We’d been guzzling the infamous Girlfriend Cocktails since dinner. The GFC had been invented by our very own Naira in sophomore year, if you could believe it. The jalapeño-spiked-cocktail recipe had been liberally shared with all the bartenders working within a six-block radius of NYU. The bartender at Lavinia’s wedding was the latest recipe recipient.
“Are you heading straight back to Mumbai after the wedding?” I simply had to know if she’d come just for the wedding.
The dreaminess in her eyes dimmed. She shook her head. “I have things to take care of in New York. I’m going to be around for a month. Probably longer if all goes well.” She brightened again. “Fun, right? We can catch up.”
“Of course, we’ll catch up. What things?” Probably something to do with the criminal.
She flapped her hand at the speakers blaring out remixed Bollywood songs. “It’s too long a conversation to get into tonight. Or shout out.”
I nodded. True. A wedding wasn’t the place to hold an interrogation. If Naira was going to be in town for a while, we’d have plenty of opportunities for confessions and cross-examinations. Still, questions and thoughts kept hammering inside my skull. And I was dying to tell her about Neal and the surrogacy. She was going to be gobsmacked. Happy gobsmacked. Naira was as baby mad as my husband.
Speaking of my husband, Neal was headed for our table, a whisky in his hand. He’d been schmoozing with some menfolk at the bar ever since the dancing had started. But every once in a while, he’d come by to check on my foot. He stopped behind my chair, bent to give me a sweet, whisky-laced, inverted kiss.
“Need anything?” He straightened with a final press of his lips on my forehead. His question included Naira, but she’d turned her gaze away from us. To give us privacy.
My amusement spiked. She was still a prude.
“You guys don’t need to babysit me. Go and dance. Have fun,” I said, making eyes at my husband, hoping he’d take the hint and ask Naira to dance. This business of Naira not wanting to dance like some tragic widow was rubbish, and I was having none of it.
“But I’m having so much fun babysitting you,” Naira teased.
Neal tossed his whisky back, set the tumbler down and gallantly held his hand out to Naira. Attaboy! “Come on, lass. I may not be anywhere near yer world champion status, but I promise ye, I’m not a bad dancer.”
“Oh, no. That’s not even... You don’t have to... I don’t want to dance. Really.” She looked at me pleadingly to rescue her.
I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Just go. It’s high time you both get to know each other. And what better way to do it than dancing together? That’s how we became friends with Lavinia and the gang, remember? Go. Let loose. It’s silly for all of us to sit around and growl at the world.”
Then, my husband turned on his full Scottish charm and within two minutes flat, he was leading my best friend onto the dance floor.
* * *
There was another reason I wanted Naira to dance with Neal. During the family performances, instead of watching the dances, Neal unsurprisingly had been more interested in seducing a set of fat twin bairns into fits of giggles as they bounced in their parents’ laps at the table next to us. Neal was a natural-born baby magnet, and I was used to seeing teeny tots turn into putty in his hands.
Naira was as crazy about babies as my husband—or, she had been. Back in college, she’d worked in the NYU crèche three mornings a week, and would eagerly volunteer to babysit professor’s kids in the evenings and on weekends. Yet, she hadn’t joined the game of baby peekaboo an hour ago. She’d sat between Neal and Stacey’s boyfriend, Matt, and looked on wistfully at the drool dripping down two shapeless chins as the twins blew raspberries at my husband. Something about the sadness of her posture had struck a nerve even in my toxified heart. She’d looked afraid to move, as if by twitching even an eyebrow she’d wake up from her dream—her dream of family.
Drat it. Naira should’ve been playing with her own children by now, not babysitting her dead husband’s family and debts. Just one more thing to hold against Kaivan the Criminal. And that was when the brilliant idea had popped into my head.
Both Neal and Naira were Super Parent material.
I wasn’t.
Both Neal and Naira came from happy, healthy, normal families. They understood family.
I didn’t. Family was something other people had. Not me.
