My Last Love Story

by Falguni Kothari

  Nirvaan had developed this hair fetish after his own had fallen off during his first chemo. I understood his obsession, sympathized with his apprehensions, but sometimes, he took things a bit too far—and not just with my hair.

  “You know what I like, baby. I’ll leave the satiation of my cravings in your skilled hands,” he said, giving me a syrupy smile.

  I rolled my eyes at the not-even-ingenious double entendre. I could’ve pointed out that we were discussing the satiation of his cravings through his mother’s hands, but I thought better of it. The comment would no doubt trigger rebuttals, and I didn’t want the conversation to slide into the gutter.

  “And you?” I darted a look at Zayaan, more at the fringe flopping over his eyes. I’d worked out a system to deal with him. I would not get too close, and I’d stick to minimum eye contact.

  “Everything Mummy cooks is delicious. Just make sure there’s enough left over to last until her next visit.” He smacked his lips together, clearly anticipating the forthcoming delicacies.

  “Not that we don’t appreciate your cooking, baby. The biryani is orgasmic. No, seriously, I love it,” added Nirvaan.

  The patently fake, obsequious tone made me snort. I was proud of my strengths, and I’d learned to live with my weaknesses. Cooking was neither. I just didn’t care about cooking enough to take offense that I wasn’t a master chef in people’s eyes.

  “We can drop you at the market on our way to the marina,” offered Zayaan, briefly smiling at me before jerking his chin at Nirvaan. “We should get the Jet Skis checked out—serviced, gassed up, and whatever else. Daddy will want a ride first thing tomorrow.”

  “You’re right,” groaned Nirvaan. “Damn it. He’ll hog one all weekend. Thank God Nisha’s not coming, or between Aarav and her brats, we’d never get a turn.”

  He was joking, of course. Nirvaan loved his sister, got along famously with his brother-in-law, and doted on his niece and nephew, who adored their Nimo in turn.

  For reasons slightly more serious than the sharing of Jet Skis, I, too, was glad my sister-in-law had postponed her visit. We’d hosted Nisha and her family last weekend, and we would see them at our birthday celebration at Nirvaan’s parents’ house in LA at the end of the month. So, it wasn’t a huge tragedy to miss bonding this once.

  I had no issues with Nisha, as such, but she’d started behaving a bit funny with me over the past few months, and I didn’t know what to make of it. She was probably worried about Nirvaan, I’d concluded, and unable to express her feelings about the tumor and its ramifications. It might explain her stiff attitude toward me. It was difficult to find the right words of support and solace in our kind of situation, and Nisha and I had never been chums to begin with.

  In truth, I’d never even tried to get friendly with her—or anyone else since my fifteenth birthday. I’d been so blinded by the guys, so wholly satisfied by our friendship and what it’d brought to my life, that I hadn’t wanted any other friends. And after…after that night, I’d been too afraid to step out into the world. So, what would I have done with making friends anyway?

  Nisha and I had become passably friendly only after my marriage. But then, we’d had to, didn’t we, for Nirvaan’s sake?

  “Stop whining, chodu. I should be whining.” Zayaan flicked an uneaten clove at Nirvaan.

  The spice bounced off my husband’s shoulder and landed on a white seashell embossed on the shrimp-colored fabric of the sofa. He pinched it up and popped it into his mouth. Nirvaan could eat anything remotely edible.

  “You’ll get out of playing golf by faking fatigue or the bubonic plague, and I’ll be stuck on the greens with Daddy for hours or days. Fuck, I hate golf. It’s such a tedious game.” Shaking his head, Zayaan ambled into the open-style kitchen and dumped his empty plate and bowl in the sink. He twisted the tap on, running water over both.

  It spoke volumes for just how entrenched Zayaan was in the Desai household that he addressed my in-laws as Mummy and Daddy. Even I didn’t do that. I couldn’t. Mummy and Daddy were honorifics reserved for my own parents alone even though I considered Nirvaan’s in the same light. I’d addressed my in-laws as Kiran Auntie and Kamlesh Uncle since I was fifteen, and I continued to do so after marriage. Neither my in-laws nor Nirvaan had ever questioned me on it even though plenty of our relatives had. I’d usually smile and shrug in answer to such nosiness.

