A Promise to Keep

by Carter Tachikawa

  Chapter 3

  Oh Anwar, you're still a moron. You went to bed being a moron and you're waking up as a moron. It's the day of your date, dipshit. You called it that after all. Now poor Rachel Morgan might be thinking you have more than you want. What if she starts wanting more? Fabulous job.

  Those were my thoughts as I shuffled around in bed and got lost in the sheets. I felt like a fool thanks to last night. What started out as a brilliant plan went haywire thanks to my uncontrollable tongue and inability to think before I spoke. I hoped that Rachel did not take those words to heart. She seemed smart enough though. I could teach her everything about Hinduism and Indian culture. I feared how everyone would react if she wore a sari but what did it matter? We weren't really going to be husband and wife. She wasn't going to feed me hot meals or make me rotis or go to the temple with me. She would be there for the week and that was it.

  “Stupid dingbat twat - waffle.” I grumbled to myself. What had I done? I had woven some stupid story that was coming true but not in the way I wanted it. Damn Mary for not saying yes. Rachel Morgan might not have been a transsexual but something about her scared me.

  Rachel had just gotten off work when I went to her workplace. The restaurant she worked in was buzzing with people. I had never been in it before but it had to be popular based on all the customers. For four o'clock, the place was packed. I had a hard time picking Rachel out from the other uniformed waitresses. Even with her pink streaks, it was like looking for the wada in a dahiwada. I felt like all I saw was yogurt and no goody in between. This place was a sea of faces, arms, and legs. So I was relieved when she found me and took me over to a table where we could talk in peace. I quickly ordered a Coke while Rachel relaxed her shoulders and stared out the window. She yawned as I fiddled around with my straw and went for the free chips that came with every meal.

  “I woke up a little early this morning.” She explained, yawning again. “Don't think that I'm bored or anything. I'm just tired of running around all day, giving soup and salad to all the businessmen, and making sure that I didn't drop anything. Not to mention all the customers eating away at my ear while I'm trying to get their orders down. Had a lot of whining bitches as well. Have you had this issue?”

  I hadn't. I admired people who worked in anything to do with customer service. If it were me in Rachel's place, I knew I would have told a couple of those business suits off when they were complaining about flies in their soups or salads lacking in tomatoes.

  “I wish I could say I understand but I don't.” I said. “You're a brave woman for going through with this. Aurora is lucky to have you as a support system.”

  “Speaking of her, I'm sorry Rory and Dylan interrupted our meeting last night.” She apologized. “I had no idea they'd be back so early. Maybe I should have called you over earlier. Sorry that they interrupted us before we made any plans.”

  “Not a problem. I didn't really have much to say yesterday. But does the guy really have a tattoo of a woman with a penis?” I asked. Once again, verbal diarrhea. Gods, when are you going to come down and tape my mouth shut? Why is my curiosity getting the best of me? Yes, I wanted to know about the tattoo but not now! Dear Anwar, do the world a favor and never speak again.

  “Hell yes. He says it's because he wanted everyone to have something to look at.” Rachel chortled. “I've only seen it a few times myself but it looks great. The art, that is. I clearly don't care what the guy gets on his body as long as it looks good. Thankfully, Dylan found one of the better tattoo artists around here.”

  “Yeah, he did.” I agreed. I hadn't seen the darned tattoo myself but I took her word for it. I had no desire to check out the woman with the man bits unless Dylan started romping around and showing off his arms. Then, I would have no choice but to see it. “What about your sister? Does she want one and that's why he's trying to convince her to get the man with the man boobs?”

  Rachel burst out laughing at that. “Oh God, no! Rory fears those needles! Dylan is telling her that it doesn't hurt so much but she refuses. She wouldn't get anything besides her ears pierced. You can tell she's nothing like me.”

