by Saumya Dave
She stares at him and waits for him to say, Yes, okay, let’s talk or Why don’t we cool down and talk later?
“I need some sleep. Good night, Simran.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and starts to walk down Bleecker Street, covering twice as much ground as she could with his long strides.
She leans against the rough brick and waits for him to look back.
He doesn’t.
Her breaths become quick and shallow. She walks back into Wicked Willy’s, where everyone is now more sluggish and glassy-eyed versions of themselves. The entire place reeks of body odor and alcohol breath. She can already hear her future self cursing for drinking like she’s still in college.
Vishal and Ami are pressed against each other in one corner. Sheila’s draped over Alex’s shoulder, in danger of being kicked out by a bouncer. Jigar has ordered yet another round of cheap tequila shots for Rekha and some other people Simran assumes are their classmates.
They’d all tell her to let Kunal cool off. Wait until the morning.
She opens her phone and scrolls to the text message from over three hours ago. Before she knows it, her thumbs are moving at record speed.
Simran: Still out?
Her phone flickers from 1:45 to 1:46. She’s texting Neil Desai in the middle of the night. The Neil Desai. After what happened with Kunal.
She pictures Neil twisting out of Egyptian cotton sheets to check his phone and frowning when he sees her name.
As she’s putting her phone away, she feels it vibrate. Her stomach jumps.
Neil: Still out but starting to fade. Want to join?
She paces through groups of people laughing and yelling and smoking and singing. The entire damn city is a party. She’s past the point of thinking. She just walks.
In a few minutes, Simran is inside Le Souk, a place that’s half hookah lounge, half club. Luckily, the thump of music makes it hard to think, or do anything, besides navigate through the film of smoke.
Neil is wearing a white button-down over jeans, with his lean arms resting over the side of the bar. His sleeves are rolled to his elbow, where Kunal told her the radius and ulna bones meet.
Maybe she should leave. She checks her phone and ignores the nausea twisting her stomach. No missed calls, no anything, from Kunal. She takes a deep breath and adjusts the top of her dress.
Neil turns to the side, his square shoulders straight but relaxed as he laughs with a stocky Indian guy.
“Hi, you!”
She wants to smack herself the second the syllables come out. What happened to being calm and cool? It’s like when she was six years old and Dad’s boss invited them to dinner. Her parents told her to stay quiet three times on the way over, and she understood. The second their host opened the door, Simran took note of his forty-inch waist and gray beard and yelled, “OH MY GOD, IT’S SANTA!” She would later find out that he was an Orthodox Jew.
“You made it!” Neil says.
He orders her another vodka cranberry from the bartender.
“Where are your friends?” Neil asks, and then adds, “And your fiancé?”
“They couldn’t make it,” she says, swirling her straw.
“That’s too bad. Here,” Neil says, holding out his arm for her to grab. The gesture makes her think of scenes from black-and-white movies, when women wore fabulous gloves up to their elbows. “I want to introduce you to some people.”
Her eyes dart to a cluster of tables near the entrance where his friends are sitting. What the hell is she doing here, in all her non-journalism, lack-of-prestige glory?
Neil’s friends turn out to be a mix of people he went to college with, other New York Times writers, and some from his hometown of Kansas City. He tells everyone about how they met, about her “potential.” All his friends have careers inspired by something they enjoyed and worked their asses off for: an online jewelry start-up, a self-help book line, a human rights reporter, an editor at a small publishing house.
Her concerns about coming to Le Souk were unnecessary. Within an hour, she feels as though she’s known everyone for years. It’s refreshing to leave the world of wedding planning and judgment and expectations and never-good-enough. Everything from Wicked Willy’s recedes into the darkness.
Neil returns from the bar, his hands full with the drinks that he just ordered for everyone. She’s never seen someone who can pluck friends from every corner, like fresh berries—unlike Kunal, who stands in the periphery and knows that, sooner or later, people will come to him.
After Neil passes the drinks around, he squeezes into a chair next to Simran.
“Neil, your friends are all so cool, for lack of a better word.”
He folds his hands together and squints at her. “I think they’d say the same about you.”
“No, I mean, they’ve all made something of themselves in different ways, without worrying about stability or prestige or any of that.”
“Yeah, I think some people get to a point where they stop chasing approval.”
Stop chasing approval. She rolls the thought in her mind and lets it collect momentum.
“What’s it like doing your job? Writing stories for people?” she asks. “Getting their trust?”
“It’s sloppy. A lot of learning by trying and falling on my face. You just can’t be afraid to look like a dumbass for a while, maybe forever . . . you know, you could do that. There’s nothing stopping you.”
“I don’t even know what I’d do,” she says. “In high school, I thought I’d join NYU’s creative writing program and then write and teach and travel and help other girls do the same.” She doesn’t know what made her think of that. Maybe it’s being around all these creative people.
“So why didn’t you?” he asks.