  The thing was, as a Parsi daughter-in-law, I could get away with a lot of things in the Desais’ predominantly Hindu household that another woman of similar faith would not have. Especially as we Parsis were known for our outspoken, eccentric attitudes. My own family hailed Freddie Mercury of Queen fame as a hero—a nonconformist outspoken Parsi, if there were one—and his hit song “I Want to Break Free” was the family motto. I sat on the fence regarding the hero worship even though I did love his music.

  I cleared the remnants of our lunch onto a tray and took it into the kitchen, humming the catchy beat of Freddie’s song under my breath. Nirvaan brought in the empty beer bottles and soda cans, tossing them into the recycling bin. From the fridge, he drew a tall glass of the mixed berry smoothie I’d whipped up for him earlier and glugged a quarter of it down along with his provision of meds. There were a few more pills in the mix than there’d been last month, as his medications were an ever-changing cocktail. I looked for signs of discomfort or pain on his face and relaxed when none showed. His head would hurt when he overdid things, and we’d already had an exciting day so far. Maybe I’d persuade him to take a nap before we ran our errands.

  Zayaan brushed past Nirvaan to the squat new coffee machine by the fridge and programmed in a double espresso, his after-lunch special. “You sure you want them going back on Monday?” He looked askance at Nirvaan as the machine chugged out black-brown liquid in a swallow-sized cup. “They’ll want to be here, Mummy especially, during the radiosurgery.”

  I stiffened and then quickly spun around to face the sink to hide my panic. The antiquated kitchen had no room for a dishwasher, so I soaped up a sponge and started washing the dishes by hand. I was furious with myself for reacting so badly, so typically. And I’d thought Nisha needed lessons on how to behave around Nirvaan. Ha.

  “Nah. They’re doing enough, man—driving up and down on weekends, Dad taking on my share of the business acrobatics—and…you know, Ba hasn’t been keeping well either. He needs to take care of his mother, too. She’s getting old. Besides, the procedure won’t even take half a day. No hospital stay and no side effects. Not a biggie at all.” Nirvaan’s words were all but muffled under the thundering beats of “I Want to Break Free” spooling around and around in my head.

  What kind of a wife fears taking care of her sick husband? What kind of a person quakes to hold an ailing man’s hand?

  I could handle death—the finality of it, the suddenness of it. I’d lost my parents when I was fourteen, and while it had changed me forever, it hadn’t broken me. I could face death. What I couldn’t face was sickness. What I couldn’t bear was the corrosive odors of a hospital and the utter helplessness one experienced in the face of trauma. That was why Nirvaan and I had moved in with his parents when the cancer first tainted our lives. It was the reason Zayaan lived with us now.

  I was a useless spouse.

  If I was a poor example of a wife, Nirvaan was the epitome of an exceptional husband.

  He forgave all my faults and loved me anyway. He didn’t expect anything from me I wouldn’t willingly give—or he hadn’t until the baby. That he had my heart and my devotion was no secret. He’d had it since we were fifteen. He didn’t try to change me, not in any way. Even when it had become clear he was my second choice, in love and in marriage, he had not faltered. Neither had he begrudged Zayaan’s place in my life. In fact, Nirvaan had always encouraged the unconventionality of my desires. Later, when he could’ve walked away for all those reasons, he’d stayed beside me and become the Band-Aid for my wounded soul.

  I’ll tell you one thing for
sure. It rocked to have Nirvaan for a husband.

  Groceries, Jet Skis, and a couple of other errands later, the guys and I made a night of it in town. By unanimous agreement and an available table, we drove to Hara Kiri, a Japanese steak house known for its gourmet teriyaki and teppanyaki menu. We parked the truck in a supervised lot down the street from the restaurant to ensure the Jet Skis would be safe.

  It was still raining. Shallow puddles had formed in places where the earth dented. The guys, as usual, were oblivious to the vagaries of weather, content with the deficient protection their unzipped hooded coats provided.

  I was more circumspect. I cinched my raincoat about me and opened an umbrella large enough for a homeless man to use as a home. Without making a fuss, I hurried after Nirvaan and brought him under the red canopy and out of the rain. He shot me an amused grin and curled an arm around my waist, pulling me flush against his body, as we prodded forward.

