Destination Wedding

by Diksha Basu

  “Damn it, I didn’t take a napkin. Put this prawn tail in your purse,” she said to Marianne.

  “No. You know I’m deathly allergic,” Marianne said. “And even if I wasn’t, I’m not putting your prawn tail in my purse.”

  “Hello,” Tina said to the man. “Are you on the bride’s side or the groom’s?”

  The tall man looked down at Tina and Marianne. Behind him, Bubbles Trivedi was gushing to Maria and Arun Goswami about their website.

  “Groom,” he said and looked over his shoulder at the Goswamis.

  “So easy to navigate,” Bubbles was saying. “And they make returns so easy by sending someone to collect the item. Thank goodness for cheap labor in this country, am I right? The silver lining of income inequality.”

  Bubbles laughed.

  “We like to see it as an attempt to decrease the inequality,” Maria Goswami said coldly.

  “And how is darling Leia?” Bubbles continued. “She’s grown into such a beautiful young woman. The world’s eyes are on her.”

  Tina made eye contact with the tall man and rolled her eyes. He smiled and nodded slightly but said nothing.

  “She’s a character, that Bubbles,” Tina said with a laugh. “I’m Tina, cousin of the bride. And this is my friend, Marianne.”

  “Ankur,” the man said.

  “Look at those diamonds,” Marianne whispered to Tina, staring at the huge solitaire diamond sparkling in Maria Goswami’s cleavage.

  “My friend is eyeing Maria’s diamonds,” Tina said. “Create a diversion so we can steal it and run. And I can slip this prawn tail into her purse while we’re at it.”

  The man uncrossed his arms, placed one hand on Marianne’s shoulder, and said, “Please do not get any closer to the Goswamis.”

  He muttered something in Marathi into a black earpiece that Tina only now noticed in his ear. Right. He was the Goswamis’ bodyguard.

  “We would appreciate you both keeping your distance from Mrs. Goswami tonight,” he said to Tina and Marianne. He crossed his arms again and stood tall in front of them, again looking over their heads. “We will be watching you.”

  “Maybe he and I are not meant to be,” Tina said. “Let’s go get a drink.”

  Fairy lights, huge balls of marigold flowers and candles gave the entire lawn a warm glow. Tina and Marianne walked toward a group of women who looked vaguely familiar. They all had long, thick black hair, skin that glowed, and jewels that sparkled on them. As Marianne and Tina reached within earshot, Tina could hear them speaking comfortably in a mix of Hindi and English.

  “Tina, is that you? Shefali’s cousin?” one of the women asked. Her arms were hennaed up to her elbows and gold bracelets clinked on both wrists. She was wearing a gold maang tikka in the part of her hair and her eyes were lined heavily with kohl.

  “Aarti?” Tina asked. “Am I remembering right?”

  “Yes! Gosh, it’s so good to see you. It’s been ages.”

  Tina introduced Marianne to Aarti, Shefali’s friend from school, and the rest of the women, also friends of Shefali’s. How did rich Indian women all have such great hair, Marianne wondered. Any one of these women could be married to Riyaaz now, she thought.

  “I kept meaning to look you up while I was at Pratt but time just flew. Are you still living in New York? I could never. My dishwasher flooded my entire apartment and that’s when I knew I was done living abroad.”

  “It was someone in London calling me Paki that did it for me,” another one of the long-limbed women said. “I didn’t even know that was meant to be racist until the guy I was with got offended on my behalf. I got even more annoyed that he thought I needed to be defended.”

  “You’re both fools,” another one of the friends said. “I’d move to London or New York in a second if I wasn’t married. Do you know how much the Delhi pollution is ruining our lungs?”

  “You smoke a pack a day,” Aarti said.

  “Half a pack,” the friend said. Then she looked at Tina and Marianne and said, “But none of you Americans smoke anymore. That would be my one issue.”

  “She just likes to work it into every conversation that she’s married,” Aarti said. “Because the rest of us aren’t yet.”

