Olivia sat in the front seat of the little car, Chris behind the wheel, while Melanie, Delilah, Tisha, and Aubra squeezed into a backseat meant to comfortably seat two.
“Is this legal?” she asked, picturing the six of them pulled over, Chris being chastised and handed a ticket for driving an overloaded vehicle with no passengers wearing seatbelts.
“Oh, yeah,” Chris assured her. “It is here. Watch when we’re driving. You’ll see entire families this size clinging to scooters, half the kids hanging on for dear life.”
“The rest of the world expects citizens to monitor their own safety,” Aubra said. “Unlike the United States, where your litigious population constantly needs someone to warn them and look out for them.”
“Aubra, just scoot!” Melanie said. “We don’t need lectures about America. We live there!”
The other women laughed and squealed, smashing butts together an inch at a time and ootching closer until able to slam the doors.
“Okay, Chris, we’re good!” Delilah said, voice taut as if she were crushed by a vise. “Go quick before the car bursts open at the seams!”
Chris shook his head, grinning, and pulled the car into traffic.
“You might as well sit on my lap,” Melanie told Tisha.
“Girl, no. I’d crush you.”
“Please. I’ve gained ten pounds since I got here. Starting tonight, no more seconds for me at dinner.”
“I’ve gained fifteen,” Tisha commiserated. “I need to get some bigger pants while we’re shopping today. I’ll diet with you. Ms. Vanya’s cooking is just too good.”
“Would be nice if we could exercise more,” Delilah said. “But we can’t go jogging alone.”
“And Chris refuses to be completely at our beck and call.” Aubra punched his arm.
“Hey, now. Easy on the driver.” He changed lanes. “I think I manage to help out whenever you ladies need me. Of course, Olivia needs to be the main focus for now. She’s new. You guys can get by.”
“Never!” Aubra teased. “What would we do without you? We need you too. If you can’t choose, we’ll all five have to share you.”
Olivia glanced back, noting Melanie rolled her eyes. Okay, so she wasn’t the only one trying not to gag right now. She was starting to suspect Aubra had a crush on Chris.
“Worse things,” Chris said, “than having five women fight over me.”
She shook her head. “I’m not—”
“Kidding!” Chris interrupted.
He pulled off the road and parked. The women in the back opened the doors and tumbled out in fits of giggles, gasping for air as though they’d been suffocating.
The market sprawled before them along the street. Vendors sat on blankets beside bags of rice and lentils and other dry goods, or baskets of chilis, peppers, spices, onions, and potatoes. She saw stalls set up for fruit. Tables of shoes and fabrics. Rows of clothing swayed in the breeze.
“This is a small local market,” Tisha told her. “We come most every week, and you can get just about any staple foods you need. Down a bit farther they have the equivalent of a strip mall. That has a pretty nice little bookstore, a pharmacy, some upscale clothing stores. That sort of thing.”
“Kochi has a huge spice market,” Delilah told her. “It’s famous. We could take you to see it sometime if you’d like. But this little town probably has anything you truly need.”
“Especially since Ms. Vanya cooks for us twice a day,” Melanie reminded her. “You just need snacks and whatever you might specifically want for yourself.”
Tisha patted her stomach. “Yeah, no one goes hungry on Ms. Vanya’s watch.”
Overwhelmed, Olivia watched the steady flow of foot traffic wandering up and down the market. No clue where to start, she felt the urge to climb back in their borrowed car and return to her little room. So many people. And so many of them eyeing her.
“What would you like?” Chris prompted her.
She turned the question over in her mind. Had anyone ever asked her that? Growing up, she and Mom made do with whatever they could afford, what Mom had coupons for or found on clearance. She and Scott hadn’t needed to be that thrifty. And yet he’d pinched pennies even worse than her frugal mother. Anytime she’d asked about finances, he’d claimed they were broke and frowned on buying anything frivolous. Do we really need that?
“I . . . don’t know. What do you guys think I should get?”
Chris laughed, but she noticed the way Tisha’s eyes cut to her, narrowing shrewdly.
“What do you like, girl?”
What did she like? What did she like? Scott had long ago decided she had terrible taste and made all the big decisions to “save her from herself.” She remembered him chuckling on occasions when he hosted receptions for invited speakers at the university. “I chose the furniture. God knows what we’d have if I left Olivia to her own devices. Poor thing.” She had squirmed internally, feeling small enough to crawl into a cupboard to hide and wishing she could—anything to escape the uncomfortable glances the other professors sent her way. They probably all wondered how someone like her wound up with a department chair to begin with. Someone who couldn’t even furnish a house like a normal adult.
