Probably to stop people from stealing the carpets, thought Eram.

‘Whoa,’ he said. He spoke in hushed tones because some places make you want to mind your manners. He suspected that even the maroon shirt he was wearing was too loud for this place. ‘How come you don’t live here? If I was you, I’d live here all the time. Like, here, in the lobby. I wouldn’t even go up to the apartments or anything.’

Gehna snorted. ‘It’s a package deal that comes with my parents. You’re welcome to it.’

In the elevator, she explained that her father was a partner in a major construction company. He owned this building. Her parents had leased the first two floors out and converted the top two into a duplex for their own use.

‘Katrina Kaif lives on the first floor,’ she said.

‘Yo, what,’ Eram wasn’t crazy about Bollywood movies, which he suffered through once a month when he took his father to the cinema, but like everyone else in Mumbai he was crazy for Bollywood’s movie stars. ‘Let’s go to hers for dinner instead. Tell the ’rents something big came up. She’s quite hot, no?’

Gehna felt a swirl of jealousy enter her bloodstream. She told herself she was being ridiculous. I’ve known him for all of like forty-five seconds and I’m losing it because he thinks some fantasy sex kitten is hot. So what? Everyone thinks she’s hot. Even I think she’s hot. I wonder if I’m getting fat already.

She turned to one side and checked herself out in the gilded mirror. No baby bump yet. She didn’t totally hate what she saw. Behind her, Eram liked what she saw too.

‘Nice,’ he said.

‘“Nice”?’ Gehna sighed. ‘Damned by faint praise. Whatever happened to gorgeous, adorable, sexy, smashing, captivating, enchanting . . . um . . .’

‘Stunning?’

‘Yes, thanks. You too. I mean, I don’t know. Can boys be stunning? I’ve never been stunned by a boy. Cute, sure, lots of guys are cute but—’

Her nervous babble was interrupted by a loud ding. They had arrived.

The elevator doors opened directly into the apartment, and such an apartment it was. Even Eram, whose idea of interior decoration extended to changing the tablecloth once a month, could see that somebody had put a lot of thought and effort into it. It looked like a centrefold straight out of Architectural Digest, with accent walls and pedestal lamps and glass hanging planters. A butsudan, the Buddhist altars that were trending all over the city, in one corner of the large living room blended in tastefully with the otherwise contemporary design.

Classical music was playing on hidden speakers, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around.

‘Whoa,’ Eram said.

Gehna kicked her shoes off. ‘You say that a lot.’

‘Sorry. I’m easily awed.’

A barefoot Nepalese woman appeared seemingly out of thin air and padded up to them. Her long hair was tied in a neat bun and she was wearing crisply ironed beige pyjamas and a shirt, the sort of outfit that spa therapists wore.