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bookstore is haunted,” Gita says. “You’d better watch out.” She points her fork at me. Grains of rice fly off and hit the table.
    “The house is not haunted,” I say. “It’s just… old.”
    Ma wipes the rice off the table with a napkin. “Ruma has always been peculiar, believing in ghosts and such. Keep your feet firmly planted in reality, and you’ll be fine.”
    But my feet are not planted anywhere. I feel uncertain, ephemeral. I have to hold tight to my water glass, or I might float away.

Chapter 6
     
    “Do you have time to talk?” Gita stands at the threshold of the upstairs guest room. I’m sitting on the bed with my laptop propped on my thighs.
    I look up, pulling the reading glasses down my nose. “If it won’t take too long.” I couldn’t bear to discuss the minutiae of her wedding plans. In the radiant heat of her excitement, I might burn to ash.
    Gita’s face contorts, as if she has developed a terrible pain in an unspecified part of her body. “I’ll just, uh, head off to bed then.”
    I take off the glasses, motion her to come in. “I’m sorry. Let’s talk.” I reluctantly roll up the green bar reports, which were laid out across the bed.
    Gita steps inside, tiptoeing as if trying not to disturb the carpet. “Do you ever miss our old place? The giant cedar tree in the backyard, the one with the low branches? I miss climbing that tree and looking across the fence into the neighbor’s backyard.”
    I barely remember our rambler on the other side of town, near a forest trail. “I don’t really think about it. I haven’t thought about that cedar tree in a long time…. I guess I’ve been too busy working.”
    “You don’t have to work so hard, day and night,” Gita says.
    “Yes, I do. First of all, I need the money. But second, work keeps me sane.”
    She sits next to me on the bed. “I hope you can take time off to be my maid of honor at the wedding.”
    The oxygen ebbs from my lungs. At my wedding, Gita stood beside me in a yellow silk dress. She watched Robert slip the ring on my finger, hold my hand while he recited his vows to love and cherish me forever. “Bengali ceremonies don’t have maids of honor.”
    “Maybe not, but I want you there. And when Ma and I go sari shopping on Friday, will you come? Maybe you’ll find a sari for yourself.”
    I make a face. “You know I’m not crazy about wearing a sari.” I don’t have time to wrap myself in several yards of silk fabric, tuck the pleats in at the waist, and then try to power walk to work. Saris have been known to fall off at inopportune moments, and besides, they’re formal wear, quintessentially Indian. They’re just not… me.
    Gita is glowing. “Do this for me? I’m so excited. I’ve wanted this for so long!”
    “Can’t you order a sari from India?”
    “Why do that when we have boutiques here? But we might also get some saris from India. And who knows, maybe I’ll have another ceremony there. Dilip and I have talked about that.”
    “Will any of his relatives be flying in from Kolkata?”
    “Yes, of course. His grandparents and a couple of cousins.” She plays with the tassels on the bedcover. “I hate rattling around in that house while he’s gone. When I’m alone, half of me is missing.”
    My internal organs seem to shrivel. Love is so easy for Gita. She and Dilip have always sailed along, gaga in love, drooling over each other. “Is he away a lot these days?”
    “He works hard. They’ve got him opening offices in Bulgaria and Bangalore. Next it will be China.”
    “Why don’t you go with him?”
    “I can’t leave the shop for that long.”
    “Does he stay in touch when he’s away? I mean, can you keep tabs on him?”
    She lets go of the tassels. “He calls me every night. Sometimes several times a day.”
    “Well, good for him.”
    She gives me a sharp look. “I can’t help it if he’s a good guy. He cares about me. He loves me.”
    It hurts hearing this. Robert used to