I got the shakes just thinking about holding a miniature human in my arms. Naira didn’t. It’s my life’s purpose to be a mother, she’d said to me often enough. While my life’s purpose was to simply stay ahead of whatever catastrophe chased me.
I’d never wanted kids. Never imagined I’d fall for a man who did. But I had, and now here we were, short-listing surrogates and making Neal’s dream come true.
I didn’t want to be a mother. But Naira did. Hell, she’d be more of a mother, all the way from Mumbai, than I’d ever be in person.
So why not just ask her to?
Holy shit. Could I?
Should I?
Would she?
Would he? I wondered, my mind and heart racing a mile a minute.
I stared at my husband and my bestie whirling about the dance floor in a fast Viennese waltz. They were out of sync with the music as it was a samba booming out of the speakers. Still, they looked amazing together. Neal was leading, dipping Naira or simply lifting her off her feet when she stumbled on the unfamiliar footwork. She was tiny enough for him to lift up bodily without straining a back muscle, as in my case. My husband could ballroom dance like the lord he was—or would be. However, with any other kind of dance, he was a complete moron.
Naira, on the other hand, was a trained Kathak dancer and possessed an innate grace. And she had Neal’s number right from the first twirl. She’d started off as stiff and as reluctantly as a Victorian heroine in his arms, but now her expressions ran the gamut, a different one on display every time they swung past. Her eyes sought mine as they whirled past again, begging me to refute the obvious. I shrugged in answer. It is what it is. Yes, my tall, talented and disgustingly romantic husband had no rhythm in his bones whatsoever. Hey! No one ever got the full package, did they? Everyone had to compromise somewhere. And I’d rather be married to a dance moron than a crook any day.
Oy gevalt. I had to cease comparing our husbands even inside my own head. And my tongue seriously needed to be slapped with restraints. I was going to keep my opinions to myself this time. I had no right to judge Naira or Kaivan or their life together. I should never have said what I’d said to her when we’d last spoken.
A marriage was an understanding between two people and only two. I knew that now, after falling in love with Neal, after I’d caught myself willingly compromising my viewpoints just to make him happy or to keep the peace between us.
Sometimes, we managed to keep the peace. Other times, not even a compromise sufficed.
It seemed nontoxic relationships weren’t any easier to fathom or navigate than toxic ones. They hurt just as badly if one misstepped. And yet, a good relationship demanded the best of you. It forced you to become better than you’d ever imagined yourself to be. The hurt was there, of course it was, but it was a sweet pain that built character and not the horrible pain that stripped you of your humanity. A good friend might cause you to panic and burn yourself, but she stuck around to make sure you didn’t blister...much. She made you a skirt out of a scarf, and maybe even agreed—gladly—to mother your baby. However, what a good friend didn’t do was flash her boobs at your husband.
My eyes widened at the tableau before me. Pants on fire wasn’t enough, Neal wanted to create an even bigger scandal at Lavinia’s wedding. For one bizarre moment, I was impressed that he’d again read my mind and so was checking out the feasibility of Naira’s mammary glands.
Why in hell was he peering at Naira’s cleavage so intently? Was there a
food stain on her blouse or sari? Neal was a maniac about stains. He carried Tide to Go everywhere.
They abandoned the waltz altogether as Neal leaned in to—Ah! He was fascinated by Naira’s necklace. I blew out an exasperated breath. I should’ve known a bauble was involved. Admittedly, Naira owned some beautiful pieces of jewelry. I’d seen her trousseau when I’d gone to Mumbai for her wedding the winter after we’d graduated, while I’d been cramming for the LSATs and working as a paralegal at Smith, Stone and Smith.
Neal reached for the pendant while it was still nestled between Naira’s boobs. He really had a one-track mind about baubles. Aghast, Naira jumped back and crashed into a group of lively young dancers, who simply hooted at her and twerked even harder. Her face and neck was the same ruby red as her pendant when she spun on her heels and made a beeline for our table, an elated Neal dogging her footsteps.
