A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel (18 page)

“You can just cover your face with the
pallu
of your sari,” Asha suggested. It was what she was planning to do. Pratap had been very clear: If anyone found out, it would bring shame to their family, and their lives would be made miserable.

Vinita sat down on her bed and looked at Ratna’s empty bed. “They asked Ratna, but she just refused. She said she can’t take that risk. Her family lives in Hyderabad. She comes from a good family. Not like mine. We live in a slum outside of Hyderabad. We have no money.”

“No one here comes from a good family,” Asha said. “We all come from nothing. Ratna can say what she wants, just like Narthaki. If they had any money, they wouldn’t do this.”

Vinita had tears in her eyes. “I have two daughters. My in-laws are so angry with me for not having a son. Then they heard about this, and they said that this was the least I could do to make sure my girls get married. It’s my fault. If I had one boy, then we could take the dowry from marrying him as dowry for our daughter.”

Asha knew how that felt. She had been relieved when her first child was a boy. Pratap was a good man, but if Asha had had two daughters, he would’ve been disappointed, too. That was the way it was. Kaveri had two boys, and she always talked about how she didn’t have to worry about marrying off daughters. Boys were easy to marry. They brought home a dowry; they didn’t take money away.

“I don’t want to be part of this TV thing,” Vinita said. “But I’m scared to say anything to Doctor Swati. Can you talk to her for me?”

Asha smiled. “If I could talk to Doctor Swati, I would’ve told her that I didn’t want to do this.”

“You don’t?”

Asha shook her head. “My husband said it was OK as long as my face was covered.”

Vinita nodded. “I’m not telling my husband or my in-laws. They’ll kill me.”

The mother talked about the television show as well the next time she called.

“Doctor Swati said that you volunteered,” the mother said. “We think it’s perfectly all right.”

“Will the TV people talk to you, also?” Asha asked.

The mother was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. The show is British, so they’ll probably talk to a couple living there.”

“Will they show this on TV in India?” Asha asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” the mother said. “But I don’t know for sure. Are you worried . . . are you . . . I’m sorry, let me put my husband on the phone. My Telugu is not so good.”

Asha heard the mother speak to the father in English, and then the father spoke.

“Hello, how are you feeling?” the father began. And after they exchanged the usual words, he asked, “If you don’t feel comfortable being on TV, just tell us. We’ll tell Doctor Swati not to have you as part of the program.”

Asha thought about it for only a moment. She wanted Manoj to go to the good school, and Doctor Swati had pretty much told her that the price of a recommendation was her participation in the TV program.

“No, no, it’s OK,” Asha said. “My husband said it was OK, too.”

“Do this only if you’re sure,” the father said. “Just because you’re carrying our baby doesn’t mean you have to talk to anyone you don’t want to about it.”

Asha almost told him then how she felt, but she held back. These people were not her family. They were no one. The only reason they called her was because she carried their baby.

“It will only be for a few minutes, they say. I don’t think it will be a problem,” Asha said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Her hands shook as she dialed Madhu from the car.
Just do it,
she told herself.

“I got laid off,” Priya blurted out as soon as she heard his hello.

“Oh,” Madhu said, and was then silent.

“Oh? Oh? I got laid off, Madhu,” Priya said as she felt the panic rise. Her throat was already raspy, and hot tears were filling her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Madhu said, and he sounded genuinely sad. “Are you on your way home? Why don’t you come to my office; we’ll go for lunch.”

Priya wiped the tears falling on her cheeks. “It’s humiliating.”

“No, it’s humiliating to get fired. Getting laid off . . . that’s just business,” Madhu said.

“They didn’t lay Angela off,” Priya said.

“Angela gets paid about half what you do,” Madhu said. “It happens. The economy is tough.”

“What will we do, Madhu?” Priya asked.

“We’ll be fine,” Madhu said.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said.

The good thing about Madhu was that he kept his cool, no matter the situation. The bad thing about Madhu was that he stayed so calm that he forgot to do anything to fix the bad situation.

