Bootie and the Beast

by Falguni Kothari

  Diya stared at him in horror. “You want me to meet some prospective groom my father’s plucked out of a hat?”

  Put like that, it did sound awful. But he had promised Kamal Uncle he’d try and smooth the way. “He’s a great guy.”

  “How would you know? Do you know him? Is he one of your best buds?” She gave him the death stare.

  “Well, no. I don’t know him personally,” he admitted, feeling sweat pop up over his neck. It had sounded like a great idea when Kamal Uncle put it forth. “But I’ve heard—”

  “From Daddy,” Diya derisively cut him off. “Ha! What an unbiased opinion that is.” She shook her head to and fro several times before taking a deep breath. “Fine,” she said on an exhalation. “I’ll meet this … paragon … just to get you both off my back. When?”

  Krish cleared his throat. “On Sunday. And he’s—”

  She held up a hand. “Spare me the heavenly songs of praise. I don’t want to hear anything about him. I will meet him, and then I will decide if we are suited for one another.”

  Krish was taken aback by Diya’s abnormally mature attitude regarding the arrangement. Where had this pragmatism been nine years ago? Why wasn’t she ranting and raving about fairy tales and true love and princes or the charming Hasaan? He couldn’t believe how easily she’d said yes.

  But, of course, there was a catch.

  “If I’m going to be shackled to some stranger by the end of the week, I will go down in glory,” cried the drama queen. “And, since you’ve offered to be my knave, you have to do my bidding. You will take the week off. I don’t care how busy you are, Beast. If you disagree, the deal is off.”

  Her mouth fell open when he agreed to her demand without argument. He’d been working from home since the buyout anyway, as the offices were shutting down and shifting to Wisconsin one department at a time. He almost felt sorry for tricking Diya into thinking she was winning. Almost.

  A savagely calculating look came into her eyes, belying his quick win. It made his scalp itch with unease. Her eyes swept over him from head to toe, and on their way up, they stopped in the periphery of his navel, which wasn’t nearly as pretty as hers.

  Krish sucked in a breath, making his T-shirt stretch across his chest and billow over his stomach. While he didn’t have what Diya referred to as a god-awful jiggle belly, he didn’t have the infamously ripped six-pack she lusted after either.

  “When’s the last time you pumped iron at the gym?” She patted his cotton-clad gut like a mother patted a child’s head before doling out punishment.

  He was going to weep for siding with her father.

  “A while ago. I haven’t had time.” Or the inclination to renew his gym membership in two years. Though he did play a mean game of tennis and cricket every weekend.

  “First project for the coming week is reacquainting you with your major muscle groups,” she declared.

  Oh, yeah, paying off the debt to Lady Baklava was going to be brutal.

  * * *

  Diya was bewildered by the bizarre twist in her un-fairy tale.

  Krish hadn’t balked at her plans to physically torture him and had agreed to babysit her for a week? What the what?

  “Since you’re not heading off to your office, I vote we get started on your six-pack now.” Now was as good a time as any to begin the torture. It was payback time. “Run along, Beast. Go change into your gym clothes.”

  He frowned. “You want to start now?”

  “Why not? Do you have something better to do?” Like hightail it to the office?

  He either owned up his game or owned up to his promise. Either way, she wasn’t showing any mercy.

  “But didn’t you just finish your exercise routine?” he said.

  Diya pointed to the door. “I’ll stretch while I coach you.”

  Krish narrowed his eyes but walked out of the room without another word.

  See? Bizarre.

  She stalked to the escritoire where she’d left her metallic-pink sports bottle in the middle of a mess of books, papers, writing implements, chargers, wires, and a cordless phone. She screwed open the cap and took a long swallow of lemon-flavored water, sighing as the liquid cooled her pumped-up insides and hydrated her body.

  What was her father up to? she wondered for the umpteenth time since he’d forced her to come to Dallas and shack up with Krish. And how had he convinced Krish to take a break from his work to babysit her? He couldn’t be trying to fix a match between them again, could he?

