Well, I was annoyed too but I didn’t want to sound like a bitch so I let it go even though the photo did not look like they were working.
The witches of Macbeth didn’t show any sympathy, either.
“You chose to tread an unconventional path, people are going to speculate. People always speculate about the Singh Frasers.” Minnie seemed very proud of the fact. She and Deven were of the opinion that any publicity was good publicity.
It was useless to chastise Naira because she was in equal parts stricken about it, abjectly humiliated and severely apologetic.
“I didn’t think Vinay would take it this far. Or, involve you and Neal.”
I couldn’t understand it, either. “Why would your own brother-in-law start such rumors? First he takes those paintings. Now this. This family feud is getting a little out of hand.”
“A little?” Naira laughed unpleasantly.
“I think,” I said, watching her rub her belly around and around and around. She’d developed acid reflux of late. Apparently, it was a common pregnant woman ailment. “You need to tell me everything. No holding back. No protecting your family or getting embarrassed. We need to figure out if there’s any legal action we can take to stop him.”
“We can’t sue. It just doesn’t work like that in India,” she echoed Neal’s sentiments after she’d spilled the whole tale, and cried buckets while telling it. “Also, Vinay and his cronies have already filed cases against me. If I sue him, it’ll just turn into a he-said-she-said disaster that will go on for years.” She sighed tiredly. “I don’t know if he’s really in trouble like he claims, or if it’s just a ruse to gain control of my money. But irrespective of it, I can’t give it to him. I won’t.”
“Of course, you can’t give in to blackmail. Like ever.” In that, we were in sync. Which meant I’d just have to go blind, deaf and dumb about the rumors.
Naira nodded, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “Paris, there are things Kaivan has done, that I endorsed...some knowingly and some unknowingly...that you won’t approve of. I can’t tell you about it, but just trust me on it, okay? It’s what Vinay is holding over my head. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”
Well, shit. What was I supposed to say to that? Not for the first time it crossed my mind that I may have made a huge mistake with the Big Idea. In more ways than one.
* * *
A few days later, the gossip rags suddenly ceased their nasty speculations and overnight we became old news. Neal had obviously seen the light after our conversation and shut the rumors down. I took it as a sign that we both were on the same page and the same side again, until he dropped another bomb between us. During Sunday brunch of all days!
Lily and Rachel arrived wearing the frozen smiles of the recently Botoxed. Naira cooked while we showed them the most recent 3-D ultrasound pictures of the twins. The Merry Widows of White Plains were beside themselves that the family would be blessed with another set of twins. There was much hugging and tearing up, and rolling of my eyes heavenward. Then there was gushing over Naira’s cooking. She had Lily and Rachel eating out of her hands both literally and figuratively.
“This is delicious. What’s it called again? And you made it from scratch? No, really?”
“It isn’t that great,” I mumbled around a mouthful of pav bhaji, which was nothing but mashed vegetables on toast. All right. The dish wasn’t that simplistic, but it wasn’t fancy, either.
Overjoyed that she’d found two more foodies at the table, Naira bounced around serving seconds—and in Neal’s case third helpings—to everyone.
“Be careful with the masala food,” I warned the old ladies. “You don’t want heartburn.” But who listened to me anymore?
The conversation at the table leaped from bairns to brunch menus at baby showers to Fraser Bespoke. Naira and Neal babbled on and on about what was going on with the stores. They’d narrowed down retail spaces, vendors, collaborating brands...blah blah blah.
Naira and Lavinia had decided to have their combined baby shower at my apartment—they had gone over my head and asked Neal, and he’d agreed it was a good idea since I was the one who wanted to conserve costs. Drat it all. So now, I was officially the baby shower host. However, I’d made it clear I didn’t want anything to do with the planning and/or prepping. And it was their demise if they asked me to choose between Bun-in-the-Oven burgers and Who-Baked-My-Potato jackets.
