Far From Home

by Lorelie Brown

  “I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “It was what I could think of. Do you see the size of this place? I think my mind is a little blown.”

  When a house girl answers the door and lets us in, things don’t get better. Even the entry way is huge. I can’t help but mentally compare it to the old beauty of the house Pari took me to. That estate was Hollywood grandeur in its vintage clothing. This place is a McMansion, the very worst of what’s wrong with California lately.

  The chandelier is crystal. The tables are topped in champagne marble. The floors are wide-planked maple that looks like it has been hand stained. On paper, it all sounds nice. In an everyday home, I don’t think I’d ever be able to relax if I lived here. Thankfully that’s not going to be a problem.

  We follow the maid up one floor and down a hall to an entertainment room that lets me unclench my stomach a little. The scale is much more intimate, even though it’s still a large space. The ceiling is lower and planked with teak, making it seem warmer.

  A big screen and miniature stage fill one end of the room. Scattered here and there are low pieces of furniture like a table and a few ottomans, but mostly the floor is filled with cushy rugs and pillows. It’s obvious we’re going to sprawl out.

  Pari jumps up from a pillow in the corner and nearly runs to me. “You made it.”

  I kiss her soft mouth, because I can and because I figure it would be an appropriate fiancée thing to do. I keep it quick though, because at the same time, I don’t want to scandalize any of her family who’re teetering on the edge of approval. “You didn’t think I’d skip it for the world, did you?”

  She shakes her head. A thick hank of hair slips over her shoulder. She looks lovely in a sleeveless blouse and capris. I like seeing her barefoot. She has a stain of red lip gloss on. I wonder if it transferred to me. Maybe I’ll get to keep that little intimate mark of her with me.

  “The last few days have been crazy. I’m not sure I’m capable of thinking at all.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s your mom’s hope. Niharika is doing all the thinking. You just lay back and let it go.”

  She leans back against my hold on her elbows. A wrinkle appears between her eyebrows. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Like you said, it’s been crazy.” My pulse is doing weird things, a pitter-trip-pat rhythm. I think it’s from the excitement of being in Aishwarya’s house. It’s as close to enemy territory as I’ve ever felt. I keep trying to take subtly deep breaths to abate the clenching in my chest, but it doesn’t go away.

  Before I have to come up with any better explanation, a new wave of arrivals demands our attention. I do my best to be charming, making myself talk even more than I might have in other circumstances. It seems like everyone is a little off their game at first. Conversation is stilted. Glances keep being traded.

  Lesbian Indian wedding for the win when it comes to new experiences, it seems.

  Maybe we’re all on the same uneven footing.

  It doesn’t take long until most people warm up—a couple trays of snacks and music help. I find myself on a big red cushion next to Pari, who gets an identical seat. I want to hold her hand, but the mehndi artist doesn’t give me a chance. She starts on the back of the hand, and what she’s doing seems like magic.

  She has a small plastic tube that reminds me of a pastry bag but is filled with dark brown batter. The pattern she draws is meticulous and intricate, full of symmetry and grace. The design starts at my wrists, and it seems like she moves quickly, but by the time I blink and look away, close to a half hour is gone.

  “It’s beautiful,” I tell Pari, who’s getting a similar treatment next to me.

  “It is.” She grins at me. “You are too.”

  I lean over and kiss her. The mehndi artist gives me a sniff of disapproval, but Niharika smiles at me and Nikki is positively beaming. “This is going to be good, isn’t it?”

  “Very good.”

  I’m not just talking about the mehndi pattern I’m being decorated with, and I don’t think Pari is either.

  I’m happy. So very happy. It burns in my chest and spills outward from there. I think I must be glowing with how good I feel.

  It certainly seems like I must, because people keep warming to me. Pari’s second cousin Chanda and I fall into a conversation about the intersection of culture and femininity in popular films. I’m drawing my examples from the US, and she’s drawing her examples from Bollywood, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re excitedly tripping over each other to make the same points. We trade Facebook friendships by the end of the conversation so that I can look up a 1930s pre-code film and try to send it to her.