  Not after the disastrous results of his meddling the last time. No, that wasn’t it. There definitely was a show-and-tell groom waiting in the wings. Krish had confirmed it. Besides, Krish’s revoltingly solicitous attitude indicated he wasn’t the nominee. Were he in the running, he’d be running to the hills for sure and snarling the whole way there.

  She took another long sip of water and gave a delicate little burp while mentally dissecting the conversation she’d had with her father early that morning. It had been clever of her to make the situation work in her favor.

  “I’ll agree to meet the suitable dude if you take an impromptu holiday in Goa with Mummy. Come on, Daddy. Be good old empty nesters and just take off on another honeymoon.”

  She wanted her parents out of gossip range for a week.

  “Dear child, the very definition of empty nester is, we don’t need to seek our honeymoons outside the house. What about our patients? We can’t just leave them without advance notice.”

  Her father hated spontaneity. He was a planner. He had to be as an orthodontist.

  In addition to a fairy-tale marriage, Kamal and Lubna Mathur shared a thriving dental practice. They didn’t even have to travel for work since their office was located on the mezzanine floor of their residence building. That was why, unlike most dentists, her parents kept longer working hours. They were nothing if not super dedicated to their patients.

  “We have responsibilities and a life. I refuse to run off and hide like a thief because you can’t keep yourself scandal-free for a month.”

  Gosh, it was uncanny how similar Daddy and Krish were. Grouchy, not spontaneous, workaholics, disapproving.

  In Daddy’s defense, it had been close to his bedtime, and sexagenarians needed more than their allotted beauty sleep. What was Krish’s excuse?

  When pleading had failed, Diya had tried to butter her father up, laying it on thick. “You’ve certainly had ample practice being a thief. Stealing Mummy’s heart and spiriting her away in the middle of the night.”

  Her parents’ real-life romance could give Bollywood movies a run for their money. They’d fallen in love at first sight, and despite their families’ vociferous objections to their union—her father’s folks were Hindus, and her mother’s family was devout Muslims—they’d eloped in the middle of the night and made a life together. Both the families had forgiven their children—eventually—but the road traveled had been fraught with recriminations. And yet, never once had her parents faltered in their love and support of each other.

  That was the kind of love Diya aspired to have. The kind that made you giddy and shivery and so desperately in love that you braved the wicked world together. Her sister, Priya, had also experienced the same madness as a freshman at Seth GS Medical College when she shared her biology notes with Amol Shroff. Last year, Leesha had caught the lovebug, too, with Aryan. Though, to hear both Pree and Leesha explain it, their ultimate decision to tie the knot had little to do with romance and more to do with fiscal and legal practicalities.

  Bah! And humbug. Liars and idiots, both of them.

  Her mental grumbling came to a halt when Krish ambled back into the room, outfitted in running shoes, ridiculously loose basketball shorts, and a faded black T-shirt no better than a rag.

  Diya recapped the water bottle and drank him in. Broad shoulders. Slight slouch. Decently muscled limbs. A beer belly. He was unconditioned, true, but not terribly. His muscles just needed to be reawakened. She licked her lips in a
nticipation.

  “How do you want to do this? Go for a walk? A run? There’s a gym in the basement,” he said, waggling his eyebrows above his spectacles while his brown eyes twinkled.

  A tingling started deep inside her despite her best effort to the contrary.

  For the most part, Diya was reconciled to her loveless fate. She had no hope of experiencing the kind of passion she dreamed of—not while the Beast lived and breathed. Certainly not when he was such a huge part of her life. There was no room to get away from him or over him, and she didn’t have the guts to cut him out completely. She couldn’t even imagine such a thing. Not that it would be at all possible or practical to pretend that he was invisible at family gatherings. So, she took pleasure in the small things. Like revenge.

  She placed her left hand on her hip and sauntered toward him, coming to a stop close enough until they could feel each other breathe. She raised a hand and trailed her fingertips down his chest, testing, caressing, pointing out the parts that needed work.

