“This promotion would give me a very respectable income,” Mahesh said. “Six figures. With that and a green card, I’ll have no trouble finding a wife.”
“Wife?” Baldev cried. “What about us?” He leaned back in his chair and slapped his chest with both hands. “You’re only twenty-five. Live it up while you can. So many beautiful women in America. All shades of skin, all colors of hair, all shapes and sizes. Why not sample a bit and see what you like?”
Mahesh looked as if he’d bitten a lemon. “I don’t need to sample, I already know what I want. A petite, fair-skinned, well-educated, vegetarian Lohana Gujarati girl.”
“From a good family,” Anil added.
“Of course.” Mahesh nodded.
Anil drained his pint glass of beer and slapped the wooden table. “Well, I’m going to do it,” he announced. “I’m going to ask her out.”
“Amber?” Baldev reached over and pounded Anil on the back. “That’s my man!”
“Amber, the neighbor girl? Why?” Mahesh sipped from the straw in an oversized red Coca-Cola cup. “What’s the point?”
Anil shared a smile with Baldev, who raised his eyebrows a few times. Mahesh was still thinking of propriety and his parents back home composing his matrimonial ad. Anil knew he could be sent home from Parkview in a few months, the American dream pulled right out from under him. He felt an urgency, almost a desperation, to yank it back before it escaped his grasp. Baldev was right—this was the land of opportunity in all things, including women. Why not partake in the offerings while he was here? Why not enjoy himself, for once in his life?
THE DATE with Amber was two weeks later on a Friday night. Anil worked feverishly all day and traded favors with two other interns to ensure he could leave the hospital by six o’clock. He’d made a reservation at a restaurant he’d heard Trey and his friends discussing as the perfect date spot.
When Anil and Amber arrived at Daniele Osteria, they were directed to an obscure basement entrance and passed through a sweeping black curtain. Once his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Anil understood what Trey had meant. The dining room held only a dozen small tables, around which couples were closely huddled. Candles encased in red glass created a soft glow, which illuminated diners’ faces and little else. The hospital ward at night was brighter than this restaurant.
Amber said she preferred white wine, so Anil struggled with the thick leather wine list, organized by country and varietal rather than by color. The waiter, a short bald man with a dark moustache and strong accent, tapped his pen impatiently while Anil flipped back and forth through the pages, trying to find the right section and something remotely affordable.
“Can we get some garlic bread?” Amber asked.
“No, madam.” The waiter chuckled and shook his head. “Not possible.”
Anil leaned toward him. “Surely you can make some garlic bread?”
The couple at the next table looked over. “It’s okay,” Amber whispered to Anil.
“No garlic bread,” the waiter repeated. “Only authentic Italian cuisine.” He joined the fingertips of his right hand, touched them to his mouth, and kissed them before turning away.
Anil turned to Amber. “I’m sorry—”
“No—really, it’s okay.” Amber’s cheeks were reddened, the effect accentuated by the candlelight. “It’s better anyway. I really shouldn’t be eating refined carbs.”
A couple of awkward moments passed while Anil tried to focus on the wine list again. In frustration, he put it down on the table. “I mean, what kind of Italian restaurant doesn’t serve garlic bread?” he said, louder than intended.
Amber tried to suppress a giggle but couldn’t. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter, and the effort to do so was so ridiculous, soon Anil was laughing with her. A few more patrons in the restaurant looked over at them.
When the waiter disappeared into the kitchen, Anil leaned close to Amber. “Hey, you want to get out of here?” Still covering her mouth, Amber nodded. They slid out of the leather booth and snuck out of the restaurant.
In the parking lot, they both finally burst into unrestrained laughter. “I mean, even Olive Garden has garlic bread!” Anil was bent over, his hands on his knees. “Oh no,” he said in a mock Italian accent, “we only serve authentic Italian cuisine.” He kissed his fingertips and released them to the sky in a dramatic gesture.
