Something in her gaze—some entreaty, some promise, some threat—makes Divya drop her eyes and nod yes.

Seema takes her by the hand, flits a quick kiss on her cheek—a first—a reward. “Excuse us, gentlemen,” she says, a triumphant smile further subduing the circling men, “but we have to go.”

She leads Divya out of the circle, who follows her meekly, her previous light-headedness replaced by a nervous tripping across the room. Seema steadies her, conscious of all the eyes in the room on them. She holds on to Divya’s hand while they wait for their coats: trophy, security.

“Seema, what’s going on?” Divya asks, when the elevator doors close, leaving them alone together. Her voice rasps, breaks.

In reply, Seema takes Divya in her arms, tilts her face toward hers in preparation for a kiss. Divya pulls back, pointing to the security camera at the upper right corner, but there’s no mistaking her trembling hand, her shallow breathing, her quivering body.

Seema thrills: between the security camera’s silvered lens and the elevator’s gilded mirror, here too are more reflected visions, like the trick cinematography so beloved of Indian movies. She pulls Divya toward herself, presses her lips to Divya’s ear in a whisper—Pyar kiya toh darna kya?—then plants them on Divya’s lips. Whether Divya recognizes the allusion to Anarkali or not, she sighs, allowing her lips to open, Seema’s tongue to find hers.

She should have dared to kiss Divya upstairs, in the penthouse, in full view of all its entitled men, this same way, if only to suck the air out of that ponderous room.

In the lobby Divya asks, “What now?” She suggests—diffidently still—that she spend the night at Seema’s place, since she’s too drunk to drive back home to the South Bay.

Seema recalls she’d told Divya earlier that Bill had chosen to remain in Reno, to explain why she accepted the invitation to the party. A momentary hesitation, confusion, thinking of Bill waiting at home for her, then she says, “No, let’s get a room nearby.”

25

It takes Seema another year to decide to separate from Bill. During that time Bill’s desire for a child hardens to a demand. Seema asks for some time apart to ponder the matter, away from the charged context of their home, and Bill agrees.

But is it merely chance, or fate, that when they get together on the eve of a more final dissolution they come to conceive me?

Consider: Before returning one last time to her home with Bill, Seema has chosen to have her IUD removed, despite its considerable alleviation of her menstrual suffering, despite the protection it provided from the consequences of unplanned nights like the one in Iowa that resulted in her miscarriage. And that final coupling in the fog—