The Sari Shop Widow

by Shobhan Bantwal

Genres: Women's Fiction; Asian American; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

Pungent curry. . .sweet fried onions. . .incense. . .colorful beads. . .lush fabrics. Shobhan Bantwal's compelling new novel is set on the streets of Edison, New Jersey's Little India, where a young businesswoman rediscovers the magic of love and family. . .

Since becoming a widow at age twenty-seven, Anjali Kapadia has devoted herself to transforming her parents' sari shop into a chic boutique, brimming with exquisite jewelry and clothing. Now, ten years later, it stands out like a proud maharani amid Edison's bustling Little India. But when Anjali learns the shop is on the brink of bankruptcy, she feels her world unraveling. . .

To the rescue comes Anjali's wealthy, dictatorial Uncle Jeevan and his business partner, Rishi Shah--a mysterious Londoner, complete with British accent, cool gray eyes, and skin so fair it makes it hard to believe he's Indian. Rishi's cool, foreign demeanor triggers distrust in Anjali and her mother. But for Anjali, he also stirs something else, a powerful attraction she hasn't felt in a decade. And the feeling is mutual. . .

Love disappointed Anjali once before and she's vowed to live without it--though Rishi is slowly melting her resolve and, as the shop regains its footing, gaining her trust. But when a secret from Rishi's past is revealed, Anjali must turn to her family and her strong cultural upbringing to guide her in finding the truth. . .

Praise for Shobhan Bantwal and her novels. . .

"Compelling and memorable." --Mary Jo Putney on The Forbidden Daughter

"Vivid, rich. . .expertly portrays a young woman caught between love and duty, hope and despair." --Anjali Banerjee on The Dowry Bride

"Splendidly depicts passion, brutality, and cultures in conflict."--Dorothy Garlock on The Dowry Bride

"The Dowry Bride is an eye-opener to the challenges many Indian women face in a culture few foreigners comprehend. --ArmchairInterviews.com, 4 stars on The Dowry Bride

"A beautifully written book. . .Wonderful, vivid, and worth reading."--BookIdeas.com on The Dowry Bride

"An amazing story of modern India."--The Kaleidoscope on The Dowry Bride

Release date: August 25, 2009

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

For the second time in ten years her life was beginning to come apart. Anjali Kapadia stood still for a minute, trying to absorb the news. Could it possibly be a mistake? But it wasn’t; she’d heard it clearly. Despite her best efforts to curb it, the initial shock wave refused to ebb. The seemingly harmless bit of information was all it had taken to shatter the image of a satisfying lifestyle and career.

Her mind in overdrive, she started to pace the length of the tasteful and elegant boutique. Her boutique—her baby—her artistic and inventive skills put to optimum use in creating a fairytale store worthy of movie stars, models, and beauty queens.

Technically the business belonged to her and her parents as equal partners, but it was Anjali’s creativity and vision that had turned it into a classy and successful enterprise—at least until recently. It stood apart like a maharani, a queen amongst the ordinary, plain vanilla sari and clothing shops of New Jersey’s “Little India.”

The area known as Little India, located in Edison, was crammed with sari shops, jewelry stores, restaurants, grocery markets, and souvenir shops. It was a small slice of India buried in central New Jersey, a quaint neighborhood that smelled of pungent curry, fried onions, ripe mangoes, incense, and masala chai, strong tea laced with spices and oodles of thick, creamy milk.

Even the store’s name was Anjali’s brainstorm. Overrun with ho-hum and even dumpy names and ugly storefronts, Little India was badly in need of some class. So she’d called her store Silk & Sapphires. It had a nice ring to it, and according to Hindu astrology, a sapphire supposedly dispelled the destructive influence of the fiery planet Shanee. Saturn. The store’s window displayed the most elegant mannequins and rare jewelry to give it a boutique flavor rather than just a sari-cum-bauble shop.

The interior was done in soft cream and shimmering blue to fit the name. Teardrop crystal chandeliers hung from a vaulted ceiling. Strategically placed recessed lights highlighted the displays, mirrored walls created the illusion of space and light, and dense cream carpeting covered the sales floor and fitting rooms. No harsh music with screeching falsetto voices was allowed to tarnish the store’s atmosphere either. Only soft instrumental pieces by both Indian and other masters were piped in through the sound system.

