A Holly Jolly Diwali

by Sonya Lalli

  “You should reply now,” Diya prompted. “With the time difference, he might have already gone to sleep.”

  “I will.” I set the phone on the bedside table. “Soon. So, how was your night?”

  “Oh. My night was perfectly fine.” Diya rolled toward me. “How was your night?”

  “What . . . what do you mean?” I stammered, avoiding eye contact. “Oh, you’re talking about Sam. Nothing happened—”

  “You are a terrible liar. If nothing happened, then why did you leave with him?”

  To clear my name, I was forced to tell Diya about the pool incident and then explain the reason we were up there in the first place.

  “But honestly, we didn’t even kiss,” I said, crossing my finger over my heart. I left out the part that we very nearly did kiss and that my bottom lip still throbbed from the anticipation.

  “Who knew my Niki was such a player,” Diya teased. “You have Raj on the go and now Sam.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh as Diya giggled. Her towel had unraveled, and her wet hair spilled out onto the pillow. I glanced toward the windowsill, expecting to find my wet sari where I’d laid it overnight. I furrowed my eyebrows when I realized it was gone.

  “For the record, I am one hundred percent Team Raj,” I heard Diya say, and I looked back at her. “My vote is you go home and make passionate love to that handsome bearded man, and call me and tell me everything about it.”

  “Consider it done,” I said blandly.

  “But Sam.” Diya clicked her tongue. “He is a good distraction. Cute, nah?”

  My face flushed.

  “And you do have a lot in common.” Diya sat up, her eyes searching. “Wait. Maybe I am Team Sam . . .”

  “Diya.” I whacked her with my pillow. “If anyone’s a player, it’s clearly Sam.”

  “Why do you say that?” Diya nodded, waving me off before I could say anything. “Oh. Because he is extremely good-looking. Yeah. Sure. But he was a late bloomer. Sam was kind of a dork until, like, very recently.”

  I rolled my eyes. Everyone claimed to be a late bloomer, which annoyed true late bloomers like me.

  “I will prove it to you.” Diya dug into her robe pocket, fishing out her own phone. After a minute of scrolling through pictures, she pressed the screen toward my face. “See? See what a little weirdo he was?”

  I blinked, scanning the photo. It was taken in the living room just outside the door. Diya was with her friends, and everyone looked like they were in high school, fifteen or so. It took me a moment to spot Sam. He had the same piercing eyes and soft lips, but he was much shorter, rounder, too. And his haircut didn’t do him any favors. I squinted.

  “Wait,” I hesitated, vaguely recognizing the youthful face. “Sam is your good friend Sameer Mukherji?”

  “Yeah,” Diya nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. Now that he thinks he is Tom Hiddleston, we call him Sam, but he is still the same adorable little boy.”

  I cleared my throat. Diya may have never spoken about her hot friend Sam, but back in college, I had heard all about Sameer, and I felt flustered trying to merge the two versions of the man together.

  Sameer and Diya had known each other since they were babies. Their parents were close and sent them to the same school, where they had the same teachers and groups of friends, their lives only diverging when Diya moved to Seattle and Sameer picked a college farther down the West Coast, UCLA. Back then, she used to talk about him all the time, and suddenly I remembered random stories about them together, and me once asking her point-blank that if she liked him so much, why hadn’t they ever dated. She’d told me that, in fact, they had gone out for three weeks in the sixth grade, mutually calling it off when they kissed for the first time, and both agreed that it felt like making out with a relative.

  “Do you know Sam cut himself off financially from his parents?” Diya said after a few minutes had passed. “Like properly cut off.”

  I shook my head, trying to feign disinterest. “No. Didn’t come up.”

  Diya went on to tell me all about how Sam/Sameer had gone to business school because his father refused to pay for a music degree. But after graduation, instead of going home and getting a secure job in Mumbai, he moved in with his sister in Los Angeles, and then later to Berlin, working in pubs while forming a band with musicians he met at gigs. They started touring around Europe, Diya said, small venues in basements and warehouses and opening for more well-known groups, and eventually, everyone relocated to London. They had the biggest fan base in the UK, which made sense, as it was the birthplace of the shoegazing subgenre.

