Dil or No Dil

by Suleikha Snyder

  As much as faith and culture were at the center of the proceedings, pageantry played a huge part in all of it. So Tiya wasn’t surprised to walk into a hallway decked out with streamers and already lined with marigold arches. She was surprised to turn the corner and come face-to-face with the one person she wasn’t supposed to want to see.

  More than six feet of pure charisma encased in a black leather jacket, maroon button-down and blue jeans. Vanity had made him dye away the grays that had flecked his hair last year, but she couldn’t complain, because the thick black mop was still Bollywood-star quality.

  Arnav hadn’t aged since the last time she’d seen him―partly because he’d made sure of it―and hadn’t lost any of his appeal. He still looked damn good. Of course. Because the goddess Durga, aside from being a badass, had a keen sense of timing. His dark eyes lit with recognition, mouth curling into a welcoming grin. “Tiya! Arré, hello!”

  He couldn’t know what it did to her, the combination of the husky voice and that penetrating gaze. His mouth said “hello,” and her delusional ears heard “I want you.”

  Tiya stumbled and caught herself against the painted-over cinderblock wall. He reached out to steady her. She flinched before his hand could make contact with her shoulder and burn clean through. And the word that slipped from her lips was neither a greeting nor a puja appropriate prayer. “Goddammit!” she yelped.

  To his credit, Arnav didn’t react to her language and he didn’t pull away. His hands closed firmly on her upper arms, and he helped set her to rights. His smile turned into a full-on laugh. “Same Tiya,” he observed.

  “Clumsy and profane?” she surmised. Her cheeks felt as red as tomato chutney. Her stomach fluttered. She momentarily forgot how to breathe…which was okay, since her body knew to do that automatically. She was too old to have such a ridiculous reaction to a man, but her senses weren’t getting the message.

  Arnav’s humor leached away, his expression chiding. He didn’t find her self-deprecation funny. “Na,” he corrected, softly. “Lovely and good to see.”

  She had to be imagining the note in his voice. More delusions. Wishful thinking. He couldn’t possibly be indicating interest. He wasn’t supposed to give her compliments―not ones like this, anyway. Tiya shook her head, trying in vain to pretend this wasn’t flirting. How could it be? “You haven’t changed either, Arnav,” she said. “Still a charmer.”

  His brows rose, a warm chuckle escaped his throat. “You find me charming? Since when?”

  Okay. Tiya wasn’t imagining it. The man was definitely interested. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” she pointed out as she tried to recalibrate her brain for this. Banter. Oh, God. Banter at Durga Puja. Oh, Goddess.

  Arnav leaned one shoulder against the wall, not unlike a cocky quarterback making himself at home by the head cheerleader’s locker. “Distance makes me more attractive? Ja…no wonder my marriage failed.”

  Tiya frowned. That was not flirtatious. That was baggage. And a good reminder of why she needed to keep stepping back. To skirt him and head into the gym. She wasn’t here for this. She was here for Baba and Mom. “I’m sorry about the divorce,” she murmured, not because it was true but because it was the right thing to say.

  Arnav winced, like he realized, with her tepid response, that he’d changed the tone of the conversation back to awkward. “Tiya…”

  But anything he might have said was cut off by the double doors to the gymnasium banging open behind him. Another familiar figure and face emerging. A beloved one. Bright-eyed, white-haired, etched in age and laugh lines. Baba.

  Tiya’s nerves went from buzzing to singing. She didn’t realize she’d moved until she was throwing her arms around her dad and chasing the hug with a happy “Hi!” She’d never been so delighted to be cock-blocked. Or whatever the feminine version was. Vagbadged.

  Baba’s shoulders felt brittle, his frame fragile in her embrace, but his voice boomed as loudly as ever. Capable of commanding a room without a microphone. “Arré, Choto Pakhi!” he exclaimed, bussing her cheek and leaving behind the sharp tang of his Aqua Velva aftershave.

  Arnav greeted her father with an equally energetic “Uttam-da!” though they’d no doubt been working together for an hour or two already. “Everyone’s home! Now puja can really begin,” he said, inanely, as if the two of them hadn’t just shared a charged―and inappropriate―moment.

