by Jade Kerrion
“Perhaps they do, but that could just as easily make us siblings.” He shook his head. “If I asked you, right now, to marry me, what would you say?”
Panic swelled, closing her throat. A headache pulsed at the base of her skull. “I think we could have a stable marriage but—”
“Hold that thought right there.” He leaned forward. “Don’t think I missed the fact that you said stable instead of happy, or even contented. I know we’ve grown apart.”
We were never together!
He continued. “Perhaps you were too young when I left home. I was eighteen; you were nine. We never had the same circle of friends, but when we were younger, you called me each time you sneaked out of your house to explore London.”
“My mother said I wasn’t supposed to go alone and my nanny didn’t want to leave the house.” Her hands flexed and tensed as her mind tumbled gratefully down an alternative path of conversation.
“Why me?”
“Because I knew you’d come.” The words suddenly clicked like a switch in her brain. She stared at Bharat.
He met her gaze steadily, as if he sensed the titanic jolt in her perception of the world. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “I regret not staying more closely in touch with you. We were both young then, and I had a world I wanted to explore, and you were just a child—a child whose company I enjoyed, but still, just a child. When you graduated from high school, your mother called my mother and suggested we get married then, but your father said no.” Bharat’s mouth tugged into a smile. “I confess, I was relieved. I wasn’t ready then. And then four years ago, your mother called again when you graduated from college. It made me pause. I was ready at thirty-one in a way I wasn’t ready at twenty-seven. I was looking forward to meeting you; in fact I had purchased a ticket to fly down for your graduation.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because your father insisted that he wanted you to go on to medical school, as you had planned.” His mouth twisted. “I could still have visited you. I could have begun building that relationship then, but I knew you would be buried in your studies in Baltimore while I remained in Minnesota. I didn’t want a long-distance relationship; that was my decision and in hindsight, I regret not attempting one. I thought, foolishly, perhaps, that you would always be available, always waiting for me. I should have expected that someone like you—smart, talented—would easily attract men.”
“Maybe I did, but for a few years, it was too confusing for me, realizing that I was already promised in marriage, yet not knowing you in any way that really mattered. I didn’t know how real it was supposed to be.”
“I don’t think it was real anywhere except in our mothers’ heads.”
“I needed someone to be there for me.”
“And I wasn’t. So you found someone else.”
Anjali’s breath trembled as she exhaled. Was that understanding she heard in Bharat’s voice, and not just understanding, but regret and forgiveness?
He reached across the table, not claiming her hand but placing his within easy reach. “If I had come to you eight years ago, or even four years ago, would you have considered spending time with me, getting to know me?”
“Yes.” That answer was easily given. Eight years ago, Jon had not been in her life, and four years ago, her relationship with Jon was still new, still unstable. There had been room for another.
“And now?”
She swallowed hard and looked away.
“Maybe it’s too late. I know I have no right to ask it, but I would like a chance—the same chance you would have given me four years ago, to spend time with you, getting to know each other.”
“And then what?”
Bharat smiled. “Our parents believe we are compatible. I know we are compatible. We were good friends as children, and given a chance, I believe we can be friends and lovers.”
Anjali flushed, shocked by his bluntness.
“We already have the foundations for a strong marriage. If we can find the promise of love, then our marriage will be an outstanding success. You see, Anjali, I don’t believe that love is a static snapshot of what you have now. Love grows over time. All you and I need is that first spark, and a commitment to fan it to flames together, and to keep it alive.”
She gaped at him, vaguely aware that she must look like a goggle-eyed goldfish, but too confused to care. Where were the accusations and ultimatums she had expected? She had prepared for dinner as if bracing for war. Believing he would propose, she had spent the afternoon practicing the word, “No,” but now, the word “Yes” trembled on her lips.
Bharat turned his hand so his palm faced up. “What do you say?”
Chapter 9
Anjali was already seated at her and Jon’s usual table at Blue Moon Café when Jon walked in at ten the next morning. He glanced around as if to confirm that her family or Bharat were not present before leaning in to kiss her. The contact sizzled through her; his scent and his taste shot straight into her brain. The familiarity made her heart ache, and she threw her arms around him.
The tightness of his embrace, the way he held on longer than he usually did told her he had felt the distance between them, as she had. “I missed you,” he whispered into her ear.
“Me, too,” she murmured before they drew apart.
He studied her unadorned fingers before sitting down. “No diamonds?” he asked with a smile, but his voice was tight.
“No,” she managed to get out before the waitress bustled over to take their order.
Anjali ordered her usual vegetarian omelet and Jon his Captain Crunch French Toast. The waitress scribbled on her notepad, promised to return with their drink orders, and left them in peace.
“How was your dinner with Bharat?” Jon asked.
“Not what I expected.”
“How so?”