  “How does he support himself?” I asked Diya afterward. I couldn’t help asking. The lack of salary and stability in music for those who weren’t certifiable geniuses was the reason I’d never even considered going down that path.

  “The band does well from what I understand.” She shrugged. “But he does odd jobs also. He can be extremely private, so I am not really sure.”

  I pulled the covers up to my chin. From our conversation the night before, I could tell something was off with Sam and his dad, but I wondered how Aasha Auntie felt about his life. I wanted to ask Diya, but it was personal and decided not to pry any further.

  My stomach somersaulted. I was hungry, my insides confused by my body’s new schedule, plus the information Diya had just dumped on me.

  It was easy to believe that what had happened last night was some run-of-the-mill move by Sam, the player. The sexy bass guitarist. But now that Sameer was in the picture, the sweet guy Diya had told me all about? Who she’d vouch for? Well, now I didn’t know what last night meant. Probably nothing.

  It was Diwali after all, and in the spirit of the moment, we’d just gotten carried away.

  CHAPTER 12

  Diya was officially off work now that the first wedding event was only one week away, and as we drank chai together in bed, I devoted my time and my services to her one hundred percent to help with whatever she needed.

  She told me to chill out and that nearly everything was handled, and so we spent the afternoon together a short drive north of her building, drinking coconut water straight from the shell and lounging in the sun on Juhu Beach.

  It was her last day of rest, because the very next day, Auntie and Uncle Jo awoke Diya from her nonchalant, prewedding slumber, and the apartment turned into a zoo. One with wedding planners coming and going, vendors and suppliers, a hustle and bustle that seemed to go most smoothly when I simply stayed out of everyone’s way.

  I assisted where I could, but after a few hours of contributing, everyone kept shooing me away, telling me to make the most of my time and see the city. I tried not to bow to the pressure, but they insisted, pushing me out the door, along with their cook, Pinky, whom they’d asked to be my tour guide.

  Even though I understood before I arrived that domestic help was much more prevalent in India, it was unsettling at first to have so much attention and help. But Pinky and I got on like a house on fire, and pretty soon, it felt natural to be hanging out with her. She was probably in her late thirties and wasn’t old enough for me to address as Auntie, so I started referring to her as didi during our afternoons out, which was the respectful term for elder sister. (Pinky also admitted to me that she had been the one who’d rescued my sari from my bedroom the morning after the Diwali party and had found a specialist dry cleaner to save it from ruin. I hugged her so hard in thanks she teased me that I’d broken one of her ribs.)

  Auntie and Uncle Jo’s driver, Manish, took us everywhere over the next few days. We checked out the architecture of Old Mumbai and the Gateway of India, and shopped at the Colaba Causeway, as well as other stores Pinky told me were popular on Linking Road. We took a day trip east of the city to the Elephanta Caves and, another day, saw the Hanging Gardens and the Nehru Science Centre. Manish even let me drive the car for a bit on Marine Drive. Mumbai
traffic was frightening to me, but I stayed in the slow lane closest to the waterfront and summoned Uncle Jo’s proverb about successful driving in India.

  Good brakes. Good horn. Good luck!

  But my favorite excursion had to be our final day of sightseeing, when we went on a food crawl. Although Pinky and Manish had been instructed to steer me clear of street food to be safe, Auntie Jo had given us a list of restaurants that served the dishes Mumbai was famous for, like pani puri, pav bhaji, mango fadooda, and the best paprdi chaat I’d ever tasted. Everything was delicious, and I took selfies of Pinky, Manish, and me devouring everything, and then sent them immediately to my family group chat, where everyone was understandably jealous. The best pictures I also posted on Instagram, and Diya, who wasn’t able to join us again because she and Mihir were meeting with the pundit officiating their wedding, commented within five minutes.

  As you would say, Niki, I am experiencing serious FOMO.

