Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee

Author:Bharati Mukherjee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Adult
ISBN: 9780618646531
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

3

Peter was already at the plastic cloth—covered table in the eating alcove, sipping tea and reading Voice of the South, the local paper, when Anjali came down on Sunday morning, a little before seven. She was glad to see him back in his familiar uniform of kurta and blue jeans. Asoke hovered about him, offering him coddled eggs and fresh batches of toast. Peter had asked her to join him over a very early breakfast both because he had a morning flight to catch and because he wanted to talk to her without the other boarders listening in. She took the facing seat, prepared to be lectured on the many ways she had disappointed him. Okay, she had ... what was the damning word Peter had used? She had procrastinated. She was the Ultimate Procrastinator. If only one of the other Bagehot Girls would come down earlier than usual for chota hazari, which was what Minnie still called the day's first meal, and oblige Peter to dull the full force of his vocabulary! Okay, okay, her benefactor should not have had to incur the expense of traveling personally to Bangalore to introduce her to his local contacts. She was sorry; immensely sorry, really.

Peter looked at her over the top of his paper and wished her a subdued good morning, but he didn't put the paper down. It was a brief glance, but Anjali didn't miss its reflection of private despair. How could her failure to follow through pain him so deeply? If she had had Tookie's genius for flippant small talk, she could have eased the tension. She did her modest best. "Your friend, Usha Desai, is so different from the way I'd pictured her." There, she'd brought up the subject of CCI, her reason for running to Bangalore; get Peter's harangue over with. He would keep it short; he had a plane to catch. "I thought she would sound more American."

He folded the newspaper and pushed it toward her. "I don't think she's ever been out of India. Do you read Voice of the South?"

"Only when I find a discarded copy," she said. She didn't add that she had done so only once, and that was at the bus depot.

"Except for Dynamo's column, it's a rag. But you should get it just to read Dynamo. Very up to the minute."

"I try not to waste money on buying anything I don't absolutely need." She lied.

"Well, splurge on Voice. Dynamo has his finger on the pulse." He asked Asoke to remove his plate of uneaten toast. When Asoke was out of the room, he said, "Last night he couldn't take his eyes off you. I had no idea he was a friend of Minnie. She doesn't leave the house, but she stays wired."

He? Who couldn't take his eyes off me? Asoke? And then it all fell in place, click-click-click: he was Dynamo, and Dynamo was Mr. GG, and Mr. GG was madly in love with her. Before she could say a word, Peter continued.

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