Anjali bit her lower lip. “Where are we going from here?”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Did we change the topic?”
She toyed with the edge of her napkin. “Have you thought about us? I mean, we’ve been dating for six years.”
“Are you talking about marriage?”
She glanced down at a stain on the wooden table. It seemed a convenient place to fix her gaze. “Yeah.”
“You mean, us?”
How many ways did she have to say it? Her head snapped up. “Yes, us. We’ve been dating for six years. Where are we going from here?”
Jon looked like the proverbial deer in headlights. He raked his hand through his hair. “Wow, I mean, you just graduated from medical school. I’m only twenty-four. I don’t think we’re ready.”
“You don’t think you’re ready.”
“Whoa. When did this become about me? Did Bharat propose to you?”
“No, he didn’t. He apologized for not having kept in touch, and asked if he could see me.”
“Wait, he asked to date you?”
Anjali nodded.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I would have to think about it and that I would get back to him.”
Jon’s bewildered half-frown deepened into a scowl. “What about me? I’m dating you.”
“That’s why I’m asking you. What’s our future?”
“Bharat didn’t propose to you, and now you’re asking me if I am?”
“No, that’s not it. I’m asking where we’re going, because at some point, I will want to get married, and I need to know if we’re headed that way.”
He shook his head. “I…I haven’t thought about it. I mean, I came here for your graduation. I didn’t come here prepared to talk about longer term plans.”
“You didn’t seem to have any qualms about me taking up a residency in Westchester.”
“That’s not fair. I told you that you’d be giving up a great deal if you accepted the Westchester residency instead of going with a more famous hospital. You said you wanted to, to be near me. I’m not twisting any arms here.”
“But I need
to know what I’d be going there for.”
“To be near me.”
“And then what?”
Jon shook his head. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed hard. “If you’re looking for a proposal here, over breakfast, I just…can’t, okay? That’s not why…I mean I’m not ready.”
“Will you be at some point?”
“At some point, yes.”
“With me?”
He stared at her.
His hesitation shattered her heart. “You don’t know.” Her voice cracked.
“I love you, but it’s a long step from here to forever.”
“Bharat was prepared to take it without even loving me.”
“It’s different. He’s different.”
Anjali crumpled her napkin. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s different where I come from. Love is different. Marriage is different. Bharat has asked to date me with a clear intent of proposing. He’s doing his damnedest to be reasonable about it, and what he’s doing makes sense. He’s honoring our parents’ expectations while catering to our need to know each other before we make that final decision together. If I turn him down, I need to know what I’m turning him down for.”
“And I’m not enough?”
She stared at him. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Look, I haven’t thought about this. Do you want me to lie and tell you that I have a ring getting resized at the jeweler?” He shook his head. “I don’t. Marriage hasn’t even crossed my mind. I’m twenty-four; you’re twenty-six. You’ve just graduated with your MD. I’ve just got my business off the ground. We’re not ready.”
“I’m ready to consider it.”
“I’m not.” Their eyes locked. “Damn it.” Jon slammed the palm of his hand on the table, rattling the flatware. “This wasn’t supposed to work out this way.”
“What wasn’t supposed to work out this way?”
“I was supposed to meet your parents. That’s it. How was I suppose to know that I’d be hurled onto some kind of relationship fast-track, one-way road into marriage?”
“You’ve wanted to meet my parents for a while now. Why?”
“Because it seemed obvious to meet the parents of the girl I’m dating. I wasn’t planning on asking for their blessing to marry you.” He shook his head, his mouth twisting into a grimace. “It’s Bharat—”
“No, it’s not. It’s where I’m from. My culture. My expectations. I want to have a career as a doctor, but I also want to get married at some point, and if that’s not where we’re headed, maybe we should consider cutting our losses and finding someone else with the same end goals.”
“Relationships don’t have goals.”
“I have goals, Jon, you know that. They don’t magically disappear just because my heart is as involved as my head. I love you, but if we’re not going to end up in the same place, I’d like to know. Now.”
Anjali let herself into the apartment. The sound of her mother and father’s voice drifted toward her; they were in the kitchen. A sigh leaked out of her as she sagged against the door. The muscles in the back of her neck knotted as she leaned her head back against the smooth wooden frame.
What do I want?
The certainty of love now, but without any promise of the future, or the promise of love set within the certainty of the future?
Jon or Bharat.
Anjali huffed out a sigh. Why did life always have to be either or?
Because bigamy wasn’t legal, she supposed.
She pushed away from the door, but paused by the dining room table to pick up her mail. One envelope, from Westchester Medical Center, had already been opened. She picked up the letter and was in the process of reading her acceptance for a residency at Westchester Medical Center when her mother stepped out of the kitchen.
“You’re not going to Westchester,” her mother said as she walked over to Anjali.
