Imaginary Men (7 page)

“I tried to tell everyone I wasn't really gone. Nobody listened.”

“But the accident on Highway One. You spun out near Mendocino. They found your car mangled at the bottom of a cliff!”

He shrugs. “Yeah, it was me, but there was a mix-up. I didn't really die.”

“I canceled the engagement. That was two years ago. You left me to clean up the mess, like I was in a Lifetime movie that played over and over—”

“I'm sorry, Lina. I tried to contact you.”

“We were all so sad. What you put us through. Your mother returned to India for the funeral rituals. You were cremated. I'm sorry I didn't go. I couldn't. I was too broken up.”

“It's okay. It was all a mistake. I'm back, and I want you to find a man.”

I let go of his hand. “What about you? You're here.”

“You need to move on.” He bends down, picks a beetle off the sidewalk, and pops it into his mouth. He crunches, the sound grating my eardrums.

Horror hits me. “You're not Nathu. He really
is
dead, isn't he? This is a trick.”

I wake up clutching the bedcovers.

T
he next morning I look for Harry at the Treehouse Cafe not far from my apartment. Brooding ocean fog blocks out the sunshine.

I weave through the crowd of nose-ringed, black-haired students hunched over round tables. Here and there, a shimmering thread connects two lovers, their gazes locked in love. A memory touches my heart—Nathu grabbing my hand, holding my palm to his cheek. The ghostlike thread between us always trembled, as if it knew Nathu would die.

“Lina, over here!” Harry waves, stretching his long, jeans
clad legs under the table. He's hip and masculine in a black turtleneck. If he weren't so handsome, he'd be pretty.

I order my usual Earl Grey and bring the steaming cup to the table. I sit across from him.

“So, My Love.” He vocally places capital letters on the words. He grips my fingers and gives the back of my hand a soft kiss. “Where shall we marry? India or here? I could fly us to Maui.”

I pull my hand away. “I know I've got myself into deep dog doo—”

“Deeper than dog doo. Elephant doo.” He sips his usual double-tall mocha with whipped cream.

“Okay, Ganesh doo. I appreciate everything you're doing for me. I really do.”

“My love poetry is improving, don't you think?”

“That last poem was Emily Dickinson.”

“Hey, you needed a fiancé. Don't complain.”

“I'm not. I'm thanking you.”

“You're welcome, but why keep lying?”

“I'm not.” I run a finger along the rim of my teacup. “I'm stretching the truth like a rubber band.”

“Pretty convenient having a fake fiancé to boss around.” He takes a long sip of his mocha. A ray of sunlight breaks through the fog, reflecting off his hair. I never noticed the red highlights.

“If I don't, my aunt might send Pee-wee to America.”

“Why don't you marry him?”

I screw up my nose, as if I actually smell the elephant doo. “He has yellow, crooked teeth and a squeaky voice. He practically drooled on me.”

Harry shrugs. “Maybe he's a nice guy. You didn't give him a chance—”

“Would
you
sleep with Pee-wee?”

He grins. “Well, depends on how big his—”

“Spare me the details.”

“You have to stand up to your parents. Tell them to back off.”

“My great-aunt will be here to meet Raja. This astrologer, Pandit Parsai, predicted problems. He said my fiancé was
ephemeral
. ”

“Knows what he's talking about, this pandit.”

“I'm letting my parents down by not getting married and having kids. My father gets indigestion. Ma dreams of a grand wedding with all our family and friends in attendance. In India, everyone knows everything about everyone else. It's a big soap opera.”

“You live here. Do whatever you want.”

“I feel a connection with my family, Harry. I love them. I want them to be happy, and I want to be happy too. But the two things seem to be mutually exclusive.”

“You do what you need to do for yourself. Your family will come around.”

“Nothing will please them. My father wanted a son. I was his firstborn, a girl. We're all girls!”

“You gotta get a grip. This is about Nathu, isn't it?”

“Not again.” I lean back and roll my eyes toward the ceiling. I say nothing about the dream. I have crazy nightmares all the time. They don't mean much.

“You don't want to talk about him, but he rules you. A dead guy.”

