The Bollywood Bride (12 page)

12

“A
bsolutely not.” Uma Atya looked immovable. It would be easier to let her have her way, but Ria needed a distraction. She couldn’t stop fuming, or stop Nikhil’s words from playing in her ears over and over.

“Please, Uma Atya, I’m dying to see the aunties, and look at me, I’m fine.” She pointed at herself. She had changed into jeans and a turquoise striped button down hoping against hope that her designer’s claim that the color made her glow held enough truth to convince her aunt.

“You are not leaving the house today. You were out like a light, moaning and groaning in your sleep for two days. It’s out of the question.”

Ria opened her mouth to argue. Uma raised a hand to stop her. “But the girls suggested moving the dinner here.” Before Ria opened her mouth again, Uma raised a stern eyebrow. “
If
you promise to stay on the couch the entire evening, we can move the party here. Anu’s been cooking for days, so it doesn’t make sense to let all that food go to waste.”

Ria hugged her aunt. “Anything you say, Uma Atya,” she said into the sweet jasmine scent of her aunt’s hair. “But you’re not changing any other plans after this.”

Uma kissed Ria’s forehead and gave her another arch look Ria had no doubt kept her students on their toes. “The bachelor party is safe. That Nikhil needs to fight his own battles, don’t you think?”

Oh, she did think. And he also needed to butt the hell out of everyone else’s battles.

Of all people, how had Nikhil got everything so dismally wrong? She refused to think about the fact that he had no way of knowing any different. She had never given him an explanation. She’d let him believe what she had wanted Vikram to believe, that she was a betraying bitch who had sold herself for a shot at stardom. She pushed away the bitter thought that wouldn’t stop niggling in her mind—that neither one of them had believed in her enough to push past her lies. She knew it wouldn’t have changed her choices, knew it was unfair to blame them, but it still stuck in her heart like the thinnest, sharpest splinter.

The ever-present tangle of lies tightened around her like a hunter’s net. The more she pushed it away, the more it clung to her like sticky, spindly spiderwebs. But the truth had to remain hidden inside that godforsaken asylum and inside the cone of silence that was Uma, Vijay, and her, and, tragically enough, Vikram’s mother.

If Vikram ever found out that Ria’s mother was alive, if he knew why she had really left him, if he saw any hope at all, she knew everything would change. Even now, despite all she’d done, he would flip everything over like a well-laid table without a thought for the priceless, irreplaceable china on it.

It had taken one look into his eyes for her to know that.

Just like it had taken only one look into his eyes to answer his question all those years ago.

And to know he meant it forever.

No, Vikram could never find out the truth, or she would have no means to protect him. But she wanted Nikhil to believe in her with or without the truth. He was Nikhil. He had always been in her corner. He was her corner. It was horribly unfair of her, but she wanted him to know without being told that she would never do anything to hurt Vikram again.

As if she needed Nikhil to tell her that. As if she needed anyone to remind her that starting anything with Vikram was like hanging an insane invalid around his neck and leaving him to drown. She knew only too well the devastation that was coming once her mind was gone. But while she had no choice but to follow in the footsteps of the woman who’d given birth to her in that one thing, unlike her, Ria would make sure she left as little wreckage behind as she could.

 

Vikram and Mira were holding hands when Ria came down the stairs. Or, more accurately, Mira was holding on to Vikram. Her hand clutched the crook of his arm while his hand was tucked into his pocket. It was a minor detail, but it jumped out at Ria like a zoomed in close-up shot. The memory of his arms around her as he carried her across the yard sprang to life on her skin and she rubbed it away.

Vikram caught her eye and gave her a polite nod, but Mira refused to meet her eyes or acknowledge her in any way. Ria wasn’t sure if she returned his nod before slipping away into the kitchen.

“There’s our Ria!” The chorus of voices she’d been waiting to hear greeted Ria as she entered the kitchen.

