The Full Moon Bride

by Shobhan Bantwal

  “Get out! You’re saying he’s sexy?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I sighed. “Again, in a different sort of way. He kind of looks like the long-haired guys on the cover of a romance novel.”

  “Wow, those cover guys can be hot. That’s great!”

  “It’s not great. He lied to me, Ames. Lied about something as basic as his name.”

  “But you did say he’s cute.”

  “So?”

  “That’s a big improvement over the others. So tell me what happened.”

  “The usual—nothing. He came, he saw, he left.”

  “Oh.” The single syllable was enough. I could hear the disappointment and almost see Amy’s almond-shaped eyes lose their luster for a moment.

  We chatted a little about David. Apparently he was invited to dinner with Amy and her mother that evening. She told me her mom was making David’s favorite dishes. “She’s in her Wonder Woman mother-in-law mode, so I’m trying to stay out of her way,” said Amy. “I’m doing my nails instead.”

  “Good for you.” I was happy for Amy, but a slight twinge of envy cast a shadow over my thoughts. If I ever managed to get engaged, I could only imagine how wild Mom would go over making my fiancé’s favorite foods. She’d import ingredients if necessary. “I’d better return to finishing up my briefs. Enjoy the evening with David,” I said, and hung up the phone.

  During dinner, Mom threw me a concerned look as I toyed with my salad. “Baby, shouldn’t you eat something more substantial for a change? Aren’t you tired of red and green salads?”

  I shook my head. “I ate some vanilla yogurt earlier. I’ve had my day’s quota of protein.”

  “Then at least drink some warm milk before you go to bed.”

  Pamma joined Mom in admonishing me. “It is not good for children to starve.”

  “I haven’t been a child for the last fifteen years or more, Pamma,” I reminded her.

  She either ignored me or didn’t hear me. “You eat good, you feel good—otherwise, you get sick. Now eat!”

  I nodded absently. Mom and Pamma worried about my nutrition. Their old-fashioned Indian wisdom included spicy food in humongous quantities. A full belly was considered healthy for the body, mind, and soul. They were both against my dieting, period, whereas Dad, more attuned to how the outside world treated overweight people, spurred me on.

  What did a perpetually slim woman like Mom know about the trials and tribulations of fat people, especially in a beauty and youth-oriented society like America? And Pamma, though still a big woman, was at the end of her life. As far as Dad’s eating habits were concerned, he ate like a sumo wrestler.

  Dad was successful in his career and his personal life. He had nothing more to prove. He could eat all he wanted and get as big as he pleased. His scalpel spoke a charming language all its own. People flocked to him no matter what he looked like. As far back as my memories went, Dad looked like a dark-skinned version of Santa Claus, round-cheeked, big-bellied, and instantly ready for a hearty laugh and a plate of food.

  At one point during the quiet dinner, the topic of Roger Vadepalli came up, when Mom reflected, “Such a handsome and smart boy. I can’t imagine why Rajesh didn’t become a doctor.”

  Dad agreed. “Especially after he supposedly did well in pre-med.” After a long, thoughtful moment, he added, “But you have to give the young man some credit for standing up to Venki and going into the profession he wants.”

  Mom made a clucking sound. “That poor boy. It was not right for Venki to insult his son in front of us.”

  I entirely agreed with Mom, but kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t in a mood to discuss the Vadepallis. I was wondering why the expected rejection call hadn’t come yet. Their son might be a hippie with empty pockets, but that didn’t mean they were going to settle for me, especially since it was I who had made it clear that marriage wasn’t in our immediate future. That meant Roger, who was hungry for instant funding for his project, would be looking elsewhere for a rich bride.

  Suddenly my appetite was gone. With my salad only half finished, I took my plate to the sink and dumped the rest in the garbage disposal, then took myself off to my room to work some more and pack my briefcase for the next day.

  Monday morning’s commute was the usual frantic rush through the parking lot and into the train station. Once seated on the train, I generally liked to get my mind organized and focused on the day’s impending activities, but I had a hard time doing it this morning.