A dead guy
. I want to believe Nathu faked the car accident to escape and start a new life. He's relaxing on a tropical island, sipping piña coladas and digging his toes into the warm sand. “Nobody rules me. I direct my own life.”

“Come on, Lina. You can't lie to me. How long have I known you?”

Since we were both freshmen at Santa Barbara High School, when Harry still conducted his love life in the closet. “Too long.”

“You're scared. I see it in your eyes.”

I gulp my tea and say nothing. “Must be a reflection of your own eyes.”

He leans forward and takes my hands, more tenderly this time. A new, slim gold band glints on the third finger of his left hand. “Honey, not every guy is going to drive off a cliff, okay? It was a freak accident.”

My mouth goes dry, and I hate myself for letting the past ambush me. “Oh, Harry. Why couldn't you have been straight?”

“I was born crooked, baby.”

To my surprise, I find myself close to tears. “Nathu was perfect. He didn't even leave the toilet seat up.”

“You're romanticizing him. Remember the nights he'd forget to check in, and you'd call me to talk because you were worried? Remember the way he used to drive, even with you in the car? He had a death wish, and he was willing to drag you into the afterlife, too.”

A tear trickles down my cheek. “He did like to take risks.”

“You loved him, but was it Nathu you loved, or your idea of Nathu? You thought he might be seeing someone else.”

My stomach squeezes. “There was nobody else.” Leave me to my imagination, I'm thinking. Let me believe Nathu was who I wanted him to be.

“He forgot to call late at night, showed up in the same wrinkled clothes he wore the day before. You know the truth, and it hurts. That's why you won't give anyone else a chance.”

“Ouch.” Harry has always been blunt, but that's what I love about him. “What am I going to do?”

“Try widening your net. Nobody will ever live up to your expectations.”

“You do, Harry, but you're taken.” I look around the room, as if my imaginary man sits nearby in disguise. “I know I need to get out more, but every good-looking guy has some neurosis or narcissistic complex. Every nice guy is either married or looks like a variation on Pee-wee Herman or Danny DeVito.”

“Danny DeVito isn't bad-looking.” Harry finishes his coffee and stands up. “I can't help you much longer. Jonny and I are planning a commitment ceremony in two weeks. You're my maid of honor.”

I'm stunned. Two weeks? Commitment ceremony? I'll be the Old Maid of Honor.

“Congratulations,” I manage to say. I scramble to my feet. “I'm so happy for you. Are you sure he's the right one?”

“He leaves his underwear lying around, but we love each other.”

“Wonderful news.” My smile hides a nagging emptiness.

“Thank you for setting us up. You have a sixth sense about these things.” Harry speaks in a blithe, buoyant tone, which makes me feel even more bereft.

“It's all in the math.” My mouth is dry.

“After the ceremony we're moving to Paris. I'll be based there on Air France.”

Harry's words fall on my feet with a thud. “You're what? You're leaving?”

“We'll ship our furniture by sea. We'll only have suitcases. We'll also have to give up our apartment a few days early. If it's not too much of an imposition, could we stay with you?”

“Of course. I'll sleep on the couch.”

“Oh, in that case we'll stay in a hotel—”

“I won't hear of it.”

“Thanks a million. Look, honey. Come visit us in Paris. Flights are cheap now.”

“Harry”
You can't leave me
. “What will I do?”

He shrugs. “Find a fiancé, or don't. It's a free country.”

I stand and watch him stride out, all heads turning to watch his smooth gait. He's a model on a runway, and here I am, invisible. I've spent my life being happy for other people. Joining their hands, helping them on the road to their shared futures, while my future slips into the ditch.

T
he day passes in a haze. I see three new clients, one a millionaire land developer who wants a perfect blond to drape over his arm; Mrs. Mukerjee calls to say Sonya liked her last date, but the man wants a younger woman. He'll have to date an embryo.

All afternoon I field calls, enter data, and find myself staring more than once at a blank computer screen.

Around four o'clock, a call comes in. Nothing but static. Probably a Japanese golf company CEO looking for a voluptuous American wife. A distant voice shouts
Hello, Hello
. He can't hear my reply, so I hang up.

