“So, I couldn’t just let a lovely little thing like this get away from me,” he said, flicking one hand at Ranjana. “I gotta tell you, I’ve been going to FB for years, and I have yet to see anything so darling as this one shaking what her mama gave her like she done owned the place.” This statement contained so many turns of phrase that it made Harit reexamine his entire comprehension of the English language.
Ranjana tittered and said, “Oh, Teddy.” In that moment, one might have mistaken them for lifelong friends. Harit felt lonely, and he wondered what his mother had thought earlier tonight, when he told her that he was going “out to dinner with friends.” He had never attempted such a social experiment under her watch. Regardless, she had consumed his Swati act—as well as a couple of samosas that he held in front of her mouth as she chewed gingerly—and Harit even thought he saw a smile on her face when he said the word friends. But then Teddy had pulled up in front of the house, so Harit had rushed back to his bedroom, changed, come back down, and given her a quick peck on the forehead before darting out the door.
Their waiter was a friendly young man in his midtwenties who had wonderful posture. If he was confused by the clumsy trio they made, he didn’t show it. He rattled the specials off in a raft of words that seemed to stun Ranjana and turn Teddy into a firework. Ignoring the concept of “ladies first,” Teddy responded by immediately ordering the French onion soup and something with a very long name that he said was a wonderful veal dish. He also ordered a bottle of wine, a pinot noir, while Harit and Ranjana shifted uncomfortably. Harit knew better than to go against Teddy when it came to spirits, and in any case, perhaps the wine, like their drinks at TGI Friday’s, would make conversation easier.
At Teddy’s insistence, Ranjana ordered a salad with many ingredients and the French onion soup (making sure that it was a version with vegetable broth instead of meat broth). Then it was over to Harit, who was so confounded by the entire process that he blurted out that he’d have exactly what Ranjana was having. This elicited a chuckle from Teddy, who let him have his soup but changed Harit’s entrée to a different salad with many ingredients. (Evidently, ordering the exact same courses was poor form.) Just before the waiter left, Harit remembered that he had originally wanted the vegetable quiche and switched his order. His waffling indicated a nervousness to please Ranjana—and he did want to please her, but his actions made him seem more nervous than he actually was. It was a heightening of feelings that weren’t quite there.
“Now, honey, when did you immigrate, again?” Teddy said. Ranjana, taking a sip of water, clearly thought that this was addressed to her before seeing that Teddy had, in fact, turned to Harit. Thank God—Harit was not the only one thrown off by the use of the word honey.
“In 1999,” Harit said, intentionally not mentioning his mother and sister, how all three of them had come here after his father’s death in India. He had always thought of 1999 as being relatively recent—and it was, by most standards—but as he said it now, he realized that it carried within it many years of interactions, none of which approached this evening in terms of oddity.
“And you, sweetheart?” Teddy asked Ranjana. Harit took some comfort in noticing that Teddy had veered away from trying to pronounce Ranjana’s name, as well.
“My husband and I immigrated in 1991,” Ranjana said, and Harit noticed a stiffening when she said “husband.” He felt sorry for her; this was no situation for a woman. The other people in the restaurant probably thought the same. He chanced a look around the room, and there did seem to be a few others casting bemused looks in their direction. What a sight they must have beheld: Harit in his herringbone sports coat, his frazzled hair a perfect complement to Ranjana’s own poofy version, and then this jolly, over-the-top host between them.
Where was Ranjana’s husband, after all?
As if reading Harit’s mind, Teddy said, “And where is your man tonight?”
This also seemed to unsettle her. Good. She was not some reckless woman with no regard for family or rules. “He is playing tennis. He does it every Wednesday night.”
“Do you ever play with him?” Teddy prodded.
The question was evidently so original to Ranjana that she turned a quarter ways toward Teddy. She was contemplating it earnestly. In that moment, there seemed to be a calm in her face that was directly opposed to the weirdness of the question, to the weirdness of the situation, to the weirdness of the evening.
“No, I never have,” she said. “I think my presence would make too much of … a racket.”
Teddy laughed and flicked his hand at her again. Harit, on the contrary, was not sure what to make of this quick reveal of humor. Was tonight an occasion for laughter? He thought once again of his mother. The glimmer of his dinner plate was so much brighter than the turned-off TV that she faced now, its surface the dull gray of a pencil scribble.
*
Wine was to Indians what garlic was to vampires. That’s what Ranjana thought before Teddy even ordered it. She knew that he would order a pinot noir even though she didn’t drink much wine. Ever since that movie Sideways had come out, people blindly followed the wisdom of the main character, who extolled the savory benefits of the stubborn pinot grape. Conversely, merlot, for which the character had razor-sharp contempt, had become an unwanted stepchild.
She had to stop herself—she was already looking for reasons to find Teddy annoying. This was unfair—counterproductive and mean-spirited. If anything, he had saved her from the situation of staying at FB with Achyut and his ragtag friends. Teddy’s appearance had given her the opportunity to strike up a conversation in which she could look truly engaged before announcing her fatigue convincingly to the others. They had waved to her as if she were going on a long journey instead of merely driving home. Teddy had kept her outside the club for another fifteen minutes, telling her everything he could about Harit in a meandering way.
“Darling, you just have to meet Harit.” He said the name as most others would have—Huh-REET—but he mispronounced it with such conviction that one would think he were in the right. “He is the sweetest, but he’s so lost. I think he needs someone to bring him out of his shell. He really is a frightened turtle. And we need you to be the turtle whisperer.”