“Then back here. What is wrong with you?”
“Ya, that sounds good, sounds good, good, good, ya,” Lucky said.
“What is wrong with you?” Prem said.
Lucky began what sounded like a request for a favor, but was cut short by Iqbal, who appeared among them with a towel at his waist and a white sleeveless undershirt, soap foaming at his chest hair. “No hot water,” he said.
“No hot water?” four people chimed.
There was a knock at the door, and two of the upstairs paying guests entered. “Do you have hot water here?”
“No hot water,” a different four people answered.
Amarleen started yelling about the landlord, and two more from upstairs came down and joined her. Lucky felt this might not be the optimal time to ask Prem for one hundred thousand dollars. He picked himself up and told him they could continue their talk in the evening, to which Prem replied, “Sure. Why?”
That evening, Lucky still could not find the right words or moment to make his request. This time, however, instead of prattling on, he did the opposite, staring at Prem from across the room in an intense and unsettling way. By the time he finally mustered up the courage, it was 3:00 a.m. and the apartment was asleep and quiet, except for a police siren that grew nearer and nearer then faded away. Prem stirred. “Hey,” Lucky whispered from across the room. “Petrol. Can I have one hundred thousand dollars?”
Lucky had always been terrible at saving money. Prem had noticed this years ago and had urged his friend to put some money in the bank, but instead, he had squandered it all on party buses and velvet shirts.
“You see the dilemma we are in,” Lucky said in the morning. He and his fiancée had asked Prem to come down to the Sassy Salwar, where they could talk freely. Lucky had just finished a highly detailed rundown of their plight, which included the “Jazzy Panty” and some very heavy drapes. At the end of the story, Sushila stepped in.
“Prem, we know this all must be hard for you,” she said, looking up from where she had been straightening a rack of discounted lehengas. “Because of, you know, how you wanted to marry me when I was working in Shoe Town.”
“I told you, he is okay with it,” Lucky said.
“This is no time for jealousy, Prem,” Sushila continued.
“Really. Very okay with it,” Lucky said.
Prem shifted in his velvet-cushioned seat beside a blonde mannequin draped in pink chiffon. “Is it not possible to get an Indian mannequin?” he wondered, then cleared his throat and returned to the matter at hand. “Did you try to negotiate the terms with Mrs. Mukherjee?”
“She is not a negotiating type,” Sushila said.
“She showed me the rolling pin that she would beat me with,” Lucky said.
His friend needed him, Prem thought. Lucky had always been good to him. From the early Edison days to the recent Miss India USA incident, Lucky had been there for him. And now he was getting married, having a baby, and expanding his store. Any borrowed money would be spent on worthy things. Also, Prem did not want to see Lucky heartbroken and beaten by an auntie.
“Please, Petrol,” Lucky said, “we will return you the money slowly over time. And if you get married ever, your wife can have free salwars.”
“And I can take a reduced commission if you buy a house,” Sushila said.
“And we will name the baby Prem,” Lucky added.
“Really?” Prem asked.
“Really?” Sushila also asked.
The discussions continued, but Prem knew all along that the outcome was inevitable. That afternoon, he wrote a check for one hundred thousand and one dollars, then spent the rest of the day wondering what he would tell Tiger Nayak.
“You have reached Anthony Braganza, official spokesperson for the T-Company organization. How may I help you?”
“Mr. Braganza, Prem Kumar here, of Superstar Entertainment. Can I leave a message with you for Mr. Kamath?”
“Why, sir, Mr. Kamath is in the office. Shall I transfer you?”
“No! I mean, no need to disturb him. Can you just tell him there will be a slight delay with the payments that I promised—”
“Another delay, sir?”
“Yes, another delay. But no need to say ‘another’ when you talk to Mr. Kamath. Just ‘slight delay’ is fine.”
“Slight delay.”
“That’s correct.”
“I believe Mr. Kamath would like to speak to you himself about this matter.”
“Oh no, a bird has come into my office! Okay, thank you, Braganza, Mr., please give him my message, okay, bye!”
Prem did not feel great about how the conversation had gone, but the deed was done, and he probably had a few days before hearing from Tiger’s people. In the twelve years since he’d first secured T-Company’s investment, he had returned the principal and quite a bit more above that, so they couldn’t be too mad at him, Prem thought. Thus far, they had been reasonable partners, only once sending a message written in blood. He could count on them to be patient a little longer.
The next day, Wristwatch threw a rock through an open window of 3D, lingering on the lawn long enough for Prem to see clearly that it was him. Immediately after that, Prem began his descent into drinking and chewing too much paan and disregarding his own hygiene. In the manner of so many dispirited onscreen heroes whose lives went down the toilet, he ceased shaving entirely and cultivated a Devdas beard of sorrow, which became shockingly full shockingly quickly after some initial patchiness. He seldom bathed and took to walking around barefoot outside and tracking mud and occasionally blood around the apartment. Three weeks later, he threw up in the sink again and slept, inexplicably, beneath the kitchen table. In the morning, Amarleen coaxed him out from under it and forced him to shower, then yelled at Mohan and Yogesh—who had not ended up moving anywhere—and Lucky and Deepak for allowing him to drink so much the night before.
“Why you’re yelling at me? I was here watching Lajja with you,” Deepak said, stuffing a mini muffin in his mouth.
“Oh ya,” Amarleen said and turned to glare at the others.
“What do you mean?” Lucky said. “I was watching Lajja too—remember I made that good comment about the unequal society?”
