The crowd in the bookstore followed along as Ranjana began to read from her book. They giggled at her clever turns of phrases and hummed appreciatively at the flourishes of menace that moved the plot along. The book was already number five on the New York Times bestseller list. Ranjana’s agent had told her that she should not define the monsters in the book as vampires because she worried that vampires had already had their cultural moment, so Ranjana had treated them as undefined yet undead beings that still bore the staple characteristics of vampires. This seemed to delight and engage her readers, appealing to their established sensibilities while still seeming fresh and unexpected. The Indian people in the crowd—about a third of the people—appeared to glow with the knowledge that the movie version starring Priyanka Chopra and Jake Gyllenhaal was to begin filming soon.
When Ranjana was finished, the crowd ignored the manager’s directions to form a straight line to have their books signed and rushed toward the signing table like prisoners after a hunger strike. Cheryl acted as an intermediary, sculpting people into an orderly row by yelling at them and pointing.
The signing went on for almost two hours. People snapped photos, some of them even getting Ranjana to strike the pose that the woman was striking on the cover. (Teddy was among this camp.)
“You must be so proud of her,” Achyut said as he neared Harit. His boyfriend, Luis, shook Harit’s hand. Luis was close to Harit’s own age, handsome and broad-chested with two straight rows of off-white teeth and carefully brushed black hair with evenly spaced streaks of white through it. Harit couldn’t help but be jealous. They made a beautiful couple, and everyone in the crowd gave them low-lidded looks as they passed.
Harit had met Achyut at FB, when Teddy and Ranjana had taken him many months ago. Achyut had hugged him, Harit marveling at the smoothness of his skin, brightened by the jukebox—alight, screeching in a corner—and the mace-like fixture on the ceiling that cast rainbow colors all over the bar. Harit felt the beginnings of a depressive spiral, but as Teddy had taught him, he scrunched up his body and thought of what he had gained: Teddy’s friendship, and with it the introduction to the alternately painful and wonderful world of sex.
Now, Achyut and Luis showed Harit and Teddy their signed copies, all of them feeling Ranjana’s influence, as if her success were their own incredible story.
*
After the signing, Teddy drove Harit back to his house, the two of them silent in the way that had become common in their romance. Harit sighed as they passed the sign for Paradise Island, which was still not completed, though there were rumors that a Chinese entrepreneur had bought it and was going to turn it into a hotel.
They were not a couple, per se. Everything at work remained mostly the same. They still did the occasional evening at TGI Friday’s, but they relented somewhat, stopping after a couple of drinks and making sure that Teddy wasn’t tipsy before getting behind the wheel. Then, depending on how vocal they were about wanting to have sex, they would spend the night at Harit’s house or Teddy’s apartment. They weren’t sure where their relationship was going or if they even wanted it to go anywhere. Instead of being tormented by this fact, they felt comforted by it. There didn’t seem to be any great rush, not even after all of these months, not even after the passing of Harit’s mother three months ago.
She had passed happily, her and Harit’s secrets unfurled fully and no palpable resentment left in the wake of this. A few days after that moment in the sitting room, with Teddy and Gital Didi standing there, everything between Harit and his mother had opened up. His mother had even joked to him about how lovely a figure he had made in their home during his sari era. At this comment, she presented him with a brand-new golden dupatta, and they laughed, gleeful but unsure that this was even really happening. Almost a year later, his mother took to her bed downstairs and repeated to him for a final time the details of her life before her children were born, her time at Allahabad University, the long blackness of his father’s hair and the things that she had willingly surrendered for Harit and Swati. She was up front about her love of Swati, how she had originally favored her firstborn, but Harit believed her when she looked at him, the webs in her eyes now decoration instead of a barrier, and said that she had grown to love him more than she had ever loved anyone. She loved him especially, she said, because he made her certain that moving here had been the right decision, even in light of what had happened to their family.
“You used to come to me all of the time and say, ‘It is Swati,’” she whispered. “And the truth, beta, is that you are Swati. You are everything good about her, everything sweet and good and loving. You get to carry the best parts of Swati through this world.”
A few days later, she shut her eyes—two pearls in brown pouches—and took her leave.
“I’ll have to get gas in the morning, so I’ll probably be here closer to eight,” Teddy said as they pulled in front of the house.
“Sounds good,” Harit said. He leaned forward, as did Teddy, and they touched lips as friends might do, then harder, as nonfriends might do. “See you then,” Harit said.
He let himself into the house. Gital Didi had tidied up, as she did every Sunday. She said that she needed to do it to keep her sanity; she still wanted to make sure that Harit had a truly “Hindustani home.” Harit took no issue with this. He, more than anyone, could understand such coping mechanisms.
He made a cup of tea and put three butter cookies on a plate. He did all of this in the dark, not bothering to turn on the light. He enjoyed it like this now, not having to worry about darkness and what level of sanity or insanity it indicated.
He went to the living room and set the food on his TV tray, then nestled into the armchair. He lifted the neatly folded sari from where it lay slightly hidden behind the chair and draped it over his shoulders. He had Ranjana’s book in his lap. The sun descended as if the world outside were rising up against a gleaming curtain. As the light grew fainter, Harit bit into his cookies and savored them, how they married the sweetness of the tea’s sugar and the thick milk. Soon, the sun was replaced by the bright lights of the baseball diamond.
Harit picked up his cell phone and called Ranjana. He had to try twice, since his fingers were still not used to this type of phone, particularly its round, make-believe buttons.
“I’m so glad you rang,” Ranjana said. Somewhere near her, Mohanji and Prashant were having some kind of excited conversation.
“How many books did you end up signing?”
“Over five hundred. So many people bought more than one copy.”
“I think Teddy has five now.”
“Don’t tell him, but Cheryl bought ten.”
“Yes, but how many of them do you think she’s read?” Harit asked.
They both giggled.
“Did you ever suspect,” she asked, “all that time ago, when we met for dinner with Teddy, that you and I would be talking like schoolgirls on the phone all the time?”
“Never,” Harit said. “But then again, did you think that your name would be in The New York Times?”
“That’s not really my name, ji.”
“Perhaps not, but it is you.”