Shopping at Silk & Sapphires was meant to be a unique and indulgent experience.

The boutique also carried jewelry—one-of-a-kind creations of precious and semiprecious gems fit for an empress or a blushing bride. It was all custom-made in India by her uncles, Anjali’s mom’s brothers, two of whom were in the jewelry business in the state of Gujarat in northwestern India.

Nearly every piece of clothing the store sold was designed by Anjali, each outfit envisioned, then meticulously planned, cut, sewn, and embellished to her demanding specifications. She took pride in finding the right fabrics, trimmings, and tailors to make her designs evolve from an idea swirling in her brain to divine ensembles. Granted, her clothes and accessories were far more expensive than some, but they were worth the money. Every design was exclusive. Many of them were award winners in fashion shows and competitions.

She glanced at them and exhaled a long sigh. The colorful silks, the clingy chiffons, and the gossamer tissue-crepes were draped in an exquisite array on their pretty satin hangers—row upon row of lush, costly clothes. The pearls, the rainbow of beads, and the jewel-tone sequins lovingly sewn into the borders, sleeves, necklines, and bodices of the sleek garments sparkled and winked at her as she strode up and down the aisles, again and again.

What had gone wrong? How? When?

Could she be kissing her dress design business and her beloved store good-bye? If so, how soon? Catching her reflection in the mirrored wall behind the row of clothes, she realized her eyes were filled with resentment and frustration. Darn it! She rarely let bitterness prevail over her, and she wouldn’t do so now. She was a woman who liked to laugh, although there hadn’t been much to laugh about in the last decade—not since she’d cremated Vikram.

How could her parents have concealed such a significant problem from her for so long? And how could they even dream up something so preposterous to address the problem? How could they jeopardize her career as well as theirs with one phone call?

She wouldn’t stand for it. She couldn’t. She’d get a loan from a bank to bail them out of their financial mess, or even beg and borrow from friends and acquaintances before she’d give in to her parents’ harebrained plan.

Turning on the narrow heel of her tan sandals, she trudged back to the long glass display counter behind which her parents stood. They’d been mutely watching her pace like a caged panther all this time. Now the mildly optimistic look on their faces told her they hoped her dark mood had passed, or at least diminished to some degree.

Well, no such luck. The distress was still spiraling inside her like a mad January blizzard. She raised her troubled eyes to them. “Why didn’t you guys tell me about the problem sooner?”

Her father, Mohan Kapadia, a wiry man with glasses and a heavy mop of graying hair, gave a helpless shrug. “We didn’t want to upset you. And I honestly thought your mother and I could handle it by now.”

“But we’re equal partners in this. I’m not a child who needs to be protected from bad news.” She took a deep breath to steady her tremulous voice. “I know I nearly lost my mind some years ago, but I don’t need coddling anymore.”

“I know that, Anju, but I’m upset at myself for not being a better businessman.” He sent Anjali a rueful look. “I suppose I didn’t want to believe it myself at first. It’s not easy admitting to one’s daughter that one is…uh…a failure.”

She immediately regretted her outburst. “I’m sorry, Dad. You’re not a failure. It’s not all your fault. We’re all in this together.”

“But still…”

“I’m just as much to blame,” she said. “I should have kept an eye on our finances a bit more. What I can’t believe is why you went to Jeevan of all people for help.”

“Jeevan is my eldest brother. Who else could I go to when we’re in financial trouble?” He combed his long, skinny fingers through his hair for the fourth time since Anjali had walked into the store minutes ago. His nervous raking was making his hair stand up in stiff peaks, making him look like one of those troll dolls sold in novelty stores. His starched blue shirt and gray slacks paired with sensible black shoes did little to improve the troll image.

“You could have gone to that old man, the Indian capitalist with three wives…What’s his name…Harikishan.”

Usha Kapadia, Anjali’s mother, gave a derisive, unladylike snort. “After killing off his first two wives, old Harikishan has met his match. His third wife is young and pretty and smart. She keeps him…um…occupied,” she remarked, clearing her throat. “He’s not interested in pursuing the financing business anymore.”