Priya started to mentally calculate their bank balance and future expenses against, now, just Madhu’s salary. Her boss had actually been quite generous, giving her four weeks’ severance pay, while the others had received only a two-week package. But what happened after four weeks?

“Sorry to hear about your job, Priya. Madhu just told me,” Calvin, Madhu’s boss, said to her as she walked into the reception area of Madhu’s office.

“Well, you know, it is what it is,” Priya said, smiling. Worse than feeling like a loser after you lost your job was to let someone else see that you felt like a loser.

“Look at it positively: now you’ll have time to get the house ready for the baby,” Calvin said. He and his wife, Sandy, had three children. Sandy was a stay-at-home mom. She drove her kids everywhere and attended every parent-teacher thing, baked cookies, the whole nine yards. She was Supermom.

Of course, Priya fantasized about being a stay-at-home mom. But it had never been on the books as a thing she would ever actually do, baby or not. Now the choice might not be hers to make.

Madhu and Priya went for lunch at a small Indian place down the street that did the typical North Indian lunch buffet where all the curries tasted the same.

“I don’t have a job. I don’t want to spend too much money on going out,” she told Madhu when he suggested another nearby restaurant instead of the Indian place he disliked.

“Do we have to eat total crap because you lost your job?” Madhu asked as they sat down with their food on wooden chairs upholstered in dark-purple fabric. It was an unwritten rule—almost all Indian restaurants used the same dark purple on chairs, curtains, tablecloths, and napkins.

“This isn’t crap,” Priya said as she broke off a piece of roti.

“This is complete crap,” Madhu said. “The chicken tastes like the lamb, which tastes like the potatoes. And there is lard in everything. I guess now that you’re jobless, it’s OK if we get clogged arteries.”

“Well, unless you start making twice as much as you do now, you’d better start liking this complete crap. Or maybe we can cook at home more often,” Priya said, and shoved the roti into her mouth.

She had to keep perspective here. So, she’d lost her job. But she had a good husband and a baby on the way. As long as Madhu didn’t lose his job (
please, God, Madhu can’t lose his job
), it would be fine. They wouldn’t be able to afford a vacation, but they would be able to take care of their baby.

“Worse comes to worst, we’ll just move to India,” Madhu said, half-jokingly.

“Why not just move in with my parents instead?” Priya retorted sarcastically.

Madhu bit into a piece of chicken and grimaced. He put his fork down. “So, what’re your plans now?”

“Update my résumé and start looking for a job,” Priya said.

“Or . . . you could take a break,” Madhu suggested. “You’ve always worked. You got a job right out of school. You’ve never taken time off, not even a month here or there. Maybe you can see how it feels not to work.”

“Can we afford that?” Priya asked.

Madhu nodded. “Within reason. We can’t afford any big purchases, but for day-to-day expenses we should be fine.”

“And the baby?”

“It’s already in the budget,” Madhu said.

“What if I can’t get a job after the break?” Priya wondered.

“Why not see how it feels not to work? You were going to take maternity leave; think of this as an extended maternity leave, like they do in Scandinavia, where women get a year off,” Madhu said.

“And what about my career?” Priya asked.

“You can go back to it.”

“That’s what a lot of women tell themselves, and they end up never going back to work,” Priya said. “I don’t know if I want to be
that
woman. Look at Nina.”

“Being a mommy might be so much fun that you might not want to work again,” Madhu said. “And if you do, we’ll make that happen, too.”

Two days after she was laid off, Priya decided to take advantage of all the time she had now and do something meaningful with it.

“What’re you doing?” Madhu asked as he stood outside the baby’s room.

“Making beef bourguignon,” Priya said as she dipped a paint roller in a paint tray.

“Right,” Madhu said. “So, we’re going with . . . pink?”

“Sherman Williams calls it ‘Coming Up Roses,’” Priya said, looking up. “I’m going out of my mind. I had to do something.”

“OK,” Madhu said.