Are you getting the picture? Suddenly, being the crusader of justice wasn’t as big of a deal as being a domestic balabusta who cooked and sanctioned rabid consumerism while baking twins in her tummy, altruistically for her best friend, and still found time to plan and execute her own baby shower. I felt so inadequate all of a sudden that I decided right then that I’d increase my caseload and volunteer at RiM every single evening for the rest of my life. At least that way I’d be spared the aggravations of coming home to domestic scenes such as this.
Abject inadequacy was not a good look on me.
And that was when my husband did his shifty-eye business where he was sort of looking at me and yet was not, setting off a red alert in my gut. Danger, danger. You will not like what he says next so shut your ears!
“I’m thinking we should start house hunting, aye? Somewhere within easy commute of the city, so ye can get to work without trouble. Perhaps one of those quaint little towns in Westchester County? Ye’d like that too, won’t ye, Lily? If we moved a bit closer?”
Lily would loooove that. Me? I was about to blow a gasket.
At first, I thought he was being funny. Then he spoke about how bairns needed space to run amok like he and his siblings had on the Riverhead Estate.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t mind tromping through the heather myself. My creativity is getting stifled in the city. There’s no room to breathe here. We can get some dogs.” He paused to wink at me roguishly. “Some sheep.”
What? Since when did he feel stifled?
“Can you imagine me on a farm in the boondocks? Ha, ha, ha!” I fake-laughed, praying damned hard that Neal was kidding.
Naira seemed as dumbstruck as I was. I was gratified by her reaction. She knew me. She knew that planting a hard-core city girl like me in the middle of nowhere was nothing short of a disaster of epic proportions. But Lily, who’d known me for twenty-odd years and had dealt with many of my issues firsthand, didn’t think much of my bucolic woes.
“Thirty minutes out of the city is hardly a farm in Montana, Pari. Oh, I have an idea! What if you join the US Attorney’s Office in White Plains instead of the Southern District of New York? Speak to Rina Wesley, bubbala. She’s the state attorney general and my good friend,” Lily explained, sotto voce, to the table at large. “I’m sure she knows if there’s a position available for an assistant US Attorney. It would save you a long commute and allow you more time at home with your family,” she finished happily, her Botoxed face shimmering.
Neal’s eyebrows had shot up at the beginning of Lily’s speech, but now he frowned at me accusingly. Oops. I still hadn’t told him of the job offer. And when was I supposed to have told him? In between tabloid drama and baby shower madness? We waited until everyone had left before having a full-blown fight.
“Why didn’t ye tell me about the new job?”
“I’ve just applied. I may not get it. And when should I have told you? When you’re flying all over the world? Or when you’re running amok deciding our future? Deciding where we will live? How many dogs we’ll have? You better have been joking about the sheep.”
“Ye had to know this was coming. This place was temporary, to wet our feet. I need more space. I can’t have my office here and a studio somewhere else. It doesna work like that for me.” He stalked into the kitchen after clearing the dining table and took the sponge I was using to wipe the countertop from my hand and threw it in the sink.
He was in a temper, was he? Wel
l, so was I.
I washed my hands under the single handle faucet. “So get a bigger apartment in the city. It’s not like you can’t afford it.”
“Paris, we’re having twins. We need space.” He threw his arms out like Jesus Christ on a cross. “Lots of bloody outdoor space.”
“At least, let them be born before disrupting our entire lives. Naira could just as easily...” I bit my tongue before saying what I’d been about to.
But Neal heard my unspoken words anyway. He took a step back from me, his eyes wild. Shocked. Afraid.
“Ye want her to lose the...?” He broke off too, unable to voice the horror.
Did I want that? I knew only that I’d started something and now I wasn’t sure I wanted it anymore.