“How about Naren-kaka?” Naren Kapadia was her father’s youngest brother.

Her father shook his head. “Naren has a large debt on his motel. You know that.”

“Then why not go to a legitimate bank?” Anjali suggested. “Instead, you called your other brother Jeevan, in India?” She still couldn’t make sense of her parents’ wacky decision.

“Your uncle’s got the best business brain in the world,” her father argued.

“But Jeevan’s a dictator.”

Her mother, trim and elegant in a shell-pink chiffon sari, and tiny pearls at her throat and ears, threw her a scorching look. “Anju, Jeevan is your oldest uncle. Show your elders some respect. And stop referring to him as Jeevan. To you he’s Jeevan-kaka, just like he’s Jeevan-bhai to your father and me.”

“I’m sorry.” Anjali sighed. From her mother’s tone one would think Anjali was a teenager or young adult at most. Their family business, essentially their livelihood, was headed for ruin, and her mother was lecturing her, a grown woman, on the old-fashioned Gujarati way of talking about one’s uncle. “You know as well as I that Jeevan-kaka is bad news, Mom.” He was a short, tubby, beady-eyed scoundrel who sat atop a mountain of money. He was rich and mean and sly and unscrupulous—a lethal combination.

Jeevan was the oldest of three brothers and two sisters, and never let his siblings forget it. In his eyes, he was only one small step below God. At the mention of his name, the family trembled with fear. With a simple phone call he could reduce some of them to tears. Most often, when someone in the family mentioned Jeevan’s name, it was preceded by “Oh, God,” and rightfully so.

Mohan shook his head. “Jeevan-bhai is a little bit on the strict side. That doesn’t mean he’s unkind.”

“Little bit strict?” Anjali groaned. Was her father living on the same planet as she? She looked at him. The shape and deep brown tint of their eyes were similar, and the thick black lashes were definitely something she’d inherited from him. In fact, most of her sharp features were her father’s, but her complexion and straight black hair were genetic traits from her mother’s side of the family. “After the beating you took from him as the middle brother, you still choose to defend him, Dad?”

This time Mohan’s eyes glinted with irritation. “You of all people, with your fancy college degrees, should realize we have major financial problems. We need some serious help and advice. Who better than your uncle to give it? Everything your uncle touches turns to gold.”

Her mom gave another scornful snort. “That’s why they call him Bada saheb.” Big boss. Despite admonishing Anjali about her lack of respect for Jeevan, her mom had plenty of contempt for her eldest and most feared brother-in-law. But then Usha always had a different set of rules for herself. And they changed frequently according to her convenience and mood.

Having expressed her sentiments, her mother turned around to cast a quick glance in the mirrored wall and patted her hair, which was swept back into a simple but elegant chignon. Then she went back to arranging the new shipment of jewelry in the display case—earrings, bracelets, and rings made of rare yellow diamonds.

Anjali watched her mom’s dainty fingers gently lift each piece and arrange it over the sapphire blue velvet spread. Having grown up in a family of jewelers, Usha knew her gems well. And at fifty-nine she looked wonderful—much younger than her age.

“Whatever my brother’s faults, he has the knowledge and money to help us,” said Mohan, picking up his calculator and gathering up the day’s receipts. “And his advice is free.”

Anjali mulled over the issue for a minute. There had to be another, less drastic solution than the insufferable Jeevan. “Can’t you call him again and tell him you were wrong?”

“No.” Her father shook his head emphatically.

“Say you made an error in judgment and that everything’s just fine?”

Mohan gave her a bland look. “I can’t. He’s arriving here next week.”

“What?” A dull thud jolted both Anjali and her father. Usha had dropped a box on the counter and turned dark, accusing eyes on her husband. “You didn’t tell me your brother was coming here.”

“I thought I did.” Mohan’s tone was mildly apologetic.

“Not true, Mohan,” Usha reminded him. “This morning, when you called your brother, you said you were asking for a little advice and nothing more. You didn’t say anything about him coming to New Jersey.”

