The Bollywood Bride (8 page)

Ria took a sip and smiled at her aunt. “Speaking of
lagna ghar.
It’s close to noon and all this looks a bit relaxed. Don’t we have a wedding to plan? Where’s the panic? The bustle?”

“Well, we were all set to panic this morning, but elves visited last night and cleaned up.” Uma made her typical admonishing eyes at Ria. “Now we don’t know what to do with ourselves.”

Ria gave her a sheepish smile. “So you made
idlis
instead.” She leaned against Vijay Kaka’s chair and peered into the steamer stacked with fluffy white rice cakes and the most delicious smelling lentil
sambar.
Her stomach gave the most unladylike growl. Before Uma could launch into a lecture, Ria picked up a plate and helped herself to an
idli
. Uma reached for the
sambar.

“You need a dropper for that, Aie?” Nikhil grinned his most annoying grin.

Ria smacked his shoulder.

“What? We can’t have fat starlets running around.” He looked far too amused with himself. Ria glared at him, but everyone else laughed. The traitors.

“Oh, this is just like old times,” Mindy said. “I wish Drew were here. You remember our son, Drew?”

Ria nodded. Drew had called her “Mrs. J” because Vikram’s last name was Jathar and it had turned Ria all shades of red. Which had made Vikram adopt the name anytime he felt the need to make her blush. “How is Drew?” she asked.

“He’s psychiatry faculty at U of M and he has his own private practice in Ann Arbor,” Mindy said, and then proceeded to fill Ria in on every detail of Drew’s illustrious career and wonderful family at length, which inspired Nikhil to make gagging faces behind her. Ria spooned rice cake into her mouth, her straight face a testament to her own illustrious career. But she was going to kill Nikhil if she choked.

“Of course he’ll be at the wedding.” Mindy was still talking about Drew. “He won’t pass up an opportunity to see Vic, and they’ve been working on that project of theirs,” she said to Uma with such pride that her eyes misted over.

“I know! Isn’t it just wonderful what they’re doing?” Uma said, her eyes just as proud, and Ria had a hard time swallowing.

Suddenly Uma turned to Nikhil, all the pride on her face turning into worry. “Where
is
that boy? I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“Your thirty-one-year-old ‘boy’ is fine, Aie. He just had his hands full last night,” Nikhil said, grinning so suggestively that the graphic visuals of Vikram with Mira wrapped around each other sprang back to life inside Ria’s head. “He’ll show up. Don’t worry, he hasn’t disappeared into thin air again.”

Blood drained from Uma’s face. Her hands tightened around her cup until her fingers turned white. The
idli
stuck in Ria’s throat.

Nikhil went to Uma and folded his arms around her. “Come on, Aie, I’m kidding. Relax. He’s fine. You worry too much.” He rested his chin on Uma’s head, carefully avoiding Ria’s eyes. “We are all grown up now. And perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.”

Ria pushed away from the table, needing to move. What on earth were they talking about?

Uma turned and glared at Nikhil. “You kids really think that’s possible, don’t you? That we can actually stop worrying about you? Wait until you have kids of your own, then you’ll know what it feels like. ‘Relax,’ he tells me!”

Mindy nodded fiercely from across the table. Vijay and Matt looked at Nikhil and shook their heads at his stupidity. Nikhil groaned and apologized again.

Ria carried her plate to the sink, clutching it hard. She waited for them to say more, but they moved on to something else, and she didn’t know how to get them to turn back. All these years of biting back questions about Vikram and it still made her want to burst.

Uma could never find out how far things had gone with Vikram, or how things had ended. And she definitely could never find out about Vikram’s mother’s role in the whole sorry mess. Uma would never understand what had motivated Chitra to come after Ria, or why Ria had listened to her. Just like Uma had never understood why Ria couldn’t let anyone help her with the asylum bills. But there were just some burdens Ria would never share with anyone. She just couldn’t.

The spicy
sambar
that had tasted like heaven two minutes ago burned back up her throat like acid. She dumped the half-eaten
idli
in the trash, making sure no one saw her do it, then she shoved it under the other garbage with her spoon, covering it up.

How convenient to have Vic to leech off,
Chitra had told her
.

