The Bollywood Bride (6 page)

“What, ‘shouldn’t be’?” Her aunt blasted her with her classic college-professor glare. “The way you kids work yourselves, I don’t know how your bodies hold up. We are human, not machines,
beta.
” Ria would never get tired of hearing her aunt call her her baby. “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten a thing since you woke up. Am I right?”

Ria shrugged and gave her aunt her sweetest smile.

“Don’t flash those dimples at me, I’m immune. I have my own, remember?” Uma smiled and two deep dimples dug into her cheeks. She thrust a plate into Ria’s hands, but before she could spoon food onto it, a chorus of voices rang out behind them.

“Oh good God, it’s Ria!” Four women surrounded her, coming at her like blasts from her past, their silk saris, bronze lipsticks, and smoky eyeliners warming her from the inside out, their Chanel and Estée Lauder scents enveloping her as tight as their hugs. She found herself smiling as they appraised her, tipping her chin back with diamond-studded fingers, making sure little Ria was all right.

For over thirty years these women had been her aunt’s friends, her sisterhood. “The Auntie Brigade,” Vikram had called them. Little shocks of recognition sparkled inside Ria. A mole on a cheek. A cleft on a chin. The way one of them raised only one brow when she laughed. The way all of them called her honey, as if she belonged to them.

Just the way she remembered it, they all started talking at once. “I can’t believe it. It really is Ria. . . . Well of course, it’s Ria. It’s Nikhil’s wedding, after all....
Oh ho,
but she’s a film star! . . .
Arrey,
so what? She’s our Ria first.... Look how beautiful . . . Of course she’s beautiful, she’s Ria. . . . Look at that
ghaghra!
. . . Forget the
ghaghra,
look at that blouse.... Remember when we could hold a halter up with those tiny strings? . . . My memory isn’t
that
good.... Look at those arms.... Why do you kids like muscles? Muscles are for men. . . . Not our men!”

As a little girl, Ria had loved listening to their banter. She would squeeze into Uma, close her eyes, and pick out their voices as they talked. Radha had come to America very young and she sounded as American as the grocery-store lady. Sita’s South-Indian accent was thick and earthy but completely un-self-conscious. Anu had the clipped Queen’s English of a fancy Delhi private school and she refused to Americanize it in any way. Priya had a soft-edged North-Indian lilt which she mixed freely with her acquired Americanness. She stretched out her words and rolled her
r
’s so that each sentence became a linguistic potpourri, a mix of all the things she’d been and all the things she’d become.

Each one of them had extended the band of their innate motherliness around Ria, tightening up her barrettes when they slid off her pigtails, dusting off her knees when she fell. Piling her plate at parties and picnics and bullying her into finishing her food.

Smiling, Ria leaned over and touched their feet, each one in turn, and the timeless sign of respect made every one of them tear up, even the no-nonsense Anu Auntie. They fretted self-consciously and kissed her forehead, mumbling blessings into her hair.

“May all your dreams come true,
beta.
”

“May you live a long and happy life.”

Ria thanked them softly. For one long moment, everyone stopped talking. Emotion hung heavily in the silence, memories sparkled in everyone’s eyes along with questions no one would voice, not on this auspicious day in the midst of this celebration.

Uma cleared her throat. “Can we let the child eat, please?”

“What, you haven’t eaten yet?” they all exclaimed in unison, and Ria quickly picked up the plate she had put down and held it up.

“I was just about to eat. I swear,” she said, and let Uma Atya pile obscene amounts of chicken
biryani
onto her plate.

“It’s preposterous how skinny you actresses are these days,” Radha said.

“It’s the camera,” Sita said. “It adds ten pounds they say, no?”

“Really? My pictures look like it adds forty,” Priya said.

“Yes, that’s definitely the camera,” Anu said, and patted Ria’s cheek. “Eat, eat. We’ll leave you alone so your
atya
can hog you. But only for today. After that you’re all ours.”

They all mumbled in agreement, kissed and petted Ria some more, and went off in search of dessert.

Uma Atya pointed at the
biryani
on Ria’s plate. “It took me six hours to make this, so you better eat up.”

“Don’t you want to go get dessert with them?” Ria asked hopefully.

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere until that’s all gone.”

