Destination Wedding

by Diksha Basu

  “Who taught you that?” Tina asked.

  “The matchmaker has a young assistant who does all her online work. He emailed me saying Mrs. Ray likes to speak with all her clients before their first I-R-L meeting so I had to look up the meaning.”

  Tina went to the mirror to get ready while her father kept talking.

  “I also asked her what I should wear today but she put the phone down saying a man my age should know what to wear so then I googled some pictures of George Clooney. Anyway, long story short, here we are—and are you sure I don’t need to wear a tie?”

  “One hundred percent. Are you bringing her that Tagore book?” Tina pointed toward the book in his hand.

  “Well, Mrs. Ray also said—” Mr. Das started but his daughter interrupted him and said, “Papa, you’re already doing better than ninety-nine percent of the men in the world. I think you should relax and go enjoy this. Even if it makes me uncomfortable.”

  She liked being able to tell her father she was uncomfortable; if she mentioned it to her mother, her mother would jump straight into her psychoanalysis of why exactly Tina was uncomfortable and how it meant there was something in her life that needed changing. Recently she had said that she thought Tina “used her heritage”—being Indian but living in America—as an excuse to claim she never fit in when, in fact, she had the luxury of fitting in in both America and India if she would just stop complaining and make a few decisions.

  “It’s always easy to cast blame,” her mother had said, leaning back on her red rocking chair and moving her reading glasses from her head to her eyes to page through the latest issue of the New Yorker.

  “Roz Chast,” her mother had said. “Now, that’s someone I’d love to have as a client.”

  Tina thought her mother’s clients’ parents all owed her thanks for the fact that they still had good relationships with their children. Radha was so determined not to be blamed for any of Tina’s problems that, unlike a lot of therapists, she committed her entire practice to never putting any of the blame on anyone’s parents.

  “Is this odd for you?” Mr. Das asked his daughter. He hadn’t really stopped to consider his daughter in this whole thing, and when he did, he knew that she was still so angry at Radha and David that she would forgive him and accept his romantic liaisons more easily. Tina was always unfairly generous when it came to him.

  “It’s fine,” Tina said. “You deserve happiness too.”

  Mr. Das nodded. Tina had always assumed the divorce was her mother’s fault and Mr. Das didn’t do too much to change her belief. Which was fair, he reasoned. After all, Radha now had David but he had nobody. He should at least get his daughter’s allegiance. And anyway, it wasn’t clear who was to blame for the divorce.

  * * *

  —

  THE MORNING AFTER THEIR Yale graduation, Tina and Marianne had been sitting in their living room, empty beer and wine bottles, an overturned hookah, open suitcases, and boxes scattered around them. Their third roommate, Monika, had left before graduation to spend the summer fishing for salmon off the coast of Alaska before starting medical school in Chicago. Marianne was moving to New York, having got a job as an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping. Tina was going back to her parents’ home in Ohio for a few months before deciding what to do next.

  They both sipped from colorful bottles of Gatorade.

  “You’ll be fine,” Marianne said. “You’re going out into the world with a degree from Yale. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know what you’re doing yet.”

  “I really think I should go spend a year in India,” Tina said. With her toe, she pushed a cushion off the sofa. It was yellow with red Indian embroidery on it and she had brought it to college with her four years ago and spent four years trying to like it. “Do you want this pillow?”

  “You’ve had that pillow since freshman year,” Marianne said. “It’s disgusting.”

  Tina looked down at it and said, “I can’t bring myself to throw it out. It’s from Jaipur, I think. My father got it years ago. I guess I’ll take it back to my parents’ for now.”

  “Throw it out, Tina,” Marianne said.

  “Throw what out?” came Tina’s mother’s voice from the hallway. They had left their front door open, going in and out with boxes and trash. Outside, the skies were blue and the sun was shining. New Haven felt so safe and warm, and Tina was terrified about leaving. She had halfheartedly applied for a few jobs but the vague idea of moving to India had stopped her from actively pursuing anything. But then she couldn’t quite get herself to move to India, it felt too foreign and too frightening so now she was doing the least foreign and least frightening thing possible and simply moving back home with her parents. She was giving herself until the end of August to decide what to do next. Otherwise she was putting herself on a one-way flight to New Delhi.