  She was perfectly happy to join him in rowing her favorite river, especially as Baba led them back into the puja preparations, completely unaware of the mini-soap opera he’d interrupted.

  Chapter Four

  Arnav didn’t know what had come over him. A madness. What else could have possessed him to flirt with Tiya so openly? Like they were at a bar or a club and not a puja set-up? He cursed himself soundly as he followed her and Uttam-da. He’d dated since the divorce. Of course. He was not some kind of monk. There was no call to act like a man starved. But his gaze danced from the back of her neck―the tiny swan tattooed there for Saraswati, the goddess of learning―to the curve of her hips, to the painted toes she bared as she kicked off her sandals before crossing into Ma Durga’s domain.

  Tiya was beautiful. Sharp. Intelligent. And he was available…but only if one forgot their community. Her father’s esteem. Her mother’s influence. The judgment that would rain down upon their heads should she take up with a divorced father to two.

  He could only look. He could not even dream. So, he did the only thing he could: He left her to her father’s company and sought out his own kin.

  Arnav found Niku in one corner, beset by a cluster of women―the Mashi Party, fluttering around him like birds, eager to give him the mothering they felt he was missing without Sumita in the house. His son tolerated it all with good cheer and halting Bengali…and Arnav was grateful for the burst of pride that stomped all over his impractical and indecent desires. It reminded him of what was important. He would not risk Shainik and Tiya’s ties to their roots for anything. Not even a kiss.

  A poke to his ribs jolted him from the sober thoughts. “Dad? Are you okay?”

  He mock-scowled at Niku and poked him back. “Why would I not be okay?”

  “Because you’re not talking.”

  The flock exploded in laughter at his expense. Shefali-di, one of the grand matrons, was the loudest. “Practicing for his next marriage,” she added, uncaring if the mention of his first one was taboo. She was somewhere in her mid-sixties―a good Bengali gentleman did not ask for specifics―and had begun talking up spinster nieces from Ballygonge and Darjeeling from the moment Sumita left. As if Arnav’s marrying again was inevitable.

  It was not a given. He’d been married longer than he’d been single. He was in no great rush to enter the institution once more. But he laughed at all of the jokes and made a few of his own, playfully elbowing Niku and ruffling his hair. “This one and his brother need to bring home the brides,” he declared. “To take care of me in my old age.”

  “And why should a daughter-in-law hang around her father-in-law’s neck?” The words preceded their speaker and the disapproving click of her wicked tongue. Tiya. Doing her rounds of greetings to all her elders. Her Bengali was without error, and the perfect amount of teasing infused the saucy question.

  He had no response, except a powerful urge to wrap her arms around his neck, and he was saved from giving in to the impulse by Niku’s cry of “Tiya!” and the complicated, acrobatic, fist-bump they exchanged.

  “Tiya Didi,” Arnav corrected, just to have something to say.

  “Please.” She snorted, slinging one arm companionably around Shainik’s shoulders. “I’ve never called you ‘uncle.’ He doesn’t have to call me ‘didi.’ I’m not his sister.”

  The Mashi Party tittered, amused by her impertinence. Tiya hugged each of the four nosy women, asking after kids and grandkids with no fumbles over names. Like Uttam-da, she was wonderful with people, could easily work a crowd. It was perhaps why her wildness was overlooked
instead of criticized, accepted instead of denied. She was a good girl in a bad girl’s costume of ink and independence. Arnav knew, with a devastating certainty, that he couldn’t let it go deeper than skin.

  No flirtation. No lingering looks. No teasing. He’d lock it down as quickly as he’d indulged himself.

  While Tiya was still occupied fielding questions of her job and her love life, he took hold of Shainik and walked away―earning a whining protest of “Daaad! I wasn’t done talking to Tiya!” for his efforts. “You can speak to her all weekend,” he reminded. “Tonight, we are here to help, remember?”

  And Niku wasn’t the only one who needed that reminder. Arnav would do well to keep the mantra in mind. Durga Puja was about bringing the area Bengalis together. About fellowship and food and fun. Though many mothers brought eligible daughters and single sons, the days of his own eligibility in this arena were long past.