  Instead I dully observed the people around me—all the Manhattan folks going to their offices or stores or wherever they worked—the Chanel and Gucci suits and dresses mixed in with the Macy’s and Walmart togs.

  Inside a commuter train, everyone seemed to blend into this middle-of-the-road blandness—everybody going out to make a living, be it in a fancy high-rise or a humble grocery store.

  There was something about New York City that homogenized people—America’s true melting pot. I noticed a couple of people glancing at their watches anxiously. Were Mondays usually rough for the rest of them, too?

  Later, the staff meeting at our Lexington Avenue office was stiff and boring as usual, with all the junior attorneys delivering a progress report on their respective cases. Mac was conspicuously absent. I’d noticed that lately he’d started to miss the routine weekly staff meetings. I wondered if at the age of sixty-six he was beginning to phase into retirement, or if his notorious extramarital life over the weekends kept him away on Mondays.

  Al Simmons and Larry Poindexter, the two other senior partners, did show up and stayed through the customary meeting, asking tough questions and doling out advice and directives.

  My mind refused to focus on the issues, and my eyes wandered to the windows often. When I’d finished my brief presentation and the meeting ended a little after 10:30 A.M., it was with relief that I picked up my folders and headed back to my small private office.

  Being the most junior associate, I had the tiniest office, with only one window which overlooked another skyscraper across the street. My room’s size and view indicated my lowly status as the new kid in the firm.

  But I still had it better than the men and women who worked as paralegals, law clerks, and secretaries in our organization.

  Happily, the afternoon turned out to be brighter than the morning. I had a meeting scheduled with an attorney who worked for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, or NJDEP. He was assigned to work with the Pinelands Commission and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

  The DEP, the Council, and the Commission were making my most prominent client’s life difficult at the moment.

  My client, Solstice Properties, was a major real estate development corporation that had acquired a prime piece of land bordering New Jersey’s picturesque Pinelands. The company was being hassled for endangering various species of snakes that called the protected area home. And that was only the tip of the iceberg, because other government and nonprofit environmental organizations stood in the long line of complainants.

  I’d always wondered why my client couldn’t build those fancy homes someplace else. Why go through so much grief and expense just to develop land that everyone thought was so damned precious?

  Personally, I couldn’t care less about snakes. My fondness for horror did not extend to reptiles and arachnids. Slithering and crawling critters gave me the creeps. Ever since I’d seen a cobra slide into my maternal grandparents’ home in rural South India when I’d visited them as a child, and subsequently had nightmares in the following years, I’d developed a serious fear of them.

  To this day, recalling the incident made me break out in goose bumps.

  It was ironic that I’d been assigned to this case—the one person in the office that was terrified of snakes. I considered it baptism by reptile—in a sense therapeutic, since psychoanalysts advocate conquering one’s fears by meeting them head-on. As part of taking on the case, I had to view videos of the snakes that were on the Pinelands
Commission’s endangered list.

  At precisely 2:30 P.M., Sandy, our group’s secretary, announced the visitor I was expecting. “Send Mr. Draper in,” I instructed her. “And please see if he’d like a cup of coffee or tea, will you, Sandy?”

  I had mixed feelings about this meeting with Louis Draper. I looked forward to meeting him in person and at the same time felt a bit anxious. I had talked to him over the phone and e-mailed him several times, and he seemed like a reasonable man. And very intelligent, different from the government bureaucrats I’d met in the recent past—men and women who’d graduated from law schools I’d never even heard of in some cases.

  Draper and I had developed a rapport over the long-distance lines during the past few weeks. He had a sense of humor and we’d laughed about various things. We knew each other well by now, except we’d never met face-to-face. In a certain fashion, we had become friendly adversaries.

  But we were still on opposite sides of a sticky legal battle. Today’s meeting wasn’t going to be easy.

  I knew Draper would come armed with data, including tests run by the Commission on the wide varieties of fauna, and how and why they were threatened by the housing developments that were slowly cropping up around the neighborhood.