  “Why is she here so early?” Tina asked, scrambling to get up, throwing the pillow back on the sofa, and kicking a few beer bottles under it. “I’m going to get lectured about the future the entire way home.”

  Radha entered the living room holding a Starbucks iced coffee with a pair of large purple sunglasses pushed up on her head.

  “Someone asked me where Saybrook College was on the way over here. Maybe I look like a college student,” Radha said. She held her purse and looked around the messy room for somewhere to place it. She sighed loudly and put it back on her shoulder. “Maybe a grad student.”

  “Professor is more likely. Why are you here so early?” Tina asked.

  “Your father was being terribly slow and I wanted to take a walk and enjoy the morning. You know how I love being back on a university campus. Makes me feel young,” Radha said.

  “Papa won’t know how to get here from the hotel,” Tina said. “He’s useless with directions.”

  “He’ll figure it out,” Radha said. “Look at you two. Oh, to be young again. Did you have a party here last night? You should have invited us. Well, me, anyway. Your father fell asleep in front of the television in the hotel with a cup of tea balanced on his belly.”

  Tina watched her mother walk around the room, taking it all in. She touched her fingertip to the bookshelf that was also somehow sticky and pulled it back.

  “Not everything about youth is wonderful, of course,” Radha said. “But so much is. The excitement. The future. Gosh, I remember when I first came to America, I used to have butterflies in my stomach all the time. Just the limitless possibilities.”

  Tina looked over at Marianne. Marianne looked into her Gatorade.

  “I should go finish packing,” Marianne said and walked toward the door.

  “Feel that shoulder blade,” Radha said, squeezing Marianne as she tried to leave.

  “Ma, are you okay?” Tina asked.

  Radha was still holding on to Marianne’s shoulder.

  “But the possibilities so quickly start getting limited. You make one choice and you have to let all the other choices go. I suppose you’ve both already sort of started this march. You’re Yale graduates now, you will never be Harvard or Princeton graduates.”

  “There’s always grad school,” Marianne said, trying to slip out of Radha’s grip.

  Radha smiled and patted Marianne and said, “An optimist. Off you go, Marianne. Go finish your packing with your gorgeous, gorgeous shoulder blades. You women, you’re not girls anymore, will run the world someday. I can’t believe it’s been four years since we dropped you off.”

  Marianne left the room and Tina stood up from the couch and continued putting her books into boxes.

  “Ma, your basement is going to be completely filled with my stuff, but I’m going to commit to a plan by August at the very latest. I’ll call Papa and tell him to get here by noon. I should be done packing by then.”

  Radha sat down on the couch and placed her purse on her lap. Outside
a car went by with music thumping and Tina looked at her mother and suddenly felt scared. Her mother was looking out of the window at nothing at all.

  Tina continued placing books carefully into boxes as though she might revisit An Introduction to Microeconomics in the future.

  “We won’t have a basement for you to fill, darling. We’re getting divorced. And my small apartment in Manhattan barely has space for my things. Check with your father about his new apartment in Jersey City, otherwise maybe look into finding a storage unit somewhere. They come and collect your boxes, and I’ve heard it’s quite well-priced and easy. Some of them have cute ads on the trains. Have you ever seen them? I saw one the other day that had a naked couple lying on the floor—you know, bodies entwined etcetera, etcetera—in an empty apartment and it said, ‘Maybe we made storage too easy.’ ”

  “What did you say?” Tina said.

  “I suppose the ad was implying that they had put all their clothes into storage. It isn’t about logic, I guess. As always, sex sells.”

  “Ma, stop,” Tina said. “What did you say? You’re getting divorced?”

  “Yes. Well, technically we’re already divorced but we didn’t want to tell you until after graduation. Didn’t want to ruin the festivities. Didn’t you notice that we booked a suite for this weekend? With beds in two rooms. Anyway. I’m not moving until next week. And I think your father will take a bit longer. You know how precious he is with things like packing. But we’ve found good buyers already and everything is moving quite smoothly, touch wood. I’ve been sleeping in your old room and I just love the elm tree you can see out of your window. You positioned your bed well.”

