At last I saw Anita. She was walking to the fashion show to join DJ Jai Zee. She didn’t nod, smile, or pretend at concern. That vision I’d had of her here and there, in the days leading up to the expo—gold slicking her lips before she brought them to mine—went out, like a light suddenly cut.
I reached a point of clarity as I heard her voice reciting the names of the fashion show sponsors over the loudspeaker before DJ Jai Zee ignited the soundtrack, thumping Goa trance.
It was all for her mother. She didn’t think I could be trusted. She thought I was smaller than the sum of my lusts.
“We’d better get to that raffle, Prachi,” I muttered. I didn’t dare look at Minkus, who was still being scolded by Linda.
“Now, I told her she’d better hire a security firm, sir,” she was saying, “but I am only too happy to escort you out, I will not have this behavior, I don’t know how you people do things.”
A swell of voices intervened, some woke ABCD suggesting Linda ought not use that phrase, you people; a fobby uncle addressing Minkus, “Mr. Jhaveri, do not make us look so bad, like this only people will think Indians are trampling on each other, sets very bad reputation.”
Freed by the nosy, gossipy horde, Prachi and I arrived at the packed fashion show. The Jhaveri gold prodded me through my jeans but I didn’t dare transfer it to my bag. Anita stood on the raised platform while DJ Jai Zee polished his sunglasses on a bright red mesh Adidas T-shirt. Beneath, he wore ’90s Reebok track pants, white stripes on black. His hair was buzzed. His chin dimpled. He was grinning at Anita lasciviously.
“So hot,” a girl behind me whispered.
The models swished up and down the runway. On one skeletal girl: a crimson hoop skirt large enough to hide a flock of small children. On another: a corset-like bodice, scaly as a mermaid tail, culminating in ruffled pants. Prachi pooh-poohed a few. （“Gaudy,” she whispered.） She began taking notes as DJ Jai Zee name-dropped designers and Anita interspersed commentary. I turned my head, slowly as possible. I saw no sign of my armed rival. Still, I sweated.
When the white-clad women completed their walk, Anita declared that it was time for the raffle announcement. She held up a red box, shook it, then extracted a green ticket. She mouthed the numbers back to herself. I could see, from my seat, the fear passing over her, the momentary terror that she’d misremembered. But then she spoke them aloud. Some hundred brides fiddled with purses and wallets. Prachi was still writing on her legal pad when a lovely tall dark-skinned girl stood, only to have someone else say, “No, Sonia, that’s not you.”
“Prachi?” I whispered. “Check and see?”
Behind us: “Ey, wave yours, who says they’ll look?”
Prachi laughed. “I never win anything,” but then she dug in her purse as Anita read the numbers out once more. Prachi’s head swiveled in my direction, her face tainted with suspicion.
“Here!” A helpful auntie raised my sister’s hand high in the air. Prachi yelped, because said auntie’s hand was done up with still-wet mehendi. The fecal henna oozed down Prachi’s arm. “Go on, go on,” the auntie said, and up Prachi went. There, Anita held Prachi’s new deep red Manish Motilal lehenga. It was enormous, with enough fabric to be fitted to the body type of any possible winner. The blouse was silk starred with golden pricks; muslin overlaid the shoulders. It culminated in a huge fanned skirt.
Behind me, someone said, “Look at that girl. Too-too skinny.”
“Stop telling me to lose weight then, hanh, Mummy?”
“There’s curves, then there’s fat, Rupali.”
Prachi’s limbs buckled when the dress made contact with her arms.
* * *
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“Congrats, wow, that’s some dress, huh—sorry, not dress, lehenga—are you going to wear it? Do you think Mom will like it?” I said to the bundle of fabric blocking Prachi’s face.
We followed Anita to the tailor, a bespectacled uncle wearing pleated brown pants and a half-sleeve collared shirt, relic of a closet-sized Bangalore shop. “This is Mr. Harsh,” Anita said. We absconded to a cluster of conference rooms at the west side. Feet away: two staircases. Exits sans metal detectors. The highway coiling toward the sea.
Prachi deposited the Manish Motilal on the table and Mr. Harsh, tape measure round his neck like a garland, beckoned Prachi to stand before a three-sided mirror. Anita dragged out a bamboo room divider to hide Prachi from my view, and more important, me from hers.