She had been writing herself forward these past few months, trying to guide the narrative of her life toward something exciting and meaningful and frightening and enlightening; she had seen the great benefit in having a firm hand in your own attitude. However, as she felt his alternately tender and ardent touch, she could not have foreseen the cataclysm of real attention paired with real affection. The fluctuations of his mouth were uncharted territory that she had never thought to seek because it wasn’t even part of her imagining. In waves, in an important amassing of energy, her body became more than itself: it left her mouth in a prayer-like moan.
She had made this happen. She had set out to find this and had succeeded. Feelings of satisfaction, flying, and boiling coursed through her, and as she began yelling, she felt it mixing with something else:
Laughter.
She pressed her hands to her face, huffed through them, pleasured and giddy, and Mohan brought himself up to her, fell onto his back, and panted beside her. She turned her head to his and pressed her laughing mouth to his agog one. She kissed the man who had brought her to this country, to this house, who had watched with wonder as she saw that TV hoisted into their living room by two delivery men.
As if she had passed some illness along to him, he started laughing, too. Ranjana and Mohan laughed together. The Chaudhurys laughed. They laughed and laughed and laughed.
THE BOOKSTORE WAS ALIVE, with at least a hundred people clustered around half as many chairs. A large posterboard with the cover of the book stood before a lectern. On it was an image of an Indian woman, cunning in a sari, with a man, pique-eyed and pale, leaning over her seductively. Over them, the title: Deranged Marriage. Under them, the author’s name: R. J. Cherish. Miniature slabs of this image filled the room, tucked under people’s arms, held in their laps, or halved by pens that would be used to solicit the author’s inscription. The crowd was varied, with some teenagers giggling in loud pockets, and even a healthy contingent of men, too.
Harit looked at his copy of Ranjanaji’s book, ran his hand over the smooth cover. He had never read a book during his time in America, but he had read this one three times. The book in Harit’s hands felt as if someone had manifested it there via some black magic. That was what the ink of books was, he guessed—some kind of black magic.
“They’re going to sell out of copies,” Teddy said. The copy in his hands was dog-eared; this was his reading copy; he kept a pristine copy on display in his apartment. “Can you believe our girl is a bestselling novelist?”
Harit could believe it. Ranjana had revealed her news to everyone several months ago during a get-together at her house. She had received a sizable contract—for three books—and she was quitting her job to write full-time. (It turned out that there was a big demand for paranormal Indian fiction, after all.) At the party, Mohanji and Prashant beta—the latter on spring break from his sophomore year at school—stood beside her with big grins on their faces. Contrary to what Harit might have expected of Mohanji, he seemed genuinely happy for his wife, not at all threatened by her success. After the announcement, Ranjana was seized upon by Seemaji, who smiled next to her as if she had written the book herself. Prashant told Harit later, as people bit into their barfi, that he was glad for his mother because she was finally “living for herself.” This caused Harit’s body to flutter. He was trying to do the same thing.
Ranjana appeared next to the lectern, and the crowd clapped loudly. The manager of the store gave her a quick introduction—“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you R. J. Cherish”—and then Ranjana took her place.
“I’m really just so touched that so many of you have come here today,” she said. Although she was addressing these words to the many strangers in attendance, she was looking at Mohan, who was filming the event from the sidelines. She had her hair pinned back with a clasp in the shape of a butterfly, and her face was painted brightly but simply. “I’d like to thank my husband and son, both of whom are here.” People craned to see: Mohan waved with one hand but kept filming; Prashant turned around from his seat in the front row and nodded his head. Seated next to him was a beautiful young Indian woman—a close friend of his from school. “Many of you who are writers will know that nothing is harder than fighting off all of your self-doubt to finish a story, and I could never have finished this book without the help of my writers’ group—all of whom are here. Fellow classmates, would you stand?”
A group of people in the first row stood and faced the audience, who acknowledged them in even louder clapping. A couple of them looked uncomfortable; one of them, the youngest, smiled earnestly with her eyes; one of them, a man, saluted the crowd; and one of them, with very bright orange hair and a large pile of pages in her hands, curtsied.
Once they were seated, Ranjana continued. “I’d also like to thank a very wonderful friend who has come into my life, the person who spurred me to finish this thing and transform it from a pile of thoughts into a pile of pages. And that’s my dear friend Harit Sinha. Haritji, would you stand?”
Harit would have been embarrassed if he hadn’t been so touched. He stood, Teddy patting his lower back, and bent slightly to acknowledge the crowd, who clapped less loudly but looked at him appreciatively. Ranjanaji had her hands fully outstretched and beating against each other, her bangles jingling. Mohan swung his camera at Harit, then moved it slowly back to Ranjana. Seemaji, close to the front, had something between a smile and a frown on her face. It had become quite clear that she didn’t like Harit, that she felt threatened by his friendship with Ranjana. Ah, well.
Harit still thrilled to see his name in the dedication at the front; the fact that Ranjana had thought to thank him publicly like this when it was already in there seemed like an unnecessary, if welcome, treasure. She had told him that she was going to dedicate the book to him as soon as he had finally, after many months into their friendship, told her about what had happened with his mother, how she had once been confined silently to her chair. Harit still had not told Ranjana—or Teddy—about the sari. It was still a secret that he wanted to keep to himself, something that he now cherished instead of regretted. And somehow his mother had understood this, never bringing it up when Ranjana had finally started visiting their house. They would all have a cup of chai while playing Parcheesi or watching Jeopardy! or listening as Teddy recited poetry by Arthur Rimbaud.