A Holly Jolly Diwali

by Sonya Lalli

  Or what I was expecting coming to India in the first place.

  “It is women like that who give the aunties a bad name,” she said after a moment. “We are not all so bad.”

  “I know,” I laughed, suddenly feeling shy. “I feel better just talking to you.”

  Aasha Auntie narrowed her eyes, and I caught her giving me the familiar up and down.

  “You know,” Aasha Auntie purred, “I have a son.”

  I cleared my throat. Uh-huh. Of course she had a son. Even the nice aunties had a son.

  Suddenly, she started. “Now I am sorry, beti. I am being silly only.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Ignore me. You are much too sensible for my son.”

  I smiled awkwardly.

  “I just miss my boy. I wish he would find a nice girl and move home.” Aasha Auntie stood up from the couch, a wistful look on her face. “Anyway. Aaja,” she beckoned. “Let me introduce you to my friends. I will steer clear of any aunties who have sticks up their bottoms.”

  I laughed. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Please? Let me show you off.” She ran her fingertips over the embroidery details of my outfit. “You look beautiful, beti. And what a lovely sari.”

  I smiled bashfully. “It’s my mom’s.”

  “I think I would like your mother. She has impeccable taste.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Aasha Auntie was a blast. She drank. She smoked. She talked my ear off about everything from the state of Indian politics to her failing herb garden to the latest gossip from their social circle. After introducing me to one person or another, she immediately told me everything she knew about them. The fact that sour-faced auntie disapproved of therapy sessions was only the tip of the iceberg. She knew about all sorts of taboos and skeletons in her community’s closet—affairs, divorces, broken-off engagements, bad investments, drug abuse. I jokingly said to Aasha Auntie that she should star in her own reality TV show, and she told me that she’d been invited—but turned the offer down!

  When I had a moment, I also asked Auntie about Diwali. She was Hindu, like Diya’s family, but originally from West Bengal. She told me that in her community back in Kolkata, their pooja on Diwali worshiped the goddess Kali.

  The evening wore on and the party got louder. There were fireworks going off outside in all directions, and so the band turned up the speakers inside the ballroom, and at some point, Aasha Auntie and I ended up close to the stage. It was impossible to have a conversation without screaming at each other, and so we stopped gabbing about the Patel-Mehta Feud of 2012 and started enjoying the music.

  The band was incredible. All night, I’d been vaguely aware they’d been covering popular Indian and Western songs, but up close, many of them sounded better than the originals. The arrangements they picked were unusual, funky, totally out of left field, but they somehow seemed to work. Who knew the song “All of Me” sounded better as indie rock with a quick tempo than the original John Legend power ballad?

  Aasha Auntie and I watched the band from down below, and a few minutes turned into a few more, and the longer we watched them, the more my eyes kept flicking toward the back of the stage. Toward the guy behind the bass guitar.

  God, he was hot.

  Not exactly the Chris Hemsworth slash Riz Ahmed dreamboat I’d been caught fantasizing about on the plane, but pretty damn close. Maybe even better.

  I blinked, trying to determine whether I was biased because I tended to find musicians sexy . . . Nope. Even when I mentally stripped him of his bass guitar, he was still hot as hell, and I admired every inch of him. The stubble on his face and the way his shaggy black hair swooped across his forehead. He was wearing tight washed-out jeans and sneakers, and a white collared shirt with the top button undone. His biceps bulged beneath the material every time he moved, and I wanted to lunge out and bite those lips as he sang backup and got up close to the microphone.

  The band finished playing a Bollywood hit classic and immediately went into a Lenny Kravitz cover. The bass guitarist perked up, and by the renewed energy beaming off him, I could tell this song was his element.

  I licked my lips. Was my mouth literally watering? I surreptitiously touched my face to check for drool. Thankfully, I was in the clear.

  I tried to look away from him, but honest to god, I couldn’t. I was hypnotized. He had the confident aura of a lead singer. Chris Martin. Prince. Patti Smith. The rawness and ruggedness of a drummer like Travis from Blink-182.

