Rearranged

BOOK 1: PICTURES

A flame on the counter flickered, offering Neha a way out. She poked the corner of the airmail envelope forward, then backed away.

Too risky, Neha thought, tucking the envelope under her arm. She grabbed Jenny by the hand and pulled her to the back of the sari shop. It was time for a break, and the arrival of her latest match was the perfect excuse.

"We only have a few minutes before the wedding party gets here," she said, rushing passed the brown spray-painted mannequins. Their arms were a shade darker than Neha's, and chipping to reveal the white plaster underneath. Lately, Neha believed her mother preferred these hollow figures to her living, breathing daughter.

Her mother's head was down, buzzing a staccato rhythm on her sewing machine, keeping time with the Bollywood soundtrack pumped into the shop.

When they reached the storage room, Neha plopped on the floor and pulled out a picture of a man at least twice her age. Her sweaty thighs stuck to the concrete.

"What's that smell?" Jenny asked, sniffing the open envelope. She fell back into a pile of saris, her red hair finishing where the embroidery dropped off.

"India." Neha took in the familiar scent - dirt and kerosene, laced with sandalwood. It used to be comforting, before the first picture arrived.

"How many is that now?" Jenny asked.

"Twenty-three."

Jenny applauded. "Congratulations. Twenty-three proposals in two months. That's gotta be a world record. Do they keep stats on falling in love?"

A bang from the front brought Neha to her feet. Her mother was beating the air conditioner into submission again. Neha spotted the red sindoor in the part of her mother's hair, the mark of a married Indian woman. She ran her shaky fingers through her long black hair and sat back down.

"You know this isn't about falling in love," Neha said. "This is about the aunties in India with nothing to do, and Mummy and Papa letting them have their fun."

The words sounded more convincing out loud than racing around Neha's head.

"It's not like here. Falling in love is like the national pastime in America." Neha picked her nail polish, a nervous habit. "It's everywhere – music, magazines, movies..."

"If you call that falling in love."

"Well, some of us do."

Jenny grunted. Neha knew what that meant. Jenny had never been the romantic type, but when her father walked out, he took any shred of sentimentality she had left.

Neha crawled over to a dented file cabinet and opened the bottom drawer. It was full of headshots, some decorated with white-out highlights, others with lipstick lips and poked out eyes.

"Beti! Jenny!" her mother called.

Neha's head jerked like a fish caught on her mother's line. "We better get back to work," she said, dropping the picture into the file cabinet.

In seconds her mother was looming over them, her squared shoulders unsoftened by the pale blue sari gracefully wrapped around her.

"Chullo," she ordered. "Wedding party here. We need good sale. Bring boxes from back. Jaldi. Jaldi." She clapped and the girls hopped to their feet.

Each one carried a cardboard box of saris from the storage room into the shop. Jenny leaned over hers and whispered, "You've gotta find out what's going on with these postal proposals."