Geeta handed him the dog, who growled until Karem scratched behind his ears. Only when the puppy settled into Karem did she enter the store. But the chemist carried no rat poison; she bought some Pudin Hara tablets she did not need and left.
“Ohhh,” Karem said in that same infuriating manner when he saw her purchase. “But diarrhea isn’t a woman problem, it’s an everyone problem.”
“I do not,” Geeta seethed, “have diarrhea.”
“Then…”
“It’s just in case, okay? What’re you, a cop?”
“Nope,” he said, still in enragingly good cheer. “Just nosy.” They passed an appliance store, with a frozen, toothy film star beaming his approval at the customers’ choice of vendor. “We must,” he said, grabbing her hand. Suddenly she was a passenger, carried through the door and into air-conditioned silence.
Unlike the bead shop, here Karem did not browse or wander. He marched toward the far wall, where refrigerator models loomed over the washing machines and cooktops. An associate in a short-sleeved collared shirt met them by a stout LG fridge. Painted purple flowers bloomed across its door. The young associate looked nervous but did not comment on the dog.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he greeted. The two pens in his blue breast pocket were unprotected. “May I help you?”
“Just looking,” Geeta said. From the mournful way the salesman appraised them—Karem in dusty slacks, her in a weathered sari—she knew the fellow worked on commission.
“Do you deliver?” Karem asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Karem offered the rough distance and area of their village.
“Yes, there too we can deliver.”
Geeta asked, “For free?”
“That depends on which refrigerator, ma’am.”
“This one.” She touched a steel door.
The associate tried to smile, but he was likely new to this work because he looked closer to laughter. His eyebrows soared. “Ah, your wife has good taste, sir—”
“Oh, he’s not—”
“But that’s a new Samsung, fifty-five thousand rupees”—Geeta snatched her hand back as if the door had turned into a man—“so yes, it qualifies for free shipping, but…” He gestured to them, then realized his discourtesy and dropped his arm.
“Yeah,” Geeta said.
“But! The domestic models are ah, of course, less costly.”
“Of course,” Karem said.
“Like this one?” Geeta asked, pointing to the awful purple flowers.
Karem laughed and spoke to the associate. “Still think she’s got good taste?”
All of a sudden, everything about Karem infuriated her: his ease, his confidence, his jest. She felt dowdy; clearly, Karem thought fancying her was so absurd that there was no risk of her misunderstanding his intentions. That he should think it was a joke—flirting, playacting at married and happy, complete with the jovial deprecation of a domestic life shared—was insulting. It was a mockery, but she didn’t feel complicit. The prank was on her, not this novice salesboy whose pens were beginning to leak onto his pocket seam. The sharp blue dots were still small but would swell.
So she snapped, “Of course I don’t. After all, look who I ‘married.’？”
At Karem’s surprise, she bared her teeth into a smile. His forehead pleated. To see his confidence hiccup was satisfying in the same way scarfing four kulfi bars was: wonderful until the sugar sick rolled in. The associate divided a look between them, unsure of where to place his loyalties. He filled the air with jabber: “Perhaps, ah, a mini fridge would be better? If you don’t need much storage? Are there children, sir?”
In her fantasies, her refrigerator had been taller than her, like the steel-door type. The purple flowered one was ugly and shorter, but at least it was still clearly a refrigerator, unlike the stumpy box the salesboy now approached. He had to squat to open its door. The item felt like a concession rather than a victory.
“This is Samsung, nine-thousand-five rupees, sir. But this other one is only seven thousand rupees, domestic model, sir.”
Karem spoke quietly. “I should be clear. She’s not my wife, I’m just a friend. She’ll be buying a fridge of her own choosing with money she’s earned on her own.”
The salesboy nodded, as though this were interesting rather than acutely awkward. He left them alone, chasing after a phantom phone call, and Geeta found she wished she could do the same. She exited the store, Karem at her heels, and once they were outside, the heat soothed the goosebumps on her arms.
“Sorry,” he said, hands returning to his pockets after passing Geeta the dog. “It was fun pretending, and I got carried away. I didn’t mean to let him assume I could afford it.”
There were times in one’s life, Geeta knew, where one was confronted with one’s own assholery. After his terrible day—brought about largely by her own actions—she hadn’t even been able to allow him a small flight of fancy. Sometimes she could be the worst fucking version of herself. Usually, with no one around to suffer the consequences, it went unnoticed. But when she was allowed near people…well, she could sabotage like it was a well-paying job.
“No, no,” she said with such uncharacteristic intensity that she felt Karem believing her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how expensive it would be,” she lied. “I took my disappointment out on you.”
He smiled for peace, and she offered it back. “Okay, so maybe it takes a bit longer, but it’s still going to happen.”
Détente in place, they continued walking. Karem, not Geeta, realized it was time to turn back to meet the truck. While they waited near the highway, the fantastic weight of her failure found her and settled. This day—Karem, the dog, shopping—had all been a diversion from the life and duties that awaited her, namely a solution to the Samir problem. As Karem had phrased it: It was fun pretending, and I got carried away. Though she appreciated the anonymity of Kohra, she wasn’t built for the city and usually suffered a mild anxiety until she neared home. But today, she found the inverse true. It was like bunking school; consequences were suspended until it was time to come home and face the gavel.
Perhaps Karem felt similarly because he sighed. “Was a nice day.”
She observed him from across the truck bed. The sun was leaving them, staining the sky a confection pink. “Even with Bada-Bhai?” And my brattiness? she wondered.
He shrugged at her doubt. “I dunno. I just feel like everything’s going to turn out okay, can’t tell you how or why, but I like it. It can’t last, so I’ll just go with it.”
“Why wouldn’t it last?”
“Most feelings don’t last.”
“That’s sad.”
His half smile was quizzical. “Is it? I always thought it was reassuring. Like, knowing it’s all temporary lowers the stakes. You can let yourself go to the limits of it all, because it will pass.”
“So love doesn’t stay? What about your kids?”
“Love can stay. But that’s because it’s not a feeling.”
She already disagreed with him but asked anyway, “What is it, then?”