by Sonya Lalli
“I’ll be thirty next week.”
His mouth dropped, and I fake shoved him again. I loved the creases around his mouth when he smiled.
“What does your gut tell you?”
I drew back. “About what?”
“About your passions. About what—and who—you want to be.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Although, look at me. It took me years to figure out that my first instinct was right. I really did want to teach.”
“My gut instinct on what to do has never been that helpful,” I said, suddenly thinking about Dev and Depesh. “It’s been misleading, actually.”
“That’s not your gut you were listening to. That was your fear. You see, you have to listen harder, go further down.” He palmed his stomach. “And then you’ll hear it.”
Was he right? Was it just fear that had led me? An ex-boyfriend I was too afraid to let go of? A grandmother I was too afraid to disappoint?
A man I was afraid to let myself love.
My body was trembling, and my arms—crossed and shivering—recoiled away from him. “I need to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
I made myself look at him. What was stopping me? I took a deep breath. “Asher, I’m not—”
“There you are.”
I dropped my arms and turned toward the voice. Rebekah wobbled toward us, a scowl on her face. She walked up to Asher, and put an arm around his waist.
“Hi, Becka.”
“What are you guys talking about?” she asked him, not looking at me.
“The wedding,” Asher said quickly. “Raina’s also in the wedding party.”
“Is she?”
“We have to be there early for the ceremony”—he turned to me, talking quickly—“don’t we? What time again?”
“The ceremony starts at ten—so five A.M., maybe six?”
“That’s early,” said Rebekah.
“It’s customary for us to get married in the morning.”
“Well, can I come, too?” she said to Asher.
“It’s only for family and close friends. I’ll be with Julien and his dad and brother”—Asher glanced at me—“and all the women will be helping Shaylee get ready.”
“I like Indian clothes,” she said.
I pressed my lips together.
“I’ll talk to Julien,” he said after a moment.
She folded her arm through his. “Thank you, baby.”
I winced, and then as quickly as I could, I excused myself and went back into the party.
Asher . . . What just happened!?
WAY TOO GOOD FOR ME
Off the market.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Shay and Zoey found me hiding in the cloakroom. They made an effort to console me and boost my spirits, but when that didn’t work, Shay insisted I go home so I didn’t have to watch Asher and Rebekah together. Jokingly, Shay said she didn’t want a miserable middle-aged woman ruining her party anyway. Zoey offered to drive me, but I refused. I could tell she was having a good time. They hugged me good-bye, and a few minutes later, I found myself walking home alone along College Street.
With Dev, I’d been jealous of anyone who got to spend time with him—his colleagues, his housekeeper, even his own mother—but this felt different, and just thinking about Rebekah made my lungs burn.
Asher was so different from anyone I knew, so unlike Dev. If he didn’t have a girlfriend, if he knew the truth, could I even have had a future with him? And what about Dev? He still called, and every time, a fraction of me was tempted to answer. Didn’t that mean a part of me still believed in him? As unrealistic as that fantasy was, didn’t part of me hope he’d show up with a bouquet of flowers, get down on one knee, and tell me he’d changed?
I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and caught myself before I fell. My head was spinning, and I leaned against a lamppost and let my chin fall to my chest. My eyes closed, I could hear the cars whiz past, the sounds of pedestrians—high heels and leather soles clacking, the slow thud of music from a nearby bar.
I felt a low vibration coming out of the pole, through my leg and body, and it took me a moment to realize it was my phone. I found it in my coat pocket, and picked up when I saw it was Depo.
I held the receiver to my ear. “Hello?”
“Raina!” I heard him laugh, and a chorus of voices laughed in the background.
“Hey, what’s up? How—”
“It was good!” He laughed again, and then shouted into the phone, “All my exams went really well.”
“You smarty-pants. Amazing!” I stopped walking and smiled into the phone. “You’re out celebrating?”
“Packing, actually. We’re going to London, baby! Caleb’s brother used to live in Brixton, is that good? Should we go there?”
“Wait, you’re going to London? When?”
“Tonight!”
My stomach dropped.
“We booked a last-minute flight just this afternoon. Heading straight to London, then Berlin maybe? Who the hell knows. But I’m doing it. Exams are done, and I’m going to Europe. Like, me and Caleb, and a few other guys. We’re going!”
“But—”
“My summer job starts in a few weeks, but maybe I won’t do it. Maybe I’ll just stay in London and take a year off—”
“A year?”
“—before doing the whole medicine thing. Caleb is thinking about taking a gap year.”
I could feel the panic rising. “Please, slow down.”
“I’ve always done the right thing. I’ve always been the good boy—but maybe I don’t want to be that boy anymore. Maybe I want to be like Caleb. He’s free. He does whatever the hell he wants. He’s his own person, you know?”
“Following Caleb is not being your own person . . .”
He didn’t hear me. He was talking rapidly, excitedly—and he wouldn’t let me speak. He was following a boy he barely knew across the world? He was leaving with him for a year?
