Page 95 of The Encore’s Crown

“It is heavy,” she said.

“I’ve carried amplifiers up four flights of stairs.”

I picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, but I had already committed, so I carried it across the courtyard while every member of staff watched the foreign musician perform manual labor for reasons no one understood. Mrs. Malhotra followed me, trying not to smile.

“You know we pay people to do that.”

“I know.”

She laughed and showed me where to put it.

After that, she started finding things for me to carry. At least, I suspected she did. Boxes of powdered color arrived in the afternoon, and somehow I was the one hauling them into storage. The next morning, I helped move folding tables into the garden while two perfectly capable men stood nearby looking insulted. When garlands came from the florist, I carried half of them inside and ended up covered in marigold petals.

Mrs. Malhotra plucked one from my hair. Her expression softened.

“You do not sit still. Radhika is the same.”

Mrs. Malhotra told me stories Radhika never had. How she had climbed onto the roof at eight because her father said she couldn’t. How she once refused to speak for an entire day after losing a school debate, then spent the next month preparing for the rematch. How she used to perform scenes from her parents’ films for the household staff and become furious if anyone laughed during the serious parts.

“She always wanted to attention,” her mother said as we sorted trays of flowers. “But only exactly as she wished it.”

That sounded so much like Radhika that I stopped arranging petals.

“I don't think that's changed much.”

Her mother looked at me and smiled. Her father remained less convinced as he continued to read his paper.

Mr. Malhotra had a talent for appearing whenever I found myself getting comfortable. I'd be drinking tea on a terrace, and suddenly he was asking whether the band had a five-year plan. I'd be walking through the garden, and there he was, wondering whether I intended to live permanently in America. I thought I was safe one afternoon sitting with Mrs. Malhotra while she crocheted. A mistake. He joined us, accepted a cup of tea, and asked whether musicians found monogamy difficult while touring. Mrs. Malhotra never looked up from her yarn. Once, I was trying to identify whether a large bird near the fountain was another peacock or something even more expensive, and he appeared beside me to ask whether I wanted children. I nearly walked into the fountain.

“Eventually?” I said.

It came out like a question. He noticed.

“And marriage?”

“We’ve only been together a year.”

“That wasn't my question.”

I looked across the garden for Radhika. She was nowhere in sight. Her family had an impressive instinct for abandoning me whenever her father began an interrogation.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“In general?”

“For your life.”

“Music.”

“You already have music.”

“More music?”

His expression suggested this was not an adequate foundation for adulthood.

“I want the band to keep growing,” I said. “I want my mother taken care of. My brother too, though he’d be offended if he heard me say that.”

“And beyond work?”