Latest / My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story / My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 4: The Shopping Trip

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My Playful Wife — Season 1, Episode 4: The Shopping Trip · My Playful Wife — A Tender Literary Love Story

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My Playful Wife. Episode 4. The Shopping Trip.
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Written by Mia. She asked me on a Saturday morning
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in the way she asked most things. Not as a request,
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but as a fact already in motion, needing only
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logistics. I need to go to Lodge Putnugger, she
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said. She was at the kitchen counter, back to
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me. cutting something with the focused efficiency
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she brought to all physical tasks, for fabric,
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and some other things. Piyush said he'd come
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back next weekend. I thought we could all go.
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I lowered the newspaper. Next weekend, I said.
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He has a gap between exams. She still hadn't
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turned. The knife moved. It'll be nice. You haven't
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been to Lajpat Nagar in months. This was true.
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I had not been to Lajpat Nagar in months. I was
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also aware, increasingly aware, in the way you
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become aware of things once you've started paying
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a different quality of attention, that the piece
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of information about Lajpat Nagar was not the
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actual point of this conversation. The actual
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point was something else. An arrangement. a negotiation
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being conducted in the language of the ordinary,
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which was her preferred language for such things.
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I looked at her back, the way the morning light
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fell across her shoulders, the precise movement
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of her hands. Sure, I said. Sounds good. She
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turned then, a brief look, assessing not my answer
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but the thing underneath my answer, the terrain.
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Good, she said. She turned back to her cutting.
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I raised the newspaper, but I was not reading
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it. Piyush arrived on Friday night. I picked
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him up from the station the way you pick up family.
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You show up, you carry the bag, you ask about
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the journey, you fill the drive with the small
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talk of people who have agreed to exist easily
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in each other's company. We drove through the
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city. Deli at 10 .30 on a Friday, still going,
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the lights and the noise and the ongoing indifferent
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roar of it, and he talked about exams and I asked
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appropriate questions, and the conversation was
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adequate and unremarkable. In the lift up to
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the flat, he went quiet. Bia, he said. The lift
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moved. The floor numbers changed. Yes, I said.
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A pause that had specific weight, the pause of
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someone who has been carrying something and has
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decided, now, in this small moving box, to set
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it down briefly. It's fine, isn't it, he said,
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between us. I looked at the brushed steel doors.
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They showed us both in distorted reflection,
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two men, slightly warped by the metal, standing
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close together in a small space. Yes, I said.
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It's fine. He nodded. I could see him nodding
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in the steel, the blurred version of his face
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doing the thing faces do when attention releases.
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He needed this. The word, the confirmation, in
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the way that young people need things said aloud
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before they can believe them. He was 23. He was
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still learning that the spoken thing and the
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true thing are not always the same, but that
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sometimes you need one to access the other. The
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lift opened. Saloni was in the doorway of the
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flat. She had heard the lift and come to the
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door, and she was wearing the yellow corda, the
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brighter one, not the pale one of a few weeks
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ago, something with more daylight in it, and
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her face when she saw him was simply, cleanly
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happy. The happiness of seeing someone you like.
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The kind that doesn't explain itself or apologize.
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You made it, she said. I made it, he said. I
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carried his bag in. Lodgeputt Nugger on a Saturday.
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If you have not been there on a weekend, you
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cannot know it by description alone. It is a
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place that has to be entered. the narrow lanes
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between stalls, the air thick with the smell
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of dye and dust and the particular sweetness
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of raw cotton, the sound of a hundred vendors
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and a thousand conversations and cloth being
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shaken out and haggled over, the specific press
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of a crowd that is simultaneously doing business
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and living its life. Color everywhere. Bolts
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stacked against walls, samples hanging from hooks,
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women holding fabric against themselves to judge
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the fall of it, children running between adult
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legs. You have to stay close to the people you're
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with, or the crowd will rearrange you. I walked
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slightly behind them. This did not start as a
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choice. It happened in the natural way of crowds.