  The mehndi woman has finished both the fronts and backs of my hands and moved on to the top of my feet when the dancing starts.

  Niharika and Aishwarya go first. The music changes, and they take the small stage to dance in tandem. Their hands are elegant, each finger carefully placed. Aishwarya’s generally dour expression has been traded out for one of pleasure. She likes what she’s doing. At first the music is flutes and drums, but as they whirl, singing begins. It’s high ululations that are completely foreign to me, and yet I still hear longing.

  “I look for my love,” Pari translates, leaning close to me. “In every river and every neighborhood.”

  I want to tease. I want to say “but you’ve found her,” but my gaze catches with hers. Everyone else is watching Niharika and Aishwarya dance.

  I can’t say that. I don’t know if she’s found her love in me.

  I’ve found mine in her.

  I want to say it. Fear chokes me. It shoves a fist down my throat and clenches everything so tight that I can hardly breathe.

  “Now my heart can’t sleep nor stay awake,” Pari breathes.

  We’re leaning closer and closer. I’m willing her to kiss me. I want it so badly, and if she touches me right now, I think I might catch on fire.

  “Behave,” scolds Jaya, a friend of Aishwarya. “There will be plenty of time for that later. Tomorrow!”

  We jerk apart. Then I’m staring at Jaya a little dumbfounded. Did she just tease? About sex?

  A gray-haired woman who was introduced to me as Aishwarya’s mother is frowning at me from a seat in the back, but it’s probably points on the side of good that she’s here at all. I bet she’s here for Pari. Everyone seems to be. Her family loves her with full hearts.

  I want in. I want it all.

  I want Pari for my own.

  I just hope she wants me too.

  Niharika and Aishwarya finish to resounding cheers Most of us can’t applaud because of the mehndi paste on our hands, but I make sure to add my voice to the whooping. A squad of younger girls hop up next. They’re obviously the next generation, younger than Pari and I even. I feel a little maternal as I look at them, and I nearly giggle with my happiness. This is all too much.

  I don’t know what to do with so much joy.

  After the four of them dance what looks to be a more modern dance, there’s a break. Trays of snacks get passed around.

  A woman in a beautiful seafoam-green sari kneels next to me with a plate in her hands. “Samosa?”

  The triangular pockets are deep-fried. I swallow against a mixed wave of lust and disgust. “No, thank you.”

  “Have one,” says Nikki. She has one half-bitten already. She licks a flake of pastry off her bottom lip. “They’re so good.”

  “They are seasoned potatoes inside. No meat,” the woman trying to serve me says, as if I’m afraid of the contents being non-vegetarian.

  I take one and nibble. “Delicious.”

  And they are. They’re so light and crisp that they must have been cooked for only moments. Yet I still feel the grease coating my tongue. I wonder how many calories are in each little pocket.

  I make myself take another bite while the woman in the sari watches, but the moment she’s turned her back and I don’t think anyone’s watching, I wrap it in a napkin, being careful to only tou
ch things with the mehndi-free bare tips of my fingers, and tuck it out of the way.

  Except the moment I look up, I catch Pari’s eyes. She saw it all.

  I smile as if it’s nothing while the back of my brain crumbles.

  She won’t love me if I’m sick. If I’m not well. Maybe she could love me otherwise, but she can’t fall in love with me while I’m nasty and ugly on the inside.

  I look away to hide my tears.

  I keep looking at the dancers as if I’m fascinated, and true, they look like they’re having a great time, but it gives me time to get calm. Or at least partly calm. I can feel the fried dough sitting in my stomach like a lump.

  My hands look beautiful. My feet too. “So I don’t touch this until morning?”

  “Don’t touch it at all,” Niharika instructs me. “We’ll take care of you.”

  Every fucking word is laden with more than I want it to be. Or it’s not laden at all, and I’m just desperate to hear affection? I can’t tell.

  “The darker it stains, the more your mother-in-law loves you,” Chanda says.

