My Very Best Friend by Cathy Lamb

father, he marry me off when I thirteen to a man my great uncle. He want me, he tell my father, my father say yes for cow. So he give my father three cow. I would have love job because it give me, ah, the word is . . . when you are strong, alone . . . Independence! Money mean independence. Independence mean power not to get hit and marry off to old men.”
    Gitanjali’s words whipped into that room, swung around, and fell hard.
    “I’m sorry, Gitanjali,” I said, tamping down my anger at Lopsided Lorna.
    “Me too,” Olive Oliver said. “You’ve never told me that.”
    “I know. Please forgive,” Gitanjali said. “Trust not come simple to me, but if you will excuse the words, Lorna, I had to give you some thinking, no not right word, I had to give you a tongue, no that not right word, no tongue. Ah yes!” She smiled and stuck a finger in the air. “I had to give my voice to this talk on the women and working.”
    Lorna glowered.
    “When did you leave India?” Kenna asked, pushing back a stray strand of blond hair.
    “I escape from hitting husband fifteen year ago. Go to shelter in Bombay, run by American woman. Husband and brothers try to find me, kill me. Say I cannot leave him. I hide. I get new name, then stay ten years. I work in factory making clothes for America, then I a maid and man and wife I a maid for, he Scottish, he in government, he tell me, I get you Scotland. So. He got me papers and I comes three year past. They are smiles in my life to me.”
    “And now you have your own spice store,” Rowena said. “I love the free recipes you hand out.”
    Gitanjali bowed her head, palms together. “Thank you. Yes, spices, for me. Independence. No choking my neck.” She wrapped her hands around her neck. “No hitting on the face.” She mocked getting hit in the face. “No push up there.” She pointed to her lap. “No man say, you do that, Gitanjali, you dog. Now, I share my love Indian food with every one of the persons here with the recipes and the spices.”
    “Your recipes are delicious,” Olive said. “I killed Mr. Knee to make the chicken curry and my husband said it was mouth-watering. It was worth it to kill Mr. Knee.”
    “Do you have any spices that will make my ex-husband’s scrotum rot?” Rowena asked in all seriousness. “Special red peppers? Hidden Indian spices that will make it wilt?”
    “No, I scared, no, I afraid, I fear, I do not. I do have spice that rumored to lower the, uh, the sex push?” Her brow wrinkled. “That not the right word. Hmm. The intercourse lay? No, not that. I have spice that take away the—how you say—the way that a man—” She lifted one finger up, then flopped it back down, up, down. “The spice can do that to the man and the stick.”
    “You have spice for a penis killer. I’ll take five pounds and put it in a dinner I’ll make him,” Rowena said, triumphantly. “He’ll never know what made his pecker not peckable anymore.”
    Kenna laughed. “To think of the millions spent on modern medicine to give a man an erection.”
    “Yes,” Gitanjali said, her finger flopping. “Erection. Down. I have that down erection spice.”
    “I haven’t tried your recipes,” Lorna sniffed. “My husband enjoys roast loin of venison, braised cabbage, lamb, puddings, and Scottish shortbread. Pure Scot, we are. His family has been here for thousands of years, at least, like mine. We are not foreign to this country and are not interested in foreign food.”
    I wanted to knock my fist into Lorna’s oatmeal gut. I knew what she was doing. She was pointing out to Gitanjali that she, Gitanjali, was the foreign one, that her family, Lorna’s family, belonged. They were Scottish, not Indian, and they did not like Indian food, they liked Scottish food, as all their ancestors before them liked Scottish food. Nothing foreign. No foreigners.
    Gitanjali dipped her head. Her English wasn’t perfect, but she got it. I got it, too. Racism resides in all places,