Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 17: After the Show

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 17: After the Show · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My Playful Wife, Episode 17, After the Show,
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written by Mia. The evening after the show had
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a different quality from any evening I can clearly
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remember, and I have been trying since to name
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the quality, and the nearest I can come is this.
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It felt like the air after rain, when the thing
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that has been building for hours has finally
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happened and the world is left rinsed and quiet
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and slightly stunned by its own relief. The show
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went on for a long time after Selenide came out.
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These things do not end. They dissolve. The structured
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part. The pieces, the reveal, the turning of
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the room toward the woman who had made it gave
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way to the unstructured part, the part that is
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really the point where buyers find the maker
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and press find the angle and the beautiful objects
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begin their slow conversion into the practical
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fact of a business that can go on existing. I
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stood at the edge of it and let it happen around
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me. I am good now at the edge of rooms. It is
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where I have done my best living this year. Kaveri
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found me before we left. She came out of the
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crowd with the specific expression of a woman
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who has made a successful bet and is permitting
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herself, briefly, to enjoy it. Well, she said.
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I told you. You told me. I agreed. Everything,
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she said. Every piece. I have a waiting list
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now for things that don't exist yet. Do you understand
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what that is? That's the only real luxury, not
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the thing, the wait for the thing. She looked
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across the room to where Celonie stood, hemmed
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in by people, holding her own. She doesn't know
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yet how good tonight was. She's too far inside
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it. You'll have to tell her later, when she comes
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back out to where the rest of us live. Tell her
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I said it was the best first collection I've
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shown in 20 years. Tell her I don't say that.
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I'll tell her, I said. And the rose won, Kaveri
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said. She paused, and something moved in her
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hard, precise face, something that was almost
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tenderness and was certainly respect. I'll tell
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you about the rose won when she's ready to hear
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it. Not tonight. Tonight she should just be tired
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and happy. Take her home. We walked home. The
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boutique was close enough to walk on a spring
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night, and neither of us had thought to arrange
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anything otherwise. The cars and the autos were
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for other people. On this night, people with
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somewhere to be. We had nowhere to be except
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the slow distance between the show and our bed.
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And we took it on foot, and I have been grateful
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since that we did, because some conversations
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can only happen while walking in the dark, side
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by side, not looking at each other. The walk
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made the conversation possible. The conversation
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could not have survived a table and two chairs
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and the obligation of a face. Saloni carried
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her shoes in her hand. She had taken them off
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somewhere between the bungalow gate and the lane,
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the way she does when an evening is finally hers
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again, and she walked the warm pavement barefoot
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with the shoes hooked on two fingers, and the
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show was still in her, visible, a charge under
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the skin. She was quiet in the particular way
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she gets quiet after large things, not withdrawn,
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not absent, but turned inward, processing. the
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work of metabolizing a big night happening somewhere
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behind her eyes. I didn't speak. I had learned
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the difference this year between the silence
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that wants company and the silence that wants
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to be left to do its work, and this was the second
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kind, and I let it work. At one point she reached
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over and took my arm. Not my hand, my arm, looping
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hers through it. drawing herself in against my
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side as we walked. It is a small thing to record,
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and it was not a small thing to receive, because
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she almost never does it. She is not, by reflex,
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a woman who hangs on a man's arm. It is the gesture
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of a person who wants to be physically connected
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to something solid while the inside of her is
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busy elsewhere, and she gave it to me, chose
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me to be the solid thing, and I adjusted my pace
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to hers and let her lean and said nothing and
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felt, Walking, absurdly honored. We walked like
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that for a while. The city did its usual and
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different thing around us. The late traffic,
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the dogs, the shuttered shops and the one still
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open, the smell of somebody's late dinner, the
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enormous ordinary life of the place going on
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with no idea that a woman had unveiled a year
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of her soul a few lanes back. Cauvery sold everything.
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She said finally. I know, I said. She found me
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before we left. She wanted you told. I delivered
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the message the way it had been given to me.
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Plainly. The best first collection she's shown
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in 20 years. She said to tell you. She doesn't
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say that. Saloni was quiet. Her hand tightened
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on my arm. Fractionally. The rose one went to
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three buyers, she said, after a block. At the
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same time, three people wanted it, and there's
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only one of it, and Kaveri had to choose between
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them, which she said she hadn't had to do in
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years. A pause. She gave it to a woman from a
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metabot, not the one who offered most. The one
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who, when she touched it, she cried. Kaveri said
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she watched her touch it and start to cry, and
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that was the end of the auction. She said, you
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don't sell a thing like that to the highest bidder.