Now she squirmed as the other teachers all waited for her to answer what ought to be a simple question. Come on, say something. She thought back to breakfast—dry corn flakes and toast, with black tea to drink. “I kind of like to have fruit with my breakfast.”
She waited for one of them to tell her smart people started their day with protein and carbs, not sugar. But no one did.
“To the fruit stand!” Chris declared, pointing forward and striking a pose.
“Our very own Marco Polo,” Aubra said, clutching his bent arm. “Lead on, intrepid explorer!”
Tisha stayed beside her. “You feeling okay today?”
She blinked eyes as dry as sandpaper. “Yeah. Didn’t sleep well. But yeah.”
Everyone they passed stared, curious eyes wide with apparent fascination as necks craned for a better look. Could they all see her for the fraud she knew herself to be?
At the fruit stand, the vendor leapt from his low stool at the sight of them. “Yes! Hello!”
The variety and unfamiliarity of the tropical fruits startled her. Mom had done her best to keep the house stocked with healthy foods. But healthy meant expensive. Yes, she had some money on her for this sort of thing, and even some tucked away back home. But she wasn’t being paid while she was here and had no sure employment when she went home. Do you really need that? Frugality seemed prudent. She could surely manage a bunch of bananas.
“Okay, rookie,” Melanie said, “the rule is, if you can peel it, you can eat it.”
“Got it. Some bananas then, I guess.”
“Lady want banana?” the vendor asked.
“You can pick the bunch you want,” Delilah told her, then helped when she hesitated. “That one!”
The vendor placed the bundle on the table.
“What else?” Chris asked.
Too many decisions. What if she picked the wrong thing and they all shook their heads, mortified by her inability to handle the simplest task? She shrugged. “I guess that’s enough.”
“Come on! You’re new. Try everything! Give her some of your best pomelos, a couple of guavas, a mango, a custard apple . . .”
Her head bounced back and forth watching the vendor scurry about collecting the selections Chris pointed at and assemble them into a growing pile. Guava? Custard fruit? Those sounded exotic—and expensive.
“That should do for today,” Chris finally declared. “How much?”
The vendor squinted, contorting his face. “One hundred eighty rupee.”
Reaching into her purse, Olivia did a double take. One hundred eighty rupees? That was only around . . . three dollars. For that stack of fruit? That couldn’t be right. She glanced at the others, startled to see all four of them giving the vendor a disgusted look.
“One eighty?” Chris asked. “No way!”
The vendor shrugged, gesticulating as he launched into a language she couldn’t understand.
Chris held out a couple of paper notes. “One hundred fifty.”
Olivia scrabbled in her purse, checking for the proper bills to pay with. “I’ll pay—”
The vendor wobbled his head in a tiny figure eight and accepted payment from Chris. “Lady come back?”
“She’ll come back. We all will,” Chris said.
“Best fruit,” the man told her, handing over her fruit in a plastic bag.
“Where to next?” Chris asked.
She scurried after him, cheeks flushed. Did something about her scream poor? Why did he think she couldn’t afford her own food? Because she didn’t give that taxi driver money for nothing? She could take care of herself. She’d worked hard to lift herself up. Sure, she wasn’t wealthy, but she didn’t need charity. Or did he think she couldn’t do the math? Scott had always jumped in too, sighing heavily, shaking his head at her hesitance. But she wasn’t totally helpless. “You didn’t need to do that.”
His brow furrowed. “Do what?”
“Pay for my fruit. I have money. I could’ve paid.”
He waved a hand. “Don’t sweat it.”
“Really, I—”
“Besides, I want some too. I’ll share. You get it next time. Yeah?”
He didn’t shake his head or roll his eyes or call her “poor thing.” She saw nothing malicious in his eyes but still felt uncomfortable. Why had he paid? What did he want from her?
Tisha looped an arm through hers and whispered, “It’s no big deal. We do this all the time. Don’t read anything into it.” She turned to the other girls. “Who’s ready to decorate a room?”
They all hopped and whooped in excitement, then led her to a stall with fabrics and handicrafts. Immediately, a piece decorated with a peacock jumped out at her. “Oh, wow. I love this.” She pinched the fabric between thumb and forefinger and admired the work. Gold thread embroidery and sequins accented the peacock print. Olivia, do we really need that? She let go and tucked her hands behind her back, embarrassed. “But I don’t need it.”