  Any idiot could tell Aurora was nothing like Rachel. Aurora was a living doll who was dating a guy that would probably beat me up if I said something stupid. I had to make sure I stayed quiet with Dylan unless he asked me a question. I was actually surprised that he was not the one dating Rachel. They seemed more perfect for each other while Aurora looked more like my kind of girl. Aurora was the girl that would not clog up my mother's arteries when she saw her. She had to be only a few years younger than me and looked presentable. Rachel, on the other hand, was a whole other job. It was like I was trying to turn a popular girl into a geek. It was a whole different Bollywood movie here. If we could sing and dance, we would. If cameras were rolling now, we would have a hit film. Everyone would go see this and we'd be filthy rich.

  But this wasn't the movies and there were no hidden cameras. We had no scenery changes or music playing in the background for us to lip sync to. I was stuck in real life trying to fend off my mother's demands with this heavily pierced, pink streaked woman. I had no idea how the hell I was going to reform her or make her into the perfect bride. From the looks of it, I didn't think she wanted to be reformed.

  "So tell me all I need to know about this culture." She said. "What do you do, what you shouldn't do, all that good stuff. I know I have to be respectful to my elders."

  "You have to do that pretty much everywhere." I said. "But yeah, be polite. Help my mother out if she needs it. Say please and thank you. That shouldn't be too difficult to pull off. The more difficult part will be teaching you about Hinduism and the rest of my culture. You had no idea who Lord Shiva was and I know my grandparents would grill you on that. Remember, he is the destroyer. Brahma is the creator and Vishnu is the preserver. That's essential."

  She nodded, trying to get the names together. I could tell she was working it all out in her head. "Is this the religion where you have to fling the woman into the fire after her husband dies?"

  Sathi? She was talking about sathi, which hadn't been practiced in forever? Poor girl was lost. "You don't need to worry about that. Sathi was stopped centuries ago. No one's going to fling you into a fire. Unless you screw up or do something horrible."

  "Christ! I better behave then", She looked worried. "What if I do screw up by accident?”

  “Relax. I was trying to make a joke.”

  “I figured as much but it doesn't make me less nervous. There seems to be a lot and I don't think it's all covered in Indian movies."

  "Oh, it definitely isn't covered by Indian movies." My mind went back to the desert fight between the two guys in white bell bottoms. The cacti flinging was nowhere as realistic as it could have been. And forget about all the dance numbers and scene changes during them. "Those are just there for entertainment. I promise you that people don't magically move from the Taj Mahal to the Sphinx while singing about their love lives and thrusting their hips. I'd gouge my eyes out if that happened right before me."

  She giggled. "Man, what kind of movies do you watch?"

  "Those are the movies my mother watches. I don't touch them. Anyway, why did you want to know about sathi? Did someone tell you that it still happened?" I asked.

  "No, it's just...well, Dylan was almost burned alive a year and it worries me now. That is one of my biggest fears. Buried alive and burned alive. One of Rory's boyfriend's expired in a wooden box, the other one was almost turned to ashes." She sighed. "I'm sorry. I've become a piece of chicken shit now after both those incidents."

  Buried alive. Almost burned alive. There was more to this girl's story than I thought. I wanted to ask about them but figured this was not the time. Jumping jelabis, I had to make sure she didn't bring it up with my mother right away. Taking her hand, I squeezed it and looked her in those big gray eyes. Rachel might not have been dollish like her sister but she was pretty. Up close and forgetting about the streaks and pie
rcings, I would have considered her to be gorgeous.

  "Don't worry about a thing. I'll make sure you're all right." I said.

  Just as I was making progress with my speech, I went back again and acted like a dippy fool. My promise came out like a vow. Make sure you're all right? I was no knight in shining armor. I could not slay dragons and save her from dungeons. I was a weakling, a basket case, and I would lose against anyone. Well done again, Anwar. There's a wall next to you. Proceed to bash your head against it, you kumquat.

  Rachel, on the other hand, didn't think there was anything wrong with what I had said. "You know something, Anwar? You're pretty cool. All the other guys I've been out with haven't been anything like you or Cal or Dylan. I used to get jealous of Aurora because of her boyfriends , but you're not so bad."

