Vintage (20 page)

“Are you firing me?” April asked.

“That’s not what I’m saying. But I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be interacting with customers when you’re this emotional.”

When you’re this emotional,
thought April. In her experience, “emotional” was code for “crazy.” Like her mom.

“I’ll make it easy for you and just not come back,” she said.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Violet asked.

“Yes,” April said. Perhaps it was true.

She knew she’d taken things too far. Now was the time to apologize and undo some of the damage. But she was boiling with so much rage and confusion—even as the freezing tidal wave sucked her under—that her ears pounded with pressure, building and building, until no rational thought could be heard above the din.

April pushed open the door and walked out of the shop.

INVENTORY ITEM
: shoes

APPROXIMATE DATE
: late 1980s

CONDITION
: fair

ITEM DESCRIPTION
: Pink canvas Converse high-tops. Fabric frayed around shoelace grommets.

SOURCE
: Amithi Singh

Amithi

AMITHI LEANED BACK INTO
the stiff leather cushions of her daughter’s modern couch. Like everything else in Jayana and Jack’s condo, the couch seemed to have been chosen more for aesthetics than for comfort.

“Can I put this away for you?” Jack asked, lifting the black suitcase Amithi had brought with her.

“Thank you, Jack,” Amithi said, nodding.

That morning, after Naveen left for work, Amithi had taken her suitcase out from the closet, like she had done several times before. This time, though, she had packed it and had placed it next to the front door, where she passed it all day as she swept the floors, vacuumed the rugs, and carried laundry up and down the stairs. Finally, when her housework was done and the summer sun was low in the sky, she picked up the suitcase. She drove to her daughter’s cramped condo on the trendy Near East Side and left behind her own spacious, spotless home.

Jack disappeared down the short hallway, toting Amithi’s bag.

“Would you like anything to drink, Mom?” Jayana asked. “A cup of tea, maybe?”

Amithi glanced at the stemmed glass in Jayana’s hand. “I would like a glass of that red wine you are drinking, if it is not too much trouble.”

Jayana raised her eyebrows. “But you almost never drink,” she said. “And you’re wearing a short dress, too—well, short for you. Who are you and what have you done with my mother?”

Last time Amithi had been to Hourglass Vintage, she’d spent some of the store credit she’d amassed. Among the new clothes she purchased—well, new to her, anyway—was the sleeveless green dress she had on. Her legs seemed naked beneath its knee-length hem, but she liked how cool it felt in the summer heat.

Jayana went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of wine, which she handed to Amithi. Jack returned to the living room and sat down next to Jayana on a leather love seat, their legs touching.

Amithi winced, remembering what it was like to be newly married, before all the deception and despair. She took a drink of wine, puckering her lips at the initial bite of the alcohol. The wine tasted good, though—rich and warm in her mouth. She took another sip.

“So are you finally going to tell me what’s going on?” Jayana asked, leaning forward.

Jack moved as if to get up. “If you two would like to talk in private—”

Jayana put a hand on his knee. “No, stay. It’s okay, Mom, isn’t it? I mean, I tell him everything anyway.”

Amithi glanced at her son-in-law and found sympathy in his blue eyes. “Yes, you can stay.” She lowered her voice and turned to her daughter. “Your father had an affair.”

“Really?
Dad?
” Jayana’s eyes grew wide. “When? Who was it?”

Amithi filled her in on what details she knew. As Jayana listened, her face grew red with anger.

“So are you moving out?” she asked when Amithi had finished.

“I do not know. I just told your father that I was coming over here to stay for a while. That is, if you and Jack do not mind.”

“Of course not,” Jack said. “You can stay with us as long as you want.”

“What did Dad say when you told him you were leaving?”

“I don’t know,” Amithi said. “I left him a note, along with some dinners in the freezer and instructions for how to use the microwave.”

“Jesus, the man has a PhD and can’t figure out how to feed himself. It’s a miracle he didn’t starve all those years he lived in Chicago before he married you.” Jayana sighed. “I suppose you’ll need to start looking for your own apartment. And you’ll need a divorce lawyer. I can ask around to see if I can find a referral for you. Jack, what was the name of that lawyer your colleague used? She was happy with the results, wasn’t she?”

