Satish smiled at Claire and leaned over to kiss her gently on the lips. “You are the most intelligent woman I have ever met. You’re also the most beautiful.” He reached out and tucked her wild curls behind one ear. “Remember how badly she wanted to move into the dorms?” He chuckled. “When I was finally ready and realized you and I needed to be alone, she changed her mind and said the dorms were too distracting.”
She laughed. “I remember how you called me to tell me to start looking for a house immediately and that you wanted her on a different floor than our bedroom. I probably have to thank her for that—I may have never dragged you to Hoboken, otherwise.”
“You want to thank her for years of dampening our relationship?”
Claire leaned over to him now and pressed her lips against his ear; she cheekily stuck in her tongue before she whispered, “I wouldn’t exactly call it dampening. Would you?”
Satish laughed and cupped her head with his hands, pulling her to his lips. “I don’t think anything could dampen you, my dear. Now that she’s finally out of the house, I realize how much I’ve been missing. I want more.” He kissed her deeply. “You know I think you’re right about Nandita. Perhaps my pushing her only reminds her of our father and has the opposite effect than intended. Perhaps I need to let her make own mistakes and just focus on you and me. It would be such a relief.”
A loud knock on the driver’s side window made them both jump. A car was pulled up next to them with the window rolled down. “Are you leaving?” yelled the passenger. Satish shook his head, and the guy gave him a disgusted look. They needed to move along.
Claire was pleased to see that the last few minutes had calmed Satish considerably. She reached down and grabbed her purse from between her feet. “As much as I would like to continue to prove how much you’ve been missing, we have your sister to deal with, remember?”
Satish groaned, “Do we have to?”
“Yes, we do. Listen, babe, no yelling, okay? Let’s just hear what they have to say and we can go from there.”
Satish nodded grimly and opened his door. “Don’t expect me to be nice to him.”
35
Ravi – The Mistake
Ravi was trying to make coffee in silence. He cringed when the tin of grounds crashed against the counter as he popped the lid off, and he ran the water super slowly to mitigate the gushing sound. It didn’t work.
Tammy wandered out of her bedroom in skimpy pajama shorts and an orange Princeton University t-shirt, rubbing her eyes and scowling. “You do know it’s 5:30am, right? Is coffee an absolute necessity?”
“Sorry, Tammy, I didn’t mean to wake you. I was trying to be quiet.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t succeed.” She pulled a chair out from their kitchen table and fell into it. “You can give me one of those, but work faster.”
Ravi hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours. He had dutifully gone to his bed at 11pm for the last two nights and lay there until 5am when he had finally given up and gone to make coffee and read. He hadn’t spoken to Nandita since he had told her to go back to India, and he knew he'd made a terrible mistake. He'd texted her and called her—he’d even stopped by her apartment and pounded on the door—but she was ghosting him. You could do a lot of thinking in forty-eight hours, and oh, had he thought.
He finished making the coffee while Tammy put her head on her arms, which she'd folded on the table in front of her. She was repeatedly yawning with dramatic flair.
“Okay, I get it: you need coffee! Here you go,” he said, putting a mug in front of her after a particularly showy yawn that included outstretched arms and a semi-yodel.
“Thanks, babe! Now, what’s up with my Ravi? It can’t be problems with classes, because we don’t have any, and it can’t be your educational future, because that’s all settled to our satisfaction. Are you having boy problems? If you are, why do you never speak to me about any of it? I could help, you know?”
Ravi considered carefully. Could she help? He cleared his throat. “I might be. How could you help?”
Tammy perked up with his response—either that or that first sip of coffee was super-powered. She stood and started pacing the kitchen. “Well, that’s easy. First, you tell me what’s happening, and then I dig into my mind-palace, which I've stocked full of every kind of experience with every kind of man you could think of—mostly the stories of others, you understand… I’m a monogamist—and then I relay these experiences to you in such a way that a bright blue bolt of inspiration and epiphany crashes down on your head and you know exactly what to do, and all your problems are solved! Hit me!”
“I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Tammy nodded at him like a sage. “Haven’t we all? Go on.”
“I’ve pushed away the only person I could imagine spending the rest of my life with, and now this person won’t speak to me.”
She came back to the table, grabbed her coffee, and continued her pacing. “Okay, and how did you push him away?”
“It’s complicated,” he said, turning away from her. All that pacing was making him dizzy.
“Isn’t it always? Explain.”
He sighed. “Okay, but it’s confusing, so listen carefully. At the end of the school year, a friend of my parents’, let’s call him X, emailed me out of the blue and asked me to do a job for him. He wanted me to persuade someone who had left India to go back for good. Initially, I said no. I didn’t know the person, and I had no reason to help X, but he blackmailed me. He said he had some information about my parents that he could release, and it would ruin them—something about laundering money. He showed me some bank statements with my parents' names on them. It was from an Indian bank and it had this crazy balance. I know my parents don’t have that kind of money, so X had to be telling the truth.”
“Did you ask them about it?” Tammy asked. “Did you ask them where that money came from?”