  Not so bad in comparison to a guy who peed on a stage and a leather chump. Fantastic. At least I was moving one step closer to them. But did I want to be where they were? I was no rockstar and I looked terrible in leather. Not to mention, I would probably be struck by lightning for wearing a sacred cow. So why on earth was I as cool as those two?

  "Speaking of Dylan, he asked about you last night." Rachel broke through my thoughts. Oh goody. Tough guy now had me on his mind. "He heard you say that your car needed to be fixed and wondered if he could do anything about it."

  "He fixes cars?"

  "Yeah. If you want, you can bring it over the next time he's at the house and he'll look at it." She suggested. "Unless you're scared of him."

  Me? Scared of the tough guy in leather who could probably stuff me into a chutney jar? Of course not! As long as I kept my babbling mouth shut, I would survive.

  "I'll let him take a look. Now we better get on with your teaching. We have a long way to go." I slurped down my drink and tried to start from the beginning. “Okay, how much do you know about Indian culture? I need to know the starting point and where to go from there.”

  “Well, I know what a sari is.” She said. “I know Hindu people don't eat beef, which makes me feel awful about asking you to stay for lasagna last night. I know you have many gods and a lot of them have , like , a lot of arms and legs.”

  “More like a lot of arms. I'm not sure there are any with a lot of legs.” I explained. “I'm taking you don't know them by names? My relatives would grill you on that to see if you would be willing to learn our faith.”

  “Not yet. You can teach me though.” She said, batting her eyelashes at me. Damn it! I knew my little vow of looking after her would come back to bite my ass. Now I had this pierced, pink-streaked hair girl flirting with me. “I know that the Taj Mahal is over there. I know that you guys have elephants and deers and peacocks and lions and tigers and bears.”

  “Oh my!” I exclaimed. “You are aware of the animals we have!”

  “I know India's a poor country too. You're overpopulated and poor.” She looked sad by that fact. She had no reason to. Everyone knew India was poor and overpopulated. “I know who Indira Gandhi was and Mahatma Gandhi and that you didn't get independence until August 15, 1947. I think that's as far as I know about history. Oh and the wife burning stuff. I'm glad to know that it doesn't happen!”

  “Nah, that ended way before we were born.” I assured her. “You won't be hurt or flame broiled or any of that crap. Not while I'm around.”

  “I'm glad to know that.” She reached over and took my hand. “You'll take care of me?”

  “You know I will.” I squeezed that hand and immediately regretted it. But it didn't stop my mouth from moving. “I'll protect you from the big, bad questions that may arise.”

  “Good.”

  Egads, why did that sound more romantic than it should have? Every single promise I made was turning out to be a wedding vow. I had to fake a bride, not actually get one. Yet there was something about Rachel that was appealing. Her curiosity was cute. I could tell that she wasn't faking this. She really wanted to help me. She wanted to get into Indian culture. I didn't know why but I liked her. It was a shame that she was not really going to be my wife. I was starting to get used to her and I think she would have been fun to hang around.

  Maybe it didn't have to end like this. Maybe there was hope for the two of us after all this was over. Maybe. Or maybe not.

  Maybe not.

  127

  Carter Tachikawa

  Chapter 4

  After our 'date', Rachel drove me back to her house as I explained the Mahabharata to her. While I was sure that there would be no questions about the poem itself, I knew that I had to tell her about the Bhagavad Gita. That was our version of the Bible after all and was found somewhere in the middle of the Mahabharata. It was the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna and I knew that Rachel would have no idea who either w as ere if someone brought it up. So I had to give her the gist of the whole thing.

  “It's really that long?” She began, driving down the road. I relaxed in my chair and tried to take in the scenery. It was a beautiful day with the sun in the sky but cool winds. No humidity was nice and the lack of rain was better. It wasn't exactly a day that I would spend explaining the Mahabharata to anyone but hell, I got stuck with it. I had to start somewhere and it only seemed to start with that. It had been around forever and I knew my relatives would want to know if she knew anything about it.

