Varsha, in the coveted second row of the wedge, had performed her part well until the song came to what she felt was an abrupt stop, and she fell backward onto one hand and shrieked. Everyone in the rink came to a stop, or tried to, some rolling away involuntarily, while a few friends rushed over to her. Prem reluctantly pulled Leena up from their passionate and unnatural pose to a stable standing position, wishing the moment could’ve lasted longer, inwardly cursing Varsha’s poor toe-stop management. But when he noticed Leena’s expectant gaze, he skated over to help Varsha too. He and the others scooped her up and brought her to the concession stand, where a pale, pimply teenage boy called 911. The wedges disbanded and the spectators poured back into the rink, resuming their wobbly skating, except, of course, for Beena and, unexpectedly, Iqbal, who was also shockingly good. Leena skated to Prem’s side, and together they comforted Varsha until an ambulance arrived and carried her away.
Prem took a deep, hopeful breath and turned to Leena standing next to him at the edge of the rink. “So?”
Leena tilted her head back slightly and looked up at him with the old tenderness in her eyes. “Okay, I’m finished now,” she said.
Prem’s heart leaped in his chest because he was pretty sure that the thing she was finished with was being mad. He tried to maintain his cool and restrained himself from picking her up and twirling her around. “Cool, that’s cool,” he said, then noticed her consternation. “What I mean is, is this moment real, or is it just a dream sequence?”
“This isn’t a Hindi movie,” Leena said.
“But maybe it is,” Prem said.
After that, they resumed licking ice cream cones together behind the Dairy Queen, him sometimes licking hers, and vice versa. They continued blissfully for the next few months. Prem, flush with happiness, took to writing her frequent letters dripping with sentiment, adoration, and the scent of gasoline, which she accepted and read over and over before tucking them into a secret Gits idli mix box she kept under her bed and pulled out periodically to breathe in their aroma. At the beginning of April, when they were sitting out on the apartment’s front stoop picking over lentils in large steel thalis, Prem said, “I think maybe, if it is okay with you, it might be time to take permission from your father.”
11
If hung in the southeast corner of the home, the money plant, Epipremnum aureum, is said, according to Vaastu—the Hindu feng shui, as it is often mistakenly styled—to generate positive energy in the business and wealth arenas of homeowners’ lives. It is believed a vast fortune is imminent once the plant’s leaves reach the floor. Money plants are famously easy to care for, requiring no fertilizer or botanical knowledge, just a bit of light and water, which of course begs the question, If they are so easy to maintain, why isn’t everyone rich?
This had occurred to Hemant, who was given his plant as a grand-opening gift when they launched their original store in Houston, but he chose to brush aside all doubt and instead take the lore of the money plant as fact. He applied himself very seriously to its upkeep, tending to it like it was his other child, even giving it a name—Hriyan, meaning “wealth.” Leena’s father had never been one to believe in free rides or easy money and always stressed the need to apply oneself. Hard work, he intoned, will always be rewarded in this land. So she was mystified with his fanatical dedication to the plant, spending hours fussing over the leaves, sometimes even taking the plant’s side over hers, such as when she argued that it was making their apartment look like a jungle. “Don’t talk about Hriyan like that,” Hemant said to the plant’s older sister.
On the day Prem and Leena were about to come home to crush his hopes and dreams, Hemant was working on his plant. Halfway up a ladder that he had purchased for the store but which spent equal time in the apartment for pruning purposes, Hemant was frustrated with the amount of yellow he’d been finding in Hriyan lately. Discolored leaves and dried-up ends of branches were the only pieces of his plant that Hemant ever cut away. The rest he tacked all over the ceiling, though Leena and anyone who visited told him that trimming the vines would not impact the plant’s auspiciousness.
It had been drizzling all morning, which vexed Hemant because the store likely had fewer customers as a result. He would ask Leena when she came home for lunch. Strangely, she had asked if they could have lunch together that day at home instead of taking turns in the back office. It was Saturday, so Viren Bhai was also home, perched on the swing with a book about Vedic mathematics. What a simple, nice fellow he was, Hemant thought. No ego, no nothing. Just stretching and breathing, stretching and breathing, and occasional reading on incomprehensible subjects. Hemant commended himself on his choice of boarder. His other boarder had also proven to be a good choice. He helped with the dishes, paid the rent on time, and kept to himself. Hemant’s only complaint was that the young man didn’t seem to own a tongue scraper.
