Good Indian Girls: Stories by Ranbir Singh Sidhu Read Free Book Online

on offer and the drinks were merely a dollar off.
    Several weeks earlier, she had asked Marjorie why she never invited her to happy hour, and Marjorie said plainly, “You say it first,” which was true. The following Thursday, Lovedeep decided to wait for Marjorie to say it first.
    Her routine was to wait until after lunch, and on the Thursday of the experiment, Lovedeep was able to wait an additional twenty-seven minutes before she broke down and invited her friend to happy hour. But Marjorie had other plans that night, she had a date. “When were you going to tell me?” Lovedeep said, barely able to conceal her hurt. “I didn’t know it mattered,” Marjorie said. “I promise to tell you about it tomorrow.”
    Tomorrow arrived and Marjorie said nothing.
    This silence was the cause of no small resentment on Lovedeep’s part, but she felt she could not quiz her friend, for Marjorie had promised, and asking would only raise the specter of the broken promise between them.
    On the following Thursday, when it came time to ask Marjorie to happy hour that night, Lovedeep was unable to articulate the request. Her mouth froze and she stood beforeMarjorie’s cubicle as if before a judge’s chair, paralyzed, finding it suddenly difficult to breathe.
    A half hour later, the two women stood leaning against the stucco exterior of the building, smoking Virginia Slims, and Lovedeep listened as Marjorie spoke for ten uninterrupted minutes about a neighbor’s dog that had barked all night long. It wasn’t Marjorie’s neighbor, it was a friend’s neighbor’s dog, and Marjorie’s indignation was on her friend’s account, not her own. Walking back inside, Lovedeep wondered, if a dog had kept her awake all night, would Marjorie’s indignation have been equally forceful. It was not a question she wanted to find an answer to, and sitting back down, a weight descended on her. It was a feeling of dull nausea.
    Two photographs were pinned to the familiar faded pink fabric covering of her cubicle wall. In one, her mother stood in front of a life-size plaster statue of a giraffe with the paint peeling. In the other, her father supported a slice of cake and stared with sour embarrassment at the camera. Neither of her parents could remember where or when each was taken, and this small mystery had always excited Lovedeep. Not everything was known, things remained to be discovered, the universe still guarded secrets. Indeed, there were times she looked down at the piles of papers scattered across her desk: receipts, invoices, queries, letters, memos, printed out emails, threats for legal action, etc., and could not comprehend what they were. Even paper lost the quality of its paperness. At such moments, the world glowed with a tangible strangeness and danger. Anything might happen. She might fall madly in love. She might be brutally murdered. Both prospects thrilled her equally.
    Marjorie tapped the divider and a moment later, her head appeared. “Well?”
    Lovedeep, her face upturned, stared wide-eyed. Since returning from the smoking break, the universe had lost its edge of unknowing. The photographs were mysteries only because her parents lacked the interest to trace the memories. The papers spread out in piles impinging on her keyboard were dull and self-explanatory. The color of the fabric of her cubicle walls represented nothing more than a measurable wavelength of light. The world was what it was and nothing more and would forever remain exactly this.
    Marjorie wanted to know if Lovedeep was going to ask her to happy hour that night, because if Lovedeep wasn’t, she’d have to come up with another plan, and quickly, as it was already late in the afternoon. Yes, Lovedeep had wanted to ask earlier, something had stopped her talking. Didn’t Marjorie notice her friend standing there, nearly choking, trying to get the words out?
    Marjorie winced. Was that what that was?
    The flat screen television behind the bar was tuned to a news