“It’s bad enough you refused to eat meat even tonight,” Mrs. Chopra added. “Mrs. Ray, you must make him relax more.”
Mrs. Ray smiled at her and said, “Chopra. You can call me Mrs. Chopra now. Well, you should just call me Reema, but it’s Reema Chopra.”
“You changed your name?” Mrs. Jha asked.
Mrs. Ray nodded.
“I’m not modern enough to not take my husband’s name. And I figured Ray wasn’t my maiden name anyway. Who knows? There’s no rules for all this.”
“I like it,” Rupak said. “Reema Chopra. You’re a brand-new person. I should record some of this. After the meal—after the party, after the celebrations—that’s where real life is, right?”
“Thank you for doing this, Rupak,” Upen said. “You’re good at it. You have a good eye. It’s lucky for us that you’re back in India.”
“Thank you,” Rupak said. “Here, let me show you the shot I got of the rickshaws at the entrance.”
From the other side of the table, Mr. Jha watched his son get up and walk over to Upen with his camera. Two seats away, Johnny was sitting and playing with his phone. He was dressed in a tight collared T-shirt with the collar sticking up and his hair was falling across half his face. He had played with his phone all evening and hardly spoken to anyone else. He was like a bored teenager, and Mr. Jha admitted to himself that he was grateful that Rupak was different.
“Johnny, put your phone away and look at what Rupak is showing us,” Mr. Chopra said, shaking his head. “Useless fellow. Learn something.”
The table was peppered with empty bowls left with the lone strand of noodle or purple sliver of onion. The bowl that held the chicken Manchurian was coated with the orange film of the batter. Soy sauce and gravy drops marked the white tablecloth. Why did Indian Chinese restaurants always use white tablecloths, Mr. Jha wondered. They must have to bleach them with every wash. Unless the more expensive restaurants used brand-new tablecloths every day. Could that be? There was a spoonful of fried rice left in one of the bowls, but everyone seemed to be finished eating. The rice was right next to him and Mr. Jha was tempted to take it, but he stopped himself. He had had the right amount of food tonight. Too often at the end of a dinner party, he felt full and bloated and didn’t sleep well at night, but tonight he could tell he had eaten just the perfect amount.
Wasting food was the ultimate sin when he was a child. “Waste not, want not,” his aunt always used to say, and when he lived in their home he would force himself to finish every last morsel on his plate even if his stomach protested and he felt on the brink of vomiting. What did “waste not, want not” even mean, Mr. Jha now wondered. He had never questioned it when he was young, but now, instead of making sure all the food was finished, he was not finishing all the food even though he still wasn’t stuffed. Had Mr. Chopra noticed, he wondered? The fried rice was closer to Mr. Jha’s side of the table, but he hoped Mr. Chopra had noticed. No. Mr. Jha stopped himself. What Mr. Chopra thought didn’t matter; what mattered was that his family was here, and his friends were here, and the restaurant was nice, and the food was satisfying, and everyone seemed content.
“Dessert,” Mrs. Chopra said, opening the menu that the waiter had just handed her. “Let’s order some dessert. They do a wonderful crème caramel here.”
“That isn’t very Chinese,” Upen said. “But I could have one. Reema?”
“I don’t usually have dessert,” Mrs. Ray said. “But it’s a celebration tonight, isn’t it? I’ll have a scoop of ice cream. The green tea one sounds quite good. Bindu? Anil? Dessert?”
Mrs. Jha looked at her husband, sitting to her left, who had hardly spoken during dinner. She usually knew exactly what he was thinking about, but tonight she wasn’t sure. She wanted to tell him it would all be okay, that their son would find his way and they would help him. She wanted to talk to him about how nice it was that Mrs. Ray was now Mrs. Chopra but she was still Mrs. Ray to them. She wanted to tell him to look around the table at their friends, their neighbors, and their life. She wanted to tell him she was glad he hadn’t finished the fried rice because she knows he sleeps poorly and has bad dreams when he overeats and she wanted to tell him that she was happy tonight. But that was all too much to say, so instead she said, “The crème caramel does sound good. Anil, should we share one?”
“Let’s share one,” Mr. Jha said. “We’ll have one crème caramel with two spoons.”
Mr. Jha leaned back and put his right arm on the backrest of his wife’s chair, his thumb lightly touching her shoulder. Mrs. Jha gave his right knee a quick squeeze with her left hand and then put her hand on the table where everyone could see it clearly. This was their life now.
My agent, Adam Eaglin.
And everyone else at the Elyse Cheney Agency. In particular, Elyse Cheney and Alex Jacobs.
My editor, Hilary Teeman.
And everyone else at Crown Publishing and Penguin Random House. In particular, Jillian Buckley, Rachel Rokicki, Molly Stern, Annsley Rosner, Kayleigh George, Terry Deal, Amy J. Schneider, Ruth Liebmann, Lara Phan, Beth Koehler, Kim Shannon, Elina Nudelman, Sarah Grimm, Kevin Callahan, and Alaina Waagner.
Alexandra Pringle and Faiza Khan.
And everyone else at Bloomsbury Publishing.
The Columbia University MFA in creative writing. In particular, Gary Shteyngart, David Ebershoff, Alan Ziegler, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Donald Antrim, Heidi Julavits, John Freeman, Bill Wadsworth, Clarence Coo, Carlo Cattaneo Adorno, Alexandra Watson, Crystal Kim, and Olivia Ciacci.
Jon Elek, Kevin Cotter, Alice Lawson, Diya Kar Hazra, Karan Mahajan, Millie Hoskins, Rosalie Swedlin, Doreen Wilcox Little, Richard Gold, Jaclyn Danielak, Himanjali Sankar, Madeleine Feeny, Joe Thomas, Janet Aspey, Sumika Rajput, and Smit Zaveri.
The Vermont Studio Center.
My expanding family, which now includes Basus, Malwades, and McClearys.
My grandmother, Mai. And the memory of Appa, Mani, and Dadai.
Karna Basu, Shabnam Faruki, and Avaaz Austen Basu.
My parents, Kaushik and Alaka Basu, thank you for a home filled with laughter and books.
And for everything, my deepest gratitude to my husband, Mikey McCleary.