Happy Birthday!: And Other Stories by Meghna Pant Read Free Book Online Page A

airport in thirty minutes.’
    I don’t have the capacity for any more of Sara’s hints, so I say, ‘I can’t come to the airport to drop you, but why don’t you finish packing and I’ll see you outside in a bit.’
    When I open my bedroom door to let Sara out, I hear Mary washing dishes in the kitchen. She should be practising for the big game, I think, before a little voice quips: what would be the point of that? I shut the door behind me.
    I look at the garnet glass frame holding my mother’s photo, taken long before leukemia burnt the skin and bones off her, a time five years ago when we could pass off as sisters. Her face shines in the sunlight. Looking at her this way, with life caressing her hopeful eyes, her endless smile never fails to fill me with grief. Yet, when I burst into tears, I know I’m not crying for her. The morning falls around me like ash.
    I hear her voice, my mother’s voice, and I am happy for it gives me a break from my own.
    She tells me to believe.
    I reply, I’ve never believed in anyone but you.
    Then feel, she says.
    I tell her, I feel nothing but anger since you left.
    Believe, feel.
    Then she’s gone, again. I don’t search for her this time. I think. And somewhere between her quiet place and mine, a new emotion finds its way and I think it may be possible for me to love again.
    ~
    I fill my jeans pockets with fifty thousand rupees, an amount that will cover return train tickets from Mumbai to Delhi for twelve girls, along with two–three days of lodging expenses. I hand the jeans to Mary and tell her that I’m going to drop Sara to the airport, that she should wash my jeans before seeing herself out of the house. Then I take Sara’s hand in mine, as Lalit picks up her suitcase, and bid a cheerful adieu to Mary.
    When I’m back home, three hours later, my jeans are hanging on the clothesline and the fifty thousand rupees are no longer there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
    Nadia didn’t mean to stare at her breasts, but it was difficult not to when they were exposed like that, between the plunging neckline of her gold-amber dress. Dolly was known for her clothes as much as her parties, one of which Nadia and Danesh were attending today. Gold was the theme of this party.
    Nadia probably stared too long because Dolly’s eyes were looking at her, sharp but not surprised, chillingly polite from below the gold sparkle lacing her thin pencilled eyebrows.
    Dolly turned to Danesh. Air-kiss. Raspberry lips.
    â€˜Welcome to my home,’ she said with a sweep of her arms, smugness and approval lighting her diamondshaped face, her movements smooth despite their latent keenness. ‘Danny, you’re looking dapper as always.’
    Danesh grinned in acceptance, as if receiving compliments was a way of life for him. It was a way of life for him, Nadia thought ruefully, with his ineffable charm glossing over the shrewdness that had made him the CEO of GluMart at forty-two. None of his complaints over the past ten days about how a man, any respectable man, could be seen wearing gold, showed on him now, as he stood tall and proud in a gold-tinged suit Nadia had had custom-made for him.
    â€˜Shoes over there,’ Dolly pointed, her wrists thin and clever hands unwavering. Nadia obediently bent down to remove her shoes, but Danesh hesitated as if actually considering not doing it. Nadia was mortified. Dolly was not someone who took ‘no’ for an answer. She saw as Dolly tilted her face sideways at Danesh, and noted with surprise that the hostess had no adornments—no earrings, no necklace—nothing except a green-and-beige striped hairband at the base of her thick springy black hair, which she’d pulled back into an elegant coiffure.
    Under Dolly’s glare, Danesh leaned one hand against the wall and with his free hand began untying his cream lace-up shoes. Nadia groaned quietly; she had told him to wear slip-ons so