  “What are you girls waiting for?” Bubbles emerged as if out of thin air. “You don’t want it to get too late. Here, take my card. Bubbles Trivedi, wedding planner.”

  Bubbles handed her card out to everyone, including Marianne and Tina again.

  “We met earlier,” Marianne said, holding out the card to return.

  Bubbles ignored her and continued, “Ovaries expire, you know. I had three miscarriages myself. Although one may just have been a heavy period. Anyway, the point is that you girls need to get a move on. The brother of the groom is single.”

  “And he’s slept with every woman in Delhi,” one of Shefali’s friends said.

  “And half of London and Hong Kong and Dubai,” Aarti added.

  Marianne pocketed the second card, more glitter covering her hands.

  “We’re going to get a drink,” Tina said. “Aarti, it was nice seeing you.”

  “Let me know if you need any help around Delhi. I know Shefali’s probably super busy,” Aarti said.

  “That’s annoying,” Tina said to Marianne as they walked away. “It was so condescending how she offered help. As if I don’t know my way around Delhi.”

  “I thought she was being nice,” Marianne said. “And please do message her and find out where she shops. She looked incredible.”

  “There you are. The most beautiful woman at the wedding,” Karan said at that moment, grabbing Marianne by the hand and twirling her around. “Come on, I want to introduce you to some friends.”

  Marianne looked at Tina, smiled, and vanished into the crowd before Tina could stop her.

  Tina made her way through the glittering crowd toward Shefali and Pavan. She walked past Maria and Arun Goswami again, talking to another couple about a chartered flight to Monaco. She kept a safe distance, worried that their bodyguard would knock her to the ground if she didn’t. A mixed group of men and women were discussing a golfing holiday. One couple was whispering audibly to each other about going to the bathroom for a bump of cocaine. Everyone was drinking champagne from Champagne and whiskey with large round balls of ice with no clouds. Bubbles was standing next to a group of three men saying, “It’s all fun and games now but you’re going to want to find a bride before the inevitable male-pattern baldness kicks in. Here, take my card.”

  Tina stopped at a large table filled with ice and shot glasses of vodka and oysters on the half shell. A woman about her age came and stood next to her and dripped Tabasco onto her oyster and swallowed it.

  “Not bad. They flew them in from Cochin,” she said and turned to Tina and held out her hand. “Swati, friend of the groom. Ex of the groom, actually. Nice to meet you.”

  “Tina. Cousin of the bride,” Tina said.

  “She’s a lucky bride,” Swati said. Swati was wearing a pink-and-red sari with a black blouse and black bindi. She spoke with an American accent. “Pavan’s a great guy.”

  “Are you from the US?” Tina asked.

  “Born and raised in San Diego,” Swati said. “But I’ve been in Delhi for about five years now. I work for the UN. Vodka shot?”

  Tina nodded and knocked back a remarkably smooth vodka shot. She noticed a diamond sparkling on Swati’s ring finger and pointed toward it and said, “You’re married?”

  Swati twirled the ring with her thumb and said, “Three years. He’s not here tonight, though. He’s in DC for work.”

  “Is he Indian?” Tina asked.

  “French. And fifteen years older than me and has a teenage daughter who lives in Paris. Best relationship of my life. We met here,” Swati said. “You?”

  Tina sh
ook her head.

  Swati didn’t register Tina’s response. Instead she looked over at Pavan and Shefali and said, “One more shot for me.”

  Tina watched her down it, wipe her mouth with a napkin, and say, “Now I can go say hi to the happy couple. I never thought he’d marry her.”

  Tina picked up the Tabasco to try on the oyster but too much came out. She tried to pour some off but then it looked like she had bled on the ice. She swallowed the oyster whole and tried using the empty shell to scrape the ice over the red spill. She looked over her shoulder. Nobody had seen. She quickly moved to the champagne counter right next to it and asked for a glass. Rocco came up next to her and said, “Kai found a Brazilian model from Goa and a waiter with a platter of tandoori prawns. I have been abandoned.”

