For their first meeting, twenty-nine-year-old Sayali Barve asked Prem to come by her apartment in Fords and let himself in. It was more spacious than the ones in King’s Court, yet it seemed to close in on him with its overwhelming concentration of wall art. There were framed portraits of clowns, needlepoint sailboats, a gaggle of plastic ducks captured midflight. One wall was plastered with pictures of waterfalls torn from calendars. Prem counted four different “Home Sweet Home” signs as well as two owls woven from some sort of rope. He sat down on the couch in front of a coffee table plagued by too many cardboard “Alaska: The Last Frontier” coasters and waited.
“Prem? I’m coming!” Sayali finally called from what seemed to be a coat closet. When she emerged, he couldn’t see her face because she came out backward and moved immediately toward a back room. “I am just hiding some jewelry,” she said. “You know, with the robberies and all. I am listening, tell me some things.” She was referring to a recent string of break-ins targeting Indian homes, some of which held significant stashes of twenty-four-carat gold, diamond and ruby necklaces, rings, bangles, earrings, pendants, chains, arm cuffs, toe rings, nose rings, anklets, and waistbands. The perpetrators reportedly came equipped with metal detectors and ferreted out the jewelry, leaving the homeowners devastated and wondering why the robbers didn’t take their TVs.
“So, I, uh, work in a gas station,” Prem said in Sayali’s direction.
“Great!” Sayali called from somewhere inside. “I like that smell, you know, from the petrol.”
“Ya, it’s not bad,” Prem said as she stuffed something under her mattress. He was pleasantly surprised by her positive reaction to his line of work. “They give us the jumpsuit for free.”
She moved over to the kitchen, but again she walked in a way that obscured her face. She pushed a chair against the fridge and stepped up on it. “Some people get bank boxes, but they cost so much of money, and also I do not trust those bank workers. They all are Indian, they know what we put in the boxes. Jyoti in First Fidelity Bank wants my emerald set.”
Prem was intrigued by Sayali’s long slender hands and elegant forearm, her hair that cascaded to her waist, and her sensible approach to safeguarding her valuables. “Can I help?” he said.
Tiptoeing on the chair and trying to shove a small bundle into a cabinet, she said, “No, no, I don’t think Jyoti will try anything.”
“I meant—” Prem began, but trailed off when Sayali disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out, she had a towel over her head.
“Can I make some chai for you?” she said, walking back to the kitchen. She stuck her head in the oven and pulled out a slim red velvet box, which she then stowed in the freezer.
Prem guessed then what she was doing and his heart sank for her. She was hiding her face for some reason, maybe bad skin or some sort of scar or deformity. But what could be so bad? She was lovely, and he felt certain they would be good friends. He went to her in the kitchen and stood directly in front of her, then lifted the towel as though lifting a veil.
A sizable birthmark, reddish in tinge, covered most of one side of her face. Yet it was nothing at all. She had averted her eyes and he saw a tear escape from one of them. “Yes, with extra sugar,” he said.
Sayali looked directly at him for the first time. “I am guessing you will be going now. Okay, bye, see you.”
“No, no, no, you are trying to get out of making my chai. How could you do such a thing? I like it with a lot of milk.”
She smiled widely and began scurrying around collecting the ingredients for the tea. Sayali seemed to Prem what a sister should be: warm and open with kind eyes, unlike his own sister, who was distant with bloodthirsty eyes. They sipped their chai and talked for a long time on the couch, and very quickly he learned the basic facts of her immigrant experience: she was sponsored by her sister and brother-in-law to come to America, she had made the journey by boat because it was her strong belief that humans were not meant to fly, she made a robust living as a tailor, altering nearly fifty pieces per week, more around Diwali. After some time, they switched to Johnnie Walker Black, and she told him she approved of sex before marriage.
“Um, I don’t think, you know, I …” Prem stammered.
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean with you,” Sayali said. “I understand you prefer the company of men. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“No, no, what? I don’t—”
“It is all right. I know in our community, in this world, there are many, many people who do not accept lifestyles different from their own. They are intolerant and fearful and full of hate. I am not like that. You are safe here with me.”