“I didn’t get in.” She lowers her voice and remembers the letter informing her she had been wait-listed. The official rejection came two weeks later in a sad, thin envelope. The type of envelope that only ever carries bad news. Her parents and Kunal were right. Some things were better left as hobbies.
“But I’ve been thinking about it lately,” she says. “What it would be like to get away for a bit.”
“You should.”
“How?”
“Don’t you have time between graduation and starting work? Hell, I don’t even have the time, but I’m thinking of getting away, too. But then again, I can’t stay in one place for too long,” he says, and she wonders what it would be like to pick up whenever she pleased, be free of any anchors. Maybe the world is made up of two types of people: the Neils and the ones whose destinies are dictated by mob mentality.
“On a more profound note,” Neil says, “I tipped a busker today because of you.”
“You did? No way.”
“Yeah . . . a guy playing the saxophone at the Forty-Second Street Times Square stop. I put a dollar in his ripped case. You know, I always wonder how those guys learned how to play.”
“Yeah, I wonder that, too. I like to pretend that they’re all on the verge of making it big. What made you tip this guy?”
“Thought of you,” he says, his hazel eyes focusing on hers. “I remembered in that one text, you told me you always tip buskers. You’re probably getting scammed every day, but still. Most people would keep walking past them. At least, most people in New York would.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” she says. Her cheeks hurt from smiling too much. She made Neil Desai do something different in his day?
“Who are your other New Yorker soft spots? Besides the musically inclined performers?”
She bites her bottom lip. “Hm, let’s see. Cab and Uber drivers. Waiters. The men who own street carts and fruit stands. All of the Indian people I see who are the same age as my parents and are busting their butts at tough jobs so their families can have a better life.”
She loves that conv
ersations with Neil are a pure unspooling of thoughts.
“Yeah, I see so many people and wonder, what’s this person’s story?” Neil says. “Where is he going? Where does her family live?”
She nods. “Same here. I wonder that all the time.”
He grins, putting his arm around her. “I’m glad you came out.”
“Me too.” She lets herself lean into him and almost pretends he’s her boyfriend, that they spend their mornings writing and their nights having a great time with great people.
Simran’s face becomes warmer as the pull from earlier rushes back. And then, she leans forward and kisses the man who isn’t her fiancé on his cheek.
He looks at her.
Music thumps around them, and the entire room is bathed in darkness. Each second is satiated, choking with possibility, and she realizes that there are two contradictory women residing in her who can have two contradictory desires.
She tells herself to stop, to leave. She’s already breaking so many rules. She could end this now.
You’re engaged! a voice inside of her head screams.
But then another one emerges. You want to know what this feels like. You need to.
Something inside of her anchors her to the couch. Being closer to Neil makes her feel safe and on edge at the same time. Is this what breaking rules feels like? Is this what she’s been missing?
She shifts toward him. Their lips meet.
Everything else becomes blurry.
There’s only Neil’s woodsy scent and Simran’s fingers sliding through his hair, his hand gripping her forearms, his lips against her earlobes. Nobody’s ever touched her this way. A mixture of freedom and excitement churn inside her. What the fuck is wrong with her? Kissing someone other than her fiancé should twist her stomach with guilt, make her realize that nobody could ever compare to Kunal, the only other guy she’s ever kissed.
But none of those sentiments come. Instead, she feels another electric rush of adrenaline. And that scares the shit out of her.
Neil’s lips are softer than Kunal’s; his tongue, more aggressive. He’s different in every way but feels right. With each second an entire life unfolds before her, one with passion and drive and encouragement and motion.
“I can’t,” she says, pulling away from him. Her lips are tingling the way they do after she eats too many jalapeños.
“God, you’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Her fingers graze his palms. “No, I’m sorry. I really am.”
Before Neil can say anything else, she stands up and runs through the thinning crowd, not stopping until she steps into a cab.
Nandini
Nandini stands as Meghna approaches her. Meghna scans her from head to toe, not even bothering to be subtle. Her small, round eyes seem to say, You are so American.
Nandini motions to the chair across from her. “Please, Meghna Ben, have a seat.”
Meghna sits down without cracking a smile.
She takes note of Meghna Patel’s salwar kameez, low bun, and disapproving eyes. She should have picked a different place to meet her daughter’s future mother-in-law. Why did she ever think that a woman like Meghna would enjoy bruschetta and Pinot Noir?
But it was too late. They’re both here. Plus, the Indian restaurants in Edison would take too long to get to (and likely require a shared car ride).
Nandini opens the black leather menu and pretends to study the appetizers.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Meghna says before she gazes around the restaurant and focuses on a table of middle-aged women, all tanned, toned, and wearing tennis whites.
After Nandini has ordered them both spinach salads and a mushroom risotto, she takes a sip of water and clears her throat. “So, how are things?”
Meghna keeps her face straight. “Fine. Just fine.”
“That’s good,” Nandini says.
