Happiness Key (2 page)

“And before you remind me our lease—if that’s what you want to call that scrap of paper Kenny signed—says
you don’t have to do a thing on the place, I’ll just tell
you
I had a chat with some folks over at the courthouse this week and told them all the things that were wrong here.”

Wanda paused just long enough to let that sink in. “Of course, I didn’t tell them exactly where I lived. Not
yet.
But they were talking about condemning this shack if half the things I said were true. So I figure that you, being a smart woman and well-educated…you’ll agree that making a few repairs now and keeping the renters you have will serve a lot better than going through all that rigamarole before you can find new ones.”

Tracy was silent. Wanda wondered if she was trying to keep her temper.

“You want that list?” Wanda asked at last.

“Did you ever consider just telling me the problems and seeing if we could resolve them?”

“Honey, people like you don’t ask people like me to sign such a stinking old lease unless you’re planning to hold it over our heads.”

“Honey…” Tracy’s eyes narrowed, and the word came out more like boiling cane syrup. “People like
me
know that people like
you
happen to be married to a cop. So even if I was a slumlord, which wasn’t ever one of those things I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d have thought twice about ignoring real problems here.”

Wanda glanced down at her hot pink nails, noting the tiniest chip on the polish of one. She supposed the chip was due to that platter of grouper she’d carried to table six yesterday. She had known better than to carry all that grouper in one attempt, without a free hand for emergencies, like the swinging door that had raked her fingertips.

She looked up again. “You want the list? I got it right here. ’Course, all you really have to do is look around a little. I’d have guessed you’d do that before now, on
account of my Ken being that cop you were talking about.”

“Give me a break, okay? I’ve been here just two weeks. I’ve spent the whole time mucking out that hovel I’m living in. I haven’t exactly had time for house inspections.”

“Nope, you been hoping we’d just take that lease at face value. Don’t go pretending it’s not so.”

Wanda lifted an envelope from under her book and held it out. “Stove’s throwing out so much gas both those crotons outside my kitchen window keeled over. Roof’s leaking in the bathroom. Toilet’s got more rust than a battleship. And if I wanted pets, I’d get me a kitty cat, not some flock of palmetto bugs. I already paid for an exterminator and somebody to patch up some of the biggest holes where they were getting in. You can take that off my rent.”

“Gosh, no travertine tile? No granite counters?”

Wanda put the envelope on top of her book when Tracy didn’t take it. “You just go ahead and be sarcastic. But you think about it. We’re not going anywhere while you do. You have any idea how hard it is to evict somebody these days? Especially when the sheriff happens to be friends with a certain member of the Palmetto Grove police force?”

Tracy leaned over and snatched the envelope. “I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect miracles.”

Wanda watched her stalk down the road toward the cottage where those folks from India had taken up residence. Wanda didn’t try to stop her, even though she knew they weren’t at home because she had seen them leave an hour ago. At least if the landlady ever found them, the dark-skinned young couple at the end of the road spoke English. Wanda had to give them that much.
That was one thing about Indians. They usually came knowing English and had good manners. But their presence some fifty yards away was just another sign that this place where Ken had settled her was a world filled with strangers. It was never going to feel like home.

“Happiness Key, my eyelash.”

Morosely, she watched Tracy Deloche’s tight little butt swing in a determined rhythm until the young woman was finally out of sight. She didn’t even yell inside to tell Ken she’d taken care of the problem. Wanda knew what a waste of time sounded like.

Rishi ate cereal for breakfast, whatever brand Janya bought him at the grocery store, usually whatever happened to be on sale. Her husband preferred cereal as sweet as candy and as light as a cloud, smothered with milk until it melted into a soggy paste. But perhaps this, like so many things, was her fault. Perhaps Rishi would eat a better breakfast if she made an effort to prepare some of the foods her mother had served in the morning.

