by Sonali Dev
Mili plugged her ears and shook her head.
Ridhi smiled. “We’ll drive to his new place. Then as soon as Ravi’s parents get their visa and come down from India we’ll get married and this nightmare will be over.” Her smile suggested it wasn’t so much a nightmare as the adventure of a lifetime.
But it didn’t feel like an adventure to Mili. She was terrified of turning it into a nightmare. She had never been able to lie outright so there was no question of letting Ridhi tell her any specific details. Because if Mili knew something and Ridhi’s family found Mili, she didn’t know how she would keep them from tracking Ridhi down. And there were two things Mili would never ever allow to happen—one, she would not be deported before her course was done; she had worked too hard to get here, and two, she would not be the reason for messing up a love story. Because although Mili had never known what having your love returned felt like she had been in love for as long as she could remember.
She had prayed for her husband’s success and safety every day of her life. She had fasted at every Teej festival so he would have everything he ever wanted. She had dreamed of him and yearned for him and although she tried really hard not to care about having those feelings reciprocated, she believed in love with all her heart. If Ridhi was lucky enough to be loved back, Mili would do everything in her power to make sure it didn’t slip through Ridhi’s fingers.
Samir did a quick rollover and maneuvered himself to the top. It wasn’t easy. He was still inside her. But he could tell from the look on Neha’s face that she was going to say it. Fuck. Tangled in his eight-hundred-thread-count sheets, with that spent, thoroughly pleasured look on her face, she looked like a fucking schoolgirl, dying to spill her secrets.
If he moved fast enough, he might still get away. He shoved his palms into the bed, trying to push himself off her.
She moaned and wrapped her legs around him, trapping him in place. “I love you.”
Fuck.
The words hung in the air between them like claws poised to dig into flesh. Why did they do this—every single one of them? Why did they have to ruin a perfectly good, perfectly mind-numbing fuck this way? Why?
He manufactured a smile. But it came moments too late. Her face deflated, her legs slid off him and the dreaded wetness rose in her eyes and pooled along her lids.
He yanked himself out of her, slumped on his back, and closed his eyes. The crumpled condom flopped against his thigh. He needed to get cleaned up but that would have to wait. This wasn’t going to be quick. It never was.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Her voice was so small. If he were capable of guilt he’d have drowned in it. But all he could muster was raging restlessness. He wanted to kick himself. He’d missed the signs. Again. Letting Little Sam do his thinking for him had to stop.
Although Little Sam was very happy right about now. Neha had turned out to be even better than he’d expected. The perfect combination of a hot body, up for anything, and a cool heart that didn’t get in the way and make things messy. It had been almost like finding a female version of himself. Until now.
“I said I love you, Sam.” A nasal whine slipped past her practiced huskiness.
Samir made the effort not to wince. He propped himself up on his elbow and faced her. His biceps, his delts, his pecs responded to the studied move and bulged obligingly. Neha’s eyes followed the movement, lingering hungrily on skin still slick with massage oil and sweat. Little Sam stirred.
“I mean like really love-love you.” Her words were a full-blown accusation now.
The stirring stopped dead in its tracks. No, you don’t. You really love-love what we just did. But telling her that would dial up the drama and Samir saved the drama for his films.
Women never accepted horniness for what it was—horniness. He’d never understand it. Why had he thought she’d be different? With all that ambition a commitment should’ve been the last thing on her mind. Where were all those users the film industry was supposed to be full of? Why couldn’t he find himself one for a change?
He placed one finger on her lips, using all his strength to keep his impatience out of his touch. He had to get on with his day. He was going to hear back on the Shivshri Productions project today. It could be the biggest fucking day of his life. Or the worst fucking disappointment. And he had no idea which it was going to be. Just like now. Fucking story of his life.
“Shh, sweetheart. Don’t. You know how much I like you. But I would never—”
“You like me?” Dear God, could she please dial down the nasal. “We’ve been together six months, Sam. Six months! And you—you like me?” She shoved him hard and sat up, clutching the silken cotton to those lovely breasts.
He let his eyes turn smoky—sincere, willing to sacrifice his own needs for her. “Listen, baby, look at you. They’re calling you the next big thing. You can go all the way to number one. You know that. I would never take that from you.”
The anger flashing in her eyes diffused a little.
“You know how it works. Now’s the time to focus. Producers won’t touch you if they think you’re settling down. You think I don’t want all your attention? I’m a man, Neha, you think this is easy for me?”
He must’ve done the hurt look really well because the stubborn set of her jaw softened. She stroked his face. He pulled her fingers to his lips. “I won’t do that to you. I won’t be responsible for letting you waste all that talent.”
“You’re Sam Rathod—being with you can’t possibly damage my career.”
“I’m Sam Rathod—a fling with me is great publicity. But if they even suspect a long-term relationship, producers won’t touch you. I’m the Bad Boy, remember? I’m trouble with a capital T. You’ve just had your first hit. It’s a huge one but you know this business. You can’t lose your focus if you want to get to the top.”
“I don’t care, Sam. I never thought I’d feel this way about anyone. I don’t care about success, about being number one. All I want is to be with you.”