Ria jabbed the rice with her fork, pulled a long face, and thrust some into her mouth. The most delicate blend of spices exploded on her tongue. “Oh God, Uma Atya, this is incredible.”

Uma adjusted the scarf on Ria’s shoulder, smiling away. “No wonder you’re my favorite niece.”

“Actually, I’m your only niece.”

“And therefore even more special.” Uma switched to her native Marathi, like she always did when she wanted to be especially affectionate.

“You do realize that makes no sense at all, right?” Ria switched to Marathi too. A giggle escaped her, the sound taking her completely by surprise.

Uma’s eyes glowed, her smile one part pride, one part protectiveness, three parts pure joy at having Ria in her life. “I’m so glad you’re home,
beta.
” That smile had lit up the love-starved corners of Ria’s childhood. Now its warmth melted the sharp edges of hopelessness inside her and despite the horrors that lay ahead, for one precious moment, she was glad to be home.

6

T
he house was dead silent when Ria awoke. When she had slipped upstairs last night it had still been buzzing with activity. It would be a while before anyone else woke up. She threw on a silk kimono over her white-eyelet pajamas and knotted the corded sash at her waist. The huge turquoise flowers on the kimono made her feel like she was in a commercial for bathroom fixtures.

Turquoise was her designer’s color this season. He’d picked up an obsession for it on his Mediterranean vacation that summer. And he’d virtually drowned Ria in it ever since, insisting it was perfect for “that particular beer-bottle brown” of her eyes.
It makes that silent sensuous thing you do scream out, darling!
A few years ago red had done the same thing. That had been the year he’d visited China.

Ria slipped her feet into silk thong slippers, also turquoise, and padded down the stairs, determined that today would be different from yesterday. Was it really just a few hours since the last time she’d come down the stairs terrified about seeing Vikram again? After ten years of living a life that felt as much like suspended animation on the inside as how fast and eventful it appeared on the outside, in the past day she had traveled years through time. The lines between her memories and reality turned fuzzy, like the wind messing up the edges of a
rangoli
painting drawn with colored dust.

With or without jet lag, sleep had been impossible. Images of Vikram and Mira climbing all over each other had haunted Ria all night. She gave her head a violent shake. Some of the positions she’d imagined them in technically weren’t even possible, unless you were a particularly skilled acrobat.

She tightened the cord around her waist and ran her fingers up and down the twisted silk in her hands, focusing on the texture, and consciously anchored herself in the present. Admittedly, yesterday’s encounter with him had been a disaster. But then, how could it not have been? If she was anything she was a realist. She never lied to herself. It would have been nice to have handled it better and to not have let herself turn into such a colossal mess afterward. But it was over now. The drama and the shock of seeing him again—even though she would give anything to have changed the specifics of the meeting—was behind her.

Uma Atya, Vijay Kaka, Nikhil, and Jen needed her. She had so much she’d missed with the aunties that she needed to catch up on. Those were the things she needed to focus on, and with all that remained to be done for the wedding, two weeks would be gone in a heartbeat.

“It’s two weeks. Just two measly weeks,” she chanted it under her breath as she entered the kitchen. Starlight streamed through the windows and mingled with the fluorescence of the appliances to cast a fuzzy glow over the room. Not that she needed mood lighting to make it magical. One step in and it was like her fairy godmother had tapped her with a wand and sprinkled stardust all over her. She would have spun around, Disney-princess style, if she were given to doing that sort of thing.

She didn’t bother to turn on a light. She knew exactly where everything was. Reaching into a cabinet, she pulled out a glass, and then turned on the faucet. A lullaby Uma had sung to her played in her head as she let the water turn warm before filling the glass, humming softly. Bubbles danced in the water and she watched them fizzle before downing the entire glass.

Her trainer insisted three glasses of warm water with lemon first thing in the morning washed away all the toxins in your body. She had already sent Ria a text last night reminding her to “stay on top of her program,” and Ria couldn’t bring herself to let her down. It was bad enough that she wasn’t bothering to squeeze half a lemon in each glass.