  He opened his fist and revealed four prawn tails.

  “And I need a napkin.”

  “I have also been abandoned,” Tina said. And she added her prawn tail to his collection.

  “It’s so good seeing you,” Rocco said to Tina. “Do you remember the bangers and mash we were so determined to find at the end of that night?”

  “I do!” Tina said. “And thank God every place was closed because I would for sure have vomited if I’d eaten at that point.”

  Rocco clinked his glass against hers and said, “I asked Shefali about you a few times.”

  “We don’t have to do this,” Tina said.

  “I really did ask her,” Rocco said. “I even googled you. You got promoted last year, didn’t you?”

  “Now I do even less at a higher salary. It’s been difficult. I’ve had so many close calls but ever since the project I was doing in India fell apart, I’ve kind of lost motivation.”

  Tina told Rocco about the reality show she had been trying to cast.

  “I heard about that show. There was a lot of enthusiasm about it in the local music community. It would have been good,” he said.

  “It’s getting frustrating,” Tina said. “I feel like I don’t have any control over whether or not something will actually happen. And when something moves in the right direction, I’m so nervous that it’ll fall apart, I lose my ability to work efficiently.”

  “Anything collaborative can be difficult,” Rocco said. “My best work, the film I’m proudest of, didn’t make it past the Indian censor board and the director refused to make the changes they asked for so it’s likely nobody will ever see it.”

  “I think I want to do something more meaningful. Something that will really impact lives,” Tina said. “That sounds a little immature, doesn’t it? Like what does meaningful even mean? If it were that simple, it would be…simple. I don’t know.”

  Loud fireworks suddenly erupted above their heads and caught Tina off guard. She grabbed Rocco’s arm and he put his hand on her hand. They looked up to see three helicopters hovering overhead holding a banner that had a picture of Shefali and Pavan. Another loud firework and the banner exploded into multicolored carnations that fell from the sky.

  “Impressive,” Rocco said, turning to look at her. His grip on her hand tightened momentarily and neither of them moved for a beat before Tina pulled her hand back and asked, “How the hell did they get permission to do that in the middle of Delhi?”

  “I went to a wedding last year that had hired a Russian synchronized swimming team,” Rocco said. He looked at Tina still looking up at the sky and added, “I saw your picture on the Pixl website. That’s a great shot of you.”

  “What?” Tina looked back at him. “The one of me in a collared shirt? I hate that picture. I look so corporate. As if I’d wear a pencil skirt and pumps and get my hair blow-dried. Utterly misleading.”

  She had been wearing a T-shirt with a small Pepsi logo on it that day and the company wouldn’t allow any logos in pictures. So she was forced to wear a plain, white button-down shirt that Rachel had in her office and she had always intended to update the picture but never got around to it.

  “I thought you looked good,” Rocco said.

  “Did you see the flower explosion?” David and Radha approached Tina and Rocco, David’s face lit up with excitement. “It was wild.”

  “I had heard something about flowers getting hand-painted and now I know why,” Radha said.

  “This is like a movie set,” David said.

  “He’s too enthusiastic,” Radha said with an indulgent smile.

  Rocco put his hand out to introduce himself and Radha introduced herself as Tina’s mother and introduced David, without adding on any relationship.

  “You’re Tina’s mother?” Rocco asked. “Are you sure? You don’t look like someone who would have an adult daughter. Now I understand where she gets her beauty.”

  “Aren’t you kind,” Radha said.

  “Charmer,” David said. He turned to Tina and added, “He’s a charmer. Where’s that accent from? South Africa? Always wanted to go.”

  “Australia,” Tina said and looked around for her father but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Remember that Australian couple we met at the bar in Miami?” David asked Radha.

  “When did you go to Miami?” Tina asked.