While the unfolding drama was entertaining, I rebuked my husband with a stern shake of my head. Neal’s bauble obsession was a running joke in the family. Ordinarily, Neal was a thorough gentleman with his to-the-manor-born mannerisms and gently bred inside voice that he even used outdoors. But when it came to his passions—which often revolved around stones and metals and inventive combinations of the two—he lost all sense of propriety.
They both reached the table together, with Neal’s eyes still riveted on the pendant. Naira took it off and dropped it in his hands like it was a hot potato.
“It’s one of mine,” he said, smiling slowly.
“It was a gift from my husband.”
Naira’s defensive tone gave me pause. Did she think Neal was accusing her? But before I could reassure her, Neal shot her a grin. “He has excellent taste, lass.”
Bless his charming heart for trying to put my friend at ease.
“Thank you.” She returned his smile hesitantly. “Your jewelry is spellbinding. You’re so talented. Kaivan and I loved coming for your shows. Yours and your sister’s.”
A spell-breaking discomfort spread through me as Naira laid it on thick, as if buttering up a professor for a better grade. When I’d first started dating Neal, she’d been less than encouraging of him, mostly unflattering. She’d gossiped about his wild reputation and his wastrel appetites, warning me to be careful. I’d brushed off her concerns because his reputation had only augmented my plans of temporarily fucking his brains out and moving on. After all, I hadn’t been looking for love or any of its accompanying agendas. Then, when things had become serious, I’d stopped discussing Neal with her. And soon after that, we’d fallen out.
Neal and Naira started talking about the fashion shows: Which ones had she come for? Had the Delhi one been better than the Dubai one? Which Bollywood star would be their next brand ambassador?
It was easy to forget that the Singh Frasers not only knew celebrities themselves but were celebrities of the fashion world. They were such regular people with me.
The conversation didn’t interest me, so a part of my attention went back to examining my idea from different angles, and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I was on the right track.
“I remember this piece,” said Neal after fondling his creation for a few minutes. Rubbing those long, blunt-nailed fingers over the smooth-faced stones, circling the edges, the ridges and peaks of metal with the pad of his thumb, testing the angles of the prongs by raising them to eye level, and whatnot. “It was part of the first collection I designed. Everyone was surprised when most of the pieces sold on the very day of the showing. Ye were one of the clients?” He laughed, clearly delighted by Naira’s good taste in baubles.
I refrained from pointing out that she might have good taste in jewelry, but I had better taste in husbands.
“My husband. He’d been in Delhi on business and had accompanied his cousin to your jewelry show. Kaivan—” she paused when her voice wobbled, took a deep breath and went on “—refused to buy anyone else’s designs after that. We have invested in several of your pieces but...this one’s my favorite.”
It boggled my mind that Naira was still mourning the bastard after everything he’d put her through. And she’d been worried about Neal’s wastrel appetites?
I’d also had it with the apple-polishing going on before me. Fine, Naira loved and invested in fine jewelry, but the way she was sucking up to Neal was just...weird.
I stood up and tucked my arm through my husband’s elbow. “Honey, I need to stretch my legs. I’m done communing with my chair and my ass hurts.”
“Look at this!” Neal took that as an invitation to shove the rose in my face instead of teasing me with butt jokes.
I rolled my eyes, but looked at the necklace nonetheless. Dozens of fine strands of gold had been braided together to form a long chain from which a rose-shaped pendant with a center stone the size of a robin’s egg and the color of a pink rose dangled. Layers of paper-thin diamond-encrusted petals had been arranged around the stone to make the rose head.
“It’s very pretty,” I said, impressed. You couldn’t be anything else with Neal’s designs.
“That’s not all,” said Naira, removing her earrings from her ears.
She took the rose from Neal, turned it around and fitted the earrings into some hidden slots and locked them in place. Suddenly, the budding rose was in full bloom and as big as my palm.
“The pendant can be worn as a whole, like so, or as a set—earrings and necklace. I wear the braided rope chain daily. The pendant can also be worn as a brooch. And...” Naira began to unclasp the petals, and not just the ones that were earrings.