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The press and surge and the path of least resistance,
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and I found myself a step back, and then two,
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and then simply watching. Saloni ahead of me,
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her dapata a moving piece of color, Piyush beside
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her, the two of them moving through the market
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the way people move when they have established
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a private geography. They didn't touch. I want
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to be specific about this because specificity
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matters. They did not touch in ways that could
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not have been explained, but they moved in the
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awareness of each other, the slight adjustment
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when one turned, the half -step that kept the
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distance constant, the quality of attention that
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a body gives to another body it knows well. I
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watched this and felt something that I will not
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simplify. It was grief, and it was beauty, and
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it was a hot knife somewhere in the region of
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my sternum, and it was also, underneath all of
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those, something I still didn't have a clean
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word for, a pulling toward rather than away.
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I was drawn into the scene rather than out of
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it. I wanted to look the way you want to look
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at something that costs you to look at. She reached
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back for my hand. Automatic. Instinctive. Not
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a gesture of guilt or management, the simple
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reflex of a woman who knows where her husband
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is and reaches for him. I felt her fingers close
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around mine, and I felt the warmth of her palm,
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and for a moment the three of us were moving
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together through the market, connected, pressed
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close by the crowd, her hand in mine, and Piyusha's
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arm against her other side. A single moving thing.
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Then the crowd opened up and we spread apart.
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I let go of her hand. She looked at a bolt of
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cloth on the nearest stall. Indigo shot through
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with something silver and touched the edge of
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it with two fingers, testing the weight. Too
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heavy, she said. Piyush leaned to look. For what?
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I don't know yet, she said. I haven't decided
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what I'm looking for. He looked at her. She looked
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at the cloth. I looked at them both and thought,
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she knows exactly what she's looking for. Celonie
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always knew. She just enjoyed the looking. She
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found the rose silk in the fourth lane. The shop
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was narrow and stacked floor to ceiling. The
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proprietor, a small man in his 60s who had the
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air of someone who had been surrounded by beautiful
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fabric for so long that beauty had become his
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ordinary. He pulled out bolt after bolt at Saloni's
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direction. She was specific without being difficult,
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precise about what she wanted to see without
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making it feel like a test. The rose silk was
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near the back. The proprietor unrolled it with
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the practiced gesture of someone who knows when
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he has something worth showing. It fell open
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on the counter and Celonie went still. I watched
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her go still. This is what she was, a woman who
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responded to beauty with her whole body. She
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did not perform appreciation. She simply stopped
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the way you stop when something true comes into
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view and received it. The silk was the color
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of a certain kind of evening light, not quite
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pink, not quite red, something that existed between
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those things and had no exact name. It had a
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quality to it, the way it sat in the light, that
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I can only describe as interior. It seemed to
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hold light rather than reflect it, the way deep
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water holds the sky. She ran her fingers along
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it. She lifted a section and let it fall. She
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held it against her wrist, feeling the weight
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of it against her skin. This, she said. How much?
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Piyush asked. She shook her head, not answering
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him. Not yet, still in the texture of it. I don't
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know what it is yet, she said. She was talking
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to herself, or to the fabric. Something structural.
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Something that has to do something specific.
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She bought three lengths. More than she needed,
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probably, but she bought the way she did most
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things, with a completeness that allowed for
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possibility. When you don't yet know what a thing
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will become, you give it room. We ate lunch at
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a place Celonie knew, a Daba she had found on
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her own. on one of the solo market trips she
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made when she wanted to look at fabric without
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explanation. Plastic tables, a kitchen visible
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through an open doorway, the kind of cooking
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that had been doing the same thing for 30 years
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and had no reason to change. The food was extraordinary.
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How did you find this place? Piyush asked. I
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explored, she said. Alone. She looked at him.
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A small, precise look. Sometimes alone, she said.
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I thought about all the things Celonie did alone.
