The Direction of the Wind: A Novel(46)

As she walks past the small office where Naresh Uncle is working, she sees him poring over ledgers with his head in his hands. His expression is pained.

“Is something wrong, Uncle?” she asks, wiping her hands on her apron as she stands in the doorway.

He forces a smile and looks up at her. “No, Sophie. Nothing to worry.”

She sees a stack of bills next to him and knows the finances of a small restaurant like Taj Palace must be difficult. The place is rarely full of guests, and Indian food doesn’t seem to be that popular with the locals, as they don’t get many delivery orders either. She knows Naresh Uncle has had the restaurant for many years, so she assumed they had worked out a system, but she sees the worry on Naresh Uncle’s face, and it is unmistakable. She has seen that look on countless clients of her accounting firm. She has helped restaurant owners in India rebudget their money to have the right ratio between food costs, labor, and marketing. Taj Palace has very little in the way of true labor costs, save Sophie, and she feels guilty knowing she is taking money from Naresh Uncle when it seems he has very little to give.

She considers the best way to offer some advice or help without insulting him but doesn’t see a good opportunity now, so she moves back to her place in the kitchen and starts making mental notes of where the money in the restaurant is allocated. As she moves through the kitchen, she thinks about how much food in the pantry is wasted due to spoilage. She thinks about the cost of the menu items and how they compare to the portion sizes. Naresh Uncle’s portions are quite generous, and the patrons of the restaurant leave a lot of food waste. She suspects that would be an easy fix to increase profitability. She thinks through the number of menu items and knows many are hardly ever ordered but require ingredients on hand in case they are.

While she and Manoj are working, she asks him, “Does your papa handle all of the finances for the restaurant?”

He looks at her skeptically. “Why are you asking?”

“I was just curious. My work in India was accounting, and I wonder if he might need some help. Restaurants were my area of expertise.”

“I doubt it,” Manoj says, and turns back to pureeing the toor lentils for the dal.

Sophie drops it, but his expression confirms that the restaurant is in trouble. She will think about how to raise her offer to Naresh Uncle in a respectful manner. For right now, she is focused on the clock and getting to ten thirty so she can leave and still get to Bistro Laurent before eleven.





28


NITA


1999


Mathieu made eye contact with Nita while his face was buried between the woman’s legs. His expression was steely, registering no emotion whatsoever in seeing her standing there.

Stunned, Nita dropped the bottle of Bordeaux. It made a thud as the thick glass hit the wooden floor. Only then did the tattooed woman open her eyes and realize that another person had entered the room. She didn’t flinch, as if it were not her first time being caught in bed by another woman. She turned toward Mathieu to see how he was reacting, and he eventually rose to his knees, his flaccid penis now visible to both women. Nita knew that meant he had already satisfied himself in this woman and was giving her the “encore.” Nita hadn’t experienced the “encore” in a very long time because lately his sexual appetite had been focused wholly on himself. The woman propped herself up on her elbows, seemingly annoyed that they’d been interrupted before she’d finished.

Mathieu’s lips glistened, and he didn’t even attempt to wipe his mouth. “I thought you’d be home later.” He reached for the cigarette and lighter that were on top of the nightstand near the bed.

Nita clutched the doorframe, feeling faint.

Mathieu lit the cigarette and let it dangle from his lips. He pulled the woman to a sitting position.

“Je pense que tu devrais partir.” I think you should go.

The woman climbed out of the bed and pulled black leggings over her long skinny legs. She then threw an oversize sweater over her top. She hadn’t bothered to put on her bra or panties and shoved them into her bag. She then reached into a small pocket in her purse and pulled out a clear bag containing white pills. She handed them to Mathieu and actually kissed him before scurrying past Nita and letting herself out of the apartment. Nita wondered if the woman could taste herself on his lips.

The entire exchange from the time Nita opened the bedroom door until the woman left had probably been no more than three minutes, but Nita felt as if hours had passed. Her legs felt stuck to the floor as if they had been cemented there.

Mathieu tucked the plastic bag with the pills into the drawer of the nightstand and inhaled deeply from his cigarette, his cheeks sunken as he held the smoke in for a few seconds before slowly releasing it. He used a tissue to wipe himself and then wadded it up and tossed it onto the nightstand before pulling up his underwear and then climbing into a pair of jeans that he’d picked up from the floor.

He walked toward Nita, but she still could not move her limbs or utter a word. As he neared her, she saw that his eyes were bloodshot, and she knew he was fading off his high from whatever pill he had taken earlier that day. Kneeling before her, he picked up the wine bottle and eyed the label.

“This is a nice one,” he said while being careful not to drop the cigarette from his lips.

He moved past her into the kitchen, opened a drawer, and pulled out a corkscrew.