There was something so overwhelmingly familiar about seeing the Auntie Brigade packed around the kitchen island that for a wonderful instant Ria felt like a little girl again. They launched themselves at her, and she burrowed shamelessly into each of them as they pulled her into hugs. They were all draped in
kurtis
over jeans today, and Ria knew that an endless number of calls had been made to come up with the decision. For as long as Ria could remember, they had discussed what to wear for every occasion however big or small. “Are we doing Indian or regular?” or “I’m too tired to doll up, let’s just do jeans today,” or “We haven’t worn saris in ages. Everyone’s wearing a sari.” Whether it was a party, a play, or a picnic, they always came up with a dress code.

Their husbands and kids teased them about it, but the dress code was as much a part of them as their friendship and the world of dependability they had created for each other as they turned a foreign land into home. Despite their moods and their personal preferences they always complied with the dress code. It was their thing.

“I love the
kurtis,
” Ria said and they collectively launched into detailed accounts of where each
kurti
had come from, including how much each one had cost.

Ria couldn’t help but smile.

“See, now she’s laughing at us,” Radha said, one hand on her hip.

“You deserve to be laughed at. I mean, who ever tells a film star how much they paid for a
kurti
in Delhi Haat on their last trip home?” Priya said, although she had done exactly the same thing.

“I’m not laughing at you, Radha Auntie. I’m smiling because you all haven’t changed even one bit.”

“
Leh,
why would we change?” Radha said, pointing at herself with exaggerated incredulousness. “Why change something so perfect, ha?”

They laughed and Ria agreed heartily.

“
Vaise,
you haven’t changed either,
beta.
Such a big star, but still as sweet as you always were,” Anu said, patting Ria’s cheek.

“So true.” Sita smiled at her. “Not one spot of scandal. With all the dirty stories you hear about Bollywood, we were so worried when you joined films.” She squeezed Uma’s shoulder. “But Uma had one hundred percent faith in you and you’ve proved her right. We’re so proud of you.”

Their faces glowed with pride, but it was Uma’s pride that stuck in Ria’s throat like a lump she couldn’t swallow around.

“
Arrey,
I raised her. How could she ever do any of those dirty things?” Uma said, and Ria found it hard to breathe.

She would not think about Ved. Not now, not here. The only remotely positive thing about her sordid liaison with Ved was that he had kept it out of the press. It had been his deal with his wife that he keep his filthy sluts private, and he was powerful enough that the press only printed what he okayed. Uma would die of shame if she or the aunties ever found out exactly how filthy Ria really was.

“Ria, are you tired,
beta?
” Uma searched Ria’s face. “You know what, you promised to stay off your feet, let’s go.” She pushed Ria out of the kitchen. “Ria needs to rest and we need to get dinner ready,” she said to the aunties.

“Go, go, before your bossy
atya
throws us out of the house.” They waved Ria out of the kitchen and made her promise to fill them in on all the latest Bollywood gossip soon, every juicy detail of all the scandalous things they were so proud of her for not doing. Then they turned their attention to the endless foil trays filled with food.

Uma pulled Ria into the family room, pushed her on the couch, and tried to prop her foot up on an ottoman.

“Uma Atya, please. I really don’t need to.” Ria put her foot back on the floor.

Uma glared at her and put her foot back on the ottoman. “Keep your leg up there and don’t make a promise if you can’t keep it.”

As if on cue Vikram entered the room. “She’s right, you know.” He picked up the platter of vegetables and dip from the coffee table. Then he took in her expression and looked at her leg. “I meant she’s right about your knee. Keeping it raised will help it heal.”

“See. Vic always was the smartest of you lot.” Uma stood briskly, pulling Vikram’s face down and kissing his head. She pointed to the plate in his hand. “Make sure Ria eats some before you take it away,” she said to him in Marathi before hurrying off.

“
Ho,
” he answered in that accented Marathi Ria had always found so endearing. Usually, Nikhil and Vikram always answered in English when anyone spoke to them in Marathi. But there were a few Marathi words they let slip every now and again, and Ria had loved when they did that.