Feeling quite the rebel, she sucked in her breath, pulling her stomach all the way back to her spine, and did a quick set of breathing exercises—a separate text had been sent for this. Quick in-and-out breaths pumping through her stomach, like someone was punching her.
Oof. Oof. Oof.
She chugged the second glass. Then another set of breaths.
Oof. Oof. Oof.
Then another glass and she was done.

She put the glass in the sink, which was piled high with dishes. The party must’ve ended really late last night if Uma and the aunties had left the dishes unwashed. She turned around to survey the rest of the kitchen.

“Hi.”

She jumped and slammed into the counter behind her. Her hand flew to her mouth, muffling the yelp that escaped nonetheless.

Vikram sat at the dining table, leaning over a huge bowl of cereal, his face a mask of indifference. He popped a spoonful in his mouth and started chewing as if Ria routinely walked in on him eating cereal in the middle of the night and subjected him to absurd breathing routines.

Sparkles of pain danced across her back and her heart hammered as though she were having a heart attack. She dragged her hand from her mouth to her chest and waited for the beat to slow. “I—what—I didn’t see you.”

He lifted his shoulders in the slightest shrug. “Obviously,” his eyes said.

“I was waiting for you to put the glass down before I said anything. Don’t want to demolish all of Uma’s glassware.” He didn’t smile, just disinterestedly pushed another spoonful in his mouth and looked away.

An awkward silence settled between them. All that terrifying anticipation and it had led to this?

At least his hands were holding a spoon, not squeezing someone’s butt.

Great, that visual again. She felt like the reel of film she was on was jammed. Across from her, Vikram continued to eat as though she wasn’t even in the room. His jaw moved in a strong, steady rhythm. The subtle ridges along his throat bobbed as he swallowed. Despite the rumpled hair, despite the shadowy stubble and that cold, hard set of his jaw, he looked like you could put him on a billboard and the public would buy whatever you were selling. He looked perfect. There was just no other word for it. Warm and vital and perfect.

She gripped the cold granite behind her.

Of course he chose that precise moment to look up and catch her staring.

“Your back okay?” he asked, his tone sharp. He might as well have snapped his fingers in her face to snap her out of her trance.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

Another shrug. Another long silence.

“It’s a mess in here.” Saying something inane and obvious was possibly the only way to make things more awkward. So, naturally that’s what she did.

Before he could present her with another shrug she turned away and started to unload the dishwasher, pulling out a plate, and then completely blanking out on where it went. She hugged it to her chest and studied the cabinets, waiting for it to come back to her, willing her brain to start functioning again.

“The cabinet next to the microwave,” he said.

She turned around to thank him, but no words came out, instead, she just stood there like a buffoon. He pointed to the cabinet with his spoon and started studying the cereal box, shifting it so it stood between them like a shield. He had loved to read cereal boxes aloud, cracking up at the silly jokes on them the way only he could.

There wasn’t a trace of humor in him now. The furrow between his brows was almost as deep as the wrinkles in his shirt. Her eyes traced the creases draped around the bulges on his arms and shoulders—which had widened to twice their size. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d noticed yesterday that he had filled out. But how had she missed this? He hadn’t just filled out. He had expanded and burst out of all his youthful leanness into some sort of ridiculous athletic buffness. His arms looked like they lifted lumber for a living, not a scalpel.

A groan escaped her. She tried to turn it into a cough, but just ended up making it louder. Vikram’s hand paused for a second on its way to his mouth. Other than that, he gave no indication of having noticed. Heat rose up her cheeks. She forced herself to move before she embarrassed herself even more, and put the dishes away, stacking them perfectly, adjusting them until they were just so. It wasn’t easy with fingers that turned suddenly into rubber bands and eyes that wouldn’t stop seeking him out, punishing her for starving them so long.

He was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. A midnight-blue shirt, the cotton embossed with a bold paisley batik print. Something she could never have imagined him in. He had always been such a conventional dresser—T-shirts and jeans alternating with jeans and T-shirts. Come to think of it, there was nothing conventional about the way he looked anymore. His hair was long, curling at his neck and falling over his forehead, completely different from the closely cropped haircut he had sported with the neatly spiked front. It wasn’t just his body that was different, it was everything. Every feature had weathered into manhood. His jaw was wider, his neck thicker, everything had a rougher, wilder edge to it, every evidence of the clean-cut boyishness of her Viky wiped away.