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The solo trips to markets. The hours in the workroom
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with the door not quite closed. The phone calls
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in rooms I wasn't in. The version of herself
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that existed in the spaces between our shared
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life. I had never thought much about those spaces
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before. I was thinking about them now. We walked
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back to the car through the afternoon heat, the
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market thinning behind us, the day going gold
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at the edges. Saloni fell into step beside me
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while Piyush went ahead to deal with the parking.
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You've been very quiet, she said. It was not
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an accusation. I've been watching, I said. She
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was quiet for a moment. We walked, the sound
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of the market fading. And, she said, And I think,
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I said carefully, I was finding my way into the
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language of this, the specific language required
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to say true things without making them into weapons,
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that you've been a certain kind of person for
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much longer than I understood. She looked at
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me. Her face, which was almost always readable
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to me in its surfaces and unreadable in its depths,
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showed something it didn't usually show. Not
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vulnerability, exactly. More like, the thing
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you feel when someone sees you accurately and
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you're not sure whether to be relieved or afraid.
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Is that bad? She asked. I don't know yet, I said,
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which was entirely honest. Tell me when you know,
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she said. Piyush came back with the parking ticket,
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waving it like a minor victory. The drive home
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had its own atmosphere, the specific quiet of
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the end of a day that has been more than a day.
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She sat in the front with me, the rose silk on
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her lap. All the way home she ran her fingers
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along its surface, feeling it, lifting a section
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occasionally and letting it fall, watching how
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it moved. She did this with the absorption of
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someone for whom touch is a primary language,
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someone who understands things through their
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hands. I kept my eyes on the road, but I was
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aware of everything. The heat still in the car
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despite the AC, the silk in her lap, the way
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her fingers moved against it, deliberate, assessing,
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the same quality of touch she brought to everything
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she deemed worth understanding. In the back,
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Piyush had fallen asleep against the window,
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his face younger in sleep, the professional ease
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he wore during waking hours dropping away to
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reveal the boy underneath. At a red light, she
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turned and said something to him about the silk,
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whether he was asleep, whether he'd heard her.
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He wasn't. She turned back and looked at the
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fabric in her lap. It doesn't know what it is
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yet, she said. Not to me specifically, to the
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silk or to herself. It will, I said. She looked
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at me, a sideways look, quick and complete. You're
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different than you were, she said. Yes, I said.
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From before October. Yes. The light changed.
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I drove. She went back to the silk. Her fingers
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kept moving. I thought about what different meant,
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whether it was loss or growth or both simultaneously,
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the way most real changes are both. I had lost
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something, the comfortable assumption of a particular
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kind of marriage, the ease of not knowing. But
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something else had come in to fill the space,
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a quality of attention that I had not had before.
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A willingness to receive things as they actually
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were. I was not sure this was better, but I was
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increasingly sure it was more real. Piyush left
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Sunday evening. He hugged Saloni at the door,
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a real hug, arms fully around her, her face turned
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into a shoulder, his grip tight in the way of
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someone communicating something through the body
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that the mouth won't say. Brief. Complete. The
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embrace of two people who have chosen not to
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make this into a scene and are succeeding. Then
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he turned to me. He shook my hand. He held it.
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He looked at me with the expression of a young
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man who is carrying something large and knows
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the person in front of him is also carrying it
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and is choosing, for reasons he doesn't fully
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understand. Not to put it down. Next month, he
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said, if that's okay. I looked at my brother,
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thought about the lift, the blurred reflection.
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It's fine, isn't it? The weight of what he was
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asking now. Next month, I said. He left. The
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lift went down. The corridor was empty. Saloni
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stood at the closed door with her back to me
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and her hand still on the handle, and she stood
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there long enough that it meant something. Thank
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you, she said, quietly, barely above a breath.
