A Holly Jolly Diwali

by Sonya Lalli

  “There you are!”

  Diya was waiting for us in the lobby, and she raced over to us, her heels smacking the marble floor. If I had to describe this hotel in one word—well, it was very Diya.

  She hugged Sam first and then me, studying our faces as she pulled away. “Hi!”

  “We could have met you in the restaurant,” Sam said. “Shall we head in? I’m starving.”

  “Not so fast,” Diya said. “I needed to speak with you both alone.”

  Her voice was serious and my stomach dropped.

  “So, you decided to come,” she continued, looking at me. “This was unexpected. Are you good?”

  “I’m good.”

  Diya narrowed her eyes, flicking them toward Sam. “Are you good?”

  “I’m swell, mate.”

  “Brilliant.” She gripped each of us with one hand. “Now. Listen up. I love you both. Equally. But you must think of me as Switzerland, OK?”

  “So, you’ll hide all of our blood money?”

  Sam grinned while Diya smacked me.

  “Pay attention, Niki.”

  I nodded and mimed zipping my mouth shut.

  “I’m Switzerland. Do you understand?” She was visibly shaking with excitement. What had she told me back in Mumbai when discussing whether she’d give Sam my phone number? That if we got together, she’d have to force us to get married?

  “Don’t tell me anything,” she warned. “And I will try my best not to ask.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Diya had somehow managed to score a table for fourteen people at the trendy restaurant on the roof of the resort. The view was amazing, the ocean literally sparkling back at us as dusk turned to night. Diya would feel terrible if she knew I got food poisoning at her wedding, and so I had sworn Sam and Aasha Auntie to secrecy. Thankfully, Sam and I were seated at the other end of the table, and so she didn’t see me order conservatively—opting for Limca instead of wine and a mild vegetarian curry instead of my usual order of the spiciest thing on the menu.

  It felt strange sitting there, Sam on one side of me and Masooma on the other, seven pairs made up of six couples and whatever the hell Sam and I were. I could feel some of the others in the wedding party gawking at me and Sam curiously, making comments with their eyes, but I chose to ignore them. Luckily, Masooma, whom I once again spent much of the evening talk to, didn’t ask me about him once.

  “I’m so glad to have met you,” she said while we pulled out our phones and followed each other on Instagram. I wasn’t sure I liked all of Diya and Mihir’s friends, but Masooma was just lovely.

  “I’m going to be in Seattle next month for a conference,” Masooma said, handing me back my phone. “We should grab dinner.”

  “Absolutely,” I beamed, trying to think of what restaurant to take her to.

  “Will you be home by then?”

  I nodded. “I’m flying back via Delhi in twelve days.”

  “What are your plans for the rest of your holiday?”

  I popped a mouthful of creamy curry, delaying. In my peripheral vision, I could see Sam listening to our conversation, and it occurred to me that we hadn’t actually discussed how long I was going to be a houseguest or when he himself would be flying back to London.

  “All done, ma’am?” The waiter arrived, saving me from having to answer Masooma. I shook my head, smiling. The curry was delicious, and I wanted to finish every last drop. He turned to the bridesmaids sitting across from us, who gestured for their plates to be taken away.

  “That was really disappointing,” one said loudly to the other. “I almost threw up.”

  My mouth dropped. What? I was stunned, and I inadvertently made eye contact with the waiter and threw him an apologetic look. His face didn’t give anything away.

  “I had four bites and left the rest,” the second one said, huffy. “I cook better than this.”

  “When was the last time you were in a kitchen?”

  “When our last cook didn’t show up for work—her daughter was in labor or something.”

  “She didn’t show up?” the other snapped. “Did you fire her?”

  “Wanted to. Mummy said no. It doesn’t matter; she’s quit since. Who knows where she landed.”

  I squirmed in my seat, my eyes still locked with the waiter’s as he cleared our dishes. The two bridesmaids’ lack of compassion and awareness over their own privilege was nothing short of astounding. Not everyone could afford to holiday at beachside resorts and eat out at restaurants. Until recently, they were luxuries my own family wasn’t able to afford.