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You sell it to the one who weeps. I thought about
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the origin of that fabric. I let myself go all
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the way back to it, walking with my wife's arm
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through mine. The lane in Lajpatnagar almost
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a year and a half before. The three of us. Piyush
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still here, still ours, the trouble not yet arrived
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or arrived and not yet known, pressed together
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in the crush of one of those impossible market
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lanes where the crowd moves you whether you choose
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to move or not. Saloni had stopped at a stall,
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the crowd pushing at our backs, and reached up
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for a bolt of silk in that rose so deep it was
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almost the color of something ending, and I remember.
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I had forgotten it for a year, and the walk gave
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it back to me. I remember that in the press of
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the crowd, reaching up with one hand for the
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silk, she had reached back with the other, blindly,
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and found my hand and held it. Not a romantic
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gesture. A practical one. Don't lose me in this
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crowd. The unconscious reach of a wife for a
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husband in a press of strangers. But she had
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reached for me. In the exact moment she first
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touched the fabric that would become the center
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of her life's first real work, her other hand
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had been holding mine. I had not understood at
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the time that anything was being woven. You never
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do. You are only ever at the time in a crowd
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holding a hand, looking at a color. That's right,
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I said. That's who should have it. The one who
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weeps. She nodded against my shoulder. We walked
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another block in the dark. I keep thinking about
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what Kaveri said, she said, about the woman who
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cried. She said, she said the dress already knew
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what it was for, that she was just the one who
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carried it to its person. What do you mean? That
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things have their right destination, Saloni said
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slowly. Working it out in the open air, the way
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she works a problem out loud when she trusts
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the person beside her to let her be unfinished.
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That the fabric knew, the whole time, that it
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was for a woman in a medibod who would weep when
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she touched it. That everything before, the lane,
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the buying, the cutting, the year, was just the
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fabric traveling toward the person it was always
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going to belong to. She paused. I think that's
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true. Not just of the dress. I think it's true
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of everything. Everything. I said. She stopped
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walking. She turned and looked at me. Full on.
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The whole gaze. The one she gives only to things
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she means all the way down. The streetlight catching
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one side of her face and leaving the other in
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the warm dark. Everything, she said. And I understood
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what she was telling me under the cover of talking
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about a dress. She was telling me about the year,
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about all of it, the kitchen, the wound, the
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framework, the long, slow remaking of two people
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into the people who could walk home like this.
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She was telling me that she had come to believe
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it had a destination too, that we had been traveling
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the whole terrible, beautiful time toward this.
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toward a barefoot walk on a spring night with
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her arm through mine, and that the traveling,
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however it had felt while we were inside it,
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had been the fabric finding its person, that
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nothing had been wasted, that even the grief
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had been weaving. I did not say any of this.
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You do not say a thing like that out loud. You
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would crush it. I just held her gaze for a moment
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in the streetlight and let her see that I had
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received the whole of it. The dress and the not
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-dress both. We started walking again. Are you
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happy? I asked. She was quiet for a moment. Then,
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I'm something better than happy. I don't have
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a word for it. I smiled in the dark. She heard
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it somehow. You can hear a smile if you're close
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enough and quiet enough. You said something like
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that once, she said. Months ago. About being
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okay. You said you were something better than
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okay, and you didn't have a word for it. I meant
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it then, too, I said. I know. She leaned her
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head briefly against my shoulder as we walked.
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A moving version of the thing we did, still,
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on the balcony at night. We're the same. You
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and I. We keep finding the better thing. and
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not having the word for it. Two people walking
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around with a whole vocabulary of missing words.
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I thought about the kitchen, the bathroom window,
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the grill, the plastic stool in the dark. The
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framework I had built when no one would give
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me instructions. The whole long year of not having
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the words, of building a life out of feelings
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I couldn't name with a language that hadn't been
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invented for the situation I was in. Maybe that's
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good, I said. Maybe the things that don't have
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words yet are the only interesting ones. The
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minute a thing has a word, everyone thinks they
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understand it. They stop looking at it. Maybe
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we're lucky. Maybe not having the word is what
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keeps us looking. She laughed, a short surprised
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exhale in the dark. Dangerous, she said. I keep
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telling you. You've become dangerous. A year
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ago, you couldn't have said that, and now you
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say things like that on the street with your
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shoes off. My shoes are on, I pointed out. You're
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the one with no shoes. Details, she said. We
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turned the corner onto our street. The building
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stood at the far end of it, ordinary and ours.
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And you could see our balcony from here if you
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knew where to look. I knew where to look. The
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dark rectangle of it three floors up, the railing
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where we string the lights at Diwali, where we
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sit at night, where she leans her head on my
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shoulder and the city spreads out below us. It
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is not a beautiful building. It is the most beautiful
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building I know. Hungry, she said. Starving,
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I said. I was. We had both forgotten to eat.
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You forget, on the nights that matter. I'll make
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something, she said. She unhooked her arm from
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mine to find the keys in her bag, and the small
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loss of her weight against my side was its own
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small thing. Nothing complicated. Kitchdy. The
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two -in -the -morning kind. Yes, I said. Come
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home, she said. Though we were home, we're standing
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at the gate of home, and I understood that she
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did not mean the building. She meant the other
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thing, the portable thing, the one we carried
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around with us and made wherever we both were.