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For what? I said. She turned. Her eyes were not
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wet. She was not a woman who wept easily, but
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they were near the territory of it, close to
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the surface. For being you, she said. For being
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the specific person you are. I didn't know what
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to do with this. I had been bracing for many
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things, in the weeks since the kitchen, and gratitude
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was not among them. Gratitude required a generosity
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I hadn't been certain I possessed. Go to bed,
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I said. You're tired. She almost smiled, a compressed,
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Careful almost. She crossed the flat and kissed
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my cheek. Warm and deliberate and longer than
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a cheek kiss usually lasts. Her hand resting
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briefly on my chest. Her fingers pressed there.
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She went to the bedroom. I stood in the living
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room. Outside the city. I turned off the lights
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one by one and went to the window and looked
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out at the ongoing dark. the lights of a thousand
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other lives carrying on in their own arrangements,
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and I thought, I don't know what I'm doing. And
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then underneath that, neither does she. We're
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inventing this together. And underneath that,
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quieter than either, good. The equal mystery
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of it, that she too was navigating without a
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map, that the confidence of her body did not
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mean the certainty of her heart, that we were
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both here, in this flat. Choosing this without
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entirely knowing what we were choosing settled
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something that had been unsettled since October.
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I turned off the last light. I went to bed. She
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was on her side, breathing slowly, the rose silk
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draped over the bedside chair where she'd placed
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it before changing. In the dark it was just a
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shape, just fabric, but I knew its color, and
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I thought about the market, the lane, the small
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proprietor, the way she had gone still when it
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was unrolled. It doesn't know what it is yet.
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I close my eyes. There is a thing that happens
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between people in the hours after shared experience,
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a particular loosening, a quality of being with
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that doesn't announce itself. We drove home,
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and neither of us reached for the radio. The
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city went past the windows. Piyush was asleep
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in the back, his face young and open, and Saloni
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sat beside me with a rose silk in her lap, and
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I drove. I thought about the market, the narrow
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lanes, the press of the crowd, the moment her
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hand had reached back for mine, the automatic
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quality of it. The reflex of a woman who knows
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where her husband is even in the middle of a
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crowd. That reflex was real. Whatever else was
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real, that was also real. Can I ask you something?
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I said. She looked at me, the question in her
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eyes. The silk, I said, when it's made, when
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the blouse is finished. I paused, finding the
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right words. Will you wear it for me? Before.
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Just for me first. She was quiet for a moment.
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Outside. A traffic signal going red. I stopped.
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The city moving around us. Yes, she said. Simple.
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No calculation in it. Okay, I said. The signal
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went green. She looked out the window. Her fingers
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moved along the silk. I could hear Piyush breathing
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slowly in the back, deep in his sleep. I make
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things for specific purposes, she said. The fabric
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tells you if you know how to listen. It tells
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you what it wants to become and who it wants
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to be with when it's done. What does this one
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want? I said. She was quiet for a long time.
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Long enough that I thought she wasn't going to
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answer. Then. To be seen, she said. By people
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who know how to look. I thought about what I
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was learning these months about looking. About
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the difference between seeing the surface and
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seeing what the surface held. I thought about
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the version of myself that had walked through
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three years of this marriage looking without
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seeing. I'm learning, I said. I know, she said.
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I can feel it. We turned onto our street. The
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building ahead, our balcony visible from below.
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Saloni gathered the silk into her arms carefully,
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the gesture of someone returning something precious
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to its right place. Thank you for today, she
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said. For coming. I wanted to, I said. Which
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was true, I understood, now that I said it. I
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had wanted to be there. I had wanted to be in
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the market with both of them. Not as a surveillance,
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not as management, but as presence. As the third
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side of something. She looked at me with the
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expression that meant she understood more than
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I'd said. Good, she said. That's good. To be
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continued in episode 5. The rules change. All
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rights reserved. That was episode 4 of My Playful
22:48
Wife. If this story is staying with you, the
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next episode is already waiting. Subscribe so
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you don't miss it. The complete book is on Amazon
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and early episodes plus bonus chapters are on
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my Patreon. Links are in the description. I'm
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Mia. Thank you for listening.