“Look, I know you have that kind of relationship with your parents. I mean, you talk about money all the time. You have to—you have tons of it. I couldn’t ask my parents a question like that, though. It’s just too personal.”
She shook her head at him in disbelief, but continued, “So, what did you do?”
“I agreed to do the job. I thought it wasn’t a big deal and was better to be safe than sorry. I had some savings, so I decided to take the summer off. It seemed easy.”
“It turned out not to be?” Tammy guessed.
“Well, I had to get to know this person. If I was going to be the one to persuade them to go back to India, they had to trust me. So, I had to build a friendship. X kept emailing me details of their whereabouts, addresses, times, and everything. I don’t know where he got them, but I used them to get closer to this person. I got closer, all right, and I fell head-over-heels in love.”
“Ah-ha!” Tammy swung toward him with her finger in the air. “This is the guy you pushed away, then—the one who won’t talk to you.”
He rolled her eyes at her. “You’re some kind of mad genius.”
She grinned at him. “I know, aren’t I? So, I guess you told this guy to go back to India? Can’t you just tell him you changed your mind?”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that easy. I found out through X that this person is seeing someone else. It’s serious, apparently. I want to talk about it, but this person is ghosting me—they’ve disappeared.”
“Ah.” Tammy moved to the table and sat down. “Does he know how you feel?”
“I’m not sure, and I’m hiding the whole X thing. Plus, there are a few other secrets I’m keeping—some important details this person should know. I planned on telling them, but I just hadn’t worked up to it yet.” His phone on the table dinged, and he looked down at the notification. It was him! “It’s X,” he said to Tammy, and she perked up even more, practically bouncing in her seat.
“Open it! It might be important! He might tell you where he is!”
He opened the email and stared at the subject line: You
Must Cancel the Plans You Made with Her Today. The coffee rolled in his stomach and he felt a wave of nausea. What plans? Don’t read it, he scolded himself. You are done, remember? You are finished with this game.
Tammy was hovering over his shoulder. “Read it out loud,” she said, tugging on his hair to get his attention.
He read, “1pm at Medittera? If you think you can get away with this, you have lost your mind. She wants her brother to meet the fiancé. Satish must not see you—you must not see him. I have the papers that incriminate your parents ready to release. Stop now.”
Ravi stared at the message. He read it a few more times to make sure he was deriving the correct meaning from this confused jumble of words. Nandita wanted them to meet her fiancé today? That last rubbish email had been real and not the assumptive ramblings of an old man? Well, it wasn't him she was meeting, as the old man thought—he hadn’t spoken to her in two days. Was this Hank guy her fiancé?
Tammy had jumped up from the table and started pacing again. She was so pumped with energy that she hadn’t even commented on the word “she” in reference to his person. She must not have noticed. “So, I don’t know what all that means, or who this Satish person is—you can explain that later—but here's what's important: he’s going to be at Medittera today at 1pm. You have to go and find out what’s going on with this other dude! You have to tell him everything—it’s your only chance. Your happiness depends on it, right?”
At this moment, Ravi wasn’t thinking about happiness. He was stuck on the word “fiancé.” He nodded at Tammy, but felt the surge of a new emotion: anger.
What was happening? He'd spent the last two days struggling with his deep regret for deceiving Nandita through his omissions, but apparently she'd been doing much worse. She had another relationship? She’d let him love her without stopping him, even though she loved someone else? What kind of person was she? How could he have been so misguided? Well, it figured. It was Nandita Bhatt they were talking about, after all, the master of betrayal. He'd refused to believe what X had told him about her for so long, but now here it was, staring him in the face. She had betrayed him.
Mediterra at 1pm, huh? Let’s see if Nandita Bhatt can answer my questions face to face.
36
Claire – The Collision
Satish seemed a lot calmer than he had been on the drive. Her hand rested comfortably in his and their clasped fingers swung between them. She couldn’t believe he'd said it was time to let Nandita go! She was a lovely, smart, and driven girl, but unfortunately she viewed every effort at providing guidance as an effort to control her instead. Satish had to get over that and just let her make her own mistakes.
Since Nandita had moved away from their townhouse in Hoboken, Satish had gotten a taste of what life would be like without having constant responsibility for her. They'd been in Heaven, so far, basking in the seemingly endless minutes that were now available to focus exclusively on the two of them. They had always had an extraordinary connection, but now Claire felt it getting deeper. She loved her future husband with every particle of her being.
When they turned the corner to Mediterra, Claire instantly recognized the broad back of the man pacing the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. She gripped Satish’s hand harder and quickened her pace. “There he is!” she said, pulling him forward and willing him to remain calm and friendly. “Hank!” she called out. The man didn’t acknowledge her call, but the traffic was kind of loud. “Hank!” she called louder, but there was still no response.
Claire pulled Satish across the street and put her hand on Hank’s elbow. He turned around, a distant smile on his face, and then took a hurried step backward, the smile gone.