She hadn’t leeched off anyone and she hadn’t ruined his life. And she never would.

 

Somewhere between showering and pulling on a pair of faded jeans and a turquoise sweater, Ria remembered that she hadn’t called DJ since she’d arrived. Since the day really couldn’t get any worse, she might as well get an update on the blackmailer.

“I got him to pipe down for now,” DJ told her. “But I don’t trust the bastard. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.”

It should have been unsettling, but Ria couldn’t bring herself to care. She felt every one of the eight thousand miles that separated her from Mumbai. Another thing that hadn’t changed. Her summers here had eradicated her life in India from her mind, wiped her clean. Two months of being one person. The ten months in India, on the other hand, had been all dissonance between the person everyone in school saw, The Girl Who Came From Insanity; the person Baba saw, The Girl He Wished They Hadn’t Made; and the person who wished she weren’t either one of those girls.

She tucked her phone between her ear and shoulder and started to straighten out the bed for the nth time. DJ couldn’t stop complaining about the fact that she hadn’t called him sooner.

“It’s been one day, Big. I’m on holiday, remember?”

“Yes, but we have to make a call on the
StarGangster
script, remember? I have Shivshri breathing down my neck. They’re threatening to sign someone else.”

Shivshri was India’s largest production house and Shivji, the patriarch of the family-owned business, would never sign anyone else. Ria had been in five of their biggest hits in the past ten years and he believed she was their lucky mascot. Even if they did sign someone else and Ria changed her mind, they would throw the other actress out and sign Ria on. And they’d do it with a big
pooja
service to thank the gods of fortune.

Ria stopped stroking the creases off the bed. As thankful as she was for Shivji and his superstitions, she hated violence. “I’m really not sure about this, Big. I’m not sure I can run around shooting people.” She was the kind of star who sold happy dreams. She didn’t want to sell darkness. Pain was best left in the real world where it belonged, where it burrowed so deep you needed a multimillion-dollar industry to escape from it.

“Babes, you’ve done the same thing for ten years. Don’t you want change?”

No. What she wanted was for everything to go back to the way it was and stay that way. Although, really, how many more wedding movies could she possibly play the blushing bride in?

“Listen, babes. This is all there is.” He took one of his long dramatic pauses. “Unless . . .” he trailed off.

Ria knew exactly what he was up to. “I’ve told you, DJ, I’m not doing art films.”

“They’re not
art films.
” He spat the words out as if they tasted foul. “This isn’t the eighties. It’s parallel cinema. Sensible scripts, not your usual commercial formulas. Maybe it’s time to give it a shot.”

“Why? Because I’m almost thirty and all the commercial heroine roles are written for eighteen-year-olds?”

“You’re not thirty,” he said irritably, just like she knew he would. Her aging-star status bothered DJ more than he’d admit. “You’re barely twenty-eight and this has nothing to do with age. I actually think you’d be very good.”

She laughed.

“Listen, babes, there’s some really kickass scripts out there, really gritty, emotionally honest stuff. Real opportunities to dig into yourself. What’s the harm in trying it out?”

That was the precise reason she didn’t want to try it out. The last thing she wanted to dig into was herself. She wanted to bury what was inside her deeper where it would stop haunting her. She patted down the last remaining crease in the comforter, but it still didn’t feel smooth.

What DJ really meant—what he’d been trying to tell her for months—was that she didn’t have a choice. The public wasn’t interested in twenty-eight-year-old heroines dancing wedding numbers with smitten heroes. They had plenty of twenty-year-olds peddling the real thing. “Okay. Send me
StarGangster.
I’ll look at it.”

“Fantastic.” As usual he didn’t bother to mask his triumph. “It’s on its way.”

“Can’t wait,” she mumbled, and pulled the comforter and sheets off. She needed to make the bed all over again.

As soon as she got back from Jen’s tonight, she was diving into that script. It was time to focus all her energies on work once more and to block everything else out.

8

J
en lived in a converted warehouse building in the city. The building felt like a fancy hotel, doorman and lobby and all. The apartment overlooked Lake Michigan, which felt like a bluer version of the Mumbai ocean, waves and beach and all. The apartment itself felt nothing like the hypermodern white space Ria lived in. This place breathed. Warmth engulfed Ria the moment she walked in.