  Tina had just stood there, an astronomy textbook in her hand, looking at her mother. Her legs felt weak, her stomach felt hot. Everything around her seemed to blur except, she remembered vividly, the sound of someone’s flip-flops smacking against the sidewalk outside.

  “Did you say Manhattan?”

  “I’ve always loved Manhattan. The culture, the people, the crowds. And you know everyone there needs therapy so it will be good for my work as well,” Radha said. “Anyway, enough about all that. Let’s not waste time. Tell me what I can do to help with the packing. Is the kitchen done? I could handle that if you’d like. Just not the bathroom.”

  “Ma,” Tina said. “Ma, why? It’s not like you two are that young anymore. I don’t understand. What’s the point of this? How will Papa manage on his own? You have to remind him to take his statin every night.”

  Radha had inhaled deeply, stood up, and said, “We’ll make sure he sets an alarm.”

  She walked over to Tina, took the astronomy book from her hand, and said, “Life is complicated, Tina. You’ll see. Things aren’t always black and white but we’ll all be fine. Now, let’s get moving. I’ll go see to the kitchen.”

  “What about me?” Tina asked, aware that she sounded foolish, juvenile. “You couldn’t have done this while I was still in college? Or after I had found a job and settled down? What am I supposed to do?”

  Radha held up the astronomy textbook.

  “If there’s one piece of advice I can give you, it’s that you won’t revisit this textbook. Come on now. Moping about solves nothing.”

  They didn’t talk about it anymore, from what Tina could remember now. Tina had always taken her mother’s response, her mother’s evasiveness, as proof of her guilt. Her father had arrived a little while later, unaware that Radha had already told Tina.

  “Hello, my wife and daughter,” he said from the entrance to Tina’s apartment. At that point Tina was lying in Marianne’s bed, still shocked by her mother’s news. In the hallway, she heard her mother say to her father, “Stop it, Neel. I’ve already told her.”

  “We were supposed to tell her together,” Mr. Das said in a clenched whisper. “Radha, what did you tell her? I should get to tell my side too.”

  “She’s an adult, Neel. Nobody needs to take sides.”

  “You left the hotel early just to reach her before me. We had agreed to tell her once we got home.”

  “I can hear you,” Tina had shouted from Marianne’s room.

  * * *

  —

  “WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS for the afternoon?” Mr. Das now asked his daughter.

  “I’ve got to go meet Sid, that drummer I had shortlisted for the reality show. Remember him? I told you about it,” Tina said.

  Tina sat down at her dresser to put some makeup on. She had booked a hair and makeup artist for all the wedding-related events but she wouldn’t arrive for a few hours. Tina studied her face in the mirror. She leaned in—was it her imagination or were the two-hundred-dollar facials she got at a loft in Koreatown once a month really making her skin glow?

  “Are you excited? Do you know a lot about her?” Tina asked her father. “Mrs. Sethi, right? How old is she? How long ago did her husband die? Are you sure she doesn’t just want a Green Card?”

  “Tina, darling beti,” Mr. Das said. “That’s all for me to worry about now. I should be asking you questions and worrying about your love life. You can’t spend all your time taking care of us. I know the divorce wasn’t easy on either of us but you can’t play the role of the parent—especially since you were, what, twenty-two when it happened? I worry that you use it as an excuse.”

  Tina stared straight into the mirror. Her facialist had made her a custom face pack that she had used on the plane. She had asked Chon to make her a clear mask, not a sheet mask, because she was certain she would be arrested if she settled into her seat wearing a white mask. Celebrities always claimed they put on face masks on overnight flights but Heidi Klum was unlikely to get arrested in her first-class cabin. Tina would have to message Chon and thank her; she really did look well-rested despite the long journey and dry air. Chon was from Assam but pretended to be Korean. She had giggled and spoken to Tina in Hindi one day and confessed to being Indian. Tina always went back to her for her facials and tipped her twenty-five percent and never confessed that she didn’t speak Hindi.

  “I’m just curious about Mrs. Sethi. This whole matchmaking-agency-for-widows idea feels a little harebrained to me. And sad.”