  Afterward, Manish dropped me off at the apartment. Nobody was home, and I slumped into the couch, stuffed and pleasantly fatigued. I scrolled mindlessly on Instagram for a few minutes and, when I got bored of that, clicked on my message thread with Raj.

  Our exchange was pretty dull to be honest, but it was difficult to force a conversation with someone I didn’t know that well yet—especially with the twelve-hour time difference. I thought about sending him a few more pictures from our food crawl but decided against it in favor of something more productive: job hunting.

  I wasn’t in the mood to switch off vacation mode, which I was enjoying immensely, but I knew it was time for me to start considering what I would do with myself when I got home from India. Opening Google, I searched “data analytics jobs Seattle,” and luckily, there were quite a few roles posted—even if none of the companies looked all that interesting.

  I hadn’t brought my laptop to India, and so I grabbed Diya’s from her bedroom. Her password was still, adorably and disgustingly, DiyaAndMihirForever, and I minimized the dozens of wedding-related websites she had open and logged in to my e-mail.

  My CV was already in good shape, and so I got to work on the cover letter, amending it slightly for each job. I fired off four applications and was working on a fifth when I heard the front door click shut and then the familiar pattering of Diya’s heels across the floor.

  “Niki?”

  “In here!”

  A beat later, Diya limped into the room, looking absolutely exhausted. Her hair, which she’d styled that morning into an elegant topknot, had come undone and was hanging limply by her face.

  “If you ever decide to get married,” she said, collapsing next to me on the couch, “elope.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Diya pulled her feet up, glancing at the computer. “Tell me, are you watching porn on my computer?”

  I blushed. Even as a joke, why did everyone think I watched porn? Did I look that horny?

  “My nani uses that computer,” Diya whined.

  “Should I bookmark the page, then?” I deadpanned. “Do you think she’ll like threesomes better—”

  “Gross! I can’t think of her like that.”

  “FYI, Diya, women her age can be extremely sexually active—”

  “OK, you shut up now.” She kneed me in the stomach, laughing. “Tell me. What were you really doing?”

  “Uploading my audition for the casting couch.”

  “And you used my parents’ couch?”

  She glared at me until the giggles burst out from both of us. After they’d subsided, I finally told Diya about the roles I’d applied for, and even though she was shaking with fatigue, I could tell she was trying to act supportive.

  “I am going for a quick bath,” Diya said after I’d finished babbling. “Join me for a drink on the balcony afterward? Whiskey sours?”

  “Are you up for it?”

  “I am getting married, Niki, not dying.” She peeled herself off the couch, as if in slow motion. “I am always up for a drink.”

  I laughed. “It’s a date, then.”

  Diya started to walk away, but halfway to her bedroom turned around and stared at me.

  “Yes?”

  “Something fairly odd happened today.” Diya paused for like a good ten seconds. “Sam asked me for your phone number.”

  A weird, snotty wheeze came involuntarily from my throat, but I played it cool and pretended that it was a standard cough.

  “Oh yeah?” I managed to say.

  “Yeaah.” Diya took another step toward me, lovingly mocking the North American way I elongated my consonants. “I said no. I told him you were unavailable.”

  She told him no?

  I kicked myself. Wait. That definitely is what I would have wanted her to do, and I avoided her searing gaze and nodded with more vigor than usual.

  “That’s what you would have told me to say, yeah?” Diya crossed her arms. “Because of Raj—”

  “Raj! Yes, of course I’m unavailable. I’m practically engaged,” I joked.

  “Because if you are interested in Sam—”

  “I’m not,” I cut Diya off, trying to keep my voice steady and convincing.

  “OK, good.” A wide grin spread across her face. “I’m not sure I could handle if two of my best friends ended up hooking up. I would be too damn excited, yaar, and force you to marry.”

  Diya disappeared into the bathroom, and I pulled my legs up onto the couch, shaky and exhilarated and, honestly, a little terrified. I didn’t understand why this was affecting me so much. It was clear on Diwali that he’d felt the attraction, too, but the fact that he wanted to get in touch was throwing me for a loop.