“You like?” Jen asked as Ria stared, mesmerized, at the high ceiling, the exposed concrete walls, and the most stunning artwork she had ever seen.

“I love.” Ria walked to one of the huge unframed mounted canvases hanging from one high wall and touched the textured surface. The vibrant exuberance of the strokes traveled up her fingers and touched her heart. Unlike her own art, the artist seemed to have danced on the canvas in joy, and it set off a ripple of something deep inside Ria that she was too afraid to name.

The paintings offset the earthy simplicity of the fabric sofa, the stone-topped tables, and the wide-planked wood floors, and gave the space such serenity Ria wanted to curl up with a book and listen to soft music. She exhaled. This was exactly what she needed, time away from the house.

She hadn’t seen Vikram after her run and Nikhil hadn’t mentioned him on the drive here. They had talked about everything but Vikram, carefully skirting his name the way they had done for the past ten years. She ran her fingers over the canvas one more time. This was perfect. An afternoon with just Nikhil and Jen.

When she turned around she found herself alone in the living room. They were both gone. The bedroom door was open, so she went looking for them. Nikhil had Jen plastered against a wall and was devouring her mouth as if he hadn’t seen her in years.

“God, guys, at least lock the door or something,” she said, spinning around.

They pulled her back into the room, identical goofy expressions on their faces. Jen slapped Nikhil’s shoulder, but then ruined it by letting her hand linger too long. “Nikhil, behave,” she said.

Ria laughed. “Yes, saying it like that is going to make him behave.”

Nikhil planted another noisy kiss on Jen and she pushed him away and pointed toward the low Asian-style bed. “There they are.”

The saris Ria has brought with her from Mumbai sat unwrapped and arranged across the bed. “You like?” Ria asked.

“I love!” Jen’s eyes sparkled as she sifted through the yards of silk and chiffon, and it made the hours Ria had spent with her designer worth every moment. He had insisted on talking to Jen over a webcam and “getting to know her.” He had made Jen walk, sit, stand.
I’m doing this long-distance thing only for you, darling. I’m Manish Jain and Manish Jain does couture, not off-the-rack.

He had done great. The colors were perfect. A deep midnight blue chiffon with
aara
work for the henna ceremony, a more traditional
kanjivaram
jade silk for the wedding, and the most vivid crimson crepe edged with Swarovski crystals for the reception that was the perfect blend of red and copper and brown merging into one magnificent wine-colored gem.

“These are just beautiful, Ria. I don’t know how to thank you.” Jen ran tentative fingers over the shimmering fabric as if trying to skim the surface of water without causing ripples. “But I have no idea what to do with them.” Suddenly Jen looked lost, and more bewildered than Ria had ever seen her look.

“I have a few ideas,” Nikhil said, rubbing her shoulders, and planted a kiss on her neck.

She didn’t react.

“Nikhil, let’s focus on putting the clothes on right now, not taking them off, okay?” Ria said, smiling, and unfurled the midnight-blue silk across the bed.

Nikhil laughed, but his eyes stayed on Jen, who continued to stare at the saris nervously. “I’ve never worn a sari in my life. And the wedding is in twelve days.” She gnawed at a cuticle.

Ria slung the jade silk over Jen’s shoulder. “Really, Jen, it’s not hard once you get the hang of it. Here, let’s drape one on you and you’ll see how easy it is. Don’t worry, we’re going to turn you into the perfect
desi
bride.”

Given what a
desi-
phile Jen was and how naturally she took to everything Indian, her nervousness was adorable, and Ria gave her a quick hug. She had no doubt Jen was going to be dancing the bhangra in her sari before she knew it. “You already know more about Indian history and culture than both Nikhil and me put together, and by the end of today, you’ll be better at wearing Indian clothes than us too.”

“Ria’s right,” Nikhil said, “I can already see Aie rubbing it in my face. ‘For shame, Nic, learn something from your fiancée!’” He waved his hands about and did a perfect imitation of Uma Atya.

Ria smiled and zipped up Jen’s blouse. Then knotted the skirt-like petticoat at her waist and wrapped the sari around her, pleating and tucking the slippery fabric in place. Jen stood there stiffly, her arms held up at right angles like a traffic cop. “I feel like I’m being gift-wrapped.”