“How’s it feeling?” Vikram threw a quick glance at her leg and held the platter in front of her, waiting stubbornly until she picked up a cucumber spear.

“It’s fine. All healed.”

He narrowed his eyes and ran a disbelieving glance down her leg. “I doubt that. Your bruises stay forev—” Color drained from his face. His gaze caught on her bent little toe with its zipper-shaped scar.

Ria put her foot on the floor and slid it into her slippers, but his gaze followed her foot.

He had dropped a hammer on her little toe when she was seventeen and they had been building shelves for Uma in the garage. Ria’s toe had always stayed a little crooked after that.

“Vic—Oh!” Mira stopped in her tracks. One glance at Vikram’s guilt-ridden face and she looked like someone had slapped her.

Ria wanted to tell her that his guilt had nothing to do with what they’d been doing just now. In fact it had nothing to do with anything. It was completely unfounded. The fault had been all Ria’s. But she could hardly tell Mira that she had been stupid enough to kiss someone with a hammer in his hand.

“Hi, Mira.” Ria broke the silence. Mira gave her the barest nod, but still didn’t make eye contact. She looked at the platter in Vikram’s hand. “Everyone’s waiting for the dip, Vic. You coming?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” He stared at the spot where Ria’s foot had rested on the ottoman.

“That venture capitalist friend of Vijay Uncle’s is looking for you. I thought you wanted to talk to him. Come on.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he repeated absently, still lost in his thoughts.

Mira glared at him for a few moments, waiting for him to look at her. When he didn’t she grabbed the platter from his hands and left the room without another word.

Ria stood. If Uma Atya wanted her off her feet she could sit just fine in the kitchen. “You should go after her.”

“I plan to.” His gaze moved from her toe to her face. “And you should be more careful. Do you have any idea how irresponsible it is to run long distances without training?”

Ria opened her mouth then shut it again. She had no intention of getting into another fight.

“I’m not trying to start a fight,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I’m serious, you can’t do things without thinking about the consequences. You can’t just wake up one day and run a marathon. The first guy to attempt it dropped dead.” He turned to leave the room, then stopped and faced her again. “And don’t worry, when I said I’d be civil, I meant it. You don’t have to look so terrified every time I open my mouth. I keep my word.” And with that left-handed jab, he jogged out of the room after Mira.

Ria tried to remember the last time she had done something without thinking about the consequences. It was probably that kiss that had ended with having her toe smashed with a hammer.

13

R
ia had forgotten to shut the blinds last night. The sun filtered in through the sheer drapes. She released the pillow, a pathetic substitute for the body she’d been clutching in the stupid dream she’d enjoyed far too much.

Her phone buzzed next to the pillow. She picked it up.

It was a text from DJ.

Mindlessly she pressed the letters
Wrng?
and hit Send. What was he talking about?

Me. She was dying a slow death.

And becoming outrageously dramatic.

She jabbed at the keys.

Before she could backtrack, she hit Send. Then instantly regretted it. She hadn’t even opened the script yet.

Her phone rang. It was DJ. She didn’t answer. It buzzed again.

She sat up.

Great! Maybe he’s dead.
But she deleted that and instead typed:
THX. Keep me posted.

At least now she was awake enough to get out of bed.

She took the longest shower she had ever taken. Poured lotion on every inch of skin, rubbing more and more in until it formed a white layer and she had to wipe it off with tissue. She brushed her hair until the brush simply slid off it. She changed three times and still she felt all wrong. Finally, after Nikhil had hollered from downstairs for the third time, she settled on a black sweater with only the thinnest turquoise edging, thank God, and black jeans, and slunk down the stairs dragging lead with her feet.

“Wow, starlet, that was the longest shower in human history.” Nikhil gave her a sheepish grin and tried to be his usual endearing self, but she was still too angry with him. She hadn’t said a single word to him since he’d tried to protect Vikram from her notorious talons.

She focused on rolling her hair into a bun and ignored him.

Vikram nodded at her over a cup of coffee, all freshly bathed and looking as good as the coffee smelled.