Anjali looked up at her mother’s face, which was set in discontented lines. She held up the letter. “Why did you open my mail?”
“I wanted to read it,” Kashi said.
“Don’t you have any sense of personal privacy?”
“You are my daughter, and you are still living in my house.”
Anjali gritted her teeth. “This isn’t your house.”
Kashi’s eyes widened and she blinked repeatedly, apparently nonplussed by the technicality of being in Anjali’s apartment.
Anjali straightened. “You have no right to open my mail, no right to interfere in my life.”
Kashi swung her hand up but Anjali did not flinch. Her eyes locked on her mother’s. Kashi let her hand drop, but outrage etched lines on her face. “As long as you are unmarried, it is my job, my place, my right—”
“No. Your job was to raise me. Your job is done.”
“You have learned nothing! We came here for your graduation; we brought Bharat with us, and instead, we see you with another man who has nothing compared to Bharat.”
“Jon is a good man.”
Kashi dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “You will never find another man like Bharat—clever, hardworking, good for you.”
“You’ve just described Jon.”
“But Bharat is better. He’s Brahmin, just like you.”
“You know, I’ve never thought that having the same color skin as a prerequisite for love, or even happiness.”
“Skin?” Kashi’s upper lip curled with scorn. “Do you think that it is all it is? Just color? No. Who you are, what you are, goes deep, all the way to your heart. It is how you think, how you feel, how you see the world. The differences between you and Jon are much more than color.”
Anjali’s chest ached as if she had been struck hard. Her mother, her seemingly racist, prejudiced mother, was right, at least about that much. Race, when tied to culture, was more than color, the differences deeper than the skin.
And how much of it was irreconcilable?
Anjali squeezed her eyes shut, but could not dismiss the memory of Jon pushing to his feet and walking away from her at the Blue Moon Café, his brunch unfinished. They had wanted different things.
Chapter 10
Jon gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white. He should have left after that first disastrous dinner when it was clear, apparently to everyone except him, that he would never find a place in Anjali’s life. For so long, he had seen Anjali as separate from her culture. Her dusky skin gave her an exotic look, but she had not seemed any different from the people he had grown up with.
Not until this week had he understood that who she was—an Indian raised to have culturally traditional expectations of life, love, and marriage—meant that she wasn’t just like him, a suburban American.
Anger and hurt was a hard knot in his chest when he pulled over into a highway rest area and reached for his cell phone. He hit the second number on speed dial. After several moments, his mother’s familiar voice came on the line. “Hey, Jon. How’s the graduation?”
“Anjali’s getting married.”
“Oh.” His mother was silent for a moment. “Presumably not to you or you would have said that you were getting married too.”
“Her parents came for her graduation and I met them for the first time. It was a…” He let out a short bark of laughter. “It was a goddamned disaster.”
“Jon.” She clucked at his language.
“Her fiancé showed up too?”
“Her what?”
“Anjali’s been engaged to an older man for years.”
“Is it Bharat?”
Jon’s mouth dropped open. “You know Bharat?”
“Of course. Anjali told me about him years ago. It might have been about four years ago, when you brought her home for Thanksgiving. We were making dinner in the kitchen while you and your father were watching the television, and she opened up to me.”
“Wait, wait, wait. You mean she told you about her fiancé, but she didn�
�t tell me?”
“I don’t think they’re engaged. Anjali said she had been promised at birth—”
“Same difference.”
“Not quite the same thing.” Jon’s mother sounded unusually stern. “Your dad promised you would be a surgeon. I promised you would be a rabbi. Look at you—you’re a masseur.”
“A chiropractor and a massage therapist.”
“In many cases, promises—especially when they involve other independent or rebellious parties—are just hopes.”
“What happened this weekend between Bharat and Anjali was far more than a hope.”
“He proposed, and she accepted?”
“No. He said he wanted to date her.”
“Well, now, that sounds quite reasonable. He wants to get to know her before making any big decisions. What’s the problem with that?”
“The problem is she’s dating me!”
“Did she tell him that?”
“No, she said she needed to think about it, and then she came to me and asked if we were going to get married.”
“Well, that makes sense too.”
“What?” Jon’s jaw dropped. “Mom, why are you taking her side?”
“I’m not taking sides, dear. She wants to know if you have a future together.”
“I’m only twenty-four.”
“You’ve been dating her for six years. If she wasn’t the one for you, why have you been wasting your time and her time?”
“Jeez! I was eighteen when we started dating.”
“So you’re suggesting that momentum has been keeping you together? Momentum and habit isn’t a good basis for a relationship.”
“It’s not a good basis for a marriage,” Jon said through gritted teeth.
“And you’re right there too. It’s not a bad thing to stop and reassess where you are. Maybe you and Anjali have gotten too comfortable together.”