  Arnav spent the rest of the night setting up tables in the cafeteria for tomorrow’s luncheon and dinner shifts. And after that, he went to help with the sound equipment in the auditorium. He went to and fro where he was needed…and put out of his mind that, for the first time in years, he’d felt wanted.

  Chapter Five

  Maha Ashtami – Life is breathed into the

  goddess Durga, and her female companions

  are celebrated and worshipped

  By the time Tiya crawled into bed in an oversized t-shirt and a layer of coconut lotion, she was already exhausted. Cultured out. And it had only been around three to four hours of puja-ing. Pre-puja-ing, to be fair. There were two full days ahead, as her mom had helpfully reminded her when she and Baba finally got home from the high school. “Get your beauty sleep now,” had been the key phrase…and she didn’t want to probe too closely into what that might mean. As if her mother had lined up somebody’s nephew or cousin just arrived from India for her to meet in between the arathi and pushpanjali portions of the worship services.

  Of course, she’d been ambushed by such set-ups a couple of times over the years. Usually at a wedding. Magically finding herself alone with some balding biochemist or lawyer from Michigan. It was amazing what a parent who’d viewed dating as a subgenre of horror would get up to once you were past thirty and showed no signs of settling down.

  Tiya basically expected shenanigans every time she came home. It was just how things were. But she hadn’t prepared for what had happened tonight with Arnav. That odd hallway encounter. The undeniable sparks between them. She’d always had a good rapport with Baba’s various cronies and protégés, but this was different. Intimate. Forbidden.

  And she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that gave her a bit of a thrill. That safely ensconced in her childhood bedroom, with sheets pulled up to her chin, she was deliciously scandalized by Arnav Biswas being so flirty. And intrigued. And wondering where, if anyplace, it could go.

  Her rest that night was fitful…definitely not the beauty sleep Mom had demanded of her. Rife with X-rated dreams and images of being yelled at by a slew of disapproving mashis and aunties. And when she awoke Saturday morning at 6 a.m., she was feeling decidedly less than pious. A cold shower knocked most of the luridness out of her, and Mom did the rest, haranguing Tiya over hot cups of tea and a packet of Indian-store Marie biscuits.

  “Don’t say anything to Shefali Mashi. Everybody will know it twenty minutes later,” she was in the midst of advising when Tiya tuned in to see where in the lecture she was.

  “A whole twenty minutes? She’s slipping. And what am I going to say? I’ve got nothing to say!” she pointed out. “I’m fine, work’s fine. The end. She already learned that much last night.” Mom always seemed to have this idea that Tiya was hiding a stockpile of scandals, only to unleash them at an event full of Indian people. Because that was her idea of a good time? Whatever.

  She finished her ginger-laced tea as quickly as possible, escaping back upstairs to put on her sari―thankful she no longer needed her mother’s help. The first few years of managing the garment had been a bitch. She’d needed a million pins to keep the single piece of cloth in place and Mom’s help wrapping it. Now, she was sari-self-sufficient. And she was proud of the overall effect when she was finished: the green, yellow and orange layers made her look like her namesake, and the beautiful silver and gold stitching of the aanchal―cloth that could go in a long drape over one shoulder and down the back or, worn Hindustani-style, down the front―prominently displayed.

  Even Mom had to approve when she walked into the master bedroom to borrow jewelry. And Baba, who’d donned a traditional dhoti―basically a sari downsized for men―exclaimed, “Wow! Who is this beautiful girl?” in delight. Tiya was still enough of a kid inside to blush at their reactions. And to gasp when her mother brought out an emerald-and-gold jewelry set and matching bangles. Holy occasion or no, getting dolled up was expected if you were an unmarried woman.

  In contrast, her mother was wearing a simple cream-colored sari with red accents. The traditional outfit for most puja-attending older women. Of course, she still managed to look like a queen in it, but that was an Ashima Chatterjee given.

  By the time they left the house, piling into the Lexus that had long-since replaced Baba’s Crown Vic, Tiya had a dopey glow in her chest. She felt absurdly happy and sappy about what a pretty picture they made—and that they were off to do something as a family and as Bengalis. It was an emotional condition unbecoming to the cynical city girl she now was, but she really didn’t give a damn.