  When I heard the shower go on, I opened a private web browser on Diya’s laptop. (No, I did not want to look at porn.) But in a moment of weakness, I keyed in Sam’s name. All week I’d managed to withstand creeping him online, but right now I couldn’t resist. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

  It didn’t take me long to find out the name of his band (Perihelion) or that they’d been going strong for more than five years and were practically celebrities of the underground music scene in London, regulars at the coolest venues in Brixton, Hackney, and Camden. And from what I read online, it was Sam’s talent that caught the attention of a small record label in London and prompted them to sign Perihelion. He wasn’t the lead singer, but he wrote all the songs and was clearly the front man, his original bass lines being the thing that gave them their distinctive sound.

  I scrolled faster and dove in deeper, fully committing to the online stalking of Sam from the Band. It seemed that Perihelion had released three albums so far, their biggest hit being “Guess the Star,” which charted for a few months in the UK and got them invited to open for the British leg of a popular rock band’s tour. I was smiling ear to ear, impressed. I clicked on the “Upcoming Shows” tab of Perihelion’s website, but there were no shows posted from the last year; their website must have not been kept up to date. I snuck a look toward the bathroom. I could hear Diya drying her hair, and so I opened YouTube and started watching the first video on Perihelion’s channel.

  It was a performance of “Guess the Star” at a club in London from two years earlier. The lead singer reminded me vaguely of Jasmine’s boyfriend, Brian, but blonder and slightly better looking, and just when I wondered where Sam was, he appeared from the shadows.

  On Diwali, Sam had performed covers of popular songs I knew well. But even though I’d never heard this song before, it felt familiar. Like I’d been listening to it my whole life. The bass was like a heartbeat, loud and accelerating and tearing right through me. I felt like I was there in the crowd, looking up, sweaty and out of breath and pumping my fist as Perihelion took control of me, of everyone else on the floor. Because there was something about music, wasn’t there? A good song or beat or rhythm
. It could take you anywhere, jog an old memory you didn’t even know you had. Make you feel something you didn’t know you were capable of.

  The song was over all too quickly. My finger hovered on the trackpad of the laptop, and I was tempted to play the next song. Let myself go just a little bit further.

  But I didn’t. I closed the laptop, and a few minutes later, Diya wandered out in her pajamas, and we made cocktails to enjoy on the balcony.

  A moment of weakness was just that, a moment, and I didn’t want to entertain a crush on a guy whom I would never see again. My feelings and the memories we shared together would ultimately be nothing more than a cheap plastic souvenir.

  CHAPTER 13

  The next two days were crunch time, and the Joshi family finally accepted my offers of help with the hundreds and thousands of things that needed to be done, vetted, approved, carted, mapped, uploaded, double-checked, and/or managed ahead of the wedding. It was pandemonium, but I was very happy to do anything that would lighten their load. (Not to mention, staying busy was a great distraction from stalking Sam on social media. Aasha Auntie, too. I’d already watched clips of half the Bengali-language films she was in. Needless to say, she was brilliant.)

  One of the tasks Diya delegated to me was finalizing details for their group honeymoon at a resort in Goa, an hour’s flight away. Diya and Mihir, who insisted they’d already taken enough couple trips together, had invited their close friends along and tried to convince me to come, too, but I didn’t want to crash a holiday with their tight-knit group of friends that seemed to be all couples. Besides, my family in Punjab was expecting me. My flight to Amritsar, where most of my relatives lived, was scheduled for the morning after the wedding.

  On the Friday morning of the sangeet, I bade farewell to Diya’s family, and Manish drove me to my hotel in Andheri West, where all the wedding festivities were taking place.

  I had some time to kill in the afternoon before I needed to get ready, and so I decided to explore the area by foot and make my way to the Infiniti Mall, which the hotel clerk had said was one of the biggest shopping plazas in the city. Manish or Diya had driven me around the whole time I’d been in Mumbai, and only ten minutes into my walk, I realized how hot and sweaty I got without frequent access to air-conditioning. I also realized how different it felt to be wandering around on the streets alone.