  “It’s sadder to spend your days alone,” Mr. Das said. “Trust me, I know. Is this Sid fellow single?”

  Tina put her lipstick down and said, “It’s a work meeting.”

  “Unexpected things happen, Tina,” Mr. Das said. “A matchmaking agency for widows, for instance. What madness.”

  Mr. Das gave a little laugh, his obvious happiness disorienting for Tina.

  “Now, listen,” Mr. Das said. “Will you be walking anywhere on this date? Or can you wear my Fitbit and keep your arm swinging? I would do it myself but I’m worried it will give a bad first impression.”

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON

  Mrs. Sethi’s Home, K Block, Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, WITH HIS arm resting calmly by his side, Mr. Das, driven by Kaushal, his chauffeur, wearing a crisp white uniform, was pulling up to Hauz Khas Enclave, K Block. Kaushal used to work for a family in this same neighborhood three years ago but he had been fired when he fell asleep at the wheel and hit the divider while driving the family from Delhi to Mussoorie. He had worked two full shifts leading up to that trip. Nobody had been hurt and even the car was only slightly dented. But the husband got so angry he fired Kaushal right there, in the late evening on the side of the road, and took over the driver’s seat, even though he had been drinking beer in the back. They left Kaushal there to hitchhike his way back to Delhi and told him to collect his things and leave their home before they returned in three days. Kaushal looked into their driveway as they went past and saw the same BMW he used to drive parked there and was secretly pleased that the family wasn’t doing well enough to buy a new car. In the time since, he himself had moved up from a scooter to a used, old Maruti 800 to a still-used-but-l
ess-used black Swift, so he reasoned he was doing better in life.

  The streets were quiet except for the occasional schoolchild in uniform skipping down the street, an ayah walking lazily behind holding a backpack and water bottle. A coconut seller sat on the ground near a large tray heaped to the skies with coconuts. The seller was eating the silky white flesh of the coconut and it looked so inviting Mr. Das was tempted to take one in to Mrs. Sethi but he imagined both Mrs. Ray and his daughter would frown upon that. A whole coconut was an awkward gift to bring on a first date—Mrs. Sethi would have to find a sharp knife and either he or she would have to hack into it violently and try to pour the water into glasses before breaking the entire shell in half to access the flesh. No, it wasn’t a graceful gift to bring; he would pick one up on the way back to Colebrookes and get the butler to split it open.

  Mr. Das looked up at the window of Mrs. Sethi’s apartment and noticed a head disappear. How strange, he thought, as he walked to the main entrance and rang the doorbell. In her bathroom, Mrs. Sethi heard the bell ring as she leaned against the wall near the window and caught her breath. He was here. After nearly four months of increasingly frequent emails, Mr. Das was now standing at her front door. She had instructed Anita, her most impressive maid, to let him in and offer him water or a cold drink and seat him in the dark blue armchair that faced her bedroom door so she could make an entrance. Under no circumstances was Lavina, the grumpiest of the maids but the best cook of them all, allowed to interact with him or ask him a thousand probing questions.

  So Lavina was pressed up against the kitchen door trying to listen to what was happening at the front door. She had ajwain seeds roasting in a pan on the stove to make paranthas later; she reached over and turned the flame off so she could hear better. Her own husband was a good-for-nothing drunkard but at least she had the sense to lie to him about her salary and only give him a third of her money while she put the rest into an account of her own, and the day was fast approaching when she would have enough money and courage to leave him. She would remain working for Mrs. Sethi, though. She was a good employer, and since Lavina had a face that always looked unfriendly, she was rarely asked to do anything outside the kitchen, and Lavina loved the kitchen. And Mrs. Sethi always gave Lavina a sari and matching blouse piece on her birthday, and it wasn’t the gift but the fact that she remembered Lavina’s birthday every year which made Lavina vow to never quit. Lavina could hear Mr. Das politely asking Anita whether or not he should remove his shoes and she could hear Anita telling him to have a seat. Anita was such a suck-up. Lavina shook her head and went to the freezer to take out red snapper to defrost for a Goan curry for dinner.