  My client was one of the largest housing developers in the Northeast. It was a lucrative business, with customers willing to pay insane prices for homes adjoining scenic wilderness. Why anybody would want to live side by side with frogs, snakes, and swamp creatures was beyond my comprehension. However, my job was not to question the wisdom of backwoods living, but to protect my client’s interests. And to bring in the revenue Mac and his partners expected.

  My first surprise came when Draper was ushered in by Sandy.

  He was African-American!

  For some inexplicable reason I’d expected a white man somewhere in his late forties. But this man was easily ten years younger. Over the past few months, I’d visualized him as a man of fair skin, medium build, blond hair, and blue or perhaps hazel eyes.

  Well, so much for mental images. Draper was very tall, very wide-shouldered—about as large as my dad, but minus the flab. He appeared to be all hard muscle, like a football player. And he was black.

  I felt ashamed of my racist stereotyping. Why had I expected him to have a certain accent, or a certain attitude, for that matter? Wondering if he’d perhaps typecast me in a similar fashion and drawn up a mental picture of me wearing a sari and a red dot on my forehead, I stepped forward and shook his hand. “Mr. Draper, nice to finally meet you in person.”

  I put on my most charming smile. Of course, all my charm couldn’t compete with the delightful sweetness Sandy happened to be expending on him at that moment. Sandy Minski was a slim, petite redhead with lovely blue eyes, and she had the friendliest personality this side of the Hudson.

  Sandy asked Draper if he wanted coffee and he graciously accepted. Poor man, just like every other male who came in contact with our Sandy, he seemed dazzled.

  I could have hated Sandy for her stunning looks, but it was impossible. She was warm and caring and didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. “Thanks, Sandy. I’d love a Diet Sprite myself,” I said when she arched a questioning eyebrow at me.

  Draper took a seat across from my desk. I noticed he was dressed well: neat navy suit, well-pressed gray shirt and silk tie. His attire was not much when compared to the Brooks Brothers outfits my male colleagues favored, but for a public-sector employee, Draper looked well groomed. And he was a pleasant looking man. Better than pleasant.

  Again, I mentally reprimanded myself for typecasting bureaucrats.

  He threw an appreciative glance around my office, taking in the watercolor landscapes on the wall, the Bokhara rug, and my eclectic assortment of tchotchkes from around the world. “Nice office. Very classy,” he purred. “So this is how and where the other half works.”

  I sat down in my swivel chair and grinned. I liked Louis Draper. I had begun to like him as a deep, masculine voice on the phone, but I liked him even more in person. He had an easy way about him that I hadn’t expected from a stuffy bureaucrat. “You mean to tell me you don’t have a plush office that overlooks the enchanting Pine Barrens?” I asked him.

  A chuckle escaped him. “Don’t I wish! I have a small square area in a dusty old building with no view whatsoever—not even a skinny little pine tree. I have no windows, either.” His eyes wandered to my window and the jade plant flourishing on the sill. “Why do you think I offered to come here instead of having you drive down to my office?”

  “Because you were being gallant by saving a lady a long haul across the Garden State?”

  “That, too,” he added with a laugh.

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Draper,” I said, amazed that I was batting my eyelashes and putting on the pleased female act. I never did that, not even with my parade of eligible suitors.

  His lips twitched with amusement. “Mr. Draper makes me feel like an old geezer. Why don’t you just call me Lou?”

  I nodded. “Lou it is. And I hope you’ll call me Soorya.”

  “Pretty name. I meant to ask you about that. Does it mean something?”

  “Soorya means sun—as in Sun God.”

  “I like the way some cultures have names that mean something.” He studied me for a moment. “It suits you.”

  “Thanks.” The remark seemed sincere. It warmed my insides instantly.

  “You mind if I take my jacket off?” he asked.

  I shook my head and watched while he placed his jacket on the back of his chair. Then he pulled out various folders and manila envelopes from his briefcase and methodically placed them on a guest chair. I had my own paperwork stacked up in front of me. We were both preparing for a friendly battle.