  “The more your husband loves you,” corrects another future in-law.

  There’s an awkward moment of silence, and then we all burst into laughter.

  “Mother-in-law,” Nikki says. She’s taken to this sitting on the floor thing in full force: she’s flat on her back with her head on a round pillow. “It must be mother-in-law.”

  “Come,” Chanda says, popping to her feet. “Come learn a dance.”

  She doesn’t hold her hands out to me, but rather waves me toward her. Obviously she’s an expert at moving even while paste is decked out on her hands.

  “I’m sure I shouldn’t.” I hold out my wrists. The design is so beautiful that I’ll cry if it’s ruined. Though it seems like I’m primed to cry at any provocation anyway.

  “We’ll take it slow. Nothing that will mess you up.”

  I glance at Pari. She’s grinning. “Try it out. I think I’d pay money to see you try.”

  “That’s a dare,” I laugh.

  Nikki shakes a finger. “Uh-oh. Them’s fighting words. Rachel never backs down from a challenge.”

  “By all means.” Pari waves toward the front of the room. The way she’s lounging makes the most of the curve of her hip, and I want to kiss her there. And everywhere else I can get to.

  I stand, and my head swims as if it’s taking a few extra flips. Probably lust making blood rush elsewhere. I’m glad I’m not a guy, or I’d probably be sporting wood.

  I do my best to push away thoughts of Pari naked. Chanda starts me slowly: how to stand just so with one arm above me and one cocked in front. Even the bend of my wrist matters. My elbow is tweaked to an angle that feels odd to me but looks natural on her.

  I do my best to follow her. It seems like the party has gotten even more packed, though. More bodies, more eyes watching me. It’s hotter in here too. I wish someone would turn up the air conditioning. The air is redolent with food scents.

  She cheers me on when I get something right. It’s probably pure luck, because I can’t think straight. I see Pari. Her eyes are bright. I love her smile.

  Chanda spins. I try to mimic her.

  The world goes dark and I fall.

  Hospital rooms are always so cold. I hate them. I know where I am before I open my eyes by the chill and aseptic smell. The first thing my gaze snaps to when I open my eyes is my hands. My feet. The mehndi looks mostly okay to me, though I bet more expert eyes might be able to pick out smudges. I would be heartbroken if the beauty were ruined by my carelessness.

  A body shifts in the seat next to the bed. Pari. She nudges the industrial chair closer. Her hair is tousled, snarled around her round cheeks. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her hair looking anything less than perfectly smooth.

  I reach up to push it away from her face. My hand shakes. She flinches.

  Tears flood my eyes. I blink them away. If I breathe through my nose, I don’t cry. I don’t know how or why, but it’s a trick I learned when I was really young. “How long have we been here?”

  “About an hour.”

  “I haven’t been out the whole time.” Things start coming back to me in bits and pieces. The guests screaming. The paramedics leaning over me.

  I don’t want to think about the rest of it.

  I look down at my arm. There’s a piece of adhesive over the inside of my elbow and a tube snaking away from it. I know what that is. I’ve been here before. “Fluids?”

  “Including some potassium.”

  I nod. Been here. Done this. “I bet Aishwarya is having fucking kittens over this.”

  “She’s not happy.” Pari scoots even closer. “But mostly everyone’s worried about you.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  I can’t exactly imagine it. Pari standing above my prostrate body with hands spread, telling everyone not to worry. That I was just an anorexic who’d relapsed and fucked up everything. Like usual.

  Still, she shakes her head no. She’s not crying right now, but I can tell that she was. Her eyes are red and puffy. “You don’t have to do tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You’re not well, Rachel.” The tears start again. They’re tracking down her face like lines of crystal. Diamonds. Glass. The kind that breaks and cuts you when you least expect it. “You have to get better.”

  I grab her hand. We’re mehndi to mehndi. I wonder if that has any special meaning. Probably not. I’m probably grasping at straws the same way I’m desperately holding on to her. “I will. I promise. But after the wedding. Julian gave me two weeks off. I can call him and ask him for as much as I want. I’ll go, I promise, Pari.”

