban, she all in white, he serenading her with a subdued version of his previously boisterous song while the other guests looked on in confused silence.
“So,” Mohan said, “you did not bring beer?”
Prem hoped to change out of his Exxon jumpsuit, but it soon became clear that both the bedroom and bathroom would be occupied indefinitely. He settled in a corner, leaning against a wall, trying to look engaged in a conversation with Tony and a guy called Sam about foreign versus domestic cars. When Sam shifted a certain way, Prem glimpsed Leena, who was now examining Deepak’s palm, which vexed Prem greatly. He hoped she would look up and notice him, yet he also really didn’t. He wouldn’t know what to say or how to act or what to do with his hands. Sam had repositioned himself entirely, and Prem had an unobstructed view from which to study her. It wasn’t just her one-sided dimple or her wide smile that vanquished him, it was the enormity of her personality. He envied the ease with which she talked to people, how she commanded attention without even wanting it. When she took an interest in someone, that person became the most fascinating person in the room. Everyone, women, men, the old, the young, wanted to melt into the delirious light surrounding her, none more so than he. She had everything he didn’t. He was at her feet.
As she switched to reading Deepak’s other hand, in a miraculous instant, she looked up and met Prem’s eyes, causing his face to flush. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down but couldn’t stop himself from looking back at her. She glanced again at Prem, and he thought he discerned a slight smile before she looked away again, though it was just as likely he’d imagined it.
“Ya, Japanese, definitely, very, very efficient.” He thought he was responding to Sam or Tony, but it was Gopal calling his name from across the room, waving him over frantically. Though he was reluctant to remove himself from the chance of further possibly suggestive eye contact, Prem squeezed and elbowed his way to his friend, who directed him to a crisis in the hallway. Apparently, a friend of Amarleen had come looking for her and was sobbing outside.
“Why are you telling this to me?” Prem said, though he was afraid he already knew why.
“Because, yaar, the auntie crowd loves you,” Gopal said.
“Ya, man,” a vaguely familiar person said, “they think you are Dilip Kumar combined with Dalai Lama.”
The crisis that Archana Ambani from 2E was dealing with, poorly, in the hallway involved Stern’s department store and an unreturnable Samsonite suitcase. She had forgotten to keep the receipt, without which they would not take it back, and this in turn had precipitated a major fight with her husband, who felt the purchase of the suitcase was a reckless mistake, the reverberations of which would be felt for years to come.
“Why do they give so much of trouble in America?” Archana asked between sobs. “In India, the suitcasewalla knows you, you argue for twenty minutes, he says he will give only half money back, you say you know he is having the affair with his neighbor, he takes the suitcase back and gives you full refund plus free neck pillow.”
Prem was unsure what kind of response this required. He shook his head and tsked in a sort of show of solidarity.
“I feel scared of my husband,” Archana said.