  “I think I remember that cook,” the second bridesmaid continued. I looked up and watched her sucking on the straw of her cocktail. I wanted to dump it all over her head.

  “She made very tasty aloo tikki, aacha?”

  “She ate too many aloo tikki,” the other said, puffing out her cheeks. “She was so heavy. Yaar, do you remember—”

  “Do you know what I remembered?” I interrupted, unable to bite my tongue any longer. The bridesmaids turned to look, as did Masooma, Sam, and the others in our vicinity. I waited a beat, holding their gaze.

  “My manners.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Eighteen years ago

  Is everything OK—”

  “Shh!” Mom interrupted me, setting her hand firmly on the table.

  From the chair opposite, Jasmine threw me a wry look. Mom was eavesdropping on Dad, who had answered the phone in the other room ten minutes earlier and had been speaking Punjabi in a low voice ever since.

  “What is he saying?” I mouthed to Jasmine, who just shrugged and spooned aloo to her lips. We were both nearly finished with our dinner, while our parents’ plates were still practically untouched. Mom kept dunking the same piece of roti into her daal, but then her ears would perk up, and she’d forget to eat it.

  I let my mind wander away from the table, from whatever was being said to Dad on the telephone. Today had been typically dull, except for the fleeting high I’d felt after getting an A on my math test. I smiled. I also had that small win during the lunch hour, when my “friend” Tiffany tried to swap juice boxes—mixed berry for apple—and I finally stood up to her and refused.

  Suddenly, Dad appeared in the kitchen, and I held my breath as he slouched into his seat next to me. He still had the cordless phone in his hand, extended out in his palm. It was as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

  “What happened?” Mom asked him. She took the phone and then pressed her hand into his. “Is she all right?”

  Dad sighed, and when he shook his head, my tummy began to feel funny. “Dadima broke her hip.”

  The table fell silent. Mom pressed her palm over her mouth. I didn’t know what to say, and so I stayed quiet.

  Dadima was my only grandparent left. Mom’s parents were long gone, and Dad’s father, who we called Dadaji, had a fatal heart attack when I was still in diapers. I was too young to remember the summer he visited America, but Jasmine claimed to. She always told me that he smelled like ginger snaps.

  “Will she need a cast?” I managed, remembering the cast the doctors put on my wrist after I fell Rollerblading.

  Mom smiled at me sadly. “It’s more complicated than that, beti. I suspect she’ll need surgery.”

  Dad nodded. “It’s scheduled for Friday. It will cost . . .”

  He trailed off, and I stared down at my empty plate, too uncomfortable to look anywhere else.

  I never used to think about money, but over the last few months, I’d started to notice how stressful a subject it was for my family. How frequently it was the topic of Mom and Dad’s conversations and arguments. They worked long hours and as hard as the other parents at school, but for whatever reason, our family never seemed to have enough. For groceries, rent, and bills—yes—but not for all the o
ther things my friends seemed to have. Our presents on Christmas morning were minimal, our school supplies the generic brand, our extracurricular activities limited to those freely available through the community center or local Y.

  “How much will it cost?” Mom prompted, and a beat later, Dad replied in Punjabi.

  “That’s OK.” Mom rubbed his forearm, smiling. “Your sister needn’t worry. We’ll cover it—”

  “But—”

  “No arguments, hah?” Mom said brightly. “After dinner, we’ll call her back and tell her not to worry.”

  “So she’s going to be OK,” Jasmine said as a statement and not a question. I looked over at her. Jasmine was now a teenager and miraculously had the ability to convey multiple emotions in the blink of an eye. Right now, she somehow looked worried, sad, and bored. Although these days, Jasmine always looked a bit bored.

  “Your Dadima will be fine,” Dad answered flatly. “But it will take a while to heal.” He paused, glanced over at Mom. “She won’t be able to come visit us this summer. I think I’ll go—”

  “Of course,” Mom said. “We’ll both go to India. I can take leave from work, too.”