“Hank?” she said. “It’s us, Satish and Claire. It’s so good to meet you.” She turned to Satish, planting an elbow in his side to will him to speak while still smiling at the now white-faced, Hank.
When Satish didn’t say a word, she looked up. She expected to see one of two expressions on his face: a blank, generic smile to hide his anger, or the look of anger, itself. She blinked when, instead, she found his brow furrowed and his mouth slightly open. He looked as though someone had just asked him to explain the causes of the Battle of the Zulus. History wasn’t his best subject.
“Satish?”
As he pointed directly at Hank, his brow furrowed deeper. “Do I know you?” he asked.
Hank was acting strangely. He had started pacing again and kept shooting glances at the restaurant window. She followed his stare to Nandita.
Satish turned as well, and they all stared at the table about three rows in from the window. Nandita was there, seated at the table with a middle-aged man. She didn’t notice them watching her as she was deep in conversation, laughing at something the man had said. She wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin; her red lipstick smear visible even from here.
Claire turned back to Hank. “Is that your lawyer, or something? Did you bring him here to finalize things?”
Hank stopped pacing, and his eyes got wide and worried. “Finalize things? What things? What’s Nan doing with that old guy?”
Satish was completely out of it. He turned back to Hank, as though he hadn’t just witnessed his twenty-three-year-old sister having a date with a pot-bellied accountant. He pointed at Hank again, “I know you, don’t I? Where do I know you from?”
Claire turned to Satish now and smiled at him gently. “How would you know Hank, babe?”
Hank spoke, “He doesn’t know me, and why are you calling me Hank?”
“Your name's not Hank?” Claire asked.
Not Hank threw his hands in the air. “Who the hell is Hank, and who’s that guy in there with Nandita? Did she tell you? I have a right to know.”
Claire turned back to look into the restaurant. Nandita and the guy who looked like an engineering manager had their heads in their menus now. She pointed. “I guess that’s Hank, her fiancé.”
“How can that be her fiancé when she never mentioned she was dating someone else?” Not Hank seemed close to tears now, and he paced the sidewalk again.
Satish still had a permanent look of confusion, but when Claire had pointed to Hank and said the word “fiancé,” his dark face had gone as white as a sheet. “That’s her fiancé? He’s twice her age, isn’t he?”
“Not quite, but he’s getting there,” said Not Hank.
Claire and Satish turned to Not Hank and said together, “Who are you?” Not Hank didn’t have time to answer, because at that moment, Nandita came flying out the front door, Hank close on her heels, and came to a screeching halt in front of Not Hank.
“What are you doing here?” She was trying to keep her voice down, but she got steadily louder with each word she spoke through clenched teeth. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her sides, as though someone had pinned them there. Claire had never seen her this angry.
Not Hank’s face flushed an angry red, and he stood over Nandita and stared down his nose at her defiant stance. “I came here to ask why you are such a liar,” he spat.
Claire looked around her. Luckily, there weren't any pedestrians, as they were making quite a scene.
“I’m not the liar!” Nandita spat back. “You are! I’m not the one who pretends to have feelings for someone and makes other people have feelings back when they don’t even mean it!”
Hank’s hand hovered at Nandita’s elbow, but Not Hank reached out and swiped it away. “Well, I’m not the one who doesn’t tell the person who LOVES her that she’s dating someone else behind their back!”
Her voice didn’t lose its angry edge, but tears spilled down her cheeks. “Well, I’m not the one who told the person who LOVES him that they should PISS OFF to another country.”
“Nandita!” Satish chided, surprised by her language. It was as though he wasn’t even there. In fact, it was as though no one else in the world was there.
Not Hank dropped his hands to his sides and went quiet. The entire group went silent, and alon
g with some curious bystanders who had started to gather, they all just stared at Nandita and Not Hank, who stared at each other, their chests heaving with emotion. Claire shared a glance with Hank, who looked distressed, but just shrugged. She glanced at Satish, who was once again staring at Not Hank with a frown. Finally, Not Hank took a step back from Nandita, but he didn’t break his gaze.
“You’ve broken my heart” he said before turning on his heel and walking away.
37
Nandita – The Departure
Nandita watched Ravi’s retreat and then turned to Satish and Claire’s surprised faces before bursting into sobs. What terrible bad luck that he had been walking on this street at this time. She had been stunned when she’d looked up from her menu and seen Satish and Claire talking to him. Why were they talking to him? She had stood with haste, her chair scraping loudly against the Spanish tile flooring, and rushed outside. Hank must have followed, because here he was next to her, putting one arm around her shoulders and patting her forearm awkwardly.
“There, there, Nan. Don’t be upset. We can fix it” Hank said.
Satish stepped forward, and for a minute, she thought he might knock Hank’s arm away. Claire was there, however, seconds later, with a calming hand on his shoulder. “Excuse me. Who are you?” Satish said.
Hank released her shoulder and took a step to the side, holding his hand out to Satish. “You must be Satish. My name is Hank Flemming. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
Uncharted (Jersey Girls Book 3) Page 16