Tulip Season (7 page)

After cradling the phone, Mitra stayed seated for awhile pondering the irony. A distant cousin did once whisper to her something about her father's first wife. She didn't believe it then.

She would have to track Kareena down even more urgently and confide in her what she'd learned. They shared a father. God Vishnu be praised, they had blood connection—their lives were forever joined. The sisterly closeness they felt was just as it should be. Kareena would stare at her in wide-eyed silence, then embrace her with a cry of joy.

ELEVEN

STILL THINKING ABOUT THE SECRET
spilled by Aunt Saroja, Mitra plunked down at her home office desk. The phone jangled. Robert Anderson-Haas, Gardening Editor at the
Seattle Chronicle
, reminded her she'd missed the deadline for her twice-monthly gardening column.

“Could you give me a little more time?” Mitra said. “My best friend has gone missing and I've been involved in the effort to locate her.”

“Get back to me by the end of the day.” Robert paused. “You said somebody disappeared? You know I started out as a crime reporter. I also know a detective with the SPD, if you care to speak with him.”

“Yes, please.”

“His name is Nobuo Yoshihama. He used to live in my apartment building, then bought a house and moved out. I gave him a hand when he moved. He owes me.”

Mitra jotted down the particulars. “How do I work with him? I know so little about police protocol.”

“Just be open with him. Nobuo is a little hard to figure out at first. A little on the shy side, but he's a good guy. He might be interested in talking with you about gardening, too. He often complains about having to manage a yard all by himself. He works long hours at his job.”

So the detective was single. Mitra laughed to herself.
No, Robert, I
don't need a date right now.
I
want to find Kareena.

“Since you have connection to crime reporting,” Mitra said, “might you be able to give me any suggestions about this case? If it doesn't take up too much of your time, that is.”

“Is there any proof she's been kidnapped? Or is there a chance she's run off?”

“Wish I could tell you.” Mitra related her fears and concerns, but couldn't answer Robert's questions.

“Actually, since she's your friend, I'd like to dig into the case. Nobuo can update me. Believe me, it's not extra work on my part. I
like to read true crime reports in my spare time. Methods and motives fascinate me. I have a tough stomach, you might say.”

How interesting, Mitra thought, a garden editor who read bloody crime stories to amuse himself. She saw a glimmer of hope, however. After hanging up, she left a voice message on the detective's cellphone and waited in vain for a few minutes, pacing up and down the living room, for his call back.

Then, sitting in front of the computer, she positioned her fingers on the keyboard. Facing up to writing the gardening column was exactly what she needed. It'd transport her back to her familiar world where plants ruled, events made sense, the day ran according to an order, and confusion didn't hang like a cloud cover. She stared at the opalescent screen, which stared back with glee, as if delighted with its own resistance. She glanced out the window and saw a few buttercups—weeds. The topic she opted for was weeding.

WEEDING: A Somewhat Holistic Approach

A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.

James Russell Lowell

She heard the tiptoeing of a noun, the whisper of an adjective, the aggressiveness of an adverb, and eventually the whistle of a sentence. She pecked away at the keyboard, trying and failing and trying again to hold together a proto-idea. Finally, a paragraph became whole.

A start, but Kareena wouldn't leave her thoughts.

About this time last year, on a balmy weekend day, Kareena had stopped by to visit. She watched from a nearby wicker chair as Mitra crawled around on her hands and knees, pulling out grass and dandelion from a flowerbed.

Mitra showed Kareena a patch with grass tendrils shooting every which way. “See these creepers? The season has just begun and they are already so aggressive.”

“Weeding looks like a lot of dirty work to me.”

“But it's therapeutic. And you do get joy out of it in the long run when you see your flowers blooming sooner.”

Kareena stirred her glass of green ice tea. “You know, on second thought, I envy your healthy life-style. Wish I could be spending
hours and hours outdoors, surrounded by beauty, color, and fresh air. That's not possible with Adi. He wants me to look perfect, not with dirt under my nails.”

Was she trying to tell Mitra something? She'd long suspected Kareena had marital challenges. Pulling and digging might give her an outlet.

“Why don't you try weeding with me, despite what Adi says?” Mitra asked. “See how you like it?”

“Yeah, I'll give it a shot.”

And so Kareena had her first try at yanking out dandelions. After half-an-hour, she complained that her back got sore. An obnoxious yellow jacket harassed her. And she chipped a French-manicured nail trying to swat it with the shovel.