  Jasmine stiffened, her fork rattling down on the plate as she dropped it. I flinched.

  “Sorry,” Jasmine muttered.

  “Is there something you’d like to say?” Mom asked stiffly.

  “It’s not important—”

  “You can still go to Camp Juniper,” Dad said, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Mom inhaled sharply. In Punjabi, she started to say something, but Dad cut her off.

  “It’s OK,” he said softly. “We’ll manage.”

  Jasmine’s smile stretched wide across her face. She’d been on a monthslong campaign to convince our parents to send her to the all-girls sleepaway summer camp everyone who was anyone seemed to attend. As legend had it, it was two weeks of canoeing and swimming, hiking and campfires.

  Two weeks without parental supervision.

  Jasmine and I weren’t even allowed to sleep over at our friends’ houses, but somehow, she’d managed to convince Mom and Dad by keeping her grades up and a PowerPoint presentation on the mental health benefits of nature, athletics, and group activities; it even contained testimonials from parents who had sent their daughters to the camp and lived to tell the tale.

  “Niki can come, too, right?” Jasmine asked.

  I squirmed in my seat. Although Jasmine outright ignored me when we crossed paths at school, surprisingly, the campaign was for both of us to go.

  “Oh—” Dad’s eyes widened, and I witnessed something I wasn’t used to seeing on my father.

  Fear.

  “Um . . .” He shoveled some aloo into his mouth, stalling, suddenly invested in his uneaten dinner.

  I shuffled my sock feet against the floor, the static building. I wanted to go to Camp Juniper, too. I wanted to go badly. But lately, I was learning to read between the lines. After two years of being bullied, I now understood that a compliment from Tiffany at school wasn’t always a compliment, and that adults said a lot more with their eyes than their mouths.

  “I can’t go this year,” I blurted. “I don’t want to.”

  Mom, Dad, and Jasmine all turned to look, and my face heated up.

  “Tiffany’s birthday party is the same week. She’ll be so mad if I’m not there.”

  “You’re going to miss camp for her birthday?” Jasmine asked skeptically. “She sucks, Niki.”

  “She doesn’t suck,” I stammered. “Besides. Her parents are taking all of us to that water park—”

  “Wild Waves?” Jasmine interrupted, and I nodded.

  A moment later, I felt Dad’s hand on my back, a comforting pat that was his way of expressing affection. He wasn’t a hugger; he was barely a handshaker.

  “This party is important to you?” he asked vaguely.

  “Totally,” I exclaimed. “I have—uh—friends. Unlike Jasmine.” I couldn’t resist the jab, even if it wasn’t true. Between the two of us, Jasmine was the popular one. “I don’t need to go to camp.”

  “As if,” Jasmine fumed. “I—”

  “Bus,” Dad warned, although he was smiling, so I knew I wasn’t really in trouble for squabbling. It was the first smile he’d cracked all evening.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to camp with Jasmine?” Mom’s voice was small, and I could tell she didn’t believe me. “It would be only fair . . .”

  Mom and Dad had taught us never to lie, but lately, I was also starting to learn that they didn’t always follow their own rules. Like before dinner, when Mom asked Dad if there was too much mircha in the aloo and Dad said no, even though the food was way too spicy. Or the week before, when I asked my family if they noticed the new patch of acne on my chin, and everyone insisted they couldn’t, even though it was practically visible from outer space.

  Or just now. When Dad had said, “We’ll manage.”

  “I’m very sure,” I said, smiling widely so everyone would believe me.

  I was eleven. I was a kid. But I was old enough to have learned that sometimes lies—very small ones—weren’t wrong. They were important. Sometimes lies were what held a family together.

  CHAPTER 22

  Is your mom asleep?” I asked Sam, as we tiptoed into the apartment.

  “Doesn’t look like it.” Sam kicked off his shoes. “She must be out.”