When I have a few minutes to breathe, I spread out files and photographs of male clients, and then Donna walks right in, drops an envelope in my in-box, and sits across from me. She has the pale skin of a vampire and the porcelain features of a Nordic queen. She's divorced and has a five-year-old boy in kindergarten.

I open the envelope. Mr. Sen enclosed photos of himself walking past the Palace of Fine Arts, posing in front of the Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf, sitting cross-legged on a black couch in a stark living room. In each shot, he looks like a paper cutout pasted onto the background.

I sense his loneliness. He would rather be in India, surrounded by his mother, his four sisters and two brothers. Here in America, he's a prop without a past.

Donna's delicately penciled eyebrows furrow. “What's going on? What are you doing with those photos?”

“Research.”

“What kind of research?” She picks up a postcard from the windowsill.

I spin around and snatch the card from her. The image is an old black-and-white shot of a double-decker Paris accumulator tram, with “Philippe du Roule Vanves” written on the side and the Eiffel Tower in the background. I read Harry's handwriting.
My dearest Lina, Loving Paris, but there's an ache in my heart. I wish you were here. With love and affection, xoxoxoxoxo.

“The man's trilingual, and he never includes a signature,” Donna says. She doesn't notice that the postmark stamp is from Daly City instead of Paris. Any moment, the jig will be up, and I'm tired of letting the lies accumulate behind my eyes.

“If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it a secret? You'll understand, but my family won't. I've dug myself into a deep pit.”

“What is it?”

I take a deep breath. “I don't really have a fiancé.”

“What?”

I tell her the story, and she breaks into easy laughter. “You're something else, woman.”

I feel marginally better, now that I've told her.

“I need to find a real guy before Auntie Kiki arrives.” I put the postcard next to the others. The Taj Mahal, a big stone face sculpture in Paris, an aerial shot of Amsterdam.

Donna riffles through the photos. “I'll help with your research. I'm an expert. Here, this guy's an intern at S. F. General. Perfect guy.”

The picture shows a handsome Indian man with a full head of hair, average eyes, and an average smile. Fair-skinned to wheatish. A surgeon-in-training. A man my parents will adore.

“I shouldn't date a client,” I say.

Donna purses her lips. “My job is to find the perfect
mate for my clients. Now you're my client, okay?”

“Could be a conflict of interest.” I roll my chair back and cross my arms over my chest. “I don't usually date Indian men coming straight from the mother country.”

“There's always a first time.”

“They expect their wives to starch their shirts.”

“Send them to the dry cleaners.” Donna peruses his profile. “He's looking for a professional woman. Age, caste, and religious affiliation don't matter.”

“What if I'm a Jehovah's Witness?”

“You're not.” Donna waves another photograph in front of my face. “How about this guy? He's here on scholarship.”

The photo shows an Andre Agassi lookalike lobbing a tennis ball over a net. “No athletes,” I say.

“What, you have a problem with rippling triceps?”

“I'll see the surgeon, Mr.—”

“Dutta. Dilip Dutta.”

After Donna leaves, I open my desk drawer and pull out Nathu's portrait, still in the teak frame his mother gave me. I run my fingers along the glass. Nathu, face to the wind, sitting on a rock in Yosemite National Park, the sunlight reflecting off his perfect teeth. A handsome man, chiseled features—fair-skinned and a touch effeminate. Was he seeing other women?

Maybe this charade is for the best. I'll meet a new Knight
in Shining Armor. I think of what Harry said.
Try widening your net
. Okay, so the man's armor doesn't have to shine. It could be rusty.

I hope I'm not heading for doom on this date with Dr. Dilip.

I
need something to wear.

I've come to the mall with Kali. She wants me to buy a skintight dress ten sizes too small.

Teenagers breeze by in their navel-baring shirts and retro bell-bottoms, rings through their noses. Kali drags me into Victoria's Secret. The store buzzes with customers—some couples, some single men. Pheromone-soaked perfume fills the air. I'm surrounded by transparent, X-rated intimates, black panties, satin push-up bras, and not-there nightgowns. A bright, shimmering thread vibrates between the store clerk and a man perusing the underwear. I consider rushing over to
introduce the two lovebirds, but they're already gawking at each other.