Destination Wedding

by Diksha Basu

  Mrs. Sethi and Rocco both smiled in response.

  “I think you’d love it here,” Mrs. Sethi said to Mr. Das.

  “Good,” Mr. Das said. “Because I’ve booked a one-way ticket back here for next month. If, Mrs. Jyoti Sethi, you might be interested in seeing where this goes.”

  “I think maybe it’s time I started calling myself Ms. Jyoti Kaul, don’t you think? My maiden name. And you know, you can get really effective mosquito repellant plug-ins these days; I don’t even use a mosquito net anymore.”

  “Can we give this a real try?” Mr. Das said.

  “We have less to lose and fewer days ahead,” Mrs. Sethi said. “But even if we were twenty, I’d say yes.”

  “Yes, you would love it here,” Rocco said to Tina, still on the ground behind the bar. “And maybe I could take you out for a proper dinner and call you the next morning.”

  Lights suddenly erupted in the sky. Tina looked up and said, “More fireworks.”

  This time a three-dimensional, all-white Taj Mahal formed in the heavens above them. And then exploded into bright lights that made the sky flash like mid-afternoon for some moments.

  “We got to the Taj anyway,” Mr. Das said.

  “We’ll get to the real Taj soon,” Mrs. Sethi said. “No words or pictures or movies or even fireworks can ever capture the beauty of the Taj.”

  “Okay, that’s pretty cool,” Tom said to Marianne from the porch of their cottage. They had been so busy having sex they were running late for the reception. “Want to go tomorrow? We can get on a morning train.”

  “I can’t believe you flew across the world to propose to me. I figured if you ever did it, it would be over a lobster dinner at some restaurant overlooking the East River,” Marianne said. She sat down on Tom’s lap and kissed his cheek.

  A mosquito landed on Marianne’s knuckle. She looked down at it for a brief moment and then slapped it dead with her other hand.

  “Just when I’m getting the hang of killing mosquitos, it’s time to go back to America,” she said.

  “I found two cockroaches in my kitchen as I was leaving,” Tom said. “If that helps.”

  Marianne stood up and said, “Wait here. There’s something I need to do.”

  She went into the bathroom and leaned into the mirror and slowly removed her nose ring. It was definitely infected. But if she removed it now it would likely heal completely and not leave a mark. She dabbed at the hole with a square of toilet paper and sprinkled some more Neosporin powder on it. Good thing her skin was so pale, the white powder was barely visible. She dropped the tissue and the small stud into the trash can. The bloody tissue looked very dirty so she took a few more squares of toilet paper and let them drift into the trash can to hide all traces of the nose ring.

  “Let’s go,” Marianne said, coming back to the porch and holding her hand out to Tom. “I’ve barely seen Shefali and Pavan all week.”

  They walked toward the main lawn where Bubbles approached them and said, “You’re the ones who want a court marriage. Listen, if you have any of my business cards, be a dear and give them back to me, will you? I was too enthusiastic about giving them to everyone, no questions asked, and now I’ve run out. They’re expensive to print with the glitter.”

  Marianne and Tom walked to the left through an arch of pink and red roses.

  Tina and Rocco joined them from behind. They walked toward the stage on which Shefali and Pavan sat around a small fire. Shefali’s parents sat on the ground behind them on one side, Pavan’s parents sat on the ground behind them on the other side, and a priest in a white dhoti sat near the fire, shirtless, his belly bare to the world. Shefali looked stunning in a red silk sari, her head covered, with red lipstick, heavy gold jewelry, and her arms hennaed up to her elbows. Next to her, Pavan sat in a cream-colored silk kurta pajama. Their feet were bare and they were looking at each other and smiling. Shefali wiped the sweat off her upper lip and Pavan reached forward and pushed a hair back from her face. The priest saw it, frowned, and cleared his throat. People these days had no understanding of ceremony. And they had insisted on getting married in the evening while the party, with alcohol, raged on in the adjacent lawn.

  “That’ll be much more fun,” Shefali had said during their meeting. “Our friends can sneak us shots.”

  “And keep the religious stuff to a bare minimum,” Pavan had added. “People get bored with all that.”

  Shefali nodded and the priest was about to walk out of this meeting but he had quoted double his usual rate to the wedding planner and she had easily agreed so he had to stay put and do as he was told. That, and he found Bubbles Trivedi so inexplicably beautiful he would do anything to be around her. He noticed her now, entering the ceremony area with a throng of people, and puffed his belly out and made his Sanskrit even louder. He paused for Shefali to repeat what he had said but she was tickling Pavan’s toes with her toes and giggling and not paying any attention to the priest. The priest decided to skip the next section and instead handed a small white sweet to Shefali. Fine. Let these two get on with it. They may not have any respect for the ceremony but at least they seemed to really like each other. He told Shefali to feed a small bite of the sweet to Pavan.

  “Is that soap?” Rocco asked Tina.

  “No,” Tina said. “Why on earth would you think that’s soap?”

  Although she could understand the confusion and she certainly had no idea what the priest was saying in Sanskrit.

  “Like as a metaphor for washing your mouth out,” Rocco said.

  “It’s a dessert. Like a metaphor for a lifetime of sweetness,” Bubbles said. “I told that priest to say all those parts in English.”

  She shook her head and walked up to the main podium and bent down and whispered to the priest. The feel of her breath on his neck gave him goose bumps all over his bare torso. He looked at Bubbles as he said, “Shefali, you are giving him the gift of a lifetime of sweetness. And you, Bubbles, are giving me the same.”

