He snarled, savagely. “Don’t fuck with me.” His arm shifted. The jacket rode up his back. And I saw for sure this time that it was not a cell phone holster but a goddamn gun.

One hand formed into a fist and he raised it above me. The other jerked backward, heel nudging the handle of the weapon.

“Lord almighty!”

The squeal belonged to Linda, who grabbed Minkus by the collar with surprising strength. “Sir, we do not want to have to ask you to leave…”

A small circle of people had gathered around me. Prachi’s hand rested on my head. I saw Anita’s black heels. I held my fists steady, afraid to let slip what I had grabbed. A few earring backs poked my palms. The silkiness of at least one ring and possibly a pendant. I stood, shoved my hands, and the gold, in my back pocket. By the time Minkus Jhaveri had shunted Linda aside, I was already apologizing, straightening his cart.

At last I saw Anita. She was walking to the fashion show to join DJ Jai Zee. She didn’t nod, smile, or pretend at concern. That vision I’d had of her here and there, in the days leading up to the expo—gold slicking her lips before she brought them to mine—went out, like a light suddenly cut.

I reached a point of clarity as I heard her voice reciting the names of the fashion show sponsors over the loudspeaker before DJ Jai Zee ignited the soundtrack, thumping Goa trance.

It was all for her mother. She didn’t think I could be trusted. She thought I was smaller than the sum of my lusts.

“We’d better get to that raffle, Prachi,” I muttered. I didn’t dare look at Minkus, who was still being scolded by Linda.

“Now, I told her she’d better hire a security firm, sir,” she was saying, “but I am only too happy to escort you out, I will not have this behavior, I don’t know how you people do things.”

A swell of voices intervened, some woke ABCD suggesting Linda ought not use that phrase, you people; a fobby uncle addressing Minkus, “Mr. Jhaveri, do not make us look so bad, like this only people will think Indians are trampling on each other, sets very bad reputation.”

Freed by the nosy, gossipy horde, Prachi and I arrived at the packed fashion show. The Jhaveri gold prodded me through my jeans but I didn’t dare transfer it to my bag. Anita stood on the raised platform while DJ Jai Zee polished his sunglasses on a bright red mesh Adidas T-shirt. Beneath, he wore ’90s Reebok track pants, white stripes on black. His hair was buzzed. His chin dimpled. He was grinning at Anita lasciviously.

“So hot,” a girl behind me whispered.