  Lately, life seemed to amuse him a lot. I guessed when one was about to lose his life, he had to choose whether to laugh or cry about it. I supposed the same could be said for anyone not about to lose his life, too. I recalled the Elbert Hubbard quote Nirvaan had printed out and stuck on the fridge at his parents’ house some five odd years ago.

  Don’t take life too seriously. You won’t get out of it alive.

  Inside the restaurant, Nirvaan headed straight for the restroom while I tried to remove my coat, one-handed, while juggling my handbag and the dripping umbrella in the other. There were days when Nirvaan would experience moderate to severe incontinence due to a change in his medications or a reaction to some food. I hoped it wasn’t bad. Maybe Hara Kiri hadn’t been such a great idea…

  “Here, give me those,” Zayaan said, tugging my bag and umbrella out of my hand.

  Unencumbered, I shrugged off my raincoat, and he took it, too, handing my purse back to me before heading to the coat check. After the exchange, we didn’t speak or even look at each other as we waited for Nirvaan.

  Sometimes, it saddened me that it’d come to this between us. This man was my soul mate, and through no fault of his, I couldn’t stand to be near him now. I found no humor in our situation, no matter what Hubbard had quoted.

  “Are you okay?” I asked when my husband rejoined us. “Would you rather go home for dinner? Or somewhere less exotic?”

  Nirvaan shook his head, saying he only had to pee and was fine, so we followed the sleekly dressed half-Asian hostess to the hibachi grill in the middle of the restaurant. The space was packed, every seat taken, every table laden with food and sake. I was glad I’d had the foresight to make a reservation through the restaurant’s mobile app. The hostess took our drink orders once we’d settled in our seats and sauntered off to fulfill them.

  “Pink Shirt and Fake Tits checking you out, chodu,” said Nirvaan through the corner of his mouth. He had the menu open before him but clearly wasn’t interested in selecting his dinner from the listed offerings, busy as he was with scanning other delights. “Baby, scoot hither.” He conspiratorially leaned close. “Give those two lovely ladies a chance to corrupt our friend here. He deserves a reward for all his hard work today.”

  I followed my husband’s line of vision to the women sitting on the opposite side of the massive grill. In the expanse between us, a quartet of Asian chefs danced about, flaming up masterpieces in the woks on the grills. Pungent garlicky aromas wafted up, making my mouth water and my stomach growl. Through the steam, I saw the women were indeed looking our way. A sideway squint showed Zayaan returning the favor with his signature mystery-man look—hooded eyes, calm but cocky expression, a hint of a leer curling his lips.

  A flame of jealousy ignited in my belly. I wrenched my eyes away and looked down at the menu in my hands.

  I didn’t understand myself at all. I loved my husband. We were happy together. I didn’t want Zayaan anymore—not in any capacity, other than a good friend. I had pushed him away, locked up all memories of him for twelve years. I’d been very successful. But ever since our enforced proximity, it had become impossible to maintain any sort of equanimity.

  I didn’t want those women staring at my guys—both my guys. I wanted to stake my claim on them in front of the whole world.

  I could brand Nirvaan, claim his mouth with lips and tongue, and there would be no mistaking my rights. Then, I could lean into Zayaan and run my hand down the pearly-white buttons on his shirt to his heart. A kiss here, a touch there. I wondered if the women would take my actions as a warning or an invitation.

  Here’s the thing about places like Carmel-by-the-Sea where half of the populace was of an artsy temperament and the other half was mega rich—no one cared about ménage à trois or even ménage à twenty. In such places, kinky was normal.

  Not that the guys and I had ever been kinky outside of our childish fantasies. We weren’t a sexual ménage. Had never been, would never be.

  But our audience didn’t know that, did they?

  I wasn’t drunk, truly. My sake bomb had only just been placed in front of me, so I couldn’t blame my insane cogitations on its consumption—not that I ever blamed alcohol for anything. I preferred to take responsibility for my own thoughts and fancies.

  I didn’t know these women, but I did know how my guys would react if I actually gave in to my wicked desire. Nirvaan would guffaw if I made a spectacle of us. Probably egg me on to add a tabletop belly dance to the action. But Zayaan would bristle like an angry porcupine. He used to dislike public displays of anything. I don’t think he’s changed all that much.

  Anyway, I decided not to test the theory.