“Slipped my mind…I guess.” Ordinarily a resolute man with a good head for business, Anjali’s father seemed to turn to putty when his beloved Usha was around. Despite her sweet face, dimpled smile, and her preference for soft colors and understated accessories, she wielded the gavel like a seasoned judge. It was a good thing, too, because Anjali’s dad was too softhearted. If it were up to him, he’d give away half the store to someone he thought was needy.

She watched the angry color rise in her mother’s amazingly unlined face. “Slipped your mind? Something as important as that?”

“But…but he said he wanted to come. How could I say no?”

“Exactly when is Jeevan-bhai arriving?” Usha demanded. “Or were you planning to tell me after he arrived at Newark Airport?”

Anjali had a feeling her father had deliberately kept his brother’s visit a secret. She felt a twinge of sympathy for her dad. The poor man was caught between his loyalties to his brother on the one hand and his wife and kids on the other.

“But there’s still one more week,” he mumbled weakly. “He’s arriving next Monday.”

“Next Monday is only five days away, not one week,” reminded Usha.

Mohan ran his fingers through his hair yet again. What little hair had been lying flat now stood at attention. “Jeevan-bhai is family. Why are you getting so upset?”

Usha’s look of annoyance turned to disbelief. “Your brother is not some ordinary family member like the others; he is a god. Once he descends from his chariot he wants everything perfect, from homemade vegetarian food cooked in clarified butter and spotless white sheets to his newspaper available at a precise time every morning. And don’t forget hot masala chai five times a day. I’ll have to dedicate myself to serving him hand and foot.”

If there was one thing Anjali couldn’t picture her mother doing, it was waiting on someone hand and foot. Raised in indulged affluence in the city of Ahmedabad, and being the only girl in a family with four boys, she was a prima donna. Her brothers doted on her.

Though Usha was a good cook, she preferred working in the store and depended on restaurant food to feed the family most of the time. It was the simplest and most efficient thing to do, anyway, with literally dozens of Indian restaurants serving any kind of reasonably priced multiregional cuisine, literally within walking distance from their store.

Every night, after locking up, Anjali and her parents, too exhausted to worry about cooking, bought restaurant food and toted it home. After eating, they barely had energy left to get changed and head for their beds in their modest house in neighboring Iselin. Despite keeping the store closed on Mondays, the boutique was a 24/7 commitment for the three of them. It was their whole life.

Anjali couldn’t bear to think of any other way of life. She’d had her own home and a career separate from her parents many moons ago, while she’d been married to Vikram Gandhi. But after Vik’s death, heartbroken and depressed, she’d decided to pool all her savings with her parents’ and upgrade their struggling sari shop in Edison.

Now the boutique was everything to her, a place where she’d buried her grief and more or less resurrected herself. It had helped to have a challenging business to keep her mind occupied, the best kind of therapy for a grieving young widow.

Her brother, Nilesh, a sophomore at Rutgers University, had always distanced himself from the clothing business. Nearly eighteen years younger than she, and an unexpected late-life baby for her parents, he could be a joy as well as an annoyance.

Nilesh was both her brother and her baby in so many ways. She’d babysat him, changed his diapers, held him when he’d been sick, and bottle-fed him. And yet she and Nilesh argued and snarled and threw barbs at each other like any other siblings. She loved him to pieces. She’d never had children of her own, so he was still her baby. Of course, there’d been no opportunity for Anjali to think about having babies, not when Vik had died of a brain aneurysm within two years of their marriage.

“Anju.” Usha’s voice forced her thoughts back to the cold reality of their present situation. “Could you come here and finish this display for me? I have to get busy cleaning up the house.” She threw her husband a meaningful look. “Since Jeevan-bhai is arriving in five…no…four and a half days,” she said with a glance at her wristwatch, “I have to clean, shop, cook, and launder…and iron.”

Anjali noticed her father’s harried expression. Poor Dad.

Usha strode away in a huff to the back of the store, then returned a minute later with her pocketbook on her arm and the car keys jangling in her hand. Putting on her driving glasses, she swept out the front door. Anjali and her father watched her disappear into the parking lot, then exchanged a troubled glance.

