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I have to face, he’ll face with me.
    When Rajat holds my hand like this, all my problems recede. I think, Mimi was right about one thing: I really am lucky.
    Rajat ends by announcing that we’re to be married in three months. As the room erupts in applause, he turns to me and bows. Most men would not be able to pull off that bow, but Rajat does it regally.
    At least one good thing has come out of my fight with Grandfather. I’m no longer upset at the thought of getting married so fast. My place is with Rajat, and I’m ready to take it.

    Mrs. Bose sweeps down the hall resplendent in her brocade designer sari, greeting her guests. She inclines her head gracefully and speaks in an attractive, raspy voice that makes each person feel essential to the evening’s success. They have no idea that inside her head the elegant Jayashree Bose is far away.
    Mrs. Bose is remembering her own engagement party—the one she never had. Mrs. Bose’s father, who owned a failing handicrafts store, could not afford one, and Mr. Bose’s father, who was one of Kolkata’s leading surgeons and could have afforded a score of parties, was furious that his son had chosen—no, had been entrapped by—a girl so far beneath their station . A shopkeeper’s scheming daughter. If she shuts her eyes, Mrs. Bose can still see the distaste that had twisted her father-in-law’s handsome mouth as he spoke the words.
    They’d been waiting outside his chambers because her fiancé wanted her to meet him, insisting that once his father saw her, he would come around. It had been an ill-advised move, to face him in his stronghold. He walked past them even as Mr. Bose was talking to him. Shaking off his son’s grasp, he spat on the sidewalk, close enough to Mrs. Bose’s feet that she jumped back in shock. None of the words of love and apology that Mr. Bose offered her afterward could keep her from feeling besmirched.
    So many years, and Mrs. Bose hasn’t been able to wash away the memory of that spit. Every designer outfit she has bought since then, every grand party she has thrown, every expensive flat she’s moved to, every risky maneuver she has undertaken to push their business up another rung on the slippery ladder of success—it’s all been to show that man, though he’s been dead for years, what a shopkeeper’s daughter can achieve.
    “Lovely decor, Mrs. Bose!” Plump Mrs. Ahuja, wife of a textile tycoon, breaks into her thoughts, waving emerald-studded fingers. “But then, you always have such good taste. Is it true that you’ve designed the young couple’s flat, too? I’d love to take a look!”
    “Of course you must, as soon as it’s completed. But I can’t take any credit for tonight. My decorator did it all.”
    Here Mrs. Bose is being disingenuous. This last month, she has spentseveral evenings closeted with the decorator, reducing the woman on more than one occasion to the verge of tears.
    “You wouldn’t . . .?” Mrs. Ahuja pauses. In their milieu, the names of decorators are almost as secret as those of plastic surgeons.
    Mrs. Bose smiles magnanimously. “I’d be happy to give you her number. Your niece’s marriage is coming up, no? She’ll be perfect for that.”
    Mrs. Ahuja gushes with gratitude until Mrs. Bose adroitly steers her toward a group of chattering women and takes her leave.
    Mrs. Bose is ashamed of her obsession with proving herself. She wishes she could get past it, let it go, but she also recognizes that without it she couldn’t have turned their business around. It fueled her through those exhausting early years when she toiled at her father’s store. It helped her develop a sixth sense as to which artists were up-and-coming, and the charisma to sweet-talk them into signing exclusive agreements with her. Slowly, the Boses began to sell Bengal art—first across India, then to Europe and America. They developed a reputation for dependability and quality. Look at the properties they own now: the Park