Amithi stared at her daughter, shocked at how methodical her reaction was. There were no tears—only crisp, productive anger.

Jack turned to Jayana. “She might not be ready to make any big decisions like that yet.” To Amithi, he said, “Like I mentioned before, you’re welcome here for as long as you need to stay.”

“Thank you,” said Amithi. “I have a lot to think about.” Despite her reservations about Jack, she had to admit to herself that he was kind. And he certainly had a warmer disposition than her ever-assertive daughter.

Jayana finished her wine and poured herself another glass. “I just don’t see what there is to think about.”

“A great many things. Your father and I have been married for over forty years.”

“Exactly. You’ve devoted your entire life to Dad since you were a teenager. And he went and shit on everything.”

“Jayana, please. Your language.”

Amithi wouldn’t have phrased things the same way Jayana did, but her daughter had a point. Amithi had always put her family’s happiness above all else. She had always felt that her life was fine and assumed Naveen felt the same way. Evidently, “fine” had not been good enough for Naveen. Why, then, should it be good enough for her? It had never occurred to Amithi that anything more than fine was an option.

Amithi heard a muffled ringing sound coming from her handbag. She dug out her phone and saw Naveen’s number on the screen.

“Is it Dad?” Jayana asked.

Amithi nodded.

“Are you going to answer it?”

“I have nothing to say.” She stared at the phone as it bleated in her hands. As soon as it fell silent, another phone began to ring—this one louder.

“Now he’s calling here,” Jayana said.

Jack looked from one woman to the other. “Should I answer it?”

Jayana shook her head, but Amithi said, “He’s your father, Jayana.”

Amithi appreciated her daughter’s loyalty toward her—needed it, even—but felt torn. Honoring one’s elders, even in times of disagreement, was a value ingrained in her long ago, and Amithi could not live with herself if she thought she’d failed to instill it in her daughter.

Jack picked up the phone. “Hello? . . . Yes, they’re both here. Just a moment.” He held the phone out to Jayana.

Jayana crossed her arms. “Tell him I’m not speaking to him. I’ll start respecting him when he starts respecting Mom.”

Jack put the phone back to his ear. “Naveen? Jayana says she will call you later . . . Yes, I will tell them. Good-bye.” He hung up and looked at Amithi. “He wants me to tell you he is sorry and that he loves you both.”

To Amithi, the words sounded emptier than the silent house she’d locked and left earlier that evening.

“Aren’t there things you wanted to do, Mom, that you didn’t do because of Dad? Places you wanted to go?” Jayana forced a half smile.

Amithi was grateful for it. She hated seeing her daughter upset, even on her behalf. “Of course,” she said. “Relationships always involve sacrifice.”

“That didn’t stop Dad from cheating, so I say you should take this opportunity to do what
you
want for once and forget about Dad.”

“I am getting old, Jayana. It is too late for me to be making changes.”

Amithi couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked her what she wanted. She supposed there were goals she’d had when she was younger, places she’d wanted to go. It had been so long since she’d thought about them, though, that she couldn’t remember what they were. Somewhere between now and her engagement all those years ago, what she wanted had shifted to what Naveen wanted, to what Jayana wanted, to what was best for the family.

Jayana shook her head. “You can’t even come up with anything, can you?”

Jack reached out and touched his wife’s arm. “Give your mom a break. She’s been through a lot in the last couple of weeks.”

Amithi gave Jack a grateful smile. She needed to change the subject. “Did I tell you I am helping out with a fashion show?”

“Oh, the one at the Indian community center?” Jayana asked. “I think I saw a poster for that.”

“No, for a vintage store. I’m doing alterations. A lot of the outfits are from the nineteen forties and fifties and are very different from today’s clothing, so I need to make sure the models fit into them properly.”

“Well, fifties
clothing
might be making a comeback,” Jayana said. “But someone needs to tell Dad that chauvinist attitudes are not.”

“Good for you, Amithi,” Jack said with an enthusiasm that sounded forced. “It’s probably good for you to have a creative outlet.”

“Doing alterations is not exactly creative,” Amithi said. “But I’m glad to be getting back into sewing.”