“Raina, like, thank you so much—for, you know, everything.” He came up for air. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Wait a sec. I need to tell you—”
“Can we talk later? The flight leaves in a few hours—”
“Please, just think about this—”
“—but text me, okay?”
Before I could say another word, he clicked off.
Mid-step, I was frozen in my tracks. The sidewalk was giving way beneath me. The street was spinning. I couldn’t do this. There was no more delaying, no more waiting for the right time. No more being a coward. Depo was leaving, and he deserved to know the truth.
* * *
It took me less than a minute to find a taxi, and within forty-five minutes I was at the airport. I waited near security in the international terminal. After an hour of checking and rechecking the flight board, wondering whether I’d missed him, finally, he appeared.
I watched him from afar as he checked in for his flight at the kiosk, laughing with three other boys his age, small backpacks swung over their shoulders. And by the way he was looking at one of the boys—rosy cheeks, black glasses, platinum blond hair—I could tell which one was Caleb.
Depo looked so happy, with a lightness to him that I hadn’t seen since he was kid. When he saw me, he gave me a big smile and waved. He walked toward me, dropped his bag by my feet, and enveloped me in a hug.
Tensely, I hugged him back. My heart pounded, and I could feel sweat forming on my face.
“You didn’t have to come see me off.” He pulled away grinning, and then looked toward security. “Sorry, I told them to go through. I should have introduced you to Caleb—should I go get him?”
I shook my head. “Another time. I need to—”
“That sounds good. Like, when we get back—or if we stay aw
hile, maybe you can come visit? Do you ever go to Europe for work?”
I shook my head.
“You’re all dressed up.” He smiled. “You look really pretty.”
“Thanks,” I whispered. “I was at a birthday party. Shay’s fiancé.”
“Ma’s pissed I may not be home for her wedding.” He laughed. “Despite everything, she still wants to show me off—tell everyone how good at school I am.”
“Of course she does, Depo. Your parents are proud of you.”
He shrugged, and looked at his feet. “They’re barely speaking to me. Tonight, they didn’t even hug me good-bye.”
“Depo, your courage . . .” I put my hand on his arm. “I’m so proud of you. I really am, and”—I hesitated—“I also . . .”
“What is it?”
“There’s something you need to know. Before you leave.”
“Yeah?”
I looked him in the eye. I could feel myself shaking. “Depo, I’m straight.”
He didn’t respond. His face didn’t move.
“I needed you to know before you left.” I shook my head. “I’m not gay. I didn’t mean to trick you. If it was something I could take back, I would. I promise you. If I could go back to last fall, I would handle things differently.”
He still didn’t move.
“I’d do a lot of things differently. I’d try and be a better person, a stronger person—I don’t know. But one thing I don’t regret is our friendship. I’m so happy we got to know each other this year, and I—I don’t regret that. I really don’t. I wanted to be there for you. I still do. And this stuff with Caleb—it’s happening so quickly, and I get it. I get how you’re feeling right now, and if you want to talk about—”
“Talk?”
I watched his face, his muscles perfectly tense, unflinching. But then he blinked.
“You. Bitch.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The next morning, I opened the e-mail Zoey had warned me was coming: Bill was concerned about my performance, and about my commitment to the team. An e-mail like this would have terrified me the year before. Hadn’t I cared my whole life what people thought about me, and measured my happiness on how well I was doing in school or at work? Suddenly, my job didn’t seem to matter so much anymore.
Instead of a suit, I changed into jeans and my high school basketball hoodie, and walked south along Yonge Street through the low light. The streets were empty, except for a few stragglers stumbling home from their Saturday night out. How many mornings had I walked this path, oblivious to why or where I was going? Stopping at the same coffee shop, with its smiley baristas and too-strong coffee that I didn’t even like. Turning right at King Street, never waiting for the pedestrian walk light, rushing in as fast as I could go.
Bill was already at the office when I arrived. It was Sunday morning, and as I watched him bent over his desk scratching at his salt-and-pepper scruff, I thought about how his kids were probably having breakfast that morning with their stepfather. How even though I’d worked for Bill most of my adult life, he’d never even told me their names.
“Raina? Didn’t know you were coming in . . .”
He stopped short when he saw my face, and then his hands went limp on the keyboard. We sat side by side on the couch in his office—and as I stared out the window, watching the first pink touches of light hitting the lake, he asked me if there was anything he could do to change my mind.
I could have made it more dramatic, but there was no point. I handed him my letter of resignation, and simply said my priorities in life had changed.
But they hadn’t changed. Not really. Family. Friendship. Love. These were the things that had always mattered. These were the things I’d let slip, and I’d failed at each of them for the sake of a life I’m not sure I ever wanted. And eight years after first accepting a passionless job that was only ever meant to fill in the gaps, I was finally ready to leave. I was tired of letting down my family and friends, making up excuses for my own happiness. It turned out I wasn’t the woman they thought I was. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t change.
