by Sonya Lalli
She wants to go home.
The taste of blue rises in her throat, and then she smells Manavi’s perfume, and feels her tuck a stray hair behind her ear. She catches Manavi’s eye and points to the door. Manavi glances at her watch, rolls her eyes, and without saying good-bye to the others, they leave.
They don’t speak as they turn off of St. Catherine’s, as Manavi leads her to the Latin Quarter. They wind loosely through cobblestoned streets—some pitch black between the crossroads. The sound of traffic grows more distant, and in the hollow silence, Raina can hear nothing but the even click of Manavi’s heels. It strikes her that her mother knows exactly where she’s going, her footsteps assured and direct, as if, without Raina ever having known, Manavi has lived in Montreal before.
Ahead, Raina sees a group of men standing on the stoop of an old apartment building, and the men stop talking as they approach. Raina glances behind her. No one else is around, and she slows her feet. She feels hesitant, but Manavi’s heels keep pace.
“Mademoiselle,” says the one with a goatee. His mouth is open, and Raina can make out his tongue as it slices across his front teeth. He is looking at Manavi. “Vous êtes belle ce soir.”
“Merci. Toi aussi.” Manavi smiles. Flashes him her white teeth. He beckons her, and to Raina’s surprise, she walks up the stairs. They speak French to each other, quickly, effortlessly. She tries to catch what they are saying, but Raina has never been good at French, and until tonight, she has always assumed Manavi wasn’t, either. Every so often, one of the other men, his eyes black, glances down at Raina and gestures for her to join him. Raina shakes her head. She still feels nauseous, light-headed, and she wants to go home.
“La soeur?”
Manavi laughs, and then glances down the stairs. “He thinks we’re sisters.”
Raina inches up the steps. She stands at the edge, watching them converse. After a few minutes, the man with the goatee—the one whose hand is now tucked around Manavi’s waist—pulls out a joint. He sets it on Manavi’s bottom lip, lights it, and she inhales until the end glows amber. She breathes out, smoke billowing, and then offers it to Raina.
“No, thanks,” Raina mumbles.
Manavi turns to her. “Just take it.” She looks irritated, and when Raina hesitates again, she pushes it into her hand. “Be chill, Raina. Stop worrying about everything.” She glances back at the men, mumbles something in French, and everyone laughs. And they keep laughing until Raina takes a long, thick puff, and her lungs start to burn.
* * *
Raina doesn’t remember the rest of the night. Bits and pieces. Faint smells and feelings. Coughing so hard she thinks she just might die; her cheek, cold against a toilet seat reeking of shit. The night—and well into the morning—is a trance. An unfamiliar room spinning above, her eyelashes batting to a beat she makes up in her head. Vaguer memories, still, of how she falls asleep on a couch next to the man with the black eyes, the one who, as she dips in and out of sleep, smells like pot roast and keeps trying to touch her.
Manavi shakes Raina awake, smiles down at her weakly. It is light outside, and Raina notices that Manavi’s top is inside out. Without saying a word to each other, they slip out and take a taxi back to the apartment—and ten minutes later, they climb back into Manavi’s rental convertible. Raina’s head pounds the whole way home, made worse by the music—brash and loud—that Manavi insists on listening to. Finally, hours later, they are home. Raina swings open the door, and she is surprised that no sounds or smells are there to greet her. Nothing is cooking, and Nani’s voice does not bubble out beneath the crack of the kitchen door, ushering her into the kitchen for a cup of chai or a taste of whatever is simmering on the back burner.
Manavi throws down her bag. “Anyone home?”
Nana appears at the top of the stairs, the cordless phone pressed into his chest with both hands. His hands slowly drop to his sides.
“Is Ma home?”
He glances between Raina and Manavi, and without saying anything, he turns around. Raina hears his door upstairs click, the lock slide into place, and she is overwhelmed with a sense of dread. She glances at Manavi, who is seemingly unchanged, and follows her into the kitchen. Nani is sitting at the kitchen table. She is motionless, her hands clenched white into two fists resting in front of her. She doesn’t look up to greet them, and when Raina leans in to hug her, she shudders.