  It was hot inside, and I took off my cardigan, nervous about suddenly being alone with Sam. Before arriving in Goa, I’d imagined a fling would go from zero to sixty in a flash, but we’d somehow plateaued around ten miles per hour.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked, following him into the sitting room. We still hadn’t been to the beach, and I wondered if it would be safe to go at night.

  He turned around slowly, studying me with those intense eyes of his. After, he extended his hand, pulling me forward as I took it. It was the most physical contact we’d made all night.

  “Come with me.”

  He led me to his room, but I knew he wasn’t taking me to bed; he sat me down at his keyboard.

  “Play for me,” he whispered, settling in beside me. We were thigh to thigh on the bench, his khaki pants flush against my bare legs.

  “What should I play?”

  “Anything you want.”

  I flexed my hands, nervous energy practically sparking from the tips of my fingers. It had been a long time, too long, and my hands shook as I set them on the keys. After a minute, I started to breathe. Then my fingers started to play.

  The start was soft and slow, and it wasn’t perfect, but it came to me clearly, as if the sheet music were right in front of my eyes. I could feel my heart beating, the rhythm taking shape around it as chords on the keys.

  I stumbled partway through the movement as the tempo picked up. Breathing hard, I forced myself through, letting the muscle memory take over. My hands glided over the keys, and I forgot where I was, or even who I was, until it was all over, and I felt Sam’s arm fold in around me.

  “That was beautiful,” he whispered, lightly kissing my shoulder. I shivered, reveling in the touch of him.

  “I’m . . . speechless, Niki.”

  “Thanks.” I cleared my throat, trying to keep it together. I hadn’t expected to get emotional; after all, it was just the piano.

  “Clair de Lune,” Sam said. “Right?”

  I nodded. Debussy. I knew he’d recognize it.

  “Do you ever write your own songs?”

  I withdrew my hands from the keys and tucked them on my lap. Sam leaned his head against my neck. I could feel him laughing softly in my ear.

  “You do, don’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Can I hear one?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” I turned to him, smiling. “No
one’s ever heard them . . . They’re silly.”

  “So?”

  “No, Sam,” I said evenly. “They’re silly. Do you ever watch people from afar and imagine their life and their backstories and all that?” From his blank expression, I could tell Sam had no idea what I was talking about, so as quickly as I could, I told him about Romeo and Juliet back home. How sometimes I got carried away when people-watching and imagined what their love story might sound like as a song.

  Sam thought this was hilarious, and he tickled me—nay, tortured me—until I agreed to sing my Romeo and Juliet song for him. I wasn’t much of a singer, but luckily, my lyrics were in the alto vocal range, and I’d composed it to the tune of a certain song.

  A certain popular, uh, Taylor Swift song.

  “That was glorious,” Sam said afterward, loyally. I could see him trying not to laugh, and I nudged him hard in the ribs.

  “Yeah, yeah—”

  “It was cute. Really cute, Niki.” He grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. “Do Romeo and Juliet ever get together?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Maybe one day.”

  “But will they ride away together on a magical coffee cart?” he said, mocking the lyrics I’d just “sung” for him.

  “I told you it was silly,” I pouted.

  “Aww,” Sam said, eyes glinting. “It’s adorable. And frankly—well, rather shocking.” He leaned in closer. “Niki, you’re a romantic. I had no idea.”

  I was about to protest, but then he gently pressed his fingers against my lips.

  “I won’t tell anyone.” His thumb parted my lips. “It will be our little secret.”

  Sam’s gaze was too intense, and as heat coursed through my body, I shot up from the bench. “So, what kind of guitars do you have?” I squeaked.

  I gave myself a mental pep talk, half listening as Sam told me about his Fender and vintage acoustic. I knew he wanted to kiss me, and even though I wanted that, too, my nerves were taking over my bodily functions. A thousand contradictory thoughts and questions ran through my head, a mile a minute, many of them in Jasmine’s holier-than-thou voice.