Prem was so moved by her words of love and tolerance that he forgot he did not actually prefer men. “Thank you, dear Sayali,” he said, then suggested they go out for some pizza.
“I do not go outside,” she said.
“What do you mean, you do not go outside?”
“I stay inside almost all of the time.”
“You never go outside?”
“That is right.”
Prem was astounded by the tragedy of the situation. He looked around her apartment—the landscape pictures, the Alaska coasters, the bird knickknacks, a painting of a tree he had not previously noticed—and realized the entire motivation for her unique decorating scheme was to bring the outside in. There was a red marker in a cup of pens and pencils on the coffee table. He pulled it out and proceeded to draw on his face. Sayali looked on in astonishment. When he was done, he had a large mark on his face similar to her own.
“Now people won’t stare at you,” he said, “they will stare at both of us and think this is a new kind of cool tattoo.”
She threw her arms around him and kissed him all over his fake new birthmark. Then she went to the bathroom and got some earrings out of a bottle of shampoo, and they went out. For the first time, she ate pizza in the place it was actually made and was elated. She confessed she wanted to be a fashion designer and maybe someday open a boutique specializing in Indian bridal attire. Prem poured out the story of his own struggle to plan an Indian star stage show, which in theory would take place in March. He had recently found a show director who would be responsible for choreography, sequencing, music selection, special effects, and such, as well as a stage manager. But whom would they be directing, what would they be managing? He was visibly distressed by the fact that he had yet to book a single actor.
“I might have some connections,” she said.
* * *
That fall, after the leaves had changed color and carpeted the ground with a fun, crunchy layer, Prem was set up with a woman who was described by her friend as “mature.” They arranged to meet at a park, but when he got to the appointed bench, he saw only a young Indian American woman, much too young to be the person he was told to look for. Mrinalini Das was forty-five and charming, with a worldly wit. They walked around the pond for hours, and she recounted for him how she had dedicated all of her energy and time to her education and career as a pharmacist, and by the time she was ready to get married, she had aged out of the marriage market. He spoke to her animatedly about her gifts and beauty, he made her laugh and twirled her around a tree and took her for a pedalboat ride, which was all the rage in Edison since the release of Maine Pyar Kiya’s love-song-in-a-pedalboat scene on Ooty Lake. By the end of the day when they returned to their original bench, he had convinced her that she was still youthful, full of life, and poised for a future of adventure and love. She was grateful, and as they watched the sunset she turned to look at him in the same way his mother used to look at him, with love in her eyes.
“I am sorry,” she said, “but you are too young for me.”
“It is my bad luck for being born so late,” he said.
During the course of their day together, he had told her about his business endeavor and how he was happy to have booked a set designer and security firm for his upcoming show with no stars. When they finally said goodbye and she was walking away from him at the bench, she paused and turned to him one last time.
“I might have some connections,” she said.
Winter came again, and this time, Prem was less appalled by it. He found comfort in the usual sight of women in saris and snow boots, with gold jewelry and puffy jackets, pushing through a blizzard, and children kicking the snow and jumping in it because they hadn’t been in America long enough to know they were supposed to make balls and angels. The only drawback was that he received fewer invitations to meet lovely and lonely women—which he had quite come to depend on for companionship and distraction—because no one wanted to go outside. He turned again to the matrimonials, where he found an ad for a “compassionate” girl who was “uneducated but an excellent cook.”
“So all of these horrible men keep calling my parents, looking for a wife-cum-servant,” the girl explained. Anamika Painter was a tall, somewhat angry person with a very long ponytail. She had asked to meet him at the Ved Mandir in Milltown, for which he hitched a ride with Chotubhai Charlie Patel, who preferred that faraway temple for its abundant sunlight in the prayer room. In the basement cafeteria, they sipped piping hot chai from Styrofoam cups and learned about each other.
“Mummy and Papa insist I meet each one at least one time before saying no,” Anamika continued. “All are the same, no respect for me, just want me for cooking and cleaning and having the babies.”
“And how do you know I am not like them?” Prem said, genuinely interested in the answer.
Anamika furrowed her brow and looked him over carefully. “You seem soft.”