Meghna also had an arranged marriage, immigrated to the United States, and spent years adjusting to life in New Jersey. Nandini thinks of how Meghna doesn’t believe in nannies, prefers her husband managing all of their family’s finances, and looks forward to cooking a new meal every evening.
They have so much in common.
They have so little in common.
The waiter brings the salads. Meghna slowly pushes the spinach leaves with her fork. This is going to be a long meal.
“Do you want to order something else?”
“No, this is fine,” Meghna says before taking a bite.
In just these few moments, Nandini can tell that Meghna is the kind of woman whose emotions simmer below the surface. It takes a closer look to notice her slight frown and clipped words.
Is this really the woman Nandini will be sharing her daughter with? Is she good enough for Simran? Will she treat her with respect? With tenderness?
She hears Simran’s loud voice: Stop being so judgmental. Let me make my own decisions.
Simran would be furious if she knew this was happening. Should she ask Meghna to keep this meeting between them? Or would that look bad?
Nandini breaks off a piece of bread. “So, the wedding details are coming along well.”
“Yes . . . things are starting to come together.”
“Are you getting excited?”
Meghna nods, but her lips stay in a straight line.
“I wanted to address some of the issues that came up before, on our phone calls.”
“Okay?” Meghna says this as if there weren’t any issues, as if they haven’t had multiple calls about multiple details.
Nandini folds her hands together and leans forward. It’s the same stance she takes when she’s about to give a patient bad news. “I know you have your own ideas on how you want the wedding to be. . . .”
Her voice fades. It doesn’t matter that they’re in America or that Nandini and Ranjit are paying for everything. The boy’s side still holds the power. Pleasing them is the top priority. Ranjit had told her earlier today to “just do whatever you need to keep them happy.”
“I do have my ideas,” Meghna says. “And I didn’t think that would be such a problem.”
“It’s not that it’s a problem; it’s that, you know.”
“You know what?”
“Well, we are putting it on. What I mean is, our family is hosting. So, we thought it would just be easier for us to manage things.”
“Manage everything yourselves? You mean, control the show.”
Nandini widens her eyes. She can’t decide if she should be offended by Meghna’s words or relieved that she had a sincere emotional response.
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘control.’”
Meghna stares at her plate, which is still full. “I always had a plan for how Kunal’s wedding would be. I’ve been thinking about this since he was a little boy. And there are some traditions that are very important to us. To our entire family.”
“I understand. But there are some that are also important to ours. And this isn’t India. We can’t have ceremonies that are several hours long or invite thousands of guests the way people did when we were growing up. It just doesn’t work here.”
“It’s not just about what works,” Meghna says. “It’s about what’s good for my son.”
She stares at her plate and inhales deeply. Nandini watches this, the rising and falling of her chest, the accordion-like wrinkles on her forehead. Suddenly, behind her own bitterness for this woman, something else pokes through, and she can see the place they’re both coming from. Love. Love for their children. Love for their culture.
She wonders if the arguments over these details are happening because they’re both trying to make sure this wedding belongs to them. If they were friends, she might even share this thought with Meghna. She’s always wondered what it meant to belong, to a count
ry, to a job, to an event, to a self.
Nandini takes a deep breath. “Listen, I think we can ta—”
Meghna cuts her off. “So have you decided to use the same priest who conducted Ronak’s ceremony?”
“Yes, we are. He’s very close to our family and always does a great job of explaining of all the Hindu traditions in English.”
Meghna scowls. “What if we had another priest in mind?”
Who was this woman to keep challenging her? She grips her fork and knife in a way that says, I will not be pushed around by you. “Meghna, I’m sorry if you had another priest in mind, but this is who we’ve chosen. Perhaps you could host your own religious ceremony on another day with your priest?”
Meghna pushes her chair back. “I think I’ve had enough wedding talk for one day.”
But before Nandini can suggest they change the subject, Meghna grabs her purse and rushes out of the restaurant.
Six
Simran
Don’t tell anyone I’m not coming to your engagement party. Especially your mom,” Nani says on the phone while Simran is still caught in that blurry space between sleeping and waking up.
“They’re going to find out soon enough.” Simran buries her head into the pillow. Images from last night flash before her like a silent film. The contours of Neil’s lips. His strong grip.
Fuck.
She sits up in bed. She’s still in her strapless dress, but her bra shifted during the night and created two boob-shaped lumps on her stomach. A wave of nausea rises inside her throat. She clutches her stomach and leans forward. She can’t decide if she needs to puke, eat carbs, or drink water. So she takes a deep breath and fans her face. The nausea starts to subside.
“Simran, are you there?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Her head pounds every time she inhales. Boom, boom, boom. “Nani, you realize that everyone’s going to freak out, right?”
“I can handle them. They don’t scare me,” she says, sounding more like a middle-school girl playing Truth or Dare than Simran’s wise Indian grandmother who prays to Ganesha first thing every morning.