When Leena came in, Prem was right behind her, carrying a damp section of the Star-Ledger he had apparently used as an umbrella on his walk home. “Do not bring that in here,” Hemant said without fully looking away from his plant.
Prem dropped the paper in the hallway. He ran his fingers through his hair, kicked himself for pre-angering the father, took a deep breath, and entered.
“Papa, I’m home!” Leena said in her lively way. “We have something to talk about with you.” She put her account book down on the kitchen table and began filling a pot with water.
Viren Bhai got the sense very quickly, as meditative people often do, that something significant was about to happen in which he need not be involved. “I’ll just go on the balcony, no problem.”
“No, no, it is raining, Viren Bhai,” Leena said.
“No worries, I’ll do Kapinjalasana.”
“Huh?” Hemant said.
“Bird-drinking-raindrops pose,” Viren Bhai said, sliding open the flimsy screen door and exiting the room.
Hemant inspected Leena, then Prem. “You both have something to talk about with me? The same thing, or two separate things?”
“Just one thing, Papa,” Leena said, smiling up at her father. “Come down from the ladder, be comfortable, I’m making tea.”
Hemant remained on the ladder looking down at them. “Is it the store? What happened? Did those loafers knock down the Maggi Noodles display? Did the light go off again in the okra fridge?”
“Everything is okay in the store, sir,” Prem said. He felt his legs tremble slightly and wished they could all sit down, but no one appeared to be moving. It would be odd if he alone took a seat, Prem thought, so it seemed he would have to remain standing and force himself to stop trembling.
“Nothing is wrong, silly Papa. But you see, we want to ask you,” Leena said, adding milk masala to the pot. She cleared her throat. “The thing is that …” Her voice trailed off and she cleared her throat again. Prem had never seen her struggling like this to get words out, and it made him even more nervous to see that the least nervous person he had ever met was nervous.
“Do you remember the picture Padosan? When the people fall in love who live near each other?” she said.
Hemant used his clippers to remove an ailing leaf. “Never watched it.”
“How about Tere Ghar Ke Samne?” Prem asked.
“Or Mili?” Leena said.
“Or Ek Duuje Ke Liye?” Prem and Leena both said, smiling at their synchronicity. Prem’s anxiety lifted, and he was imbued with a sudden calm. She was with him. She was radiant, in an orange salwar with gold polka dots. But it wasn’t just that she was pretty; she had confidence, self-assurance, work ethic, determination, a sense of herself in the world—things he didn’t have, and that all the money in the world had never been able to buy.
“Why you are asking about movies?” Hemant said, looking back and forth between the two young people. Leena tilted her head to the side the way she did when convincing him that the store required more of something he didn’t think it required, like crispy tea rusk or Hot Mix. In her gentlest voice, she said, “We have come to ask for your blessing.”
Hemant made an unintentional snip and a long piece of Hriyan fell to the floor. The three of them looked down at it then back up at each other. “I am going to the store,” Hemant said, climbing down from his ladder. “This loafer should be gone from here before I come back,” and then, less forcefully, “which will be around six o’clock.”
“Oh, Papa, don’t be like that,” Leena said. “Come, let’s talk.”
“Talk? Yes, talk. Tell me, how long you have been carrying on this disgusting romance under my nose? How many people have you told before telling your own father? Have you noticed he has no tongue scraper even?”
“I had a tongue scraper, but it was stolen,” Prem offered.
“Really?” Leena said.
“Ya, I love tongue scrapers,” Prem said.
“No, I mean, why would someone steal a tongue scraper?”
“Stop,” Hemant said. “This is too much.” He rubbed his eyes for a long time before continuing. “How can I marry you with this good-for-nothing bum? Why we have worked so hard in this country? So you can end up with a gas pumpwalla?”
“He is not a bum,” Leena said in the firmest tone Prem had ever heard her use. “He is decent and good.”