  He caught her wrist when her fingers dipped under the waistband of his shorts, holding it in a deathly grip. His expression was utterly calm, as if nothing she did affected him. It wasn’t fair when everything he did affected her on a molecular level.

  It hurt her heart to be around him sometimes.

  “Walk?” She twisted free and scoffed, “Walking is for pussies.”

  Chapter 6

  Friday inched forward in a cloud of comic skepticism and intense flirting.

  To Krish’s initial and immense amusement, Diya had refused to believe that he, “Really? Truly?” meant to remain at home for the duration of her stay in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex area.

  Every so often, he’d catch her staring at him. Then, her eyes would glance at the watch on her wrist or at an appliance that displayed the time—like the old cuckoo clock dangling from a wall or the TV or the oven she was preheating now—before coming back to rest on his face.

  She seemed to expect him to spring up, change into office clothes, and rush out of the house with an, Adios, baby. No more knave for you.

  Or did she want him to leave? Did she want some privacy to mope and wail and wallow at her predicament?

  When her eyes did another one of the time-watching circuits, he finally begged her to stop. “You’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not.” Then, he distracted her by holding up two avocados to her face. “Which one’s ready? I can never tell.”

  Buying organic food had been the third item on Diya’s Friday agenda. The first being the nauseating drill of core exercises she’d put him through to jump-start his muscle growth and metabolism, followed by their daily hygiene routines. His had taken ten minutes flat—enough time for a man to shower and change into jeans and a green polo.

  Her feminine routine had lasted for more than an hour, part of which she’d spent in the kitchen, concocting a homemade facial mask made of fresh fruit, yogurt, and ground lentil. She’d carried a big, holistic bowl brimming with the paste into the bathroom—said bowl unearthed from one of the pink trunks by yours truly.

  “Nothing like a natural body scrub to gently exfoliate your skin. Try it, Beast,” she’d urged earnestly. “Better yet, allow me to demonstrate the correct method of application. Your pores will thank you for allowing them to breathe.”

  To that sage beauty tip by a woman whose face was avocado-green and caked with segments of half an orange, he’d replied, “Thanks, but no, thanks.” Then, he’d executed a swift retreat into the den before she got it in her head to forcibly make his pores happy.

  He’d spent the next three-quarters of the hour barking out orders and instructions to his team, most of whom had been effortlessly absorbed into Wisco and were tying up loose odds and ends in Dallas. He should be doing the same, just in case he did decide to bind himself to Wisco. But he didn’t want to go into work. And he didn’t want to bind himself to anything for five years. He had to come to a decision soon, one way or another. He had to figure out what it was he really wanted out of life.

  When Diya had come looking for him after her bath and asked if she could borrow the car to get some groceries, he’d quit brooding and accompanied her on the errand.

  They were back in the kitchen now with Krish propped on a barstool, slurping a berry protein smoothie and half a piece of baklava, while India’s version of the Barefoot Contessa prepared a healthy and very late lunch for them.

  His anticipation knew no bounds, and he wasn’t getting started on how excited his taste buds and stomach were. He hadn’t had one of Diya’s freshly prepared meals in ages. Besides being the Party Princess of India—possibly the whole of Asia—Beauty Mathur was also the crowned Queen of House and Kitchen.

  She could cook. Like really cook and not just throw things in a bowl and call it a meal. In fact, she was a master at an incredible number of domestic crafts: sewing—she could make her own clothes from scratch (not that she needed to), knitting, crocheting, quilting. He still had the quilt she’d made for him when he graduated. A patchwork number in the colors of the Indian flag, so he’d remember his roots. She’d personalized each green, saffron, white, and blue patch with a symbol or a story or a picture that held meaning for him. It lay at the bottom of his closet, within reach. He took it out on the nights he felt unreasonably alone and homesick.

  Even all those years ago, she’d known what he needed. Diya always knew what people needed, sometimes before they knew themselves.

  Was that why she was helping Hasaan Jabbir? Or was she in love with him?