Once they’d calmed down and caught their breath, he led Amber back toward the car and held open the door for her. “Now, let’s go find some place real.”
THIRTY MINUTES later, they were parked on a quiet overpass over the major freeway dividing the city of Dallas into east and west. They sat on top of the hood of Anil’s car, eating burritos from a local taqueria, while a steady stream of cars raced below them.
“See?” Amber pointed out a set of headlights coming toward them with dangerous velocity. “You can tell by the shape of them. That’s a Ford F-150.”
“Wow, you have a real talent for this.” Anil peeled down the foil wrapper of his bean-and-cheese special.
Amber shrugged. “My brothers and I did this a lot as kids. Except it was a dusty country road instead of a big freeway, so we had to wait a long time in between cars.” She described the East Texas ranch where she’d grown up, with its horses and cattle. Amber spoke about her father and brothers, who were avid hunters (deer in the fall, quail in the spring), and how she’d spent hours in the kitchen with her mother. “Momma is a great cook, at least when it comes to frying. She makes the best fried chicken, fried okra, hush puppies. Believe it or not, that was my favorite meal growing up—three different fried foods on one plate.” She shook her head. “You can see how she ended up the way she did.”
“Does she have her diabetes under control now?” Anil asked.
“She usually remembers her insulin, but she’s lost some vision in one eye, and her kidneys are weak.” Amber stared out at the oncoming traffic, her face alternately illuminated and darkened by the glare of headlights. As he watched her, Anil was struck once again by the innumerable forms the human body could take: how the simple features of eyes, cheekbones, nose, chin, and mouth could be arranged so many different ways to create a face—one plain, another beautiful. When he’d first started observing surgeries in Ahmadabad, it was reassuring to concentrate on these commonalities of the human body. Whether the patient was an elderly woman or a young boy, rich or poor, regardless of caste or religion—below the layers of skin, fatty tissue, and muscle—everyone had the same organs arranged in the same way.
He pulled another beer bottle from the paper bag, twisted off the cap, and offered it to her. “And the rest of your family?”
“Daddy has high cholesterol, but he still eats his fried eggs and bacon every day.” Amber shrugged. “They’re pretty much all like that. My little brother’s twenty-two and he’s already prediabetic. All he keeps in his trailer are doughnuts, beer, and soda.” She shook her head. “Ten years old—that’s when I made up my mind, after I found Momma on the bathroom floor. I was not going to end up like her. My school had three sports teams for girls, and I joined them all. I guess that’s when I became a fitness nut, as Momma calls me.”
“And you still are.”
Amber nodded. “I love being a personal trainer, helping people lead healthier lives. Not the way you do, of course. I’m not saving any lives.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Anil said. “It’s hard to get people to change their lifestyle. I have this conversation with patients every day—get more exercise, eat a better diet, quit smoking.” He shrugged. “Most of them never change, and there’s not much I can do.” This was an oddity about America he’d noticed—the fitness equipment commercials on TV at all hours, the exercise gyms in every strip mall, a whole industry dedicated to keeping people healthy. And yet, most of his patients suffered from obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes: a parade of ailments brought on by the excesses of the Western lifestyle. “It’s hard t
o break those family habits,” he said.
Amber took a long drink of her beer and exhaled. “That’s for sure. My family thinks I’m crazy for moving here. Most of my friends stayed in East Texas to start families. Momma was worried about me moving to Dallas. She thinks big cities are full of bad things and bad people.” Anil noticed her jaw tighten. “They don’t get it—I can work in a world-class fitness center here and take nutrition classes at night. I can’t do any of that in Ashford.” She pointed at another set of headlights. “See that one? Ram pickup.” She sighed. “And the worst part? My mom was kind of right. It has been hard for me here. I feel like I’m on my own a lot of the time. But I can’t tell my family that, because they’re expecting me to give up and come home.” She tilted the bottle up to her lips, then put it down and spoke instead. “It’s just so different here. I feel so out of place sometimes, like I don’t know the rules.”
