If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

Author:Thrity Umrigar [Thrity Umrigar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061745904
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-12-27T13:00:00+00:00

“How’d it go?” Sorab whispered to Percy. The two of them were at the bar fixing drinks for themselves and their wives.

Percy shook his head. “I don’t know. I made a faux pas, I think.” He turned toward his friend angrily. “Saala, why didn’t you tell me that you hadn’t mentioned your plans to buy a new home to her?”

Sorab stared at him. “You told her that?”

“Well, yes. How the fuck was I to know you’d kept it a goddamn secret? I just thought it would help her realize that time was running short.”

“Great. From the frying pan into the fire. Nice going, Percy. I know what she’s going to think—that we are tired of her presence or something.”

“That’s exactly what she thinks. I mean, I think so, anyway. Who the fuck knows what goes through the minds of women? If they’re twelve or eighty, it’s the same thing.”

“Oh, spare me your usual rant about the wily ways of women. Can we come back to the topic of my mother, please?”

“Yeah. Sure. Except I don’t know what to tell you.” Percy sighed. “Any red-blooded American woman would jump at the chance to move into a new home. But not our Indian women, oh no. They have to bring enough melodrama and psychological intrigue into the situation to make bloody Freud and Jung both spin in their graves.”

Despite himself, Sorab laughed. “Fuck you, Percy. First you spill the beans to my mom and now you’re trying to cover up your damn mistake with a broadsided attack on all Indian women.”

“Guilty as charged. Listen, let’s just get through the next few weeks, achcha? I’ll talk to her again after the first of the year.”

They walked back to where Susan and Julie were standing. Sorab glanced around the room to search for his mother and found her sitting on the couch next to another elderly woman from India who was visiting her daughter. “Here you go, hon,” he said, handing Susan a glass of red wine.

Julie and Percy sipped their drinks. “Aha.” Julie sighed. “Nobody makes a more perfect gin and tonic than my husband.” Like Percy’s three previous wives, Julie was also blond and petite. She reminded Sorab of Patti Boyd, the model who had married George Harrison. He idly wondered where Percy found all these wives—they looked as if they came out of a factory that produced blond and petite women. But Julie had a tough streak that belied her tiny presence. And for the first time Percy had indicated that he was open to the possibility of having children. With his first three wives, Percy had been firm about the fact that he had no desire to be a father. Sorab had often thought that it was the only area in which he could observe the scars his abusive childhood had left on Percy. In every other way, Percy truly seemed to have left his past behind him, going so far as to visit his father once a year in the small flat that he had purchased for him a few years ago.

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