“I'll leave you with it, Mitra,” she said with obvious relief. “I have a charity luncheon to go to.”

Mitra's gaze returned to the computer screen, to her column-in-progress. A thought emerged. Suppose Kareena had shown more interest in chasing weeds. Then perhaps she'd have grasped the underlying principle: one must let go of that which no longer served a purpose in one's life, or that which threatened one's existence. As a result, she'd have weeded Adi out. She'd given up her life in India, given up all she'd ever known, to be married to him. That marriage didn't turn out the way she'd have expected. Adi had been choking the bloom of her happiness, or so it seemed to Mitra.

TWELVE

THE NEXT MORNING
Mitra decided to pay a visit to Glow Martinelli, her adopted grandmother and a septuagenarian sprite. Mitra had turned to her in the last week, even though she was one of the few people ambivalent about Kareena. They'd met once at Mitra's house, exchanged niceties, then gravitated to opposite ends of the room. Mitra could feel an icy chill between them. Just chemistry, she'd assumed.

She had another reason for this visit. Grandmother's ex son-in-law, Henry, worked for the Snohomish County Sheriff's office and she'd promised Mitra on the phone to speak with him about the Kareena situation.

As she snatched her purse and keys and headed for the garage, Mitra recalled how she'd met Glow. About six months earlier, Glow had trekked to Zoka in Wallingford for an afternoon cup of espresso and stepped on Mitra's business card. It'd probably fallen from someone's pocket. Mitra's “Palette of Color” business name described the way Glow pictured her garden, so she phoned Mitra, even though she had already gotten bids from two landscapers.

The next day, Glow showed her a messy weedy yard in need of attention and “healing.” Though the task appeared to be challenging, Glow's open face and inclusive manner heartened Mitra. She offered some initial ideas for design such as, closely planted annuals anchored by longer blooming perennials and islands of ornamental glass. She suggested cleaning the debris and doing much of the site preparation before the rains started, but holding off on planting until early spring.

Without commenting on her suggestions, Glow invited her to a glass of fresh pear cider. They grabbed canvas chairs under an Asian pear tree and chatted over the sweet cider, the conversation soon gravitating to the topic of India.

“From what I've seen in movies and read about India,” Glow mimicked the affected British manner, pronouncing it as “Inja,” and adding, “Women seem so companionable with each other over there.” She described a scene from a Bollywood film depicting women in their inner courtyards. Flowers blossomed, children and grandchildren played, relatives dropped by, and servants plied everyone with trays full of tempting sweets, all happy, hectic, and connected.

A breeze had whispered over their heads. Mitra gave Glow a synopsis of what her childhood had been like. She and her mother hadn't had a courtyard. Their relatives, most of them barely getting by, were notoriously unsociable. When a classmate complained during the autumnal Durga Puja celebration that her parents had to buy presents for ten cousins, Mitra wished her mother had the same problem.

“And my mother never seemed happy,” Mitra put in.

“Even if Indian women aren't completely fulfilled,” Glow replied, “and indeed how many of us can hope to be, they don't seem to mind the limits and responsibilities placed on them. And they don't need champagne to cheer themselves up.” Then she added that she'd go with Mitra's bid, even though it was higher than the other two, because she liked her suggestions.

Mitra had barely finished expressing her gratitude when Glow said, “Perhaps it's destiny that has brought us together. Each of us has scores of destinies preplanned and stored away like pretty boxes lined on a shelf, or so I believe. You are free to lift the box that catches your fancy and carry it home. You, the enchanted buyer,” she cautioned, her eyes twinkling, “beware.”

Trained to respect her elders, Mitra didn't argue. Nor did she mention that she'd left the oppressiveness of destiny back in India along with her saris, bangles, and elaborate earrings. Clearly, something had clicked between her and Glow, even though they belonged to different generations and her dependence on destiny rubbed Mitra the wrong way.

The next day they went to Mollbak's nursery to purchase new gardening tools. There they selected a round-point shovel, turning fork, garden spade, pruning shears, and a utility cart. In the checkout line, a snooty woman gave Mitra a look and Glow introduced her as her granddaughter.

That evening, Mitra's phone trilled. “This is your Grandmother.” Glow gave out a laugh—a happy, natural one. “Am I disturbing you?”