  And the aloof, sexy swagger of a bass guitarist.

  Mesmerized, I watched him. Exactly how his body moved or his hands ran over the guitar. His fingers seemed lazy on the strings, almost asleep in the deep rhythm, but a beat later, they were on fire as he launched into a solo Paul McCartney or Louis Johnson style. Or—gulp—my all-time favorite, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

  His solo finished, and a moment later, I caught him looking in my direction. I was standing pretty far away, but it felt like our eyes locked, and a sweaty pulse of heat started coursing through me.

  Hey, girl.

  I batted my eyelashes in return, starstruck.

  Wow, you sure know your way around that bass guitar.

  I know my way around a lot of things.

  I swooned. In real life and in my imagination, as once again his eyes flashed my way.

  What are you doing after the show?

  I felt weak in the knees as I waited for his response to the imaginary flirtation we were having in my head.

  Coming over. I know you want me to.

  You’ll have to be quiet. My friends’ parents will be home . . .

  He raised his eyebrows at me. Was it a wink? I was too far away to tell, and I blushed from daydreaming about what might happen if . . .

  “The band is very good, nah?” Aasha Auntie asked, startling me. She cleared her throat as I turned to look at her.

  “Yes,” I answered, my face still flushed. “Very good.”

  She paused, a sly grin on her face. “Are you sure I can’t introduce you to my son?”

  Her eyes flicked to the stage, and my heart dropped into my stomach when I realized who her son was.

  The bass guitarist I’d been trying to eye-bang in plain sight.

  The handsome hunk of a man who clearly wasn’t making eyes back at me but looking at his mother.

  CHAPTER 9

  The next five minutes were definitely among the top three most mortifying moments of my life. (The first being when my skirt fell down during my school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the second occurring last year, when I accidentally screenshared my shopping cart at Victoria Secret during a Zoom meeting. Honestly, the fact that I was in the process of purchasing my very single self a grandmother-chic housecoat was more embarrassing than if it had been lingerie.)

  But unlike my former classmates and coworkers, Aasha Auntie let me off the hook pretty easily. She obviously knew I’d been checking out her son but didn’t press me on it, and politely hugged me goodbye when I made my escape and told her I’d better go find Diya.

  My face was still hot with shame when I went outside. I’d been expecting fresh, cool air to greet me, but the night was heavy with humidity. I fanned myself with a napkin, grabbed a sparkling water from the bar, and then returned to Diya, Mihir, and their friends.

  The whole group took up two tables at the far end of the terrace, and for a while, I tried to put my embarrassing moment behind me and join in the conversation. Mihir was in the middle of telling everyone a story about his bachelor party, which I’d already heard about from Diya, and I’d almost put the bass guitarist out of my mind when I noticed him outside.

  I straightened my shoulders, watching him. He’d changed out of his jeans and tight collared shirt, but he looked even more handsome in the light-colored sherwani he’d put on. I tried
not to watch him work the crowd, mingling and smiling and shaking hands and generally being a total hottie, but I couldn’t help it. My eyes kept involuntarily leaving my hands, my drink, or whomever in the group was talking, and wandering back to him.

  “Sam!”

  My body contorted awkwardly when I saw Diya stand up from her chair and wave at him. I silently prayed he wouldn’t come over, but within ten seconds, he’d wrapped up his conversation and was coming toward our group full steam.

  I sank down in my chair, mortified. Had he seen me staring at him? All of a sudden, I felt like I was in my high school cafeteria again, like a total nerd lusting after our basketball team’s starting point guard. (Raymond, by the way, never even knew my name, while thirteen years later I still knew his middle name was Andre and that he ordered his chicken burger without mayo from the lunch lady.)