She returned his nod and turned to Jen. “Hey, Jen. You look lovely.”

“Thanks.” Jen twirled around to display the white
kurta
she wore over jeans. “You’re going to the temple with us to meet the priest about the vows, remember? Coffee?”

“Yes, please. Use the biggest cup in the house.” She finally managed to twist her hair into a semblance of a knot and jabbed it with a chopstick.

Vikram took the cup from Jen and poured the coffee. The chopstick slid from Ria’s hair, bounced off the floor, and rolled to his feet. Hair unraveled and spilled around her shoulders. His gaze grazed her tumbling hair, and hunger flashed in his eyes, hot and bright. He dropped to his knees and picked up the stick. Instead of handing it to her, he put it on the countertop between them.

“Thanks.” She tried again to roll up her hair. She had done this a million times and never had trouble. Today, her hair refused to cooperate. Jen took the stick from her, rolled her hair into a bun for her, and wove the stick through it.

Vikram dropped a spoonful of sugar and a few drops of cream into the coffee and pushed the cup toward Ria.

She took a sip and almost moaned with pleasure. Perfect cream. Perfect sugar. Perfect.

And he knew it. She saw it in his eyes before he looked away.

“Where’s everyone?” She wrapped her fingers around the hot cup and took another long perfect sip.

“Aie and Mindy went to the craft store. Something about the centerpieces for the cocktail dinner,” Nikhil said. “Dad and Matt are going to try to squeeze in nine holes.”

“Wow! Golf? Really? That was brave of Vijay Kaka,” Ria said.

“Yah. Brave. Stupid. Whatever.” Nikhil rolled his eyes. “He’s going to be making up for it for a long time, the poor man.”

“More like poor Uma Atya,” Ria said, wondering what she had missed that morning. “This isn’t exactly the time for golf, is it?” she said loyally.

“Why not?” Vikram met her eyes over his cup. His voice was nonchalant, but the way he held his shoulders and pressed his lips together wasn’t.

“Yeah, why not?” Nikhil asked. “We have another week before the wedding, and everything is under control. I don’t know why Aie is so stressed out.”

Instead of answering him Ria pointed her cup to the to-do list tacked on the refrigerator door. Items written neatly in black marker stretched all the way down two legal-sized sheets of paper taped end to end, each line bulleted with a star. A few items were crossed out, but most of the list remained starkly undone.

“Oh please.” Nikhil walked to the fridge and scowled at the list. “Pack coconuts? Seriously? That’s a to-do item?”

Vikram and Jen smiled.

“Coconuts are an important part of the wedding ceremony,” Ria said as calmly as she could. “You need them for every ritual.”

“She’s right, man,” Vikram said. “You’ve got to respect the coconuts.”

Nikhil and Vikram guffawed and Ria glared at them

“Shut up, guys,” Jen said. “Ria’s right. The details are important.”

“Of course they are. The wedding’s all about the rituals. God forbid you had to get married without coconuts.” Vikram shuddered and took a sip of coffee.

She was getting really sick of all these insinuations. “That’s not what I meant. It’s a wedding. The rituals mean something.”

“It is a wedding. The rituals don’t mean squat. There’s a bride and a groom and they make vows. Those mean something.”

His look was pure danger. The response slamming in her heart was pure danger. She should have backed down. With anyone else, she would have. But his eyes did it every single time. Made the words burst out of her. She had spent a year not talking even as everyone tried to pry words out of her. Not being able to talk was about fear, about being terrified of what might come out, of what you might expose. But even now, with so much to be afraid of, one look in his eyes and her fear dissipated like stars in the dawning day.

And it made her even angrier. “How does making vows respectfully and traditionally diminish them?” she asked.

“You mean like in your movies?”

“No. I mean like in real life. Like Nikhil and Jen want to do and like everyone in our families has done for centuries.”

“I thought vows were about the promises you made. I should have realized it was about how you made them.” How did his eyes do that? Go from mocking to intense, from angry to hurt, in the span of one breath? How did they fill up like that? There was just too much there. Too much he didn’t understand. Too much he wanted to stop feeling, but couldn’t.

