“Coffee?” Vinay asked, sounding as nervous as Sowmya.

“No,” Sowmya said, her head still bent. “I… wanted to talk to you,” she raised her head and he nodded. Speaking of uncomfortable places to be, this one took the cake and the baker.

“So… is there a problem?” Vinay asked. “You don’t approve of the match?”

“I… I want to marry you,” Sowmya reassured him a little too curtly. “But I wanted to clarify a few things.”

“Sure, sure. I am very happy that you want to marry me,” Vinay said with a small smile.

Sowmya held my hand and almost broke my pinkie finger. “I want to work,” she revealed sincerely. “My father didn’t let me and they said that your family doesn’t approve. But I want to work.”

Vinay nodded. “No problem. I can handle my parents. I will explain to them. If you want to work, I fully support that and they will, too.”

Sowmya smiled and I felt and heard her sigh of relief. “And… I want to have my own house. I know you care for your parents, but…”

Vinay smiled then. “The house is big. There are two kitchens and two everything. Old house, though. My grandfather, he built it. We will live separate, but they are still my parents.”

Sowmya smiled back and nodded.

“Anything else?” Vinay asked.

“And that is all,” she said.

“Now will you have coffee?” Vinay looked at me. “ Masala dosa?” he asked.

Sowmya nodded shyly and Vinay signaled for a waiter to come to our table.

During the auto rickshaw ride back home, Sowmya was flushed with happiness. “He is nice, isn’t he?” she said.

“Very nice,” I agreed with her.

“I can work,” Sowmya said almost giddily. “A job, Priya. A place I can go to every day, out of the house. I am so glad I did this. I feel so relieved. And”-she laughed softly-“I am getting married!”

“Congratulations,” I said, and kissed her on her cheek.

“What will you tell them?” she asked me when we got off the auto rickshaw.

“The truth,” I said easily. If Sowmya could take such a big chance to make a better life, I should be able to do the same. “I love Nick. I’m going to marry him.”

Sowmya laced her fingers with mine after she paid off the auto rickshaw driver and squeezed gently. “I will be with you all the time. All right?”

“All right,” I said. “I… am going to go and make a phone call.”

“Isn’t it late there?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Around midnight, but he’s usually awake late.”

“Okay, I will make an excuse for you,” Sowmya said and winked at me.

I couldn’t get ahold of Nick. His cell phone said he was out of range. I got our answering machine the five times I tried our home number and his work number said he was either out of his cubicle or on another line.

Panic set in! Had he received the email about my meeting Adarsh despite the server error and had just gone postal? Or maybe he had moved out of our home, changed his cell phone number and… didn’t pick up his work phone either? All sorts of unhealthy scenarios emerged in my head. To quell the feeling of misery that was welling inside me, I dialed Frances ’s phone number from memory. I knew it would be really late in Memphis but if Nick had dumped me his mother would definitely know.

She was sleeping, but the minute she heard my voice she sounded wide awake.

“They’re forcing you to marry some Indian man and you want me to say good-bye to Nick for you,” she said as soon as she heard my “Hello, Frances.”

I laughed. “No.”

“Thank god, because my policy is that everyone does their own dirty work,” Frances said and I could hear her smile. “How’s it going, Priya?”

“I can’t find Nick,” I said, now feeling foolish for having woken her up. “I… thought he might be angry with me.”

“Angry? No, I don’t think so. I just spoke with him yesterday and he was fine. Was waiting for you to come back and get married to him,” Frances said. “And speaking of marriage, I found the perfect place for you both. It’s in midtown and it’s beautiful. The gardens are lovely. And I was thinking, if we did it in the fall, this fall, we could have great pictures of the foliage and-”

“ Frances, I’m worried your son has dumped me. I don’t think I can even think about marriage,” I said, half hysterical.

“What’s one thing got to do with the other?” Frances demanded. “Find the right place to get married and I’ll make sure he shows up. He’s silly in love with you. Don’t you have faith?”

“Plenty,” I said. “Plenty back home. Here everything is murky and they made me go through this bride-seeing ceremony.”

“Like they do in the books? Was he a suitable boy?” Frances asked sounding excited. “Are you sure they made you go through it? Or did you want to?”

“Of course I didn’t want to and he isn’t suitable,” I said.

“Are you saying that a grown woman like you couldn’t stop something as simple as a bride-seeing ceremony?”

“I didn’t have the courage to tell them about Nick. Now I have and they all hate me,” I confessed.

“If this is all it takes to get them to hate you, you’re better off without them,” Frances said. “But they don’t hate you. They’re just mad and once they’re over their mad, they’ll be fine.”

“Really?”

“Well, I would be, if you were my daughter,” Frances said. “So… do I book this place for this fall or what? I was thinking early October. Not too hot, not too cold.”

“And then I can be knocked up by December?“ I asked sardonically.

“Would you?” Frances said. “That would be excellent. You could have a baby in September and… oh, that would be excellent. A September baby would-”

“ Frances!”

“I’ll tell Nick that you wanted to get in touch with him,” Frances said, sounding very satisfied. “But don’t worry about him. He isn’t going anywhere.”

We chatted for a while; Frances wanted to know how everything in Hyderabad was, including the weather. She had this romantic idea about India, the way it was shown in books as an exotic land. When I told her about the slums and the dust that settled on your entire body, even your eyelids as soon as you got here, she thought it was quaint. India was not just a country you visited, it was a country that sank into your blood and stole a part of you.

As an insider all those years ago I couldn’t see it, but now after several years of exile I could feel the texture of India. It was the people, the smell, the taste, the noise, the essence that dragged you in and kept you. I hated this country for a lot of reasons, the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, the treatment of women, but that was all on a larger scale, on a day-to-day basis. India still was my country.

I felt light-hearted, confident, and on top of the world after speaking with Frances. That changed when I got to Thatha’s house.

I stepped into the hall and the earth shifted. This was classic Ma, classic Indian mother.

Ma and Thatha were sitting across from Adarsh on the sofa Ammamma frequented most.

“Priya,” Ma stood up nervously. “Adarsh is here to see you.”

“I can see that,” I said, my lips pursued. “Hi,” I said to Adarsh, and he nodded with a confused look on his face.

“Can you come with me?” Ma insisted, and then just in case I would say something contrary she grabbed my wrist and took me inside.

“We thought it best,” she said as soon as we were in the kitchen.

“Thought what best?” I was now very confused and very suspicious. It was always a bad thing when Ma started thinking about my best.

Ma took a deep breath, her potbelly jiggled and her hands landed on her waist in an offensive gesture. “We asked Adarsh to come here saying that you wanted to meet him one last time before you made a decision.”

I wanted to say something, anything, but the words were not forming. Each time I thought they couldn’t surpass their previous nonsense, they did.

“We think you should talk to him and see what a good boy he is before you decide anything,” Ma advised.