  Luckily, Sam made his way to the other end of our table. He didn’t look my way while he chatted to Diya and the others, but still, I could feel myself sweating through my sari every time he glanced in my direction. His accent was both British and Indian—oh god, he even sounded like Riz Ahmed—and by the way he was talking to everyone, it seemed that Sam wasn’t just the bass guitarist but a friend of Diya’s.

  “Where are my manners,” Diya said after a few minutes. “Sam, have you been introduced to Niki?”

  “Niki?” he repeated, giving me a look. I couldn’t tell what it meant and was really, really trying not to care, and so I coolly waved in return.

  “No,” he said, holding my gaze from across the table. “I don’t think we met . . . officially.”

  Officially?

  Oh god. He definitely caught me gawking at him.

  “Hey,” I croaked, unsuccessfully attempting to come across as casual. “Great show tonight.”

  “He is so talented, right?” Diya chimed in, turning back to Sam. “You know, Niki is a musician also. One time in college she—”

  “Had a short-lived rock-and-roll phase,” I said, interrupting her. “Just the music. Not the lifestyle.”

  Diya and the others laughed, including Sam, and she started telling everyone about the time we unsuccessfully tried to use fake IDs to get into a jazz club. I was stiff, hyperaware that everyone was listening to a story about me. I tried to keep my gaze away from Sam, but yet, I couldn’t control myself. I chanced a look at him. And this time, he definitely wasn’t looking at his mother.

  His eyes were squarely on me.

  “Do you hear that?” one of the bridesmaids said after the story was over. “It’s ‘Gangnam Style’—what a throwback!”

  “The DJ is on?” Diya sprouted up from her chair. “Should we go dance?”

  “Oh sure,” Sam joked, “now that I’m done with my set, everyone’s in the mood for a dance.”

  “Sorry, sweetie.” Diya pinched Sam’s cheek as she rushed by him. “We just can’t dance to your music!”

  I downed my sparkling water in preparation for the dance floor, but when I jostled my chair backward, the tail of my sari caught beneath the leg, and I nearly fell over. Luckily, I didn’t and was eventually able to break free without looking completely foolish. Still, it took me a while, and when I finally detangled myself, everyone had gone inside.

  Everyone, that is, except Sam.

  He was staring at me like I had food on my face. I stepped toward him, quickly wiping my lips to double-check. No crumbs. Good. But—oh god—had I just smeared my lipstick?

  “I’m curious about this rock-and-roll phase you claimed not to have had,” he said. “Because I can picture it, clearly.”

  Sam sauntered toward me, his hands deep in his pockets. My stomach lurched as his eyes ever so briefly dropped to my lips.

  “Do you like Soundgarden? Your long hair is a dead ringer for the lead singer’s.”

  “You think so?”

  “His name is Chris Cornell—”

  “I know who the lead singer of Soundgarden is,” I interrupted playfully, crossing my arms. “Seattle is the birthplace of grunge.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow at me.

  “And if I’m like any of those guys, it’s clearly Kurt Cobain.”

  “Why is that?”

  I shrugged. “Because I’m the best.”

  Sam’s face split open into a grin, and my stomach somersaulted as it occurred to me that he was flirting with me. And OMG, I had successfully flirted back!

  “Now I understand why my mother volunteered to set us up,” Sam continued, stepping toward me. “What I don’t understand is why you turned her down.”

  “I . . .” I stammered, my cheeks reddening. He was standing much too close to me.

  “How could you reject me? We hadn’t even met.”

  “I’m so sorry—”

  Sam waved me off. “This is really bad for my self-esteem, Niki.”

  I was about to apologize again, but then his mouth quivered, and it was enough to clue me in. He was teasing me.

  “I’m hurt, you know. Really hurt.”

  I pursed my lips to keep from smiling. Sam knew how to dish it out. But he happened to be messing with the younger sister of Jasmine the Torturer, who made it her life’s mission to screw with me, so I knew exactly how to throw it right back.

  “I’m so sorry, Sam,” I said earnestly. “I did reject you. You’re handsome and all, and I really liked your band, but the truth is, I’m in love with someone else.”