  Sandy walked in with a tray. As always, she was the perfect hostess, smiling and radiant while she made sure Lou got his coffee just the way he liked it and my Sprite was poured in an elegant glass filled with ice.

  For the next hour and a half, Lou and I went over his vast storehouse of scientific studies accumulated by the DEP and the Pinelands Commission. He had photographs, CDs, books, papers, and even sworn testimonials by environmental scientists.

  In that short span of time, I learned more about the mating habits of the Eastern Timber Rattlesnake than I’d ever learned about human mating. Mrs. Westerly’s eighth-grade sex-education class had taught me nothing compared to Lou’s lecture on reptiles making out in the wilderness. With all that sexual activity and the resulting baby snakes I wondered why the rattlesnake was an endangered species.

  I was impressed by Lou’s presentation. But in the end I turned to him with a shake of my head. “Excellent work, but you still haven’t told me how building a few dozen homes on the periphery of the Pinelands is going to kill off the snakes, Lou.”

  He clucked in mock exasperation. “Soorya, don’t you know that building homes means putting in roads, sewer pipes, gas lines, electricity, and water? Do you have any idea how much trash and sewage a bunch of people can generate? Toxic trash that can pollute the snakes’ nests and extinguish their species?”

  “We have woods in back of our development, and the wild animals there seem quite happy,” I replied, knowing full well that I sounded cocky, but then Lou had seemed a bit condescending in his remarks, so I felt justified in mine.

  “I guess rich folks in New York don’t generate any of the garbage that the heathens in New Jersey do.”

  “Of course not! And by the way, I live in Jersey, too.”

  Lou chuckled. “Is that right? Let me guess. Bergen County or Morris? Somerset?”

  “Bergen.” I stole a peek at my wristwatch. Nearly 4:30 P.M. It was my turn to bombard Lou with the data I’d collected. I’d done my homework, too. Besides, my client had spent enough funds on hiring scientists to do their own studies.

  I tossed out statistics and morsels of information at Lou. He might have had the experience that I lacked, but I had plenty of brain and mock cour
t practice at law school to counter his arguments. Plus I was learning daily from some of the best environmental lawyers in the business. Naturally, Lou threw in his viewpoint at every opportunity.

  At one stage I actually began to enjoy the verbal sparring. This was my first really big case and my chance to argue with a strong foe. It was with a sense of euphoria that I realized I was good at this. This was excellent practice for real court time, too.

  Eyes looking a little glazed from my rhetoric, Lou put up both hands. “All right, I get the picture.”

  I turned on my most innocent face. “You do?”

  “Listen, Soorya.” He sighed. “We’re both intelligent people. As lawyers, we’re only going to dig up more and more data to refute the opponent’s argument.”

  “No kidding.” I smiled at Lou, ridiculously gratified that he’d acknowledged my intelligence.

  “There’s no end to this bickering. It could go on for years. Neither your client nor we want to arrive at an impasse. I’ll talk to my bosses and see if we can’t work out a compromise.”

  When a lawyer used the word compromise, it meant only one thing: the defending party would be the loser. I slanted a wary look at Lou. “Exactly what do you mean by that?” I’d die before I lost my first big case.

  Lou rose and walked to the window and looked outside for a few seconds. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the view he was admiring. His mind was computing something.

  He turned around and faced me, hands in his pockets. “Soorya, I don’t make the rules. The lawmakers make the laws harsh in the hopes that would-be developers will think twice before taking on such a daunting task. Your client is one of the daring ones.” He pointed an accusing finger at me. “But Solstice doesn’t exactly do this as a community service. They make zillions selling those mansions.”

  I took a deep, defensive breath. “America is all about capitalism, Lou. Every business exists to make a profit. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “I agree, and I’m willing to look at the fair balance between protecting the ecosystem on the one hand and planned development on the other. But I can’t talk the Commission or the DEP into letting your client go wild with building those monstrous homes with complete disregard for nature, either.” Lou sounded almost angry.