  * * *

  —

  UNCHARACTERISTICALLY, RADHA HAD BOOKED two tickets to Miami for a weekend last spring and surprised David. She had been to Miami once before for a conference and loved it and had always wanted to go back. Ever since she had met David she had been going to spinning classes and was feeling particularly slender on the day that she bought the tickets and booked the hotel. She had then gone to Eileen Fisher and bought a white one-piece bathing suit with a zipper up the front and a zebra-print wrap and large straw hat to go with it. She had held David’s hand and laughed over a glass of wine at the airport. She hadn’t told anyone she was going and felt giddy with excitement on the whole flight there.

  Tina had called her while she was sitting with her feet in the pool drinking a cosmopolitan with David, and Radha had told Tina she was with a client and hung up and ordered one more drink. Two young men were sitting at the table on the pool’s edge and one of them raised his glass at Radha and said, “Cheers, girl. That bathing suit is working on you.”

  “It really is,” David said. “You’re striking.”

  Radha sat up a little straighter and leaned in and kissed David on the cheek. He put his arm around her and Radha leaned into his wide chest. Was this what she had missed by marrying a man who lived a life of the mind, a career of Excel spreadsheets? Neel never would have spent a lazy evening drinking cocktails with his feet in water. He hated his fingers or toes pruning. Holidays with Neel involved research and long walks and historical sites and knowledge and while she was grateful for that for Tina’s sake, sometimes she just wanted to lounge near a pool in a bathing suit.

  After two drinks that day, Radha changed into a sleeveless linen dress and they decided to stroll north up the beach for dinner at the Bazaar at the SLS. On the way there, they stopped at a bar with no people but filled with fake palm trees and tiki torches and plastic flamingoes, and David said, “Two vodka Red Bulls.”

  “And one heart attack,” Radha said. “Are you mad? I’ll stick to a vodka tonic with a wedge of lime.”

  “I wouldn’t touch the lime at a dive like this if I were you,” David said. “A Red Bull would be safer.”

  They both had their drinks fast and then an unfamiliar version of Frank Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” came on and David grabbed Radha’s hand and pulled her into the middle of an empty dance floor. Radha laughed and allowed David to spin her around and the room blurred into pinks and greens as she danced. She had never been inside a bar this filthy and she had never had so much fun.

  But then, on the beach, Radha saw the groups of young people with their perfectly bronzed skin and tight abs and long limbs and rubbed her bare arms. Two women on Rollerblades
shouted out, “Excuse me, ma’am,” as they sped past her. Radha looked down at her dress and stopped to pull out a shrug from her large wicker purse.

  “It’s chilly by the water,” she said.

  David nodded and they kept walking.

  At the Bazaar, Radha and David were seated side by side on a plush, white sofa and Radha excused herself to go to the bathroom while they waited for their bone marrow appetizer. From the bathroom, she called Tina but got her voicemail. She left her a message saying she was sorry she couldn’t speak earlier and she hoped she had a good evening tonight and would she like to come over for dinner on Monday night? They could order sushi.

  On Monday night, Tina asked her, “Did you get some sun? You look darker and kind of glowing. What’s your secret?”

  “I went to a tanning booth,” Radha said. “It’s supposed to be good for anxiety.”

  The next day Tina went to a tanning salon behind NYU. She didn’t lock the door well enough and the receptionist came in while she was lying in the bed wearing her underwear and a small pair of dark glasses. She heard the door open and tried to sit up fast and banged her head against the top of the tanning booth. The small glasses toppled off her face and she squinted her eyes in the brightness.

  “Lock the door, lock the door,” the receptionist muttered angrily as she backed out of the room. “What do these people think this is? A massage parlor?”

  * * *

  —

  SHE COULDN’T BELIEVE HER mother had gone to Miami with David. Tina and Marianne had been to Miami for spring break their senior year and she couldn’t imagine her mother in that setting. Granted, her mother probably wasn’t doing Jägerbombs at Señor, but still. South Beach wasn’t for Indian mothers.

  Tina looked around the lawn at everyone so beautiful, so flawless, guzzling bottles of mineral water and expensive alcohol. She looked at her mother, taking risks and looking happy. What was the last risk Tina had taken? Getting on the East River Ferry without a ticket?