Back in the 1970s, as a child, Anjali had enjoyed going to her parents’ old Jackson Heights store in New York City. Every afternoon, after school, she’d done her homework in the crowded back room. That cramped space had also served as her parents’ office. A desk and chair, a file cabinet, and a portable electric stove for warming up lunch and making chai had left room for little else. She’d loved wandering around the shop, touching the fabrics and draping them over herself, slipping into the high-heeled and jeweled sandals on display, pretending she was a fashion model.
Then her parents had relocated to Edison in the 1980s because it was a brand-new Indian enclave with more promise and less competition. However, even after the move, the store’s name and general appearance had remained the same. Her parents were bright people, but creativity was not their strong point. She was a teenager by then and had come to view the business more objectively. It needed to be much more than Kapadia’s Sari Emporium.
Somewhere between the ninth and tenth grades, she’d decided to try her hand at dress designing. Helping her parents at the shop combined with her eye for color and shapes had naturally progressed into a degree in apparel design and merchandising, and further into plans for joining her parents’ business someday.
But fate had taken her on a slight detour. Soon after graduate school she’d met Vikram Gandhi, fallen for his boyish good looks and sunny nature, and then married him. His career was in New York, so instead of working for her parents she’d found a job at an advertising agency in the city.
She’d been happy, though, content with her condo in Queens, her marriage to Vik, and life in general. Back then she’d had big dreams of owning several elegant boutiques all over the country—maybe in other countries, too. With typical youthful enthusiasm she’d had it all figured out.
Although Vik was an electronics engineer by profession, he had encouraged her retail dreams, even shared in them. And just when they thought they’d saved enough money to start working on bringing those dreams to reality, Vik had collapsed at his office, and died soon after. His only symptom had been waking up with a severe headache that morning.
They’d had no idea that a silent killer had been stalking Vik for many years. He had swallowed a couple of aspirin and gone to work despite the acute headache. By the time the ambulance had arrived, he’d hemorrhaged to death. All her dreams had died with him. So much for drawing up a neat blueprint of her life. The only solace was that he hadn’t suffered too long.
Seeing her drowning in grief, her parents had encouraged her to quit her job in New York, sell her condo, live with them, and help them with the store, which was best suited for her training and disposition anyway. Even Vik’s parents had seen the logic in that and supported her decision. Little by little she’d overcome her sorrow and made her parents’ business a success.
Unfortunately, along the way, she’d drifted away from Vik’s parents and his married sister. Anyhow, Florida was too far to visit often.
Eventually she’d sunk all of her and Vik’s joint savings into upgrading and glamorizing the store, and making it a showpiece—Silk & Sapphires. The grand opening was written about in all the local newspapers. Magazines had run articles about the new ethnic dream store in the heart of Little India. With all that helpful buzz customers had crowded in, and the business had done extremely well.
But now it looked like all that hype and hard work were for naught. Anjali and her parents were in danger of losing their boutique. Her dad had estimated that if they didn’t start turning a profit within the next six to nine months, they might have to sell, or worse, declare bankruptcy.
They’d never been exactly rich, but they’d been comfortable. Her education had been entirely paid for by her parents, and at this late age they were paying Nilesh’s college bills.
They still lived in a decent home and drove late-model cars. Going from relative middle-class comfort to possible bankruptcy was inconceivable to Anjali. What in heaven’s name were they going to do if things got really bad?
She closed her eyes and tried to dispel the dark image of potential poverty. No. Please, God, no.
Despite all her initial ranting at the idea of having the autocratic Jeevan come down to stick his large nose into their private affairs, when faced with the frightening prospect of bankruptcy, Anjali was beginning to have second thoughts. She’d also had a little while to simmer down.
Maybe the old curmudgeon would be of some use after all. Her dad was right. There was never any doubt that Jeevan had a gift for business. He had the uncanny combined instincts of a lion, a bloodhound, and a fox.
Placing the last sari in the cabinet, Anjali looked at her wristwatch. It was nearly closing time. She needed to get her mind off work and business—and her uncle’s impending visit. Maybe she’d call Kip and meet him later over a drink. He’d help her relax.
For lack of a better term, she thought of Kip as her boyfriend. He was her friend for sure, a patient pal, her lover, and a comfort to have at times. But he wasn’t a boyfriend in the true sense of the word. Their relationship was neither sweet nor romantic. It didn’t involve whispered sweet nothings, flowers or chocolates, holding hands, or walks in the moonlight. It was just a friendship with some free drinks and sex thrown in when it was mutually convenient.
She’d been seeing Kip Rowling secretly for nearly two years, mainly because widowhood was lonely and frustrating. All her Indian girlfriends were married and enjoying husbands, homes, and children. They were involved in a variety of careers, too. As a single woman who worked seven days a week, Anjali didn’t fit into their social circle anymore. She was the odd one out, the one to be pitied and condescended, and occasionally the one to be eyed with suspicion as a potential husband snatcher.
She had some non-Indian girlfriends—women she’d gone to college with. They were single like her, but they’d never been married. She got together with them for drinks or dinner once in a while. But she didn’t have any close friends. Her work was her life.
Although she was a mature woman, in charge of her own life, if her parents ever found out about Kip, a white Protestant guy who owned a bar and lounge in the heart of New Brunswick, had little formal education, and wore an earring in one ear, she’d be in deep trouble. Respectable Gujarati women with solid family values, especially thirty-seven-year-old Hindu widows, weren’t expected to fraternize with barkeepers.
She was lucky to be born and raised in the U.S. If this was India, she’d probably have to live the semi-reclusive life of a widow. Widows were supposed to keep their inauspicious shadow from falling over the rest of society and bringing a similar curse upon it. Indian society had evolved considerably in the past decade or so, but widows still had a rough life over there.
All the Indian guys her parents and relatives tried to fix her up with wanted marriage, but she was afraid of marriage after what had happened to Vik. A few of those men were widowed, or even divorced, but almost all of them had kids, and she didn’t want to play mom to anyone’s children, not when her life was consumed by business.
It wasn’t that she disliked children. She’d hoped to have her own when she was married to Vik, but that dream, too, had become a blur and then vanished.
Besides, so far, every Gujarati man she’d been introduced to had turned out as interesting as plain boiled potatoes. They all lacked sophistication. Desis—countrymen—as Indians in America affectionately referred to themselves, were a homogenous bunch of people—essentially decent, honest, hardworking, and obsessively goal-oriented, but the one thing about them that bored Anjali to tears was their lack of humor. They laughed at others and felt no guilt at ridiculing the guy next door, but they could never poke fun at themselves.
Vik was different. She had yet to meet another Indian man with a self-deprecating sense of humor like Vik’s. Because of his highly recognizable last name, folks had often asked him if he was related