Holy. Fuck.
Indian women and their need to go all domestic on you. Once they got into that space there was no reasoning with them. The familiar click that signaled the end of his patience snapped in his head. He pushed himself off the bed and dumped the condom in the trash. He swept up the robe laid neatly on the leather recliner and belted it around his waist. “Listen, Neha, can we talk about this later? It’s a big day for both of us.” He turned around and headed toward the double doors, caressing the carved panels salvaged from the ruins of the Jaipur palace, letting the solidity of the five-hundred-year-old wood calm him.
“Sam!” Neha called after him.
He ignored the panic in her voice. “Eggs okay for breakfast?” He grabbed the post that held up the spiral staircase and spun himself onto the stone treads. He loved this staircase, loved the unencumbered openness of it. He’d spent weeks with the architect getting the lines just right. He flew down and landed with practiced ease on the marble floor.
He heard Neha get off the bed upstairs. Heard her scream and come tearing out of his room. He spun around just in time to duck away from the ceramic vase that came flying at his head. It missed by an inch and crashed against something behind him. Good, he’d been wanting to get rid of the ugly-ass housewarming gift for years. But if anything happened to one of his paintings, he was going to kill her.
“You bastard,” Neha shrieked as she rushed toward the railing-less staircase, tangled up in his sheets like a careening Venus de Milo.
“Shit, Neha. No!”
Before he knew what was happening, she tripped. Her body twisted around the fabric and toppled sideways onto the stone stairs. One end of the sheet hitched on the top step as she fell over the edge and rolled out of the sheet like Cleopatra rolling out of the carpet. He ran to her but didn’t make it. She landed on her face with an ungodly thump, the white sheet flapping like a flag over her motionless, naked body.
“Neha! Fuck, Neha?” He fell to his kn
ees next to her, his heart hammering. A trickle of blood seeped from her mouth and Samir thought he was going to vomit.
“Neha?” He stroked her face. She coughed, opened her visible eye for a second, mumbled something, and then closed it again. Thank you, God. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here. You’re going to be fine.”
He flew up the stairs, grabbed his cell phone and their clothes and ran back down, pulling on his jeans with one hand and punching the number for the ambulance with the other.
A busy signal. Fuck.
He dialed his doctor and prayed for better luck.
“Sam? What’s wrong? It’s six in the morning,” a groggy voice answered.
“I know what the fucking time is,” Samir barked into the phone, pulling his T-shirt over his head. “Neha fell down my stairs. Long story. She’s conscious, I think. Can you get to the clinic?”
“Yeah. I’m leaving now. See you there.”
He rolled her over, being as gentle as he could. “Neha, sweetheart?”
She moaned. With quick movements he dressed her, keeping up a steady stream of words. A house full of servants and today there wasn’t a soul to help. But he always gave his staff the night off when his girlfriend slept over. His housekeeper’s granddaughter lived in his home, and Neha wasn’t exactly the kind of person who could handle a child like Poppy.
He lifted Neha’s limp body and carried her down to the building lobby. His driver wouldn’t be in until eight. He was going to have to drive himself. Except he found a ten-ton water tanker blocking the building gates. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Get the damn tanker to move. Now!” Samir yelled at the watchman and headed for the car.
The man fluttered about like a headless chicken, opening and closing his mouth, and did absolutely nothing.
“What?” Samir snapped.
The watchman jumped back. “Sir, the tanker driver went off to get some chai.”
This day just got better and better. “Go get a taxi or a rickshaw. I need to get to a doctor.” Samir raised Neha higher, just in case the nitwit had missed her, whimpering and half-conscious in his arms.
The nitwit didn’t move.
“What?” Samir snapped. The man jumped back as if Samir were about to put Neha down and tear him limb for limb. “What?” Samir gentled his voice.
“Sir, today is the thirteenth.”
“So?” It took all Samir’s strength not to shout. He wanted to shake the guy until his teeth rattled.
“Sir, it’s Mumbai shutdown. The opposition party has called for a citywide public transport strike. No taxis. No rickshaws. No nothing.”
“Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.”
Neha convulsed in his arms. The watchman made a squeaking sound and mopped his forehead with his elbow.
Without another word, Samir walked past him, past the chugging driverless water tanker blocking the gate, and stepped onto the dusty, dug-up street. The roadwork had been going on for over six months. The good news was that Mumbai didn’t wake up until eight a.m. The street was isolated. Samir pulled Neha close and started to run.
4
Mili loved the mile-long walk from her apartment to her office in Pierce Hall. Truth be told, she loved everything about Ypsilanti, the quiet university town in Michigan she had called home for four months, except maybe the tongue-twister name. She loved the neat roads, the redbrick facades, the rolling expanses of lush green grass. But most of all she loved the wide-open blue sky with perfect white clouds that looked like they had been drawn with a crayon.
Back home in Rajasthan the sky was a more purple blue and the clouds were more feathery brushstokes than distinctly etched curves. And yet it was the sky that eased Mili’s ache for home. Ypsilanti was the only place other than Balpur where she had seen so much sky. In Jaipur the buildings lining the lanes cut the sky in half. As for the few days’ worth she’d seen of Delhi and Mumbai, you’d have to fall over backward to get even a glance of sky through all that concrete.