“Nani, what’s wrong?” Raina steps back. She remembers that she hasn’t washed off the makeup or brushed her teeth, and she wonders if her hair smells of smoke. “Nani?”
Still, Nani won’t speak. Her hands unclench, slowly, and she sets her palms lightly on the table. They are shaking.
“Yeah. About that.” Manavi has propped herself on top of the counter. She opens a bag of chips, and stuffs a handful into her mouth. Crunching loudly, she says, “I took Raina to Montreal last night. For her birthday.”
Raina stiffens. She feels as if she’s been punched, and she squats down beside her nani. She searches her eyes, only to find they have chilled. “Nani, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you didn’t know—”
“You are both adults.” Nani looks different. Her voice is changed, and Raina feels as if she is speaking to someone who has emerged from the past—a woman of whom she heard rumors and, until now, never had the misfortune of meeting. Nani stands up suddenly, walks out of the kitchen, and Raina resists the urge to follow. She can hear Manavi crunching chips behind her, the plastic crackling, and she turns around. Manavi swings her legs in small circles, and when Raina finally meets her eye, Manavi is grinning.
“Raindrop, pass me a bowl—would you?”
THIRTEEN
“So he’s gone.”
“Until the spring.”
“That’s that, then.” Zoey stood up from the chair facing my desk. I thought she was going to leave, but instead she shut the door and sat back down. “Are you okay?”
“What do you think?” She handed me the box of tissues next to her, and I pulled out three. My nose was running, but surprisingly, I had no tears left. Was I surprised that Dev, after being based in Toronto for merely five weeks, was being carted off to Singapore to temporarily oversee an emerging markets division—and that he wouldn’t be back in town for months?
Did it surprise me that he’d dropped the news on me during dinner the day before he left, so casually that I felt tempted to laugh?
I always tried not to care about his lack of work/life balance, or his constant need to travel or push harder than any other banker we knew. Hadn’t I been inspired? There was a certain nobility about a self-made man—the work ethic, the passion, the devotion it took to become one of the few people in the world who—rightly or wrongly so—had influence on the economy; on how the world worked. He was bright and powerful, and this man, the one who left and returned on a moment’s notice, the one who had so few moments to spare—but wanted to spend them with me—was the real Dev.
I’d learned quickly that the man I fell for in Brussels had been on holiday. A chance glimpse, really, because he rarely took vacations. The Dev who had the inclination to read in bed with me, whisper secrets between the hotel sheets, was as rare as the London sun. And I was fine with it. It had always been clear what life would be like holding Dev’s hand. Sleeping beside his furrowed brow. Cajoling him to cheer up during dinner, his mood soured by a deal gone bad.
Our life would be Dev hunting for a Wi-Fi connection, leaving me to sun myself on the beaches of Corfu alone while our complimentary bottle of champagne chilled in the honeymoon suite. Dev e-mailing a client during our child’s Christmas concert, leaving during his solo to take a call. Dev having to keep a flat near the office for all the late nights and last-minute meetings; the rest of us in our town house in Totteridge or Haywards Heath—a light therapy lamp beside the davenport desk where I’d watch the clock and try and figure out my life’s passion.
Life would be Dev growing older and even more powerful. Meeting him for a quick bite near his office in Westminster. His hand on my waist as he avoided eye contact with the waitress our daughter’s age and I massaged my wrinkles, convinced he didn’t have time for an affair. Life with Dev would be fast and slow at the same time; a waiting game between moments of bliss—between trips to Brussels. It hadn’t bothered me. It had all been fine back then, but now I didn’t feel so certain.
Why was I misleading my nani—and for what? What if I was waiting for nothing?
“How did you guys leave it?”
I leaned back on my chair. Zoey’s patience with me was waning, but I appreciated so much that at least she was trying. “He said he would call me as often as he could—”
“Uh-huh. Sure—”
“And that we would figure ‘us’ out when he got back.”