  “Do stop staring, Zai. They might think you’re available.” I raised an eyebrow. “Unless you want them to think you are? But then whatever will Marjaneh think of Nirvaan and me? Bad enough that we stole you away from her charms for a whole year. That we couldn’t even protect her man from the big, bad California Barbies would be unforgivable. She’d never let you off her shackles again.”

  Marjaneh Shahrokhi was Zayaan’s girlfriend of two years and colleague of five. According to Zayaan’s mother, the couple was a hairsbreadth away from getting engaged. Marjaneh was smart, pretty, moderately religious, and sensible—the perfect woman for Zayaan. We’d met her on our last trip to London. I’d hated her on sight.

  “What’s put your nose out of joint tonight?” remarked Zayaan, calling me out on the Mean Girl act.

  It shut me up, as intended. I wrinkled my rather large Parsi nose with the inexplicable bump in the middle. The thing was an added insult on my plain-Jane face. I had a lovely peaches-and-cream complexion, courtesy of my mother, but no glamorous features to speak of, nothing to inspire a Leonardo to paint me as Mona Lisa.

  No, that wasn’t entirely true. Both Zayaan and Nirvaan, during our hormone-crazed teenage years, had composed love sonnets in my honor. Some of them had been absolutely filthy limericks extolling the virtues of my various body parts, but I’d found them enchanting regardless.

  In turn, I’d penned down praise of their sinewy beauty. Nirvaan was the classic tall, dark, lithe type of handsome while Zayaan was ruggedly good-looking and very fair. Zayaan, without his golden tan and face stubble, was almost as pale as me. Our common Persian heritage, we’d deduced, during one of our trillion and one profound midnight chats.

  Sometime over the past millennium, to avoid persecution, first the Parsis and then the Aga Khani Muslims, a sect of the Shiite Ismailis, had fled Persia to settle down on the mildly distant but welcoming shores of Hindustan—the shores of the State of Gujarat, to be precise—setting the precedent for a religiously and ethnically diverse yet secular nation.

  The undulations of history fascinated all three of us. But while Nirvaan and my interest remained amateurish, Zayaan had studied the subject to death. He held degrees in world literature, sociology, and Islamic studies from the University of London and Oxford. He spoke Farsi, Urdu, and Arabic as fluently as Gujarati or English. Add in a smattering of Hindi, Latin, and French, and we
had an octo-linguist. Nirvaan had coined the word a while ago.

  Currently, Zayaan was working on a dissertation that hoped to shed light on the cross-cultural relationship between Muslims and their neighbors from the time of Ishmael through now. Zayaan was a super nerd. It wasn’t all he was, but it was the one quality that continued to stagger me. He worked for the Share Khan Foundation in several capacities, all mostly academic, and while it hadn’t been convenient for him to apply for a sabbatical at this point in his career, he’d done just that to come live with us. Of course, his superiors in London believed he was pursuing his doctorate in earnest, which he was.

  But the simple truth was, Zayaan had come because Nirvaan needed him, and that was all that should’ve mattered to me. I was doing all of us a disservice by my behavior. Zayaan was the third of our triad. He had every right to be here with us, every right to say good-bye to Nirvaan. So, why had I begun to resent his presence, their friendship, when I’d always been glad that they had each other before?

  Nirvaan kissed my bumpy nose, tugging me back from the side trip I’d taken into the extraordinary complications of my life. He always claimed my nose gave me character, a sort of distinction. With an unholy gleam in his eyes, he looked over my head at the man who was his soul mate as much as I was.

  “Did I hear you insult my sweetie’s nose? You must be punished for it, you infidel. Kiss her nose, or lose your head. Oy! Kiss her nose, and lose your head since kissing her did have that effect on you once,” teased Nirvaan.

  Then, out of the blue, he pushed me at Zayaan. I yelped, teetering unsteadily in my chair, finding balance against Zayaan’s chest, our faces not two inches apart.

  Again, why do I love my husband? I struggled to right myself, blushing furiously.

  “People are watching, for fuck’s sake.” With a tight grip on my arms, Zayaan settled me back in my seat before I fell over, trying to get away from him. “What’ll they think of us?”

  Nirvaan put a hand on his cheek and gasped, “No! You pulled the LSKS card?”