Except for his mouth. Time hadn’t touched his mouth. It was as lush and wide as ever, with that pronounced gap right in the center—a tantalizing little notch where his lips didn’t quite fit together. She had loved his mouth, loved tracing that vulnerable dip with her fingers, loved to watch it when he talked, sketched it over and over again in her sketchbook the way other girls wrote boy’s names. But most of all she had loved how it felt against her lips.

He looked up and caught her watching him again. His eyebrows drew together over angry eyes. She looked away and stared at the empty dishwasher, her arms dangling uselessly at her sides, longing pooling in her belly like warm, thick honey.

His body was none of her business. His mouth was certainly none of her business, especially since it had been all over someone else not too long ago. And now he was apparently only just getting home. Which meant he and that mouth of his had been out all night. With Mira. All night. What time was it anyway?

“It’s five o’clock,” he said.

Her gaze flew up and met his. She hadn’t said the words out loud. The moment stretched out, pulsing between them like a raw, exposed nerve.

They had never needed words.

Vikram came to the exact same conclusion at the exact same moment. Panic flashed in his eyes, throwing him wide open for one beat of a second. With a deliberate gulp he regained his composure and pushed away from the table, rising up to his full height. The oversized kitchen shrank around Ria.

He picked up the empty bowl and looked at the sink behind her. She was leaning so far back into it, she was halfway inside it. He set the bowl back on the table.

“See you around. It’s been a long night.” His voice came out even and in control and completely at odds with what had flashed in his eyes moments ago. He turned and started walking away from her. Good. He was leaving. Perfect.

“So, you’re staying in the house?” She heard her own voice, but she couldn’t possibly have been stupid enough to speak.

He stopped mid-step, veering forward as if she had yanked him back by his belt. He stood like that for a moment, suspended by his struggle to walk away without answering, but then he turned around. Impatience and anger darkened his eyes and colored the crests of his cheeks over all that thick stubble. He couldn’t have made it more obvious how little he wanted to be here talking to her.

“You think Uma would let me stay anywhere else?” Despite his anger his tone softened on Uma’s name.

He always called everyone by their first name. Uma, Vijay—no auntie, uncle,
atya,
or
kaka
. For anyone else it would’ve been unthinkably rude and disrespectful. For Vikram it was just plain natural.

Ria shook her head. No, Uma Atya would never let him stay anywhere else.

“Why? Where else did you want me to stay?” The faintest hint of a challenge simmered in his voice and she knew stopping him had been a huge mistake.

Why had she spoken? Why?

“No, that’s not what I meant. I was just—Did you just get home?”

His eyebrows shot up. Ria wanted to tape her mouth shut. She had never had trouble speaking around Vikram. Words that hid from everyone else had bubbled up around him unbidden. It’s what had set him apart, pulled her to him with such force. But she wasn’t eight anymore and this was ridiculous.

His eyes hardened. “All right, I’ll play,” they said. “I drove Mira home. She lives in the city.”

Mira.

The name dropped between them like a ton of rubble. Ria knew she shouldn’t react, but she couldn’t stop her arms from wrapping around herself.

He took a step closer. “You remember Mira—you met her yesterday.” His eyes were so cold, a chill prickled up and down Ria’s arms. “She’s my—We’re together.”

He studied her, intense as a hawk in a hunt, registering every reaction, and zeroing in on the pain his words caused. The way he savored it grated against something deep inside her.

She stopped rubbing her arms and forced her voice to sound as cool as his. “Yes, I noticed. Congratulations. She seems really nice.”

Anger sparkled in the arctic depths of his eyes. “Yes. She is. She’s great.”

Their gazes locked. “And pretty. She’s really pretty too.”

“And she’s not just looks either.” Ria flinched and a satisfied glimmer lit his eyes. “She’s fun. Things are never boring when she’s around.”

“No. You didn’t look bored last night.”

He started. The anger he’d been controlling popped in his eyes and filled them, turning the crystal gray almost opaque. “You’re right, I was far from bored. Although you did walk in before the best part.”

The punch landed hard in the center of her chest and she almost gasped.

He smiled, ready to walk away. But those bloody words were out of her control now. “Good thing you had no trouble starting where you’d left off. You didn’t even wait for me to leave.”