“No. Never. I don’t want her to miscarry. God, I’m not cruel. But I’ve been thinking...a lot since I was approached for the AUSA position. I’ve been thinking that if I do apply, and I do get it, it would mean longer working hours. Some travel. Plus, I want to commit to this project with Right is Might. And bloody hell, domestic situations should not be the reason I either choose or not choose a job. I have goals, Neal. Just as you do. Why am I expected to give mine up when I don’t even want children?”
“I’m not asking ye to give up anything,” he said gruffly. He was looking at me as if he’d never seen me before.
I sniffed. “Really? Let’s say we move to this wonderful fairy-tale castle in Westchester. You travel all the freaking time. Some months, you’re gone for two to three weeks because you have events and shows back-to-back. Who will have to take care of that castle when its master is rubbing shoulders with celebrities? Me. Who will be taking care of your bairns when they have colic and...and chicken pox? Me. Who will have to set her job aside to do all of that? Me.” I poked a finger into my chest to emphasize every point I made.
Oh, he did not like my tone at all. Neal drew himself up to his full six-foot-two-inch height and looked down his nose at me.
“No, lass. Ye willna have to change anything in yer life. If I’m not around, Naira will be. If she’s not around, then the baby nurse will be there, as ye so thoughtfully jotted down in the agreements. And if neither of them are around, I’ll hire a goddamn au pair...five of them...but yer schedule will no’ get disrupted.” His Scots always got broad when he was angry.
He stalked off into his office, and I was left standing alone in the kitchen, wondering what I’d just done. By three in the morning, when Neal hadn’t come to bed, I realized he wasn’t going to apologize this time. And we weren’t going to have out of this world makeup sex. And that freaked me out almost as badly as being saddled with a goddamned castle in Westchester.
chapter twenty
Naira
Lavinia and I began to spend a lot of time together. The baby shower loomed just a little over three weeks away, and we had plenty of details to finesse, from final menu to favors to shopping for decorations and paper goods. It all went quickly and without arguments as we were mostly on the same page about things. Karen came along sometimes. She’d stepped into the role of a semi-doula for us as she’d been through all of it so recently, and all her recommendations had been on point so far. An added bonus was her five-month-old baby, Thomas, who was simply a joy to be around.
The outings were such a marked difference from the time I spent with Paris, who seemed to have forgotten how to smile. Still, I felt it was my duty to ask her—even force her to come with us whenever possible. I was the one pregnant with whacked-out hormones. I was the one who was supposed to have highs and lows, but for some reason, I was experiencing all the highs since my second trimester, and Paris all the lows. I was getting very tired of her constant grouchiness.
That evening was the same. She came into the party goods shop with a frown and it hadn’t lifted from her face even once. Clearly, I was a masochist for trying so hard.
We didn’t know the twins’ sexes, and neither did Lavinia—by choice—so the shower had to have a neutral color palette by default. We were debating between dotted or striped ribbon for the favors when I felt a distinct quickening in my belly. My babies were waking up. I laughed because the whole experience was just so wonderful, so amazing every time they somersaulted inside me.
I rubbed my belly in soothing circles. “Hello, my little dancers. Do you have a preference between dotted or striped?”
I’d begun talking to them. So had Neal. But not Paris.
“They’re dancing, huh?” Lavinia smiled the smile of a Madonna.
She was a little over twenty-four weeks pregnant, while I was exactly halfway through my gestation at twenty weeks. She’d been feeling movements for a lot longer than me.
I nodded happily. Then I looked at Paris, felt a flash of irritation. She stood away from us in a section of the baby store where dozens of baby mobiles were on display. But was she looking at them? No. She was tapping away into her phone. Here and not here at all. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to take her hand and place it on my belly. But I knew she wouldn’t like it.
I pushed back from the ribbon-strewn table and stalked—erm, waddled to her. I was determined to break through her nonsensical kid-repellent theory. She wasn’t even making an effort to change. I grabbed her hand and pressed it against my belly. Of course, she snatched it back as if she’d been burned.
“They’re playing inside. Feel how amazing it is.” I reached for her hand again.