That night, I cooked Alice and Zoey dinner—a recipe for a vegetarian jambalaya I’d once found in a magazine and had never had the time to try. After, I helped Shay with her wedding checklist, reorganized the spreadsheet filters in a way that made sense. Then, I wrote Depesh a long e-mail—one that didn’t ask for forgiveness, or qualify my decisions over the past year in any way. It just spelled out how much I cared for him and how much I regretted misleading him, and I sent it knowing full well I might never get a response.
TWENTY-NINE
“Maybe I should work for you.”
“As chef?”
I laughed. “I’m not that good. But I could manage the dinner shift, and then your days wouldn’t be so long.”
Nani flicked on the ventilation fan above the stove as the cumin, garlic, and chili started to sizzle in the pan. I reached over her for the bowl of tomatoes, tossing them in as she stirred it all around with a wooden spoon.
“Is that a maybe?”
“Raina, no more rash decisions, nah?” She glanced at me sideways. “You know, if you need money—of course. But this will be temporary solution until you really know what is next.”
I nodded. I suppose I agreed. It would be too easy to get stuck working with her at Saffron, taking over for her entirely as she grew older. I could see myself managing the restaurant, or even going to culinary school—but at this point, everything felt so wide open, I could see myself anywhere. Applying my skills in banking in the public sector. Launching a girls’ and women’s athletics program.
Renting out my condo, and trekking my way through Southeast Asia.
I’d spent the previous two weeks working out my two weeks’ notice, in the evenings cooking or watching TV with Nani, or running last-minute wedding errands with Shay. One evening, Zoey had surprised me by organizing farewell drinks for me at a bar near work, and I was surprised that Bill turned up. That I felt emotional saying good-bye to everyone. On the other hand, I felt ready for what was next—even though I had yet to figure out what that meant.
“You are quiet?”
I shook my head, shifting toward the fridge to grab the coriander. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“About . . . starting over.” I turned to face her. “A new job. A new life . . . Maybe . . . a new guy . . .”
“Hah?”
Nani looked so alarmed I was tempted to laugh. Hell, I wanted to laugh myself. My community still thought I was gay, and I still hadn’t figured out a way to handle that without overshadowing Shay’s fast-approaching wedding. I’d broken the trust of my family, friends, and the man that I cared about. But I had to start over somewhere, didn’t I?
“I’ve been thinking I should start dating again.”
She sat down, keeping her eyes fastened on me as she rested her chin on her palm. The table was cluttered with magazines and random papers, and poking out from the bottom was a familiar crumpled one.
“Beta,” I heard Nani say. “There is no need. I am not upset. We are okay, nah? We have made the amends.”
I sat down next to her. “I know we have, but—”
“I don’t need you to have husband.” She moved her left hand to my cheek. “You are perfect, my Raina. Just as you are.”
I clutched her hand, nodding. Finally believing her.
“It’s not for you, Nani. It’s for me. I’m ready to . . . try.”
She sighed, and reclined back in her chair.
“Do you know anybody? Is there anyone I should meet?”
“Raina, I am out of touch now. I do not know of any boys these days.”
Tentatively, I reached below the pile of papers and pulled out the list.
“It is here? You have kept all this time?” Nani laughed, and I watched
her face as she read the notes I’d written in the margins.
“Maybe you should be comedian, my silly Raina.” She winked. “Who is this Josh, hot like my chicken vindaloo?”
I blushed, lunged for the list. “Oh, nobody. We went on a date once . . .”
“And this Asher character—”
“Nope.” My face reddened even more. “We need a new list. I don’t know why I still have this. There’s nobody on here . . .”
But something caught my eye. A noticeably blank space halfway down the page. I pushed the paper toward her, tapping on the only name I hadn’t crossed out the year before.
“So what do you think?”
Nani looked at me curiously, and then shrugged. “What do you think?”
Jayesh—Sharon’s cousin, science professor at university . . .
divorced!!!
DATE #6
He was surprised when I called him out of the blue—nearly one year after we had first texted. Through awkward small talk, I learned that Jayesh was still a general sciences professor at York University, still divorced—still unattached.
“What made you call after all this time?” he asked.
I paused, thinking back to the last time we’d messaged each other. After months of me being coy and postponing our first date—and right before that disastrous date with Rahul the vegan—Jayesh was the one who’d stopped texting me. Told me that if I wasn’t ready or didn’t want to meet, then he wasn’t going to force my hand.
“I’m ready to meet,” I said finally. “That is, if you still want to.”
He chose a sports bar near his condo in the Distillery District, and I gave myself ten minutes—and not a second longer—to explain myself. Jayesh’s eyes bulged at some parts of the story (lying to Depesh, my profile on IndianSingles.com) and laughed at others (the gay porn links on Nani’s browser history). It felt good to come clean, lay it all out there for someone who never knew the old me. So much had happened since Nani first gave me that list. My life had changed. I’d changed. And as we pushed past the small talk, I realized that what I wanted in life had changed, too.