“The paint was on sale,” Priya added, in case he thought she was spending too much money.

“Can I help?” Madhu asked. “I just need to change.”

Priya shook her head. “Nope. This is my project. And once I’m done with the walls, I’m going to sew curtains.”

“You’re going to sew?” Madhu asked.

“Yes,” Priya said.

Madhu nodded and turned to leave. He turned back after taking two steps. “Are you in Energizer Bunny mode?”

“Yes,” Priya said, and focused on painting the second wall in the room.

“This means I get lucky tonight?”

Priya looked up from the wall and laughed. “Maybe.”

“This whole layoff thing might just be what our sex life needed,” Madhu said as he left to change.

“You’d better order some takeout,” Priya called after him. “The Energizer Bunny was too busy to cook.”

In retrospect, the first week was the hardest.

The boredom was exhausting.

The waiting was debilitating.

She had too much time on her hands, and maybe that was what made her come up with the idea of going to India early. It cemented itself while she was on the phone with Asha. It was ridiculous that they were talking on the phone, struggling to make conversation, when she could just be there, she thought. She could stay with Madhu’s parents. She could drive down to Asha, spend time with her, get to know her and her family, and see the belly that was swollen with her child.

Asha had talked about the news crew that would come the following Monday. She sounded less unsure about it than she had the last time they had spoken. She had complained about some backache but had also assured Priya that the masseuse hired by Happy Mothers was helping with that.

She said she was getting tired more easily. But she was enjoying taking the computer classes. With Asha it was always sunshine and rain at the same time. She complained about one thing while she praised another. She seemed almost afraid to bitch and moan about one thing without making a point to appreciate another. And she would always tell Priya that the baby was fine—like three to four times during one conversation.

“I have a backache. But the baby is fine.

“I miss my children. But the baby is fine.

“I’m tired all the time. But the baby is fine.”

Maybe it would be better to just be in India and check on Asha directly.

“You’ll go out of your mind there,” Madhu said.

“No, I won’t,” Priya said.

Madhu had been traveling for work while she had been fermenting her Indian idea. She hadn’t wanted to discuss it over the phone and had offered to pick him up at the airport, bubbling with excitement. She hadn’t been able to wait until they were home and out of traffic to start the conversation, and got into it before she had driven them out of the airport onto the freeway.

“My mother will drive you mad with her eat-this-and-eat-that,” Madhu said. “And the whole meet-this-person-and-that-person routine. They will try to introduce you to every relative we have in a hundred-mile radius, and that’s a lot of relatives, babe.”

“Relatives I can handle. Do you think they’ll mind if I stayed in their house for two months?” Priya asked.

“Mind? Hell, they’ll be delighted. Their daughter-in-law staying with them and then their granddaughter,” Madhu said, and then put his hand on her thigh. “You’ll find another job, you know. The finance geeks keep saying it’s going to get better.”

“The finance geeks have not been very good at predicting the world’s economic health, so maybe we shouldn’t trust them blindly,” Priya said.

“Can we think about it for just a little bit before buying a ticket?” Madhu suggested.

And before Priya could respond, he deftly changed the topic. “Wanna hear a good story? I guarantee it’ll cheer you up.”

“OK,” Priya said, changing lanes, her driving slightly more aggressive than usual because she was feeling impatient.

“Something interesting happened to me in Albuquerque. Now, I’ve been traveling throughout my career. I’m a sales guy; that’s what we do. But this was the first time that a woman made a pass at me,” Madhu said, sounding very smug.

Priya angled her head, keeping one eye on traffic and one on Madhu, waiting for the punch line.

“So now that women are making passes at me, do you really think it’s a good time for you to leave me alone for months on end?” Madhu asked.

“One woman is not
women
making passes at you,” Priya said as she took the Guadalupe Parkway exit from 101 to get on 87. “Tell me about this woman.”

“Well, of course she was gorgeous.”

“Of course.”

“She worked for some pharmaceutical company. Also in sales. A Chanel suit type of person,” Madhu said.