The beauty of a Neal Singh Fraser design was that the piece could be worn in more than one way. It was why his pieces were often touted as functional luxury in fashion magazines.
Neal was beside himself with excitement, but he didn’t try to hurry Naira along. One by one, she removed twenty-four petals in all, setting each one on the table, until only the rose-colored teardrop remained looped on the chain, big and brilliant. I’d seen the assembling and dissembling magic of Neal’s jewelry before—my smaragdine bracelet also came apart as three bracelets and came together as a long necklace—and yet, I couldn’t help but be enchanted.
“This was the stone that started it all,” Neal burst out as soon as Naira handed the pendant to me. “My first successful experiment with lab-grown diamonds, and because the stone sold as quickly as it did, Nanu agreed to let me design an entire collection using CVDs—solo. This was the piece that started my brand, Paris.”
Whoa. This was monumental. It’d taken Neal six years to convince his nanu—his late maternal grandfather—a conventional and traditional jeweler in India, to use lab-grown diamonds for a trendier line of jewelry. Traditional jewelers disliked mixing natural or “real” diamonds with CVDs, which were diamonds manufactured in a lab through a process called chemical vapor deposition, even though CVDs were the more eco-friendly and humanitarian diamond-buying option since they weren’t drilled out of the earth or controlled by a syndicate. It seemed that this pendant and by associative action, Kaivan Dalmia, had been instrumental in my husband’s success as an innovative and relatively green jewelry designer. Which was just awful because I did not want to be indebted to that man even by association.
I sat, pulling Neal down to sit on the chair next to me. I didn’t look at Naira because... One thing at a time. I set the stone down on the table between us. There was always an interesting story behind each of Neal’s baubles.
“Okay, babe. Tell me how and where you grew this fat little diamond, and why is it posh pink in color?”
chapter four
Naira
Call me.
Sometimes, the simple ping of a text could destroy your peace of mind. Forget peace of mind, it had the power to destroy your life.
I’d never forget the text I received from Kaivan the day he got arrested. I’d been in the middle of
uncrating a new shipment from Bali at An Atelier in Mumbai, my high-end home goods store I’d built, owned and nurtured until two years ago. I’d pulled out a pair of candle stands from the popcorn packaging—samples from a new artisan—when my phone had pinged an incoming message. I’d ignored the message for a full two minutes. I’d been so pleased with my find and had already been imagining how the carved wood would look against a red backdrop and two small silver elephants at their base for the Instagram photos. Distracted, I’d picked up the phone and had to read the message three times for it to sink into my head.
Arrested. You know what to do. I love you.
Nine words. That’s all it had taken for my entire world to go black. My husband had prepared me for his eventual arrest, and I had known what to do. I’d called our lawyer, and along with my father and brother-in-law, I’d marched into the police station and demanded Kaivan’s release. But that was then.
Now? I’d made a mess of everything Kaivan had worked so hard to save. I thought... I was quite positive that we had both trusted the wrong people, including his lawyer, Naresh Rawal, and my older sister’s husband, Vinay Singhal.
My phone pinged for a second time, jerking my attention back to the present. Two texts in as many minutes. That man had zero patience, I thought as I stepped out of the shiny midtown office building that housed the Weinberg Law Firm handling the life insurance trust Kaivan had set up for me. Only then did I read Vinay’s newest message.
What did the lawyer say? CALL ME!
I ignored the order. Vinay was in a tizzy to know if we could access the funds all at once. It was always “we” whenever he spoke about my money. He hadn’t been able to glean the answers himself on his last trip to New York. And no wonder as James Weinberg, the lawyer handling the trust, was a fiftysomething-year-old powerhouse of a man who wouldn’t have cared to be bullied. No wonder too, I’d been able to finagle this trip alone. It seemed that James Weinberg had told Vinay—via email, he hadn’t even answered Vinay’s phone calls, much less agreed to meet with him—that if “we” wanted to dissolve the trust, then “I” the beneficiary had to meet with him in person. Even today, James had let me go only after I’d promised to think about what it would mean for me to dissolve it.
The Object of Your Affections Page 5