  “Oh yeah. Heck, a good chunk of it makes up the Bhagavad Gita. The conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna is our version of The Bible.” I explained. “Instead of Adam and Eve, we begin with Lord Krishna and Arjuna. But like I said, it's only a portion of the whole story. Shall I give you a gist or start from the beginning?”

  “The gist will be fine.”

  “You have to understand that this story is about two families: the Pandavas and the Kauravas.” I was saying as she eased down the road. I knew she was moving at the speed limit for my sake. She wanted to take in everything. “The Pandavas were five brothers whereas the Kauravas were one hundred and one; hundred boys and one girl. They were all born from the big gelatinous egg thing that came out of their mother and was split into 101 pieces.”

  “Oh, ew!” She exclaimed, almost slamming on the brakes and nearly getting us killed. I moved forward in my seat but the airbag didn't come out. Good. I wasn't ready to die before I got married. “Are you for real?”

  “Hey, that's how it's told. That's how it is with Indian people sometimes. Everything is possible to us. Anyway, the Pandavas were Yudhistira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva. They're all married to Draupadi because their mother had told them to share everything. So they share a wife.”

  “Holy crap! Maybe that's what you should do instead.” She suggested. “Share a girl with your brothers. Don't you think that would work?”

  “I don't have any brothers or sisters.” I explained. “That's why my mother is getting on my nerves about this marriage stuff. She wants to see her only child married happily and sending her some grandchildren to look after. Has your mother ever done something like that?”

  She slowed down at the traffic light as it turned red. “My mother passed away when I was sixteen actually. I have no idea if she would have done that.”

  Oh, hell no. Someone needed to put my foot in my mouth. “I'm sorry.”

  “It's okay. I haven't thought about her in a long time to feel sad. I feel worse for Rory. She barely remembers our mother because she was only four when we lost her.” She made a turn towards her street. “Keep going with the story though. You barely started. I want to know more about the gelatinous egg siblings.”

  “Right, I barely started.” I said, trying to muffle my laughter from hearing 'gelatinous egg siblings'. That was a new word for the Kauravas. “The whole story is about a war between these two families. Much of the poem describes what happens during that war and how the Pandavas won over the Kauravas. It's pretty detailed and I will tell you all about the crooked dice game, Krishna's involvement in the whole, the Pandavas relationship, and of course, the gist of the Bhagavad Gita. The
last part is the most essential. Once I've gotten through this epic poem, I'll tell you about the Ramayana. That one's a little shorter and easier to understand.”

  “Am I going to be quizzed on this?”

  “Not by me but maybe by my aunts and uncles.” I warned her. “That's why I'm letting you know the gist. I don't think they'll ask you about what these guys ate for dinner but they may ask you about the game of dice. Or who were the parents of these people. So remember, Pandu and Kunti are the parents of the Pandavas. Dhritarashtra is the father of all the Kauravas and was blind from birth and his half-brother is Pandu. His wife Gandhari gave birth to your 'gelatinous egg siblings' as you call them.” That made both of us laugh. “Oldest Kaurava is Duryodhana and oldest Pandava is Yudhistira. Now they were in a...”

  “Whoa, slow down!” She exclaimed as we came into the neighborhood. “I still can't put all the names together. Why the heck would your relatives try to quiz me on that?”

  “Cause they're my relatives, that's why.” I sighed as the house came into sight. In a way, I was glad that we were where we needed to be. I was going to have hell explaining the gist. I could tell. I had barely touched on anything. Hell, I didn't even tell her the child bearing issue that Pandu and Kunti had earlier and I knew she would get quizzed on that.

  “I think you better save that for a time when we're alone. Cause look straight ahead.”

  I saw just what she meant and my stomach went into knots. When we got closer to her house, I found Aurora and Dylan making out in the back of a convertible. Talk about PDA and seeing it at the worst time. Rachel parked the car and we got out, trying not to say anything about it. It was hard. I bit my lip to keep myself from saying something stupid. Now I believed that they were crazy about each other. Pictures did not do their relationship any justice. They both seemed to be happy as Rachel eased on up the driveway and honked the horn. They stopped and waved at us before going back to their make out.