  “Focus on the couple and make the interesting parts in English, like I told you. There’s lots of foreigners here. And stop staring at me with those googly eyes. I’m happily married. But do a good job and I’ll hire you again.”

  The priest nodded and looked back at the couple and pulled a coconut out of the basket behind him and placed it in the tray in front of them. Bubbles nodded at him and returned to all of Shefali and Pavan’s friends and family standing near the stage.

  “Everyone is here! This is perfect. Everyone gather around. We’ll take a picture. Come along, come along.”

  “I’m staying,” Tina said.

  “I wouldn’t,” Rocco said. “Bubbles will be furious and I’ll get yelled at for leaving my future wife behind the bar.”

  “No, I’m staying in India,” Tina said again, hoping she would sound believable. “I’m staying and setting up an office and I’m developing a show about big Indian weddings. I’ll re-evaluate how things are in six months but for now, this is what I’m doing.”

  Rocco leaned forward toward her but Tina leaned back and said, “Are you nuts? You can’t kiss me in front of my family. Even if we were to someday get married, I’d probably just pat your arm when the priest says you can now kiss the bride.”

  They got up and moved toward Poinsettia Point, just in time to see Kai emerge with a skinny Indian woman on his arm, both looking glamorous.

  “This is Mitali,” Kai said.

  “Minakshi,” the woman corrected him.

  “Right,” Kai said.

  “That’s where you’ve been the last two nights,” Rocco said.

  Radha and David came out of their cottage and merged with the group.

  “Ma, I’m staying in Delhi,” Tina said. “I’m finally making a decision.”

  Radha dropped David’s hand and put her arm around Tina.

 
; “You’ll love it here.”

  “You’re staying?” Mr. Das rushed up behind them and asked.

  Tina nodded.

  “I’m coming back at the end of the month,” Mr. Das said. “On a one-way ticket. I’m giving it a go with Mrs. Sethi, née Miss Kaul, at least until malaria season. I’ve been inspired on this trip. In fact…”

  Mr. Das suddenly grabbed Mrs. Sethi’s hand and dropped down to the ground.

  “Mrs. Sethi. Sorry, I mean Ms. Jyoti Kaul.”

  He looked up at everyone gathered around him. “I never got down on one knee when I proposed to Radha but I liked how that Tom fellow did it. Of course, Marianne said yes.”

  “Neel, please get up,” Mrs. Sethi said.

  “Is someone capturing this on camera? I bet it would go viral. Tina!” Mr. Das shouted.

  “Tina!” Bubbles added on, equally loudly. “Start filming, start filming. This could be our season opener. Here, hold this.”

  Bubbles slammed her purse onto Rocco’s stomach and positioned herself right behind Mr. Das.

  “Shoot from the right, that’s my better angle,” Bubbles said.

  “Mine also,” Mr. Das said. “What a coincidence.”

  “No, Papa, don’t be ridiculous,” Tina said.

  “Neel, one thing at a time,” Mrs. Sethi said. “Someday, maybe, but let’s start with you moving here. Let’s start with a month, even a night together.”

  Rocco whistled.

  “That’s my father,” Tina said.

  “Sorry.”

  “What is going on?” Shefali shouted from the stage. “You should all be looking over here at us.”

  She went to stand and the priest gasped and said, “This is a mockery of a wedding. Young lady, please sit back down.”

  “It’s too soon, isn’t it?” Mr. Das said. “Fair enough, fair enough.”

  He looked over at the stage and shouted at Shefali, “Nothing to see here, darling niece. Continue on with your wedding.”

  Mrs. Sethi reached down and helped Mr. Das up.

  “See?” Mr. Das said to Radha. “This is why I want to be married again—to have someone help me up after a failed proposal.”

  He stood up and put his arm around his daughter’s shoulder even though he had the Fitbit on that wrist.

  “Maybe we can rent an apartment together since I’m not getting married yet,” Mr. Das said.

  “No,” Tina said.

  Mr. Das nodded and smiled and the camera clicked.

  For Mikey

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, my agent, Adam Eaglin at the Elyse Cheney Agency.

  My editor, Hilary Rubin Teeman.

  Taylor Noel.

  Caroline Weishuhn.

  And everyone at Ballantine Books and Penguin Random House.

  Alice Lawson at the Gersh Agency.

  Alexandra Pringle, Faiza Khan, and Meenakshi Singh at Bloomsbury Publishing.

  Rachael Merola.

  Paramita Das, Monika Gupta, Geetika Prasad, Jenn Kamara, Alexandra Watson, Crystal Kim, Nikhil Mehta, Soha Ali Khan, Simar Kohli, Rajiv Menon.

  Maria, Gracie, Sharlotte, Jessie, Patricia, and Auntie Melba.

  The city of Bombay. In particular, the neighborhood of Bandra West.

  The McClearys.

  Mai, and the memory of Appa, Mani, and Dadai.

  Karna Basu, Shabnam Faruki, and Avaaz.

  My parents, Kaushik and Alaka Basu.

  My husband, Mikey McCleary.

  And our two daughters, Sky and Ivy.

  BY DIKSHA BASU

  The Windfall

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DIKSHA BASU is the author of Destination Wedding and The Windfall. Originally from New Delhi, India, she now divides her time between New York City and Bombay.

  authordikshabasu.com

  Twitter: @dikshabasu

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