She couldn’t take it anymore. Not another second of this crushed down feeling. “I know about vows,” she wanted to shout. “I know what it means to make them!”

She couldn’t remember one single reason why she shouldn’t say the words. Why she couldn’t tell him how she felt. He was here, right in front of her. If she reached out she could touch him, and her entire body hurt from the effort it took not to. Something inside her reared up and shook itself loose, something desperate and voracious. That look in his eyes agitated it into existence, and fanned it until it filled her up.

They stared at each other, no longer able to look away, no longer needing words.

Jen’s phone rang and the trance broke.

“Oh no,” Jen said into the phone, panic spilling from her voice.

Nikhil moved closer to her, all his attention shifting from Vikram and Ria to her.

“That was the altar guy,” she said when she was done. “His warehouse caught fire. Our altar is gone! Burned to a crisp. He was able to salvage a few others, but we need to go pick another one out right now before they’re all gone.” She gnawed at her cuticle, looking distraught.

“But we have an appointment with the priest to go over the vow translations,” Nikhil said, rubbing her shoulders. “We need to hand those out to the guests and the priest only had time today.”

“Ria was going to help us with those anyway, right?” Jen looked hopefully at Ria. “You can do it by yourself, can’t you, Ria? You don’t need us. Vic can drive you.”

All of Jen’s panic jumped straight into Ria.

Nikhil gave her a pleading look. “Please?”

Really? Suddenly he was okay with her spending hours alone with Vikram? “What if I start something?” she almost said, throwing him a dirty look.

Vikram raised a questioning brow at Nikhil, then turned it on Ria.

She ignored them both and looked at Jen. “Vikram can go with Nikhil. I’ll go with you.”

Jen shook her head. “Vikram and Nikhil don’t understand that stuff. Only you do. None of us can tell what is what. It has to be you. Please.” Jen’s voice cracked, and Ria put a quick hand on her shoulder.

“Of course I’ll go,” she said just as Vikram wrapped his arm around Jen.

“Relax, Jen,” he said. “We’ll take care of it. It’s at the Lemont temple in half an hour, right? Easy enough.”

Jen sniffed and smiled a wobbly smile. “I’m so sorry. I swear this wedding is turning me into a basket case.”

Vikram dropped a kiss on top of Jen’s head. “I think the word’s
Bridezilla,
” he stage-whispered, and she laughed and thanked them again and again, before Nikhil pulled her out of the room.

“Thanks, starlet,” he said to Ria, pulling her into a hug before he left.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my claws to myself,” she said into his ear. But she gave him a quick hug back. She might be angry with him, but she knew that the intensity of her anger far exceeded what he had done. None of this was his fault.

The garage door clicked shut, and Vikram and she were alone in the house.

Alone for the first time since that awful magical summer when they had made vows of their own. And then she’d torn them to shreds. The remnants of those shreds hung in the air now. They lingered in his eyes, and clung to her body. Impossibly stubborn.

Needing to move, Ria gathered all the cups that were lying around the kitchen, and took them to the sink.

Vikram stood rooted to the spot, as though no force on earth could move him, and watched her through lowered lids. The heat of his gaze warmed every inch of her body all the way to her aching heart. Silence stretched between them. She didn’t want to know what was going through his mind. It was too much, all this knowing, all this feeling.

She rinsed out the cups, rubbing at each mud-colored stain until steam rose up to her face and her fingers reddened under the scalding water. Finally he moved. Stepping close behind her, he reached around her and turned off the faucet. His breath caressed the back of her neck. The downy hair at her nape prickled and stretched toward him, reaching for the familiar heat of his body. Just a whisper of a move and she’d be in his arms, her back pressed into his chest, his warmth wrapped around her. The cup slipped from her hands and landed in the sink with a clang. He backed away, moving quickly, not stopping until he was all the way across the kitchen. “We should go,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Let’s find out what makes these vows so special.”