In about two hours her mother would have shopped for the essentials, stored them away in the kitchen, cleaned and vacuumed the house, and aired the guest room mattress. Usha Kapadia was like a tornado when she was on a mission, especially when she was upset or angry. And Jeevan’s visit definitely qualified as both upsetting and annoying. Besides, Anjali knew exactly how her mother felt; she felt the same way herself. The last time Jeevan had visited some five years ago, her mother, just recovering from a hysterectomy, had nearly suffered a mental breakdown.

After a four-week visit, it had been the most blessed relief to put the chubby Jeevan and his wife on a jet bound for India.

Anjali observed her father pull up a stool and sit down with his elbows parked on the counter. “So, Dad, what exactly is Jeevan-kaka coming all the way to the U.S. to do?” she asked.

Mohan’s expression was one of tired resignation. His messy hair tugged gently at Anjali’s heart. “He’s going to take a look at the boutique, then decide what we should do. He promised he’ll help us financially, too.”

“His fortune’s in rupees, so how’s he going to help in dollars?”

“Rupees can easily be converted to any foreign currency these days.”

Anjali’s chin instinctively snapped up. “We’re not going to accept his charity, I hope?”

Mohan gave a wry laugh. “Jeevan-bhai believes in loans, not charitable contributions. He’s a businessman, Anju, not a philanthropist.”

“So do you think we might be able to save the store?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I really hope so. This store is all I have. All we have.”

“I’m sorry, Dad. Until last year, things had looked pretty good. Our profit margin wasn’t great, but it wasn’t critical.”

Rising from his stool, Mohan went to the open display case where his wife had been working and started emptying out the small jewelry boxes onto the counter. “Too much competition in the immediate area. Other stores have started to copy our boutique concept and exclusive designs. The trouble is they get both their materials and manufacturing much cheaper from India.”

“I know.” Anjali and her parents got their goods from Bangkok, the U.S., and Hong Kong. It made a huge difference in pricing. “But their quality and style are nowhere near ours, Dad. Their stores are merely gaudy imitations. It’s like comparing a diamond to rhinestones.”

“Even then—”

“Wasn’t it just the other day that a customer was complaining that something she bought from one of our competitors lost its color and most of its beads after a single cleaning?”

“But most customers go for surface looks. When they can pay $500 instead of $1,500 for an outfit, the last thing they think of is color loss or the beads falling off. How many times do people take such fancy garments to the cleaners anyway?” He positioned the last diamond ring in between a necklace and its matching bracelet, then shut the glass door and locked it.

Her father was right. Even before he’d explained it, she knew what the problem was. She just didn’t want to admit it. They’d overextended themselves with the present year’s inventory, too. The store was packed with beautiful things, but not enough customers to buy them. Most of it was her fault. On seeing the striking new silks in Thailand, she’d gone a bit overboard with her orders for chania-choli outfits. Long flowing skirts with matching blouses. Then she’d requested her uncles in India to craft jewelry to match those ensembles.

Despite her training, she’d made the grave mistake of neglecting the financial end of the business and left it entirely to her father. He was a smart businessman but she still should have kept her eye on the bottom line.

Unfortunately, her heart was in creating pretty things and not in finances. But no matter what her reasons, it was still partly her fault. It wasn’t fair to let her father take the blame.

Mohan returned to his bookkeeping chores, so Anjali moved to the sari section and started to unpack the new boxes of Benaresi silk saris that had arrived that morning. Even before she could slit the carton with a box-cutter, she knew the goods would be beautiful. She’d hand-picked every one of them during her recent trip to India and supervised the packaging herself.

Reverently she unwrapped each exquisite sari from its tissue paper and placed it inside the glass cabinet. This place used to be just a sari shop at one time—boring, bland, dimly lit—one of countless such shops that lined Oak Tree Road. Her parents had sold Japanese-made synthetic saris wound in bolts and crammed onto shelves alongside the most uninspiring mass-produced clothes.

Back in the 1970s, as a child, Anjali had enjoyed going to her parents’ old Jackson Heights store in New York City. Every afternoon, after school, she’d done her homework in the crowded back room. That cramped space had also served as her parents’ office. A desk and chair, a file cabinet, and a portable electric stove for warming up lunch and making chai had left room for little else. She’d loved wandering around the shop, touching the fabrics and draping them over herself, slipping into the high-heeled and jeweled sandals on display, pretending she was a fashion model.

