Jaya nervously raised her hand in to the door. Taking a deep breath she knocked.

"Coming" a female voice called out. Jaya’s heart broke. For a moment she considered running away, but only for a moment. Her spirit was still strong.

The door opened a crack. A sleepy eye looked at her, and then opened the door further. Jaya looked at the woman before her. She was dressed in American clothes, jeans and a sweater. Her hair was disheveled. Every American Jaya had met so far had been dressed like this. With her hair slicked back in a braid and her churidar, Jaya felt out of place.

"Can I help you?" Her English sounded American as well. Tears welled in Jaya’s eyes, but they did not betray her until she saw the baby the American woman held. Jaya froze as she realized her worst fears were coming true.

The woman pulled Jaya into her apartment and closed the door. "Are you alright?" Jaya collapsed at the woman’s feet, "I did not know you are his wife. If he wants to live with you, then I will not stand in his way. Please send me back to India, just send me back."

"I don’t know what you mean, please sit in a chair. This is a misunderstanding, I’m not married." This only made Jaya cry harder, causing the woman to struggle with the baby in one arm and Jaya in another. Finally, she got Jaya situated in a chair with a box of Kleenex.

"My name is Meena Reddy, and this is my son, Kannan." Meena looked at the woman, hoping that the situation would be cleared with introductions. It had been a long night, and she was so tired...

"I know about you and," Jaya became consumed by gasps. She was having difficulty breathing. Meena realized it was going to be a long day as well. She grabbed a glass of water and handed it to Jaya. The water calmed Jaya a little, but she felt a hard lump of pain in her throat. It would burst on provocation.

Meena took a seat across from Jaya. The baby had just been bathed, the whole apartment smelled like baby shampoo and powder. Jaya stared at the large doe eyes and the curly hair. What a beautiful baby, she thought.

"May I hold him?" she asked reaching out for the baby. Meena looked hesitant, but Kannan didn’t seem to mind when Jaya took hold of him.

"Wow. That’s the first time he hasn’t cried when someone has taken him from me. Well at least since we left the orphanage."

"The orphanage?"

"I adopted him a month ago. In India. We just got back yesterday evening."

Jaya stared at the baby again.

"You are single?"

"Yes I am."

Jaya became confused. Last night she saw her husband enter this apartment. She had followed him. In the two weeks she had spent with him, he had periodically disappeared, and she had been trying to figure out what he was doing. This Meena she was talking to, she looked right into her eyes when they spoke, it didn’t seem possible for her to be a bad woman. Meena reminded Jaya of someone...

"My name is Jaya. I just moved here from India."

"I suppose you recently got married?" Meena asked cautiously.

"Yes, perhaps you know my husband," Jaya said, even more cautiously, "his name is Jagunathan."

Meena smiled kindly. She was relieved. At least some pieces of this puzzle are falling together she thought.

"Actually I do. We work for the same magazine."

"Is it? I see." Meena laughed inwardly. This girl wants some answers. It occurred to Meena that Jaya looked very young, and was probably no more than 20. Nathan had told her the night before that she had come to the United States with him very shortly after the wedding. He had also revealed that he had not yet spoken to his bride. She has been left alone in the dark. Laughter was replaced with admiration when Meena realized that rather than sit around waiting for the situation to clear, Jaya was taking matters into her own hands.

"Yes, Nathan, that’s his nickname in our circle, he came to our magazine right out of college. I am his senior by a few, I mean, quite a few years. There are a few of us who work in the same office building, and also live in this apartment complex. We’re all friends. I’m sure you will meet everyone soon."

"Indian friends?"

"Well, we try to be Indian, but most of us grew up here. Mostly we exchange movie cassettes."

"You have Indian movies?"

"Actually, right now, my movies would be in your apartment. Before I went to India, I dropped them off with Nathan." Meena saw the mention of her husband made Jaya’s eyes flinch.

"You were in India when we got married. You did not come to the wedding?"

