Rebecca sat, ramrod straight, in front of the strange man who Mr. Ghazi had assured her was far less dodgy than he seemed.
The plump, small figure in front of her had on the most gold jewelry that she had ever seen on any man. He wore three gold chains around his neck, the longest of which dipped into the hairy V formed by the undone top buttons of his collared shirt. The shirt itself was a violent shade of puce, a color Rebecca had never actually seen in real life and was surprised to find looked exactly the way it sounded, like something toxic.
He had several bracelets around his pudgy wrists, which were exposed by his shirtsleeves. His stomach wasn’t grossly large, but it extended gently over the top of his black pants. He wore gold rings with gemstones on each of his fingers, except for his thumbs, whose rings instead held large golden structures that looked to Rebecca like Aztec temples. The effect was finished off by what smelled like a potpourri shop of men’s fragrances, from sandalwood to Axe body spray, undercut slightly by the smell of antacids. Opening his mouth, Mr. Munshi revealed a tongue coated in light pink, and he ate a handful of Tums like candy, crunching loudly.
Mr. Munshi was sweating profusely, his armpits showing deeper shades of puce whenever he lifted his hands. A cold cup of tea sat next to his elbow and Rebecca worried vaguely that his enthusiastic hand gestures might send it tipping all over his desk at any moment.
Mr. Ghazi had explained that Mr. Munshi’s business catered mostly to Indian tourists. At first she had thought he was merely sharing a tidbit of information with her, but the urgency in his gaze and the blatant hope on the face of the other man, who introduced himself with a sweaty handshake and the words “Ronnie Munshi, madam, very pleased, impressed, and happy to meet you,” had convinced Rebecca that something else was going on.
Mr. Ghazi took the long way around when explaining things, a quality that Rebecca had initially found frustrating but now enjoyed, understanding that this was simply his way of being polite, sidling up to an important or difficult subject without tackling it right away. Mr. Ghazi began this particular explanation by contextualizing Mr. Munshi, describing briefly Bangladesh and his own experience with the country, which was nonexistent, and mentioning Mr. Munshi’s wife, Anita, and the circumstances of their relationship. He then moved on to Mr. Munshi’s work, its evolution out of his time on the Circle Line, and Mr. Ghazi’s own feelings on boats and their attractions, and then settled upon this new client of Mr. Munshi’s, who, Rebecca realized by Mr. Munshi’s sudden interest in the conversation, had been the point all along.
When Mr. Ghazi had mentioned Rebecca as a potential companion for the trip she had immediately started shaking her head no. She could miss auditions. It would be insane to leave town, no matter what they were willing to pay her, no matter how much she could use the money. She simply couldn’t leave New York for something that wasn’t an acting job.
However, Mr. Ghazi had looked her in the eye and asked her to think about it, and so she had agreed to do so, while privately feeling that her decision had already been made.
When she got home, though, she couldn’t get Mr. Ghazi or Mr. Munshi out of her mind. She thought about his stumbling description of this widow languishing in Kolkata, and his heartfelt and circuitous explanations of how this trip would make the widow’s life worth living.
She thought of Time magazine photos she had seen of women in white saris weeping while tossing the ashes of their husbands into the Ganges. One image had stayed with her, a woman, mouth open, tossing the ashes into the water. She wondered if she should, in fact, take the job. After all, it wasn’t like anyone would cast her for anything anyway. She scolded herself for her self-pity, but the damage was already done, and she thought more seriously about this trip, now considering it less a death sentence for her career and more an escape from her dull and unrewarding life.
Rebecca decided to call her mother, who she knew might give her good advice by virtue of recommending the thing Rebecca least wanted to do. Arguments with her mother solidified Rebecca’s resolve on a number of issues and she looked forward to them as a kind of reinforcement against her own fears.
The phone rang twice.
“Yes?” Cynthia barked, her usual greeting. This alternately amused and annoyed Rebecca, depending on her mood. Today, she found it soothing.
“Hey, Mom.” Rebecca heard an audible sigh from her mother.
“Well, it’s good to know you are alive, Rebecca,” her mother said briskly, her words clipped, “although I wish I received proof more often.”
“Sorry, Mom. I’ve been busy.”
“You got a thing? Some show or something?”
Rebecca gritted her teeth.
“Not quite.”
“Ah. So what do you have to be busy about?”
Rebecca counted to five slowly, a trick some daytime talk show had implied was good for uncontrollable rage. It never worked.
“Rebecca? Are you still there? It’s gone quiet. Stupid phone. I keep telling Morris—”
“Yeah, I’m here, Mom. Listen, I have something I want to talk to you about. You remember my boss?”
“You have a job?” Rebecca gritted her teeth again at this and waited. “Oh, the map store. Yes. Right. He’s Saudi, right?”
“Persian. Anyway, look, through him, it doesn’t matter how, basically someone needs a companion for a cross-country trip, and he asked me if I would want to do it. And I’m just wondering what you think.”
“A companion? Is that like, what is that?”
Rebecca smiled at her mother’s worried tone, realizing what she feared this job might entail. “It’s not an escort thing. It’s not, like, sexual. The person who needs the companion is a woman—”
“That doesn’t preclude sexuality, Rebecca.”
“Mom, she’s an Indian widow from Kolkata so even if she swings that way I think it’s going to be pretty latent. She wants to go on a tour, and she has a guide, but he’s a man, so she wants a woman to come along for, I guess, modesty? Safety? I don’t know. It’s all expenses paid and it’s three thousand dollars in my pocket. Two weeks, cross-country, New York to L.A.”
Rebecca waited for her mother’s opinion, sure that it would come pouring out of Cynthia like a geyser.
“Why isn’t she going to San Francisco?”
“What?”
“Indians love San Francisco. She should go. Your dad had these Indian clients—they lived here, obviously, but both from India—and that was their favorite place to go.”
“But they got a divorce, obviously, right?”
“Yes. But they still loved it. She should go.”
Rebecca held the phone away from her face for a moment and hissed. She would have screamed but her apartment was too small and the phone too good at picking up her voice. She had few ways to express her frustration with her mother, and she had found that hissing was satisfying, in the absence of a good scream.
“What was that? Did you get a cat?”
“No, Mom, maybe something outside. Listen. What do you think I should do?”
“Don’t get a cat, that apartment is too small, you will never stop smelling litter.”
“About. The. Trip.” Rebecca wished her mother didn’t