“What the hell, Naira?” she growled, hiding her hands behind her back like a naughty little girl.
I snapped. “What is the matter with you? You can’t be as disinterested as you’re pretending to be. You are going to be a mother whether you like it or not. You have to get past your issues, Paris. We... You have two beautiful babies on the way. Your life is no longer your own.”
Karen and Lavinia rushed up to us. They’d been doing a lot of refereeing.
“Calm down, you two,” Lavinia ordered.
“I am calm. She’s the one who’s got a bee in her bonnet.” Paris stared daggers at me.
I was breathing hard. My stomach felt tight. Upset.
“Naira, take a deep, deep breath in. And a long, long breath out. Modulate your breath like Linda showed us. Reeelax.” Linda was our prenatal yoga and Lamaze coach.
I did my deep and long yoga breathing, wondering why I was trying so hard when Paris just didn’t care a whit. And why should I feel guilty for caring too much? Enjoying the pregnancy too much?
It was good I was there for our babies, and that Neal was so insanely excited about them. It would have to be enough.
In the taxi on the way home, Paris turned to me. “You told me once that you’d rather do something you didn’t like and bitch about it, than not do it at all and drown in guilt and regret forever. Do you remember?”
I frowned, remembering. It was when my father had forced me to go all the way to Queens to attend a religious function hosted by some person he barely knew at the Hindu temple. It had been on an evening before a major test. Nothing is more important than our standing in the community. Certainly, not your silly tests or degree.
I’d gone to keep the peace. Paris hadn’t understood why I wouldn’t defy my father. Why I gave in to him so much. To me, my father had fulfilled my ultimate dream by allowing me to come to New York to study. The rest I could and would deal with. “Garnished with a pinch of bitching,” I’d added cheekily.
“This is me bitching,” Paris said now.
I couldn’t believe she believed the two situations were similar.
But, she’d been right about the kid-repellent theory. Twice I forced her to touch my belly when the twins performed womb acrobatics and both times as soon as she did, they would go quiet.
* * *
I needn’t have worried about any external pressures from Vinay Singhal or the media affecting my health. My own body became a threat to the babies.
I was already big by the time my sixth month rolled in. I was carrying twins who seemed intent on emulating their tall father and curvy mother in terms of size and weight. Moving about was getting a wee bit difficult, and I’d been restricted to climbing the two flights up to Liam’s flat to just once a day. So, I began to spend my afternoons at Paris and Neal’s.
That day, I had an urge to eat moong daal shira, a sweet dish that took a long time to cook as you had to slowly roast and stir the split green grains in a skillet until it smelled just right. My craving for sweet hadn’t abated at all despite the laddoos I was eating. Halfway through the cooking, I felt a twinge in my abdomen. I didn’t brush it off as gas because I’d felt something like it when I’d miscarried. The next spasm, which came ten minutes later while I was on the phone with the doctor, was worse. Far worse.
Dr. Kapoor told me to stay calm and that it was probably the Braxton Hicks contractions, but I should drop by the clinic just in case. I called Paris but she didn’t pick up. She was in court. Neal wasn’t at home, either. He was in midtown, meeting a client who wanted an engagement ring designed, but he picked up the phone on the first ring. I told him not to come back to pick me up as he was already in the vicinity of Dr. Kapoor’s clinic.
He met me below the building as I got out of the taxi, his lips white, his blue eyes awash in panic. I burst into tears then. I’d been holding it together only because I’d been alone, and the babies were depending on me to be sensible.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I kept apologizing, but I didn’t know to whom. To Neal or the babies or to the universe in general for the many bad things I’d done? But I was trying to atone. How could karma punish the babies for my mistakes?
I gasped when the pain intensified as Dr. Kapoor pressed my belly with one hand while running an ultrasound probe over it with another. I closed my eyes and practiced the Lamaze breathing. Deep breath in. Long breath out. It did not bloody work! I began to pant.
The Object of Your Affections Page 27