"Actually, I left in a hurry when I found out the adoption had been cleared. I had left my apartment key with Nathan because I thought he would be able to keep an eye out on the place while I was gone. But then, I suppose shortly after I left, your wedding plans had been set and he left as well. I didn’t receive news of the wedding until it was too late for me to attend."

"Yes, as soon as my visa was cleared, the wedding was put together. It was very sudden."

"Well, I know that all of Nathan’s friends will want to meet you. I am sure that once you are both settled, we will be able to plan a much more leisure party in your honor."

"That’s not necessary, really" the lump in Jaya’s throat had long since melted, but suddenly she felt like crying again. Who was this Meena? Jaya had resolved not to let her emotions take her, but she was so confused. Meena seemed nice enough, but what was her husband doing here last night.

"Jaya, please don’t be upset. See, you just got here, so everything is still new to you. Soon you will see how boring our lives are, and how much we need reasons for parties!" Meena smiled, but Jaya just looked at her angrily. Meena’s smile melted from her face, revealing the concern beneath. Jaya remembered the spectacle she had made at the door.

"Last night I saw my husband enter this apartment,"she said through gritted teeth.

"Oh yes, he was here last night. See I told him to look in on my apartment from time to time while I was gone. But, then I came back earlier than I said I would, and I didn’t tell anyone that," Jaya looked like she wanted to believe her, but needed a little push.

"Well I suppose he was here for a little bit. Nathan didn’t know that I had gone to get a baby, and I had to explain why I suddenly had a 14 month old baby, didn’t I?" Jaya smiled. Kannan was tugging at her bangles. Kannan, the name of young Krishna when he was being raised by his adoptive mother, Yashoda. It was the name of an adored son. Talking to Meena was a changed from the past five days. It was nice to have a friend again.

"I’m sorry. I have overreacted. There is no excuse for my behavior. I shall leave now." Jaya stood up hesitating with the baby in her arms.

"Please stay. For three days my only conversation has been with a toddler. If you’re not in a hurry, I would love to get to know you."

Jaya sat down. "I was hoping you would say that. Even after how I have behaved toward you. Please forgive me."

"What is to forgive? Nathan is a good friend of mine, and I hope you will be too. I was very surprised to learn that the marriage had happened so quickly, and that you had come here so soon after as well. Surely it must have been hard for you to leave all your friends and family."

"It, my father was very excited to have found an American husband for me. He may have hurried things along."

"How interesting! When I went to India, most of the people I ran into were rather wary of Americans. It seemed like we had a bad reputation."

"Perhaps. It is more difficult to know what an American will be like. In India, when my friends married Indians, there was always some male relative who would know the groom like a friend. Then you know more about the groom: if he has a temper or if he’s kind, what his favorite foods are, what his family is like. But when I was married, there was no one to ask these things. There was not even the time for one of my brothers to get to know him."

" That must have been frightening for you. And to come to new country with him! You are very brave."

" No, I am not brave. If I really didn’t want to come here so soon, I could have waited."

"But you didn’t mind coming so soon after the wedding?"

"I felt that he was a kind person, I remember when he would call from here, when we were engaged, he would always ask me what I thought about things. Like the type of car he should buy, or what color sari he should give his mother on his birthday."

"Yes, Nathan is a nice person to know, and he cares so much what you think."

"Yuck, yuck." Kannan wiggled in Jaya’s lap.

"Oh, my baby wants to eat some ‘yuck, yuck’ doesn’t he" Meena cooed, taking him from Jaya. Jaya followed Meena into the kitchen. Meena poured some mushed idli into a dish and took a deep pot off the stove. She poured milk over the idli and then put a spoonful of sugar in the mixture before mixing it with her spoon. The idli steamed and frothed in the milk. Kannan laughed, "Yuck, yuck!"

"What is this yuck, yuck?" Jaya asked.

"Idli and milk. This is what they gave him in the orphanage. I think it looks awful, so I said "yuck" when I first saw it. Ever since, he calls it Yuck yuck."

Jaya laughed. "He has different eating habits."