“Like asking for garlic bread in a swanky Italian restaurant?” Anil said.
“Exactly.” Amber laughed. They toasted with their beer bottles and both took a drink.
“I feel the same way,” Anil said. “I mean, this is a new country for me, of course. But even at the hospital, which should be familiar—even there, I feel like I’m missing something everyone else seems to know.”
“Yeah.” Amber nodded. They drank their beers and identified a few more sets of headlights. “So,” she said, “your turn. Tell me about where you’re from.”
“Ah, well, I’m from a very small village,” Anil said, “more than a hundred kilometers, or . . . about seventy-five miles, from the nearest city, Ahmadabad, which you probably haven’t heard of.”
Amber shook her head and smiled. “So, I guess that means you’re kind of country too.” The moment seemed right to lean over and kiss her, but as Anil was summoning up the nerve, a car horn blared on the freeway below.
At the end of the evening, they agreed to go for a run by the lake on Anil’s next day off. In the intervening week, Anil revisited his medical textbooks to refresh his academic knowledge of female anatomy, and borrowed some of Baldev’s naughty movies to fill in the practical details he was determined to put to use.
THE FIRST step, Amber announced after seeing his old sneakers, was to go shopping. In under an hour, she had Anil fully outfitted: new shoes with shock absorbers and contoured insoles, a moisture-wicking shirt, shorts made from recycled plastic bottles, even new lightweight socks. Anil stood in the fitting room staring at the transformed image of himself in shades of gray and electric blue, all of which would collectively cost him half a month’s rent. He admired himself from different angles, seeing himself as Amber might, and left the store in the new outfit, carrying his old clothes in the shopping bag.
They drove to White Rock Lake, on the east side of Dallas, the opposite end of town from where they lived. Beautiful mansions graced the perimeter of the lake, each of them set back from the road by a vast expanse of manicured lawn. It was a perfect day for running outdoors, sunny and clear, but not too hot yet. As they walked toward the paved path encircling the lake, the immensity of White Rock came into view.
“Wow.” Anil stopped, taking it in. Crystal blue water stretched out before them, interrupted only in the far distance by several narrow docks. Water birds grazed on reeds just a few feet from the path.
“Isn’t it beautiful? Even if it is man-made,” Amber said. “It’s nine miles around.” She stood on one leg, grabbing her other foot behind her. “But don’t worry, we don’t have to run the whole thing. Not today anyway.” She smiled and pulled a device from her pocket. “I’ll even give you an edge, my iPod.” She then raised Anil’s shirt sleeve and wound a Velcro strap around his upper arm, fixing it in place. “Ready?”
As the pulsing music filled his head, Anil pushed forward to keep pace with the rhythm. He marveled at the minuscule device on his arm that allowed him to run in his own world, immersed in music from hers. As they passed the magnificent houses, he imagined how each one looked inside, picturing himself in the tall foyers, climbing the grand stairways.
Anil lasted for only three miles at Amber’s pace, and one more at a slow jog. He collapsed in the shade of a large tree, breathing heavily and layered in a thin film of sweat. He felt the same exhilaration he remembered feeling running through the fields as a child, the burning in his lungs and the wind in his face. Only, back home, he ran in bare feet—no shock absorbers, and certainly no iPod.
“Anil, I want to thank you.” Amber sat upright beside him, breathing normally.
He squinted at her from his place in the grass. “For what, slowing you down?”
She smiled. “For being a gentleman. Most guys would have been all over me by now, and you haven’t even kissed me yet. I feel like you’re interested in really getting to know me. It’s nice, for a change.” She smiled, turning back to the lake.
Anil sat up, his heart and breath not yet back to their normal pace, his head swirling with dehydration and the possibility of what was about to happen. Emboldened, he reached his arm around Amber’s shoulder, appreciating her beauty as she continued to gaze out at the lake. Gently, he turned her face toward him, leaned in, and kissed her. It was a moment he’d pictured many times, but he’d never imagined it would take place outdoors in public, both of them covered in sweat. When their lips parted, he smiled. “Sorry. Am I no longer a gentleman?”