  “Do you actually remember everything you learned from the countless classes you’ve taken?” he asked, suddenly looking at her flibbertigibbet activities in a completely new light.

  She knew Reiki healing. She’d even tried her hand at hypnotism in relation to past-life regression. She’d tried to hypnotize him once. He’d never had a better eight hours of sleep.

  Diya looked up from the stove, ladle in one hand and spoon in the other. The rising steam from the simmering soup pot had given her face an appealing dewiness. A few tendrils of her hair had escaped her ponytail and were sticking to her neck and cheeks. She’d made him brush them off her face a few times while batting her eyelashes at him. Diya was a natural-born flirt. She lived to tease, to hug, to make people smile and feel good about themselves. She was a tactile person. The way she’d touched his chest that morning. God, she was a tease.

  Her rosebud lips bloomed into a smile. “Like the ikebana and sushi-making classes?”

  She set down the utensils and wiped her hands on her pink apron. Below the apron, she was still very much a diva in a frilly yellow top and skinny jeans.

  He nodded and took another slurp of his smoothie. Who knew raw vegetables and fruit tasted this good? “How many different types of classes have you taken again?”

  Diya was julienning a cupful of baby carrots on the chopping board. The lunch menu was tom yum soup, papaya salad, and steamed dim sums. Krish’s mouth watered just from the tangy smells swirling about the kitchen.

  “Lost count after I crossed one hundred,” she replied with a shrug. She tilted her head toward him as if posing for a photograph without slowing down the slicing. “If you sneer at my diverse ADHD non-education again … if you so much as twitch a sarcastic eyelid, you can kiss this lunch good-bye. I’ll feed your share of this age-defying meal to the cats.”

  “I doubt cats like Thai. Plus, they aren’t much bothered by aging—nine lives and all, you know,” he drawled.

  But her words triggered a rush of bittersweet memories. Had he actually sneered at her back then? Had he really been such a pompous, stick-in-the-mud academic who looked down on the unique way she educated herself?

  Suddenly feeling awful and awkward, he slid off the barstool and walked around the kitchen island. The least he could do was rinse his glass and apologize.

  “No, seriously, I was a jerk,” he said a dozen years too late. “And stupid and ignorant and … just wrong.”

&nb
sp; “My, my. Who knew exercise could strike your conscience like this?” Her smile grew amused. “You were right though. You all were. If I had pursued that law degree instead of dropping out, I might be a master of one thing and not a brat of all.”

  Diya’s parents had hoped their second daughter would also follow the family tradition and become a doctor. But Diya had never been interested in studies. She’d enrolled in law only because Alisha had.

  “Brat of all. I like it. It suits you, being a brat of all. I can’t imagine you as a lawyer or a doctor. I can’t imagine you at a desk with a nine-to-five job. I don’t think I ever did.” Krish couldn’t remember the last time Diya and he had had a conversation that didn’t deteriorate into a fight. He doubted the amity would last.

  To hell with not annoying her, he thought and tweaked her nose.

  She batted his hand away. “I can’t either. I only ever wanted—” She abruptly pressed her lips together and made a strange gurgling sound in her throat.

  “What is it? Did you cut yourself?” He reached for her hands, but they were fine, one still holding the knife. When he looked at her face, her cheeks had gone pink, and she refused to meet his eyes.

  He froze as it struck him what she’d said—rather what she had been about to say perhaps and hadn’t. Diya had only ever wanted a fairy tale.

  For as long as he could remember, she’d been obsessed with finding her prince, falling in love, getting married, making a home in a castle surrounded by horses and a dozen children. The M Brigade would often ponder over life, as children did when they had a vast future ahead of them. Diya’s lofty domestic goals had been the butt of many a joke.

  However, if the thought of her chained to a desk was laughable, he couldn’t imagine her cooking and keeping house all day either. He couldn’t imagine her as a wife.

  No, he’d refused to imagine her as his wife. He’d asked her to marry him, and then he’d tried his damnedest not to think about marriage at all.