Then her parents had relocated to Edison in the 1980s because it was a brand-new Indian enclave with more promise and less competition. However, even after the move, the store’s name and general appearance had remained the same. Her parents were bright people, but creativity was not their strong point. She was a teenager by then and had come to view the business more objectively. It needed to be much more than Kapadia’s Sari Emporium.

Somewhere between the ninth and tenth grades, she’d decided to try her hand at dress designing. Helping her parents at the shop combined with her eye for color and shapes had naturally progressed into a degree in apparel design and merchandising, and further into plans for joining her parents’ business someday.

But fate had taken her on a slight detour. Soon after graduate school she’d met Vikram Gandhi, fallen for his boyish good looks and sunny nature, and then married him. His career was in New York, so instead of working for her parents she’d found a job at an advertising agency in the city.

She’d been happy, though, content with her condo in Queens, her marriage to Vik, and life in general. Back then she’d had big dreams of owning several elegant boutiques all over the country—maybe in other countries, too. With typical youthful enthusiasm she’d had it all figured out.

Although Vik was an electronics engineer by profession, he had encouraged her retail dreams, even shared in them. And just when they thought they’d saved enough money to start working on bringing those dreams to reality, Vik had collapsed at his office, and died soon after. His only symptom had been waking up with a severe headache that morning.

They’d had no idea that a silent killer had been stalking Vik for many years. He had swallowed a couple of aspirin and gone to work despite the acute headache. By the time the ambulance had arrived, he’d hemorrhaged to death. All her dreams had died with him. So much for drawing up a neat blueprint of her life. The only solace was that he hadn’t suffered too long.

Seeing her drowning in grief, her parents had encouraged her to quit her job in New York, sell her condo, live with them, and help them with the store, which was best suited for her training and disposition anyway. Even Vik’s parents had seen the logic in that and supported her decision. Little by little she’d overcome her sorrow and made her parents’ business a success.

Unfortunately, along the way, she’d drifted away from Vik’s parents and his married sister. Anyhow, Florida was too far to visit often.

Eventually she’d sunk all of her and Vik’s joint savings into upgrading and glamorizing the store, and making it a showpiece—Silk & Sapphires. The grand opening was written about in all the local newspapers. Magazines had run articles about the new ethnic dream store in the heart of Little India. With all that helpful buzz customers had crowded in, and the business had done extremely well.

But now it looked like all that hype and hard work were for naught. Anjali and her parents were in danger of losing their boutique. Her dad had estimated that if they didn’t start turning a profit within the next six to nine months, they might have to sell, or worse, declare bankruptcy.

They’d never been exactly rich, but they’d been comfortable. Her education had been entirely paid for by her parents, and at this late age they were paying Nilesh’s college bills.

They still lived in a decent home and drove late-model cars. Going from relative middle-class comfort to possible bankruptcy was inconceivable to Anjali. What in heaven’s name were they going to do if things got really bad?

She closed her eyes and tried to dispel the dark image of potential poverty. No. Please, God, no.

Despite all her initial ranting at the idea of having the autocratic Jeevan come down to stick his large nose into their private affairs, when faced with the frightening prospect of bankruptcy, Anjali was beginning to have second thoughts. She’d also had a little while to simmer down.

Maybe the old curmudgeon would be of some use after all. Her dad was right. There was never any doubt that Jeevan had a gift for business. He had the uncanny combined instincts of a lion, a bloodhound, and a fox.

Placing the last sari in the cabinet, Anjali looked at her wristwatch. It was nearly closing time. She needed to get her mind off work and business—and her uncle’s impending visit. Maybe she’d call Kip and meet him later over a drink. He’d help her relax.

For lack of a better term, she thought of Kip as her boyfriend. He was her friend for sure, a patient pal, her lover, and a comfort to have at times. But he wasn’t a boyfriend in the true sense of the word. Their relationship was neither sweet nor romantic. It didn’t involve whispered sweet nothings, flowers or chocolates, holding hands, or walks in the moonli. . .