“Is that what you want?”
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure which one of us I was trying to convince anymore. I was so busy with work, and went home so rarely these days, that surely I could maintain the lie to Nani for a short while longer? Surely, when Dev got back, we would figure it out.
“Just do me a favor, would you?” Zoey leaned forward and gave my forearm a squeeze. “It’s almost Christmas. Try and enjoy the holidays, and do your best to forget about him. For now, at least?”
I promised her I would try, and surprisingly, it kind of worked. I took off the week before Christmas, and from the moment I arrived home, I felt better. Just being home and away from downtown, I felt ready for the holidays without Dev.
I established a new routine—a suburban, more relaxed life away from the city. In the morning, I’d wake up early and bring Nani her tea, two digestive biscuits resting on the saucer. I’d help her with housework, and at Saffron if she needed it. In the evenings, we cooked dinner, and Nani and I watched TV huddled together on the couch, and after she fell asleep, I’d go on a run, sometimes past the school’s basketball courts. Once, I saw the girls’ team practicing—running drills, shuttles, and layups. Asher was standing in the corner with a clipboard, and I’d slowed down and waved as I jogged past. But he didn’t see me—that, or he purposely turned and looked in another direction.
The only downside of staying home with Nani was having to deal with her questions—questions it was becoming harder and harder to avoid.
Why were Zoey and I not together?
Did I have a different girlfriend?
Would I have natural children or adopt?
How did I define my sexual orientation, and was that different from my gender identity?
It wasn’t until Christmas Eve, while surfing on Nani’s tablet after she’d gone to bed, that I found out where those questions were coming from.
Her browser history was littered with LGBTQ websites. Organizations, support groups, blogs, and chat forums. Terminologies, ideologies—tips on how to set aside your feelings on homosexuality and how to redefine your relationship with your gay child. There was even a link to some gay porn (which, I gathered, she’d stumbled across by mistake). I laughed out loud at first, as I made my way through the websites—the new list—feeling rather proud of my progressive nani.
But then I imagined her on the couch, her wrinkled brow mouthing along with the words, and I realized that maybe it wasn’t so funny. I kept scrolling, and more websites appeared. Ones outlining in layman’s terms same-sex civil marriages, how Canada had been the fourth country in the world to legalize gay marriage. Sites with advice on raising kids of gay parents—for grandparents of kids raised by gay parents. Sites on adoption. Donor insemination. IVF treatment. Another on adoption. Then it hit me like a frying pan to the skull. Nani didn’t just support me being interested in women.
She wanted me to marry one.
* * *
Nani and I both pretended not to notice that Kris didn’t come home on Christmas morning, or that Mom hadn’t even called. We spent the day cooking together and watching old movies, and then got ready for Auntie Sarla’s party. She had first invited us over for Christmas dinner after Nana had died. It had started out of sympathy and included just our family and Shay’s, but over the years the numbers had grown, and these days, Christmas dinner felt like just another one of Auntie Sarla’s famous parties. Her two dining tables became a hodgepodge of salads, curries and dals, shrimp fried rice and oversalted stuffing. And in true potluck style, sometimes there were six turkeys—and other years there were none.
Their marble foyer was already littered with winter boots by the time we arrived for dinner. The house was all extravagance and no taste, a house of oversaturated colors. Rosewater pink carpets and blindingly gold walls; an indoor swimming pool only the dog used; a six-foot statue in the middle of the living room—just because.
Since their engagement, Shay and Julien had decided to alternate holidays with their families, and this year was Shay’s first Christmas away from home. It felt odd being in her house without her; usually, we’d sneak upstairs away from the party, hide in her old bedroom with a plate of stolen desserts, ignoring everyone until Auntie Sarla found us and insisted we come back down and socialize. I thought about going up to her room alone, but it felt too strange. I wasn’t sure how it happened—or when—but these days, Shay and I barely spoke.