Ria couldn’t think of a better way to describe it herself, especially since Nikhil was watching her as though she were a midwife delivering their first child. She adjusted the fabric on Jen’s shoulder, pinned it in place with a safety pin, and turned Jen around to face Nikhil. “Nikhil, your wedding present.”

Nikhil looked smitten.

No surprise, because Jen was stunning. The jade silk brought out the golden glow of her skin and the deep black of her hair and eyes. “Jen, you look absolutely gorgeous. Manish is going to put you on a billboard, I swear.”

“Thanks.”

Jen speaking in monosyllables was not a good thing and Ria had never heard her mumble. She tucked a lock of hair behind Jen’s ear. “Why don’t you try to walk around a bit? It doesn’t come off when you move, I promise.”

Jen took two steps forward like a wind-up doll and stopped. “But how do you move in this thing? It’s tied around me like a bandage. Shit, what am I going to do?” She stared at herself in the mirror not seeing what Ria and Nikhil saw. “I don’t think I can do this. And the wedding is ten days away.” She turned to Ria, her panic real and clear in her eyes. “You have to help me.”

Ria had never been able to expose her own fears to anyone. She had never been able to ask for help. Something incredibly sweet warmed inside her and she gave Jen another hug.

“Jen, you’re going to be fine. Millions of women wear saris. And most of them aren’t brilliant surgeons who work miracles under the worst possible conditions. Trust me, you can do this.”

Jen’s shoulders sunk even lower. Nikhil took a few restless steps back and forth and wrung his hands. He tried to rub Jen’s shoulders again, but she gave him such a fierce look he turned to Ria looking so helpless Ria wanted to photograph it for posterity.

“Okay, guys, time to relax. I know exactly what to do.” Ria picked up the midnight-blue sari. “Nikhil, out.” She pushed Nikhil out of the room. “Go get us some coffee.”

Then she stripped off her jeans and pulled on the blouse and petticoat. The blouse was too short and too loose on her, but she couldn’t care less. She wrapped the sari around herself with quick, sure movements. Jen gaped at her as though she were performing robotic surgery.

“Really, Jen, there’s nothing to it. It’s just a matter of getting used to it. Just follow along and do as I do.” She pulled the flowing end of the sari across her hips and showed Jen how to hold herself in it. How to wrap it around her waist while standing, how to drape it across her shoulders while sitting, how to pinch the fan of pleats between her fingers and lift it just an inch while walking.

With a little bit of prodding, Jen started to move. Slowly at first, then more surely. Ria broke everything down into baby steps. Finally, Jen realized that moving didn’t make the sari fall off. She relaxed and started to follow along, the sparkle returning to her eyes. Ria’s relief had to be completely disproportional to the situation, but still she let it fill her up.

Soon they were both sashaying up and down the room, with Jen mirroring Ria’s every move. They flicked their heads back and threw siren looks at the mirror and then burst into giggles. Jen had specifically asked for blouses that were more modest than the current style. Even so, most of her midriff and waist remained exposed between the blouse and the petticoat. “Why does it have to be so short?” She tugged at the blouse, crinkling her nose and trying to cover her exposed belly.

“The sari
pallu,”
Ria said, running her hand over the flowing end of the sari that draped across the front of her body and fell over her shoulder, “is supposed to cover your tummy, not the blouse. When you wear a sari, the
pallu
is your best friend. You can control how much you show or hide with it. Let it slide off your shoulder a fraction, and there you have some cleavage. Wrap it tight around yourself and there you have every curve outlined. It’s really quite handy.”

“It’s ingenious!” Jen let the
pallu
drop over her shoulder the way Ria had done, her eyes shining with mischief, then lifted it up and twirled it around herself.

Jen’s spirit was infectious. It made Ria want to draw aside the curtain she pulled between herself and the world. Before she knew it, she was playing the blushing bride for Jen and then the sexy siren. She wrapped the
pallu
around herself, stretching her neck long and graceful as a queen, then pleated it into a narrow strip between her breasts, suggestive as a nymphet. “You can be whatever you want in a sari, prim and dignified or a real femme fatale,” she said, smiling away.