As she neared Pierce Hall she had the strangest feeling, not quite as if she were coming home but as if she were going to a dear friend’s house. She swiped her card in the reader and took the half flight of stairs down to the basement. The musty old wood scent filled her nose. Everyone in the office complained about the smell. But the painted timber pillars that lined the open courtyard at the center of her grandparents’ house had this exact smell. Mili had spent so many afternoons with her cheek pressed against a pillar while her naani dispensed advice to the village women that the smell was infused with all the warmth of her childhood.
The office was empty. The rest of the graduate assistants and the professors who ran the Applied Research Unit wouldn’t start to arrive for another thirty minutes. But it was Tuesday and on Tuesdays Mili came in early to use the office phone to call her naani. She used her own calling card of course and she had cleared it with Jay Bernstein, her boss. She hung her mirrorwork sack on the coat hanger and dialed the number. Her naani would be waiting at the village post office for her call. Naani had steadily refused to have a phone installed in her house. “There’s no one I want to talk to whom I can’t talk to on the face,” she always said. And now her granddaughter had run off where she could no longer talk to her “on the face.”
“Did you eat your dinner?” Always the first question.
“Yes, Naani.” Except it had been breakfast.
“How much longer before you come back home?” Always the second question. “He called, you know?”
Mili pulled the phone away from her ear and groaned. “No, Naani, he didn’t. No one is going to call.” At least not yet. But she was here and she was going to make something of herself, make herself so worthy no one in their right mind would turn her away. And then she’d call him, instead of waiting. Maybe.
“He’s going to call. You mark my words,” Naani said with so much conviction Mili wondered what scheme she was cooking up. “Have I ever been wrong?”
“No, Naani, you’re never wrong.”
“Do they feed you well? I’ve heard horrible things about hostel food. The other day at the Delhi University hostel thirty students died because a lizard fell into the dal.”
“There’s no hostel, Naani. I told you, I have a flat and a kitchen of my own.” No point mentioning that soon she wouldn’t have a roommate. If she told naani she lived alone, her grandmother might not need to pretend a heart attack like she’d done when Mili had decided to leave for college in Jaipur three years ago. She would have one for real.
“How much does dal cost there? The price of dal went up to eighty rupees a kilo yesterday. And unless you’re rich you can’t even think about onions, let alone put them in your mouth.”
Mili hadn’t eaten dal in four months. She had seen a bag of dal marked “yellow split lentils” in the grocery store last week. She had picked it up and held it to her cheek when no one was looking. But it cost twelve dollars, so buying it was out of the question. She practically lived on potatoes. French fries cost a dollar in the union. And chocolate was really cheap too.
“It’s a good thing onions give you gas then, Naani. Are you taking your blood-pressure medicine on time? Are you making sure you don’t eat too much salt?”
“Hai, what’s the point of living like this? Don’t eat salt, don’t see your granddaughter. Take care of myself at my age when I raised an able-bodied granddaughter with an able-bodied husband. An officer no less.” Naani started to sob and Mili had to squeeze her nose to make sure she didn’t start.
“Naani-maa, please. It’s just another four months. Before you know it I’ll be back to take care of you.”
“Your naani-maa will die in that time.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll outlive me.”
“Hai hai. Let the witch take your tongue. What a horribly inauspicious thing to say. Let your enemies die. Is this what they teach you in that America?”
“I’m sorry, Naani, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s been fifteen minutes. I can’t talk anymore. I�
��ll call again next Tuesday, okay?”
Naani let out another sob. “Go, go, learn your books. Make me proud.”
This was why Mili came in half an hour early on Tuesdays. It would take another fifteen minutes for the tears to stop. Every time she spoke to Naani, Mili had an overwhelming sense of having run away from her duties. Did everyone who left their country feel this way—ground between the millstones of courage and cowardice? Or was it just her?
Mili often wondered if other people felt the same way about things as she did. She was perfectly aware of the fact that there was nothing normal about her life. Even in her village, she was the youngest girl to have been married. And she had to be the only girl on earth who had no idea what her husband looked like after twenty years of marriage. She had never left her village until she was twenty years old, except for a school trip to New Delhi when she won an essay contest at fifteen. And until she was twenty-four she had never even left her home state of Rajasthan.
College in Jaipur had opened up a whole new world to her. A world where girls competed shoulder to shoulder with boys in the classroom without apology. And here in America her classmates wouldn’t even understand what that statement meant. There was no fear in the women here. None at all. And Mili loved that. Sometimes when she watched them in class, the way they stood, their spines erect and proud, their chins up, their laughter loud and unencumbered, she wanted the women at home to have what they had. And she wanted it so badly it made tears burn in her eyes.
No, no matter how much it hurt to hear Naani’s sobs, being here felt too right to be wrong. And this was only going to bring her closer to what she wanted, what Naani wanted. Mili was sure of it.
“I’m not running, you bastard, and that’s final. And don’t fucking give me that look.”