  During Durga Puja, she didn’t have to care about anything but being with people she loved.

  Chapter Six

  Shainik woke him promptly at 6 a.m. Better than any alarm clock. Arnav was glad for the layers of blankets that hid his morning erection. Half the biological need to piss and half fueled by visions of Tiya Chatterjee. “Go away,” he growled, throwing a pillow at his son.

  Niku just ducked it, laughing and reminding, “Five minutes!”

  Five minutes to get himself together. To erase impossible dreams from his brain. To wipe away Tiya’s touch and drown out her erotic whispers. “I want you. You’re enough for me,” she’d said in his absurd fantasy. “I won’t leave you.” He’d pinned her beneath him, just to assure that she wouldn’t go. That they had all the time in the world to get to know one another beyond the few times a year their paths crossed at Bengali functions.

  And he was no idiot. He knew how futile such wishes were. She would be ostracized if he pursued her, and he and the boys shunned as outcasts. So, Arnav hefted himself from bed and focused on what the day needed from him. His strength. His commitment. Not his what-ifs.

  He and Niku readied themselves in record time, out the door by 6:30 in their finest Bengali garb. God, he was grateful to have such an exemplary child. To have two of them. Sons that truly cared about where they’d come from. He’d fought for that. Lost a wife over that. And it was worth it.

  Arnav kept that running on a loop in his head as they pulled into the high school parking lot. This was for his family. For their future. Feeling things for, and wanting things from, Tiya would serve no one. He would have to ignore her today, to tamp down his irrational desire. Shauvik and Shainik were more important than an inconvenient erection. He had to put their place in this wonderful community first.

  So, in those early hours before guests and worshippers arrived, he threw himself into volunteer tasks, going wherever he was needed. He knew Tiya was there also, flitting from the registration desk to the puja area to the kitchens and back, but he forced her to the edge of his attention. A glimpse in his periphery, a sentence half-heard. A flash of parrot-colored silk. A hint of feminine perfume.

  He thought of Ma Durga, stepping on the chest of the demon Mahishasura, piercing him with her spear, and he understood what it must be to be trapped in that position. Whether molded from clay or carved from stone or made of flesh, the vanquishing was inevitable. But the destruction in this case was not only his. It was mutually assur
ed.

  His phone buzzed at one point. A text from Shauvik. Punctuated with those little pictures. Emoji. How’s it going? Meet any hot mashis?

  Bratty son, this is a holy occasion, he wrote back, adding a row of fruits. Because Viku was certainly ripened―paaka, as they called overly precocious kids in Bengali.

  Viku’s only response was, Tell Tiya I said hi.

  Arnav frowned at the screen, waiting for further commentary. To no avail.

  Shauvik and Shainik were cut from the same clever cloth. Too smart for their own good. It was no coincidence that his elder son had mentioned hotness and Tiya in quick succession. Had Niku said something? Did the boys suspect something untoward was happening?

  He slipped the cell back into his pocket, cursing softly. And in his inattention to his surroundings, he found himself near a cluster of sari-clad younger wives. Lower on the social capital scale from the Shefali-di and Ashima-di, but doubtless planning a coup. Their voices were a lively cacophony of gossip, East and West Bengali accents clashing as they dissected who looked great, who was trying to dress half their age, and whether Karthik and Sujata were having trouble―Arnav knew full well that they weren’t, but he didn’t offer this nugget to the debate. He wasn’t about to turn traitor on two of his closest friends.

  “Hey…have you seen Tiya yet this year?”

  His ears perked up at the same moment that his hackles rose. There was no mistaking the malicious lilt in Indira Chakraborty’s tone. Just a few years older than Tiya, she was married with two daughters. As far as he recalled, they barely knew one another. Such details never stopped the Mashi Party.

  “She has more of those tattoos,” contributed one woman from Louisville. “So ugly!”

  “I don’t know how Ashima lives with it,” said another one of Indira’s cronies. “Tattoo-fattoo. That short hair. Her daughter looks like a lesbian.”

  “She’s still unmarried. Maybe she is a lesbian,” sniffed Indira.