CHAPTER 7

Exotic Particles, Expected and Unexpected

1984

NOW, WITH MEENA OFF AT SCHOOL AND ABHIJAT AT THE LAB, Sarala found herself with entire days alone, long quiet hours in which she watched the clock, waiting for the sound of the school bus on the corner, of Abhijat’s car in the drive. The house was in order. Meals were on the table each evening at precisely six o’clock.

“Why don’t you take up a hobby?” Abhijat suggested. He considered it the highest form of luxury to be able to provide his wife with a life in which she need not occupy herself with work.

But what Sarala had decided she needed was her first good American friend. And, as though timed perfectly with her resolution, a new couple had moved in across the street.

From the window of Abhijat’s study, Sarala watched with interest as a large Mayflower truck pulled up in front of the house across the street, followed closely by another car, from which emerged a woman in shorts, bouncy red hair held back with a pink silk scarf, sunglasses catching the daylight as she pointed here then there, directing the movers and the tall tanned man in a golf shirt who must, Sarala decided, be her husband. By the time the school bus delivered Meena home from school, the truck was gone. Sarala peered over her shoulder at the house as she walked Meena home from the bus stop.

That night, Sarala opened her red-gingham-print Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and made a batch of cookies—chocolate chip—with which to welcome her new neighbors. In the morning, she combed her hair, studying her reflection in the mirror and trying out a bright, welcoming smile.

The house across the street was a green saltbox with yellow shutters and already looked to Sarala as though someone had been living there for years—an American flag flying from the porch, a stone goose standing sentry, wearing an apron, a matching kerchief tied over its head. Sarala knocked on the front door, the plate of cookies balanced in her open palm.

The door was opened by the woman with the bouncy red hair, which was today held back by a bright yellow headband.

Sarala held the plate of cookies out before her. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” she said, producing the friendly smile she had practiced in the mirror. “I am Sarala. My husband, Abhijat, and I are your neighbors across the street.”

“Well isn’t this sweet of you.” The woman held her hand up to her heart. “Come in please,” she said, waving Sarala into the foyer. “I’m Carol, and this is my husband Bill—well, where has he gone off to? He must be out in the backyard setting up his grill. He’s just crazy about that grill.” Carol smiled knowingly at Sarala, took the plate, and beckoned for her to follow her into the kitchen, which Sarala did.

“You’ll have to forgive the frightful mess. We’re still getting settled in,” Carol said over her shoulder, leading the way through the foyer and into the kitchen.

But Sarala, taking in the rooms around her, was perplexed, for though she was sure she’d seen the moving truck pull away from the house late in the afternoon just the day before, there was now nothing to suggest that Carol and Bill had not been living there for years—pictures on the walls, throw pillows plumped and arranged in the corners of the sofa, and not a single cardboard box to be seen.

Carol poured them each a cup of coffee and set the plate of cookies in the center of the kitchen table. Sarala took a seat, noting the bright flowered tablecloth and plush floral-print rug under the table.

Carol leaned toward Sarala. “Well, you’ll just have to tell me all about yourself, and where you’re from, and your husband, and everything.”

Sarala, smiling, told Carol about her move to the States and all about Meena.

“And what does your husband do?”

“He’s a theoretical physicist.”

“He must work over at that laboratory. We heard a little about it when we were house hunting, but I have to tell you, I don’t really understand what it is they do over there.”

Sarala was used to this. Always, as though following some sort of script, the neighbors, upon learning where Abhijat worked, seemed to say one of two things: “I’ve always wondered what they do over there,” or: “It must be fascinating, but it’s all beyond me.”

“To be absolutely frank,” Sarala confided, “I’m not sure that I do, either,” and Carol laughed, a full and warm laugh that seemed to suggest this was the most delightful thing anyone had said to her in ages.

Carol and Bill were transplants from Alabama, “on account of Bill’s job,” Carol explained. He was climbing the corporate ladder, so they were becoming old pros at these relocations and had just made a killing on the last house they’d sold, she confessed. “And I keep busy with my Mary Kay, of course.”

“She is your daughter?” Sarala asked.

Carol laughed. “Oh my goodness, no. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Mary Kay!”

Carol began to bustle around the small desk just below where the telephone hung affixed to the wall. She handed Sarala a book. On the cover was a blonde woman whose enormous and elaborately arranged hair filled the frame of the picture and then some. “This is Mary Kay Ash, my personal heroine.”

By the end of the morning, Sarala left with a stack of glossy pink brochures and a small bag of makeup samples. Walking back home from the bright green saltbox, Sarala was struck by how dark and imposing her and Abhijat’s house looked by comparison. If it could be said that a house looked stern, she thought, then theirs surely did.

“Why don’t you come over for coffee tomorrow morning, after the boys leave for work?” Carol called out from the front porch as Sarala made her way back across the street.

That night after dinner, when Abhijat had returned to his study and Meena had curled up on the couch with one of the Little House on the Prairie books she was reading voraciously, Sarala made her way upstairs and opened the small pink bag of samples, spreading them out over the counter of the master bath, leafing through the brochures featuring models with elaborate frosted hairstyles moussed and hair-sprayed into place, blush in bright swaths across their cheeks. She leaned in toward the mirror, holding the image of one of the women up beside her own face. Sarala looked at the colors in the samples—pearly pastels, pinks and blues. She could see them on the face of the woman beside her in the mirror, but she couldn’t imagine them on her. Sarala put the samples and brochures back into the pink plastic bag. She opened the drawer under the counter and shoved the bag into the back, closing it behind her.