  This didn’t seem to be the answer he was expecting. Sam furrowed his brows at me, but I cut him off when he opened his mouth to speak.

  “Are you going to be OK?” I asked earnestly. I linked arms with him, steering him to the edge of the terrace. I rested my elbows on the guardrail and stared out into the distance, sighing dramatically. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  I gazed up at Sam, deadpan. I could tell he thought this conversation had made a turn toward la-la land, and he wanted to get as far away from me as possible. He looked uncomfortable, his hands fighting through the fabric of his pockets. Lightly, I clutched my chest.

  “It’s Mihir.”

  Sam squinted at me, and a beat later, his face went dark. “Mihir Gaur? As in, you are in love with Diya’s fiancé?”

  I nodded. “I’ve come to break up the wedding. If Bollywood has taught me anything, it’s that I need to follow my heart. Right?”

  I leaned my right hip against the guardrail, facing him. Our eyes locked, and my pulse pounded as we waited for the other to break.

  One. Two. Three. Four . . .

  I cracked a smile.

  “You were having me on.” Sam ran his hands over his face. “Shit. You had me worried.”

  “Good.”

  “Like, what was I supposed to do? Go tell my good friend that her good friend from America was about to ruin the wedding?”

  “It’s crazy how that sort of thing is glamorized in movies, right?” I asked. “Isn’t that the whole premise to My Best Friend’s Wedding?”

  I wasn’t sure Sam would get the reference, but he did. And when he smiled, I forgot that we were two normal people joking around and remembered what a spicy dish he was. Like extra hot mango aachar.

  It felt good to have maintained my composure around him and to know that I could still be myself around a cute guy, unlike when I was younger. We talked for a few minutes about problematic rom-coms, and then Sam started asking me about myself. I didn’t know if it was because he was a good actor or not, but he did seem genuinely curious, and very briefly, I told him about my family and how my parents had both left India independently and had met, married, and had children in the US.

  “Are you in finance, like Diya?”

  I shook my head. “Tech.”

  “Oh, so you’re like that hacker in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?” he teased.

  “More like . . . The Girl Who Lived in
One of the Tech Capitals of the World.” I shrugged. “And I was always good with computers, so it seemed like the practical thing to do.”

  “I didn’t have you pegged as the type of girl to make practical choices,” Sam said. “You’re Diya’s friend. I assumed you were a wild card like her.”

  “A wild card?” I laughed. “No. Not even close.”

  “From what I hear, you did plan a trip to India on about a day’s notice—”

  “That sort of impulsiveness was a one-time thing.”

  “And why is that?” he asked softly.

  I breathed in, the muggy air filling my lungs. I should have known this follow-up question was coming, and although I wasn’t proud of the fact I was no longer employed, I wasn’t going to lie about it.

  “I had a change of circumstances.”

  Sam’s eyes opened wide. “As in . . .”

  “As in I was let go.”

  “Oh.” His face darkened. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to drag that out of you.”

  I waved him off. “No, it’s fine. I’m happy to talk about it.” I swallowed hard. “I liked my job well enough, but I wasn’t exactly passionate about the company I worked for. Its products arguably add no value to this world, and the board must have realized it, because they didn’t approve next year’s budget.” I shrugged. “A bunch of us got laid off.”

  “Still. I can tell you would have put a lot of yourself into that job. It must be hard to leave behind.” Sam paused, his gaze so intense I felt a shiver. “But do you reckon everything happens for a reason?”

  I squirmed. “You mean, do I believe in fate?”

  “Serendipity. Kismat. Destiny. There are many words for it.”

  “No,” I answered. “I don’t.”

  “So, you don’t think you were meant to lose that job?” Sam whispered. He moved in closer to me, his elbows resting against the guardrail. “That it was the universe’s way of forcing you to look for one you will love even more?”

  “If I wanted to make myself feel better, sure . . .”