  Jesus Christ, I’m bargaining. Like an addict begging to be fronted just a gram, only one gram, because of course that’s exactly what I am. But this time I don’t think I mean to avoid getting well. I want to be well with Pari. I don’t want …

  I don’t want her to get away from me.

  Because I know that she’ll hate me if I let her get too much distance between us.

  I shudder. My thoughts are so poisoned.

  “I know I’m messed up,” I manage to say.

  “I can’t ask this of you.” Pari sounds as wrecked as I feel. Her voice shakes in time with her hand in mine. “It’s been too much.”

  “This isn’t your fault.”

  Her eyes are wide. The tears make her green shine. Her lips are damp with more tears. “How can I believe that? I feel like I’m killing you.”

  “No! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you can’t believe that. Don’t.” I struggle to sit up, but the stupid cord is in the way. I’d pull it out if I didn’t know how much it would prove I’m not in my right senses. “Pari. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. I’m the only one responsible for myself.” At least I’ve held on to that much from treatment. My personal responsibility flag is flying way high.

  Pari’s gaze drops from me and turns inward. I don’t know how to get to her. We haven’t actually had that long together. I can’t help but remember what she said about not looking like I eat much, so long ago. It bites me.

  Our hand holding has made a piece of the paste on the inside of my palm peel away. I drop it onto the waffle-weave blanket between us and turn my hand palm up. “Do you think it’s dark enough?”

  “What?”

  “Does your mom love me?” I can’t look up at her. I trace the air above the brown lines with a fingertip. My nails have gotten so stubby. I kept ignoring the way they were breaking off. “Is it dark enough?”

  “Oh, darling.”

  She comes up from her chair and unlocks the crib-like side of my bed to swing it down. She sits on the edge of the mattress. I make room for her as gracefully as I can.

  Pari holds my face between both her hands. I’m a hundred times more contained than I was within the safety of the gurney. I let
my eyes drift shut. Her hands are rougher than normal because of the dried paste, but it doesn’t matter. I’d know her touch in the darkness of a star.

  “Amma loves you. Don’t you know that?”

  I shake my head a fraction. Not too much, because I don’t want to push her away. “I don’t think I knew what love felt like before.”

  I’ve handed her the perfect opening, and I’m practically begging her to take the burden of our beginning away from me.

  But she doesn’t. “Why did you say you’d marry me?”

  “What?” It’s my turn for confusion. “To help you.”

  “Is that it?”

  That evening, at Krissy’s apartment, Pari had been so beautiful. So self-assured and still calm while she discussed her thwarted ambitions. It didn’t seem right that anything would be denied to her. She had everything. Culture and education and determination.

  And there was still one more piece dangling out of her reach. But it was something that I could hand to her. “It was selfish,” I admit. “I thought you were … dazzling. I wanted you to notice me.”

  “If anything was selfish, it was me saying yes. I knew that this was a situation that would upend our lives. I’ve been in a mess like this before. It hasn’t worked out the way I thought it would. I thought we’d be mutually helping each other. Instead …”

  I talk fast and a little too loud and run over whatever she’s going to say next, because I can’t stand to hear anything that hinges on pity. “Instead I fell in love with you.”

  “Instead we fell in love with each other.”

  Love is supposed to be a joyful thing. Pari is mournful. I’m terrified. It’s a beast that lives inside me. It takes up everything, then gnaws on my bones. “Don’t give up on me. Please.”

  It takes everything I have to say it, but I can’t not say it.

  “I’m not. It’s my turn to promise. I love you, Rachel. I think I’ve loved you since very early on, when you came to dinner at my house and ate and I didn’t know why you were shaking. How hard was it to eat that day?”

  I shake my head so hard that tears fly. “Don’t put that on that memory. I don’t want to have been sick even then.”

  “But you were.” She holds my wrists. “You’re sick. But you can get better.”