Now if only I could stitch my life back together,
she thought.

December 1, 1990

Amithi bent over her embroidery frame, listening to her sister over the phone. As long as she continued to work the needle back and forth, back and forth, her mind could rest from thinking about Priya lying in a hospital bed in India, recovering from an emergency C-section. The doctors couldn’t save the baby—a little girl, Priya’s first child. All Priya had to show for her nine months of pregnancy was a long scar on her abdomen.

Priya could hardly articulate what happened; she just kept repeating, “The baby, the baby.” Amithi obtained most of the details from her brother-in-law.

“He keeps saying everything is going to be okay,” Priya said over the thousands of miles of phone line. “But it’s not going to be okay, and I don’t know how he can say that, so until he comes up with something else to say, I’m not talking to him.”

Amithi wished she could be at the hospital with her sister. She’d crawl into the bed beside her and play with her hair like she used to do when they were little. Amithi asked if she should fly to India for a few weeks to assist Priya around the house. Jayana could come along, too. She was nearly a teenager now, and could help.

Priya said no, that seeing Amithi and her daughter together would be too painful.

“I’ll come alone, then,” Amithi said.

“No,
didi,
I am too jealous. Too jealous that your girl is healthy and strong and mine will soon be ashes.”

All Amithi could do, then, was wait, and it was not the kind of waiting she liked. Waiting for good news was easy—the birth of a child, a job promotion. Yes, there was impatience involved, but there was also the promise of a happy event. This kind of waiting, the incremental kind, proved to be much harder. Amithi knew there would be no magic day when her sister was better. One never recovered from something like the death of a child. All Amithi could hope for was gradual, almost imperceptible improvement, for the day when her sister could laugh again, forgetting herself, even if only for a moment.

It’s like when the ice melts on Lake Mendota,
thought Amithi. It always started with tiny pools of water collecting on the surface of the frozen mass. The pools grew bigger as the sun grew stronger, and eventually, large chunks of ice would break apart and the living lake would consume them.

Afraid that if her hands were not busy, her mind would go crazy, Amithi worked with obsessive concentration on embroidering a blanket for her sister after she hung up the phone. On the light, soft wool, she stitched a samsara design, the Hindu wheel of life. She hoped the blanket would keep Priya warm, would provide her some comfort while she waited for her heart to emerge from winter.

Jayana came into the room, toting a thick paperback. She sat next to her mother on the couch, drew her knees to her chest, and began to read. After a few minutes, she looked up from the book and asked, “What are you making?”

“A blanket for Auntie Priya.”

Jayana nodded. “To help cheer her up about the baby?”

“I don’t think anything will cheer her up, but I hope to at least show her I am thinking of her.”

“Why don’t you just buy a blanket? It would be much faster.”

“I wouldn’t be able to find a blanket with this symbol on it.” Amithi pointed to the circular shape outlined with thread. “See? It’s an ancient Hindu symbol. The wheel stands for life, death, and rebirth. I could teach you how to embroider like this, if you’d like,
beti
.”

“Nah.” Jayana bent her head back down, uninterested in her mother’s handiwork. After a few moments, she looked up again and said, “Why do you spend so much time sewing and making things? You never go anywhere or do anything.”

“I like making things. This way, when I give someone a gift, there is a little piece of myself in it. When I was your age, I thought maybe I would like to be a fashion designer.”

“Why didn’t you?” Jayana asked. She stretched out her legs on the couch, so that her feet in their purple socks were just inches from touching her mother. She liked to wear her socks in layers, bunched up over her pink high-top tennis shoes. Amithi marveled at how tall her daughter was now and remembered when Jayana’s legs were short and chubby sticking out of her diaper.

“Oh, it was just a childish dream,” Amithi said.

Jayana frowned. “When I’m older, I’m not going to cook or sew or do any of the things you do.”

A shock of hurt reverberated inside Amithi’s chest. Her daughter had always been strong-willed, but when Jayana was younger, her comments toward Amithi had been benign, almost silly, usually ending in “head,” such as “monkey-head” or “meanie-head.” Now the insults were subtler but more pointed, and more painful.