Jen loved that. She pulled the
pallu
up to her lips, caught it between her teeth, and batted her eyelids. She pulled it in a veil across her face, letting only her eyes show and arched her brows, giving Ria a smoking hot look so over the top, Ria doubled over. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes.

The doorbell rang and Ria ran out to let Nikhil in. He had to see this.

“You’re getting really good at this. The wedding guests are going to be sweating,” she called over her shoulder, wiping the tears from her eyes, and reached for the door. “Can you imagine a hall full of people turned on by the br—”

Vikram stood across the doorway. Ria’s smile slid off her face. Jen’s too-loose blouse followed suit and slid off her shoulder. Vikram’s gaze hitched on her exposed shoulder, lingered on the blouse that ended just below her breasts and traveled downward, tracing her bare midriff down the curve of her waist to the swell of her hips.

Mira walked up behind him.

“Hi!” she said chirpily.

Vikram blinked and released his breath.

Ria pulled the
pallu
around her shoulders, wrapping it around herself as tightly as she could. Under the sheer fabric, every inch of skin was on fire.

“Wow! I love your sari. It’s beautiful.” Mira beamed at her.

Ria stepped aside to let them in.

Mira sauntered into the apartment with the familiarity of a frequent visitor. She dumped her bag on the open kitchen bar and headed straight for the bedroom just as Jen stepped out of it.

“Don’t look so surprised, girl,” Mira said to Jen. “We were in the neighborhood, so we had to stop by.” She pointed at Jen’s sari. “Absolutely love it!” They gave each other a hug and kept on talking. Neither one noticed that Vikram hadn’t moved.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Jen twirled around like an old pro. “Ria picked it out. She was just teaching me how to be a sexy siren in a sari.” She winked at Ria.

Ria tried to smile, but wasn’t sure if she managed. Vikram walked past her to the open kitchen.

“Hey, I want to be a sexy siren too! Teach me too.” Mira laughed and turned to Vikram. “What d’you think, Vic?”

“I think you’re perfect the way you are.” He pulled a bottle of beer out of the fridge.

“Isn’t he the best?” Mira asked no one in particular. She went up on her toes and gave him a peck on the cheek. It took him a moment too long, but he put his arm around her shoulder and Ria kicked herself for noticing the moment he’d taken to do it.

“He’s the best suck-up, that’s what he is,” Jen said, laughing. Vikram twisted the cap off the beer and took a deep swig.

Ria had never been more thankful that people never expected her to say anything. Being an Ice Princess had its advantages.

Jen looked from Ria to Mira across the polished concrete breakfast bar. “You guys haven’t met, have you?” she asked. “Ria, this is Mira. Mira, this is Ria.”

“Oh, we met yesterday,” Mira said. “She found Vikram and me in the—”

“Where’s Nikhil?” Vikram cut Mira off and glanced around the apartment. The pulse in his throat beat out a frantic rhythm. His eyes met Ria’s for a split second. His hand reached for his neck and he pressed the pulse down with his thumb.

“He’s getting coffee. Or growing it. He’s been gone a while, I’d better call him.” Jen headed back into the bedroom. “Oh, by the way, Mira, Ria loved your paintings.” She pointed to the artwork on her walls and left the room.

Mira rounded on Ria. “You like them, really?”

Words stuck in Ria’s throat. These paintings were Mira’s? The flutter of envy that Ria had refused to recognize earlier flared inside her.

Mira stared at her, waiting for a response. For the first time since Ria had met her, Mira looked insecure about something.

“They’re beautiful. I love them,” Ria said, and meant it.

Joy blossomed on Mira’s expressive face as though Ria had just handed her a medal. It made her look so young, so guileless, a ridiculous surge of protectiveness rose inside Ria. “Seriously. The strokes, the colors, the movement, it’s impossible to look away from them.”

Mira jogged around the wide bar and threw her arms around Ria. “Aw. I love you, thanks!”

Startled, Ria patted Mira’s back and caught Vikram’s eyes over Mira’s shoulder. He was giving nothing away today. His eyes stayed flat and unfathomable. Which was just as well, given their last meeting.