Janya dreamed of childhood breakfasts of steaming masala milk and
poha
made with flattened rice, served with a sprinkling of grated coconut. She craved
idli
, the comforting rice dumpling dipped in fiery lentil
sambar
, and their cook’s richly spiced omelets, served with an array of breads from the grill or oven. Sometimes she imagined waking to a morning array of fruits. Mangoes and papayas, pomegranates and particularly
chikku
, with its sweet caramel flesh, something she had not seen in stores here in Florida.

But Rishi wasn’t used to such foods, so he didn’t ache for them. The aunt who had raised him in Massachusetts had rarely prepared such delicacies for her own family, and even more rarely for Rishi. Rishi was her husband’s orphaned nephew, and as such, the aunt was required to make him a home. But she was not required to love him, as she had loved her own sons.

Now Rishi was Janya’s responsibility, and she, too, was required to make him a home. But she wasn’t required to love her new husband as she had once loved the man she had lost. Janya was fulfilling the basics of her marriage contract. She shared Rishi’s home, kept it tidy and put meals on the table. She even shared Rishi’s bed, but she could never share her heart, nor could she accept his, although she knew that was what he hoped for.

This morning Rishi had left early for work, not pausing to eat his cornflakes or brew himself a cup of coffee. He had risen and left by the time she returned from her sunrise walk on the beach to their quiet little house that smelled like incense and rotting vegetation. Relieved that she would not have to make vacuous conversation, she showered, then dressed in an informal
salwar-kameez
, an embroidered cotton shirt, with pants that narrowed at the ankle. Finally, before she could change her mind, she consulted the bus schedule, locked the door and set off down the road that bisected the peninsula where their house stood.

Janya was glad she didn’t have to pass any of her neighbors’ houses, although it was doubtful any of them, except perhaps Mr. Krause, would expect her to stop for a conversation. The walk was long and tiring, and by the time she came home, the sun would torment every step.
At least the bench at the bus stop was positioned beneath a huge banyan tree.

She waited alone, watching as cars with tops down and radios screaming sailed by. Few people rode the bus in Palmetto Grove, and accordingly, it only came and went infrequently. People did not hang out of doors or jostle fellow passengers, the way they did at home. She always had a seat; she never had strangers leaning against her or small children pulling at her clothes.

If the bus didn’t remind her of home, the banyan did. The banyan was India’s national tree, and the word itself was Gujarati. She still remembered a part of a Vedic text she had learned in school, although she could no longer recite it in Sanskrit.

Brahma-shaped at the root, Vishnu-shaped in the middle, and Shiva-shaped at the top, we salute you, the king of all trees.

There was a day in June when women could fast and pray to the banyan, and ask that each time they were reborn, they be rewarded with the same husbands. June was not far away, but this was a ritual in which Janya would certainly not participate. Not now or ever.

The banyan had been planted in Florida almost a century ago by the inventor Thomas Edison. Rishi had told Janya this just yesterday, on a sightseeing trip to Fort Myers that had been calculated to make her fall in love with her new country. Her husband was fond of the oddest details, of facts and bits of information he could categorize and store in his computerlike brain. His enthusiasm for the trivial made her head ache.

She told herself not to think about Rishi and their marriage. She wanted to savor these brief moments of independence. At the very least, she wanted to pretend
she was like everybody else, only mildly unhappy with her lot.

The bus arrived on time, and as always, this seemed almost miraculous. She climbed aboard quickly, afraid it might leave while she was shaking her head in wonder.

The ride was short. Palmetto Grove was a peaceful city, small and emerald-green, with bursts of tropical color. Cars rarely honked their horns, and pedestrians were perfectly safe as they strolled across the streets. A small city center just blocks from the gulf held shops for renting videos, restaurants with pleasant outdoor seating, and stores that sold hardware, auto parts and wedding cakes. Sidewalks gleamed in the sunshine, and women of all ages, in shorts or sundresses, walked arm in arm with men sporting tans and sunglasses.