Sure, I’d become more distant since Dev moved to Toronto, and avoided seeing her for fear of letting the lie slip, but I wondered whether it had started before then. Things hadn’t been right since she got engaged, and started pressuring me to settle down, too. Maybe there’d be time over the New Year to talk things out, at her bachelorette party in New York City. Julien and his groomsmen would be there, too. Ironically, they’d both be spending their last “singles’ trip” together—a group holiday I’d had planned for months. But ever since my misunderstanding with Asher, I wasn’t sure I looked forward to it.
Shay’s house was packed with some familiar faces and a lot of new ones. Most of the girls Shay and I had grown up with had moved away—Los Angeles, Vancouver, Calgary—or were away on vacation with families of their own. The few I did know sat in clumps in one of the living rooms, holding hands with their husbands or boyfriends, chasing after toddlers dressed up like reindeer, in tiny novelty onesies bought specifically for the occasion. I quickly said my hellos, my congratulations, and then moved toward the kitchen.
I peered around the corner and saw Nani and Auntie Sarla arguing in front of the stainless steel oven, their faces flushed. Quietly, I drew closer, coming within earshot.
“This is not right, ji.”
“Suvali. I am helping her. I am helping you. Raina needs a husband.”
“Raina doesn’t need—”
“You know what everyone is saying? They are saying none of the men she meets like her, that she is too difficult to please—”
“Why are you making up lies?”
“Suvali, why would I lie?”
“Raina doesn’t need a husband, and—and—”
Nani’s voice dropped off, and they both turned to look at me.
“What’s going on?” I asked slowly.
“Nothing.” Auntie Sarla turned back to the stove. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“Jao. Go make a plate.” She nodded at me, and then threw Nani a glare. “Take your nani with you. She is looking pale.”
I led Nani into an empty hallway. She was perspiring, fanning her face with a folded piece of paper towel. I found a table nearby with fresh glasses of champagne, and I thrust one into her hand.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“That woman is going on and on—always talking, talking.” Nani tapped her fingers together. “She knows nothing—and still? Always talking. Who is that woman to talk like that about my Raina? We need to tell them. Band-Aid”—she flicked her hand like a musical conductor—“off.”
I set my hands on Nani’s shoulders and took a deep breath, trying not to imagine what would happen if everyone found out about the lie I’d told. Another scandal in the Anand family. Another daughter who didn’t live up to expectations. What would Nani have to endure if everyone thought I was a lesbian? Most of Nani’s friends couldn’t even pronounce “homosexuality”—let alone support it.
“Should we tell them?” Nani reached up and stroked the side of my cheek. “I am okay.”
I shook my head.
“Raina, please—”
“No, Nani.” I looked her straight in the eye. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone yet—not until . . .”
Until when? Until Dev was back from London or Singapore—or wherever the hell he was going? Until I could admit that it was him that I wanted to marry, and not another woman? The man who humiliated me? Who humiliated Nani?
“Just promise me you won’t say anything yet. Please?” I took a deep breath. I would come clean and tell Nani everything. Dev would return, and we would get back together—and I would make Nani realize he was right for me.
I would make them both realize.
“Okay.” Nani sighed, and her hand slid to my chin. “But Raina. Eventually, you will have to face them.”
No, Nani, I thought, my stomach wrenching. Eventually, I will have to face you.
FOURTEEN
I worked the next five days straight to make up for my “ill-timed Christmas holiday,” as Bill had called it, and then just before 5 A.M. on New Year’s Eve Day I took a taxi to the airport for the first flight out to LaGuardia. Serena was already there, a coffee in her hand and a crime thriller tucked between the thighs of her skinny jeans.
I sat down beside her hesitantly. I hadn’t seen her since she and Kris had broken up, but she seemed happy to see me. Slowly, the rest of the group started to trickle in—Shay’s twin cousins, Nikki and Niti, who’d been a few years behind us in school, and now had jobs in brand management and social media. Then came Julien’s friend from the hospital, another resident named Matt, and Julien’s younger brother, Victor, who’d sworn up and down that his fake ID would work.