Grandmother? The strain of the day vanished for Mitra, replaced by an unexpected flush of happy sentiments. She attributed it to her Indian upbringing. She had always appreciated the older generation who provided support, steadiness, continuity, and humor. Both her grandmothers had passed on before Mitra was born, but here was Glow, just the right age, slipping easily into a corner in her life.

“You're not disturbing anything, Grandmother,” she said.

She questioned whether Glow could really fill her need for a grandmother, but as it would turn out over the next several months, she did. They had fun hanging out together, generation gap be damned. And Mitra loved her explanation of why she'd changed her name from Gloria to Glow. She was no longer the “caged-bird wife,” “Sichuan carry-out mom,” “buttoned-down nonprofit administrator,” or “silly greetings card saleswoman.” She was free to glow.

Thinking warmly about Glow, Mitra now drove to her house in Fremont and reached it in a few minutes. She buzzed the bell and instantly the door opened. There stood Grandmother, her plump, self-described “Cabbage-Patch doll” body dressed in a color-splashed caftan. Her cat Tampopo, with her glossy fur and large alert eyes, stood next to her, purring.

Grandmother hugged Mitra and asked her to follow her to the kitchen. She poured a glass of mango lemonade for Mitra and a Scotch from a tall sturdy bottle for herself. She swirled the pale yellow liquor in her glass, backed into the counter.
What's with the drink?
Mitra wondered. Grandmother's doctor had advised her to avoid alcohol.

“Has Henry called back?” Mitra asked, a quaver in her throat.

“Yes, just before you came,” Grandmother said.

“And?”

“I don't want you to panic. He said that the body of a 32-year-old woman was found in Lake Stevens at about 5 P.M. yesterday. She might have fallen off a boat. Henry wants you to call the Medical Examiner's office.”

Mitra's cheeks went cold. She set the juice glass on the counter and, with a numb hand, dug her cellphone out of the pocket of her jumper. She got hold of the Medical Examiner's office. The person who would have the answer was out to lunch. Mitra's shoulders sagged.

At Grandmother's suggestion, they carried their beverages to the living room and sat on the couches. Tampopo stalked in and jumped on Mitra's lap.

Perhaps to lighten the moment, Grandmother touched the top of her hair. It was tinted red, but the result looked nearly natural, save for the extra sheen. “I need a new hairstyle,” she said. “It's the same modified Mitzi Gaynor cut I've been wearing for decades. She was a movie star eons ago.”

Mitra nodded, her mind occupied with the telephone call. Tampopo leaped out toward an invisible insect. The conversation went back to Kareena.

“She's always there when someone needs her,” Mitra said, her voice thickened. “I remember when Veen's sister had emergency surgery in Dallas and she couldn't get there on time because she had pneumonia, Kareena offered to go in her place. Her boss wouldn't give her the time off, but she flew there anyway and risked the consequences because there was no one else to go. That's just the way she is.”

“Who's Veen?”

“Veen Ganguly is a mutual friend of ours. Anyway, Kareena had no place to stay in Dallas. I guess she camped out in the hospital's waiting room. That selfless act ended up costing her greatly. Adi gave her a hard time for going against his wishes, her supervisor docked her pay, and she had to cancel plans for a holiday weekend getaway.”

“You spend way too much time with her. I know you both like to go out to restaurants and enjoy yourselves, but I get the impression she uses you. Didn't you say you do the flower arrangements for her parties? I bet you do it for free.”

From a neighboring house, there rose the metronomic clanging of a hammer.
You're right about the flower part, but wrong about Kareena
, Mitra was about to say when her cellphone beeped.

Her pulse racing, she held the phone to her ears. It was the Medical Examiner's office. The dead woman had turned out to be a tourist, not Kareena. Mitra breathed a sigh of relief. Despite the scare, Mitra felt glad that Grandmother was keeping an eye on things for her.

Grandmother glanced down at the empty glass on her hand and shook her head. “It's been quite a day. I got a letter in the mail from my fourth husband. He signed it ‘Sincerely, Georgio.’ Can you believe it?” Grandmother laughed, perhaps to massage away the day's wear-and-tear and callousness of those once close to her. “I didn't mean to get your spirits down by talking against Kareena. On my way home, I had a clear view of the Cascades, so tall, so glorious, so other-worldly, no matter how many times I've seen it. I parked my car to have a better view. No matter what, we have these high peaks to look up to.”