Coming to town always made Janya feel so homesick she could hardly bear it. Not because Palmetto Grove was anything like Mulund, the suburb of Mumbai where she had been raised. Because it
wasn’t.
Things were so easy here, so sensible, so polite, so utterly different. She had never wanted to leave India. Unlike so many of the educated upper class who had seen their future in other places, she had always seen hers where she was born. Now she wondered if she would ever go home again.

Last night, to keep homesickness at bay, she had made a list of what she would do today when she got off the bus. Take documentation of her address to the small downtown library so she could get books. Visit the specialty grocery store that sold a variety of lentils and spices, along with hummus and fresh pita bread for the town’s transplanted Mideasterners, jerk seasoning for the Jamaicans, and plantain chips and Sunchy tropical juices for the Cubans. Check out the recreation center.

As part of his campaign to make her happy, Rishi had
told her about the center. There were classes, he said, for anybody who lived in Palmetto Grove. The fees were small, and she would meet others like herself, young women with more time than money. He had insisted it would be good to leave the house and get to know Americans. Someday she would be one, too.

This was an event she did not look forward to. To Janya, all Americans seemed lonely. So much space around them. So little family. Old people like Herbert Krause and Alice Brooks lived alone and took care of their own needs. Where were the children, the grandchildren, the nieces and nephews, to feed and clothe them?

Of course, sometimes family was worse than nothing. She knew this, too.

An hour later Janya had a library card and two books, red and yellow lentils, asafoetida and fenugreek, and six cans of Cuban fruit nectar. After debating whether it was time to head home, she started toward the recreation center for the last stop of the morning.

The Henrietta Claiborne Recreation Center was a gift to the town of Palmetto Grove from an eccentric hamburger heiress whose car had broken down outside of town four years ago, while she was crisscrossing the state, alone and incognito, from her Palm Beach mansion to its twin in Newport, Rhode Island. While she waited in a local café for somebody to drive to Tampa and retrieve a part for her Jaguar—she wasn’t
that
incognito—Henrietta had overhead a conversation about how badly the town needed a recreational center so the people who lived there year-round would have a place to socialize, and the town’s children and teenagers would have a place for their activities.

Henrietta was so impressed by the courtesy and helpfulness of Palmetto Grove’s citizenry that she wrote a
check on the spot, and presented it to the mayor just minutes before she and the newly repaired Jaguar cruised out of town again. The treasurer had taken a week to send the check to the bank, believing that the strange old lady was delusional. He, like the mayor, had wanted to give her a head start so nobody would find her if the bank pressed charges.

If Rishi hadn’t told Janya this story in excruciating detail, she would have learned it now from the plaque beside the center’s front door.

Inside, the building still smelled new. The walls were painted in creamy pastels. Dusty rose for one hallway fanning away from the reception area, aqua for the one on the opposite side. The reception area was flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows, and the walls surrounding these were a buttery-yellow. Once school let out, children and teenagers would be everywhere, but today there were only a few people in sight. A woman with a toddler on her hip reading notices on the bulletin board. A man signing a list to one side of the long entryway counter. The woman seated behind it, who was as plain and starched as one of the nuns who had taught Janya as a girl, smiled a welcome.

“If you know where you’re going, ignore me,” she told Janya. “But if I can help, let me know.”

Janya felt encouraged. “I came to see what classes you offer.”

The woman smiled again. “Do you know what you’re interested in? We have a few that are still open. Some exercise classes, basic computer skills, conversational Spanish, choosing books for children…”

“Exercise classes?” If Janya was going to come here, she wanted more incentive than a new language—she
already spoke three fluently, and could read and be understood in two more. And she had no need of children’s books.

“We have a volleyball league that still needs a few people.”

Janya shook her head.

“Yoga.”

She shook again.

“Belly dancing?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Dance aerobics.”

Janya inclined her head in question. “What is that?”

“Dancing to routines that get you in shape. Our teacher’s great. I can guarantee you’d love it. I do the evening class.”