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Come home. As though home were a place you arrived
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at together, again, each night, by choosing to.
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We went up. She made the kichdi. The simple two
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-in -the -morning kind, standing at the stove
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still in the clothes she'd worn to her own triumph,
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and we ate it at the kitchen table at midnight
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with the window open, and the spring night coming
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in, and she told me, slowly, between mouthfuls,
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the parts of the evening I hadn't seen, what
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the buyer from Bombay had said, what Kaveri had
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whispered, the moment just before she went out
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when she'd been sure, absolutely sure. that the
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whole thing was a catastrophe and... She should
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call it off. I listened to all of it. I asked
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the real questions. I did not stop looking at
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her. Not once. Not for the whole telling. And
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somewhere in Delhi a woman from Ahmedabad was,
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I suppose, lying awake thinking about a rose
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-dark thing she would carry home in the morning.
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The dress arrived, finally, at its person. When
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the kichdi was gone we took the last of the chai
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out to the balcony. because the balcony is where
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we take the things that are too big for the kitchen.
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The spring night was warm and the colony was
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asleep, and the city, beyond it, kept up its
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low electric hum. She sat with her feet on the
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lower bar of the railing, her years' work behind
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her, and for a while neither of us said anything,
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which between us is its own kind of speech. Her
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phone had been buzzing all evening, and she had
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been ignoring it, the way you ignore the world
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on the night that belongs to you. Now she looked.
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She had sent a photograph earlier. It turned
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out the rose -dark piece snapped in a stolen
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second at the show, fired off to Bengaluru, and
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Bengaluru had erupted. There was a stack of messages
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from Mira escalating into capitals and exclamation
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marks, the composed engineer entirely abandoned.
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There was one from Piyush. She called him. She
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put it on speaker, there in the dark, because
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that is what we do now, the small deliberate
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statement of it. You are part of this. And my
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brother's voice came up out of the phone into
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the Delhi night, 300 kilometers away and entirely
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present. Bobby, Bobby, it's extraordinary. Mira
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hasn't stopped. She's showing everyone. She's
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telling actual strangers in the lift. Saloni
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laughed. the tired, full one, and Mira's voice
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broken behind his, and for a few minutes the
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four of us were on a balcony together, two in
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the body and two in the phone, the way we are
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a family now, distributed across a country, and
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assembled by whatever signal will carry us. You
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did it, Bobby, Piyush said before he hung up.
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You actually did it. I did it, she said, trying
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the sentence on again, the way she'd tried it
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at four in the morning three nights before. It
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still didn't quite fit in her mouth. I thought
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it might take her weeks to believe it, and that
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I would be there for the believing, the way I
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had been there for the making. When the call
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ended, she set the phone face down on the railing
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and looked at me. They love me, she said. Not
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vain, astonished. Your brother and that girl.
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After everything, they just love me. Yes, I said.
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They do. We all do. It turns out to be the simplest
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thing about any of it. She put her head on my
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shoulder. Tomorrow there'll be the orders, she
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said, drowsy now. Kaveri said there's a list.
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People waiting for things that don't exist yet.
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I'll have to begin again from nothing. She did
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not sound daunted. She sounded like a woman describing
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the shape of a happiness she had finally decided
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to trust. Not tomorrow, I said. Tomorrow you
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sleep. The list will keep. The list is the good
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kind of problem. The good kind of problem, she
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repeated, and I felt her smile against my collarbone,
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and thought that we had somehow become people
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who had good kinds of problems, which is the
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only sort of luck that lasts. We stayed out until
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the chai was gone and passed it, until the cold
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finally crept up out of the floor the way it
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does even on warm nights if you sit long enough,
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and still neither of us moved to go in. I had
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spent the early part of the year half expecting
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a bill. certain that happiness, in our particular
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arrangement, came with an invoice that would
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arrive eventually, addressed to me. I had stopped
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believing in the bill. There was no bill. There
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was only this, a woman who had made something
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true, and the people who loved her for it, and
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a warm, dark balcony, and the long, ordinary
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future of getting to keep paying attention. Later,
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I wrote one line. She walked home barefoot with
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her year's work behind her and put her arm through
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mine. The dress found its weeper. She thinks
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everything finds its person, even us, even the
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bad parts, that it was all the fabric traveling.
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I think she might be right. Kitchdy at midnight.
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She said, come home, standing at home. I knew
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what she meant. To be continued in episode 18.
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17 of My Playful Wife. If this story is staying
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with you, the next episode is already waiting.
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Subscribe so you don't miss it. The complete
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chapters are on my Patreon. Links are in the
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description. I'm Mia. Thank you for listening.