“This type of dye work originated here in India,” Delilah told her. “This is stamped on and then embellished with the hand stitching.”
A homemade piece of unique artwork like this? She’d never be able to afford it. She cast one last glance over her shoulder before moving on to find some simple bedding in her price range. Something less frivolous.
“Hold up,” Melanie said. “I thought you liked this one?”
“I love it but—”
“How much?” Melanie asked the vendor.
“It’s okay,” Olivia protested again. “Really. It’s much too nice. I don’t need it.”
The vendor sized them up, eyes gleaming. “Two hundred forty rupee.”
Olivia stared at him, incredulous, quickly working the math from rupees to dollars. That couldn’t be right. She worked it again. And again. Roughly four dollars. Four dollars?
She reached for her money, feeling like a thief, but unable to resist. Better to pay and walk away before he realized his egregious error.
The others moved to intercede as she extracted two hundred-rupee notes and two twenty-rupee notes and held them out, waiting for the vendor to come to his senses but hoping he didn’t. The vendor frowned and seemed startled. He eyed her warily, mirroring the look on her own face, she suspected. He took the money and handed her a folded bedcover.
Beaming, she started to walk away with her treasure, but the vendor called after her, “Lady!”
She cringed. He’d realized his mistake. And now she would be stuck paying the true cost, whatever that turned out to be. Scott’s disapproval welled up inside her, pointing out a smart person would have given this more thought and not bought on impulse. She shook her head, annoyed that Scott still managed to insert himself into her life after walking out of it. Oh, well. It’s beautiful, and I want it. For once in her life, she would splurge on something for herself and to hell with it.
She turned back. He gestured to the stall.
She shook her head. “I don’t . . .”
He tipped his head and gestured again.
She looked to her own group, desperate for some guidance and hoping they could offer it.
Chris’s smile, which she was starting to suspect was a permanent fixture on his face, combined with the look in his eyes, told her she’d messed up, though she didn’t know how. Tisha’s face conveyed sympathy while the other girls either giggled or covered their mouths to hide their reactions. Why did she always screw up the simplest things? Scott must have been right. It was better for him to make decisions.
“Let me guess,” Melanie finally said. “You didn’t read about haggling either.”
“What?”
“You overpaid, girl,” Tisha told her. “By a lot.”
“He’s telling you to come pick out something else,” Chris said. “Something more to make up the difference.”
“That’s highly unusual,” Aubra said, “so don’t expect it to happen again.”
“We’re foreigners, and very obviously so,” Delilah said, her Southern twang heavy. “Nothing has a price tag. Brace yourself to haggle. Opening price for a foreigner is at least twice what they really want. At least.”
“And the price they want from us is still inflated,” Chris said. “Like back at the fruit stand. He probably would have settled for one hundred twenty, without hesitating. But a local would pay more like ninety rupees. You can always send Ms. Vanya to shop for you once you’ve gotten the hang of it and know what you want. She tells the vendors what the price is going to be, not the other way around.”
All five of them broke into hearty laughter. She felt like an utter fool. Her heart sank. “I’m sorry you overpaid at the fruit stand. I’ll pay you back.”
He held up a hand. “I wouldn’t think of it. Besides, the fruit looked extra fresh. Worth it.”
“You surprised him when you handed over his first asking price,” Melanie said. “He didn’t know how to react.”
Tisha threw an arm around her shoulder. “It’s an acquired skill. We all overpaid the first few times we shopped. It’s a rite of passage.”
“And honestly,” Delilah added, “if you’re happy with the price and feel like you’re getting a good deal, who cares? Like you said, it’s cheap compared to back home no matter what.”
“You just don’t want to set yourself up as a clueless rube,” Melanie said. “That’s all. Haggle a little bit at least so you don’t look like an easy mark.”
“Be glad you got an honest vendor your first time who doesn’t want to take advantage of you,” Aubra said.
She considered this new information, processing as best she could. “But . . . it only cost four dollars. This is worth so much more than that. I thought he was calling me back to charge more.”
“In the States it’s worth more than that,” Chris said. “But here in India, entire families live on a few dollars a week. The truly impoverished scrape by on a dollar a month.”
“A dollar a—” She stared at the vendor. “How? How can they possibly?”
“We can discuss economics at dinner tonight,” Tisha suggested, taking her by the shoulder and steering her forward. “For now, choose some more bedding. You’re scaring this poor man.”