Despite herself, Janya was interested. She loved to dance, was an unabashed fan of Bollywood extravaganzas, and as a girl had often cavorted and sung to routines she and her cousin Padmini invented and sometimes filmed with Padmini’s video camera.

That unfortunate reminder of home sobered her immediately. But the receptionist didn’t notice. She had stopped noticing anything else the moment Janya smiled.

The woman got to her feet and came around the desk, checking her watch. “Come with me. They’re about halfway through. You can drop in for the rest of the session at no charge. Then you can sign up or just drop in for four dollars a shot whenever you feel like it.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t—”

“Sure you can. You don’t have to stay a minute longer than you want. You can just watch and see if you like it.”

Janya didn’t want to make a fuss and refuse, not when the woman was so kind. “Thank you very much.”

As they walked down the pink hallway, the receptionist outlined an extensive program. “And then we have all the pool activities. Water aerobics, and lessons for beginners all the way up to lifesaving.”

Janya felt particularly strange here. The woman acted as if she belonged, as if it was a normal thing to check out a class she might want to attend. She wanted to explain that this was not her country, that she didn’t belong in Florida or here in this center, that she would not feel comfortable dancing with people she didn’t know. But they were in the doorway to the gymnasium, and then inside a portion of it walled off by a folding screen, before she could find a way to leave.

A group of about a dozen women were throwing their arms around and sliding their feet to music the Americans called “country.” No one paid attention when the door opened except the instructor in the front, a well-proportioned woman in her thirties in pants that were tight and shiny, and a knit shirt held up by tiny straps.

“Feel free to watch or join in,” the receptionist told her, voice lowered just enough that Janya could still hear it over the loud music. “But if you don’t like this one, we’ll find you something else. Let me know.” She patted Janya on the shoulder and slipped back out the door.

Janya wondered if there was a back exit to the building so she could sneak out without disappointing anybody.

At that moment the instructor caught her eye and pointed, shouting as she did. “Why don’t you get right there, at the end of the back line? Just follow the people in front of you. Nobody’s any good at this yet. Have fun.”

Now she couldn’t leave. Janya was trapped in this as she had been trapped in so many other things. With little choice, she set her groceries awkwardly on the floor by the door and slipped into the back line as three women
made room. She had no idea what she was doing, but she began to follow the movements of the slender dark-haired woman in front of her. Only when the dance required everyone to spin around and she didn’t, did she realize the woman was Tracy Deloche, her landlord.

The Henrietta Claiborne Recreation Center reminded Tracy of a sprawling public high school, although she’d never attended one of those herself. The slightest noises echoed; the floors were scuffed from too many gym shoes sliding and squeaking; the architect had been less interested in aesthetics than utility. The halls were wide enough to run the Kentucky Derby, and the walls were bare of adornments. She missed her gym at home, where each session began with a personal trainer and ended with a massage. She missed the steam room and sauna, the grotto with its tepid plunge pool and soothing waterfall, the beverage table with fragrant herbal teas and bowls of fresh fruit.

Still, exercise was exercise, and after a frustrating couple of days, swinging her arms and jumping around felt good. She was just surprised to find one of her renters in the line behind her. Sure, it was an equal opportunity kind of place, but the Kapur woman—her first name escaped Tracy—was the last person she would have expected. Of course, she’d never given any thought to the way people in other countries chose to exercise. Maybe India or Pakistan, or wherever the Kapurs were from, had dance classes on every corner. Maybe dancing was a requirement of their religion.

Mrs. Kapur looked to be younger than Tracy. She had a curvy figure with womanly hips instead of the boyish shape that was in fashion. But there was no denying her beauty. Today her long black hair was braided, but one
afternoon Tracy had seen it falling halfway down her back. She’d never seen hair so thick, with a natural wave right at home in the Florida humidity. The young woman had been born with skin the color so many of Tracy’s friends struggled to perfect in tanning beds. She had black eyes without a fleck of brown, huge and round, and rimmed with thick black lashes under arching brows. She was quite simply exquisite, and probably didn’t have to work at it.