"He has difficult habits. I have never made idli before I got this baby."

"Never?" Jaya looked at Meena incredulously. Idli was a hard dish to make the first time by one’s self. The sink was piled high with dishes, evidence that there had been a struggle. Jaya had been to the grocery store with Nathan’s mother. There had been so many foods for babies, yet Meena had gone to the trouble of making this food for her baby. Jaya was touched by the lengths Meena had gone to for her son.

Meena smiled at Jaya, " Kannan has left the only life he has ever known. It will not kill me to oblige him in this." Jaya then noticed a burn mark on Meena arm, the mark of hot water from the pressure cooker.

"Are all Americans so considerate?" she asked, more to herself than to Meena.

"I’m not sure I understand."

"It’s nothing, just a thought I had. The day after my wedding, my husband came to my father’s house to lunch. I was serving him, but he did not eat immediately. He, he asked me to sit and eat with him. I was surprised, but later I thought that it was very kind of him."

" Jaya, these are simple acts. But do you see how much care is translated in them?"

Jaya nodded. Meena’s love for her son. Nathan’s feelings toward his wife. But something was wrong...

"But he has not spoken to me for many days now. He has been avoiding me, I."

The lump returned to her throat.

"I’m sure you have not done anything wrong. Why don’t you ask him why he’s so quiet? He won’t be angry with you. He’s actually a little shy. He might be looking for a good opportunity to talk to you himself."

Just then the doorbell rang. "Jaya, I hate to ask a guest, but could you watch the stove for me while I get that? Thanks" Meena ran to the door with the baby on her hip. Left alone, Jaya reflected on her situation in a new light. For so many days she had been worrying. Worrying that she had done something wrong, worried that her life would be like that Jaya Prada film "47 Days" where the Indian husband took his bride to a foreign country where it turned out he actually had another wife. Now she had a friend, a confidante who she knew she could trust. Jaya had trusted her feelings about Nathan in India, now she felt she wasn’t wrong. She was a strong soul, and she would tell her husband so. She would not let him avoid her any longer. He is the type of person I want to get to know better, she thought, and I will do it.

"Vijaya Lakshmi?"

Jaya turned around with a start. There stood Nathan holding Kannan. Kannan looked like he was about to start crying. Jaya took a deep breath and smiled, " I will take him. He likes me." She said, taking the baby from Nathan.

"Um, Meena had to talk to the landlord about something, she asked if we could stay with the baby for a few minutes. I said it would be alright. Is it?" he asked apologetically.

"I don’t mind."

"Meena told me you came down to meet her. That was very kind of you to do so." Jaya laughed. Nathan looked like he was about to run away. She wasn’t frightened anymore.

"She is a very nice friend. Maybe we can invite some of your friends to our apartment sometime soon?"

"That would be ...good." Nathan felt his shyness slipping away. He paused,

"Would you like to see the town water fountain tonight?"

"Is it near a mall?"

"Well there is one near it. Do you like malls?"

"I don’t know, I have not been to one before." Nathan smiled. "Then we’ll go tonight. Is there anything else you’d like to see?"

Jaya smiled back at Nathan. "Many things, but I don’t know what half of them are just yet."

They heard the front door open. Jaya and Nathan rose to leave. Jaya went to turn the stove off, but it was not even on. Meena will be a dear friend, Jaya thought.

Nathan waited for Jaya to join him, before walking to the door where Meena stood, holding an empty trash can.

"Thank you so much for watching my Kanna. Won’t you have some tea?"

"Thanks Meena, but Vijaya Lakshmi and I are going out this evening. I want to show her the malls before the stores close."

"Oh, that sounds fun! Make sure you go through the department stores. There is no such thing as a mall without a department store. Have a good time."

"Thank you Meena. I hope I may talk to you again, soon" Jaya said, handing Kannan to her.

"Yeah Meena, maybe Vijaya Lakshmi can teach you to make a proper idli," teased Nathan, for which he properly received a swat from his wife.

"She has done a wonderful job, and call me Jaya."