“Hmm, not sure.” Amber smiled. “Let me think about it.” She leaned in and kissed him again, and this time it lasted for quite a while.
Afterward, they lay back in the grass, Amber’s head resting on Anil’s chest. Anil watched the leaves rustling overhead in the light breeze as slivers of sun warmed his legs. It was the happiest he’d been in the eight months since he’d moved to Dallas. The rest of his internship year still loomed before him, but he could begin to envision a life beyond his residency: a specialty private practice that afforded him one of these beautiful homes, running around the lake in the morning with Amber, living to his own soundtrack.
AFTER THAT day at the lake, which turned into the first night they spent together, Anil and Amber slipped into a pattern of seeing each other whenever their schedules allowed. His night shifts and her early-morning training sessions made it challenging, but at least once or twice a week they spent the night together at Amber’s apartment, a precious few hours that more prudently should have been spent on sleep. Amber did not seem to mind Anil’s inexperience; indeed, she enjoyed their slow mutual exploration, and Anil appreciated that she never made him feel self-conscious. Even when he came home from the hospital exhausted, Anil had energy for her, to explore the contours of her body and to release into the pleasure of her company. She re-energized him and propelled him through another day or two, or five, until he could see her again. The thought of seeing Amber at night sustained him through day after grueling day at the hospital.
“I love hearing you talk about your work,” Amber said to Anil once.
“You mean, the way I complain about it all the time?” Anil said.
“I mean, your dedication to it. The way you think of it not just as a job but as a calling.” She took his hands. “You’re different, Anil. You’re different from almost everyone I’ve ever known, the way you take life seriously, the way you believe in achieving something great.”
Anil shrugged, self-conscious about his ambition. “Everyone in medical college was like that. It’s so competitive. You need confidence to get through.”
“I never really considered going to college.” Amber fiddled with the hem of her nightshirt, and he could see she was embarrassed. “Hardly anyone in Ashford does. Maybe a star football player every couple of years. By the time I thought about it, it was too late.”
“It’s not too late. You can still go, if you want,” Anil said.
“Anil, come on. I barely have a high school diploma from a third-rate school in East Texas. No one in my family has ever been to college.”
“So? I’m from a tiny village
halfway across the world. No one in my family ever went to college, before me.”
Amber’s expression morphed into something softer. “Really, you think I could?”
“Yes, of course. You’re smart, you work hard. You have an innate curiosity about human physiology and nutrition. There’s no reason you can’t go to college and earn a degree.” When Amber looked down, Anil asked, “What? Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” She shook her head and looked up at him with watery eyes. “It’s just . . . no one’s ever said that to me before. Not my parents, not my teachers.”
Anil reached over and grabbed her hands. “Well, you’ll just have to show them.”
Amber began to look into undergraduate programs at local universities, and Anil loved seeing her confidence bud as thick application packets arrived over the following weeks.
As the morbidity and mortality conference approached, Anil grew anxious about the presentation of Jason Calhoun’s case. When he couldn’t sleep at night, Amber listened patiently, without question or judgment, to his recounting of the events. Somehow, Amber was able to look past his failings to some good and strong inner core she alone seemed able to see. It was during that dark period that Anil knew, with a certainty he hadn’t felt about anything since coming to America, he was in love with her.
He told her so, one Sunday morning as they lay together in her bed after making love, a term he finally, truly understood. A draft came through the open window and Amber reached for her clothes on the floor, but Anil held her tightly in his arms until she relaxed into his embrace. It was a spontaneous declaration of love, whispered in her ear, and he immediately worried it was too hasty, coming just a few months after they’d started dating. But Amber, her eyes glistening, told him she loved him too.
When they were like this, the two of them alone in the world, no one else mattered and all his troubles receded to the background. Anil imagined this life with Amber stretching into the future, the protected universe of their love rendering the rest of the world irrelevant.