“Get a room, you two!” Rachel cut off the engine and got out of the car. “You're going to make people sick!”
“Like you?” Aurora teased. “Dylan and I weren't doing anything harmful, sis. We were only kissing in the back of this car.”
“Only kissing? So where the hell did your leather jacket go, chump?”
Rachel turned to Dylan and I noticed that she was right. The guy wasn't wearing his leather nor was he wearing a shirt. He was shirtless while she was seconds away from taking her shirt and bra off. But that didn't bother me so much as what I saw on Dylan's arm. The tattoo. I finally got a glimpse of the infamous female with a penis tattoo. Rachel was right about the art being good. But the woman had a penis. She was naked with a penis. Leaping laddoos, the man had some balls and not just the ones inked on his arm. I secretly thanked all the gods in the Hindu religion that I had not met this guy earlier. If my mother saw such a tattoo, her arteries would clog up. My father would have chased him ten miles down the street for having something so obscene. My grandparents would pass away if they figured out what this was. The rest of my family would laugh, cry, or hide in a corner. If they didn't, then I would fear the questions that would arise. I made a mental note that, if Dylan showed up at our house while they were around, his arms would be covered.
“It's in the front seat. Don't worry.” He nodded at me. “Sorry about all that.”
“I'm not offended.” I said. I really wasn't. The guy could put whatever the heck he wanted on his body. The vampire spider on his chest was a little creepy but everything else was okay. He had a date on his shoulder blade, some blob thing on his stomach, and the number 3 on inside of his right wrist. They all had to mean something. Maybe not the chick with the nads but the others had to have some significance.
“I like your vampire spider.” I said, admiring the art of that tattoo. It was well done from the hairy legs to the blood dripping from its teeth. The colors weren't fading either so it had to be more recent than the woman with the gonads. “How old is that one?”
“Two years old. And thanks.” He nodded at me as Aurora handed him his shirt and jacket. As he got dressed, he kept talking. “You're the one whose car isn't working, right?”
“I'm about to dump the junk pile at the shop.” I sighed. “The brakes sound funny and I'm afraid to take it on the road in case I can't stop.”
“Then let me look at it.” He suggested.
“Dylan fixes cars.” Aurora said, beaming with pride. Yeah, sweetie, I figured that much out from his offer to look at it. She was treating this like he had won a marathon in under a minute or something of that sort. “If there's anything wrong with yours, he's going to find it. And you won't have to pay him much.”
Did I want to trust this guy with my car? That piece of junk was barely moving thanks to professionals. I didn't know how I would feel if I let Dylan look after it. Still, this guy might punch me in the head if I said no. I had seen his muscles and it looked like he could break me in half. If I didn't have to pay him much, it couldn't hurt to have him check it out.
I nodded so they both knew I wasn't going to forget this. “I'll think about it. Before you leave, get my phone number from me.”
“I'll do that.”
"Good to see that was resolved. I would love to stay and chat with you guys but we've still got work to do. Anwar just started telling me about the Ma...Ma..." Poor Rachel turned red when she realized she could not remember what it was.
"The Mahabharata?" I finished off.
"Yeah. I'm sorry, I'm trying." She mumbled, leading me into the house and the other two to finish their love making session. "Maybe it wasn't a good idea to start with that. Do you think there are movies of this? Or will I be stuck with memorizing all these names and facts that I know I will forget when I'm quizzed about them?"
It was like a brick of knowledge had fallen on my head. Movies! Why hadn't I thought of this before? I happened to have The Mahabharata on video and it was subtitled. There was no dancing or ridiculous songs or anything other than the story told straight forward. Stupid Anwar. Why didn't you think of letting the girl watch this in the first place? Time to find another way to make it up to her. And no, The Ramayana would not be any better even if the storyline was easier to follow. Teach her your customs. Teach her your religion. Teach her how to cook.
How to cook. Another brick of knowledge on my head. Duh, that was the best idea I had so far! Cooking was easy, it didn't require too much memorization (she could just look at the freaking recipe if she needed to), and it was a fun thing we could do together. But what to make? Sweets would take too long and I had no desire to make curry. Making chutney and achar weren't exactly fun times for people. Biryani and pulao would also take a long time. Maybe I could bring out the idli maker. Or make dosas. Or raita.
Raita! Great gravy, raita was the perfect dish for us to make! If any more bricks of knowledge fell on my head, I was going to pass out from my own genius.
"Do you by any chance have any plain yogurt and cucumbers in the house?" I asked, leading her into the kitchen.
She looked at me like I had about twelve heads and wasn't aware of it. "Yeah. Why do you want those things?"
"Because I want to teach you how to make raita." I felt pleased with myself then. Raita wasn't that hard to make and it wasn't one of those dishes with too many spices. It was cool and didn't involve a whole lot of cooking. With that, I was guaranteed not to burn her lips off.
"Sounds good to me...whatever it is." Unlike me, she seemed more embarrassed. Poor girl. I knew she wanted to get all this down , but I was pushing too much onto her at once. I had to slow things down. I motioned her to come to the fridge so I could explain this better. A demonstration would help her memorize this better. She could see how it was made and then later, when I felt she was ready, she could make it on her own.
"It's a yogurt and cucumber dish that isn't too complicated. Come on, you can peel me some cucumbers and I'll cut them up."
"Cucumbers, huh? Sounds like I can't go wrong with those." She went over to the fridge and pulled out the yogurt and the cucumbers. "Are you sure this will be enough?"
"Perfect." I nodded. "Wash up the cucumbers and I'll explain how we make this baby. You can tell Dylan that this is nothing like jelabis. It's not sweet or made of crack. I promise."
"What the heck are jelabis?"
"Those sugar pretzels that he mentioned. Only they aren't pretzels at all. They're sweets." I explained. "The next time I come over, I'll show you how to make them too. You can get packets of that stuff as well as other things. Indian stores sell this stuff these days along with lots of other stuff. Or I can bring some along and we can make them together."
"Why don't you show me at your house?"
That caught me by surprise and I almost stabbed myself with the knife. Way to drop a bomb on a guy holding a very sharp object close to his body.
"What do you mean?"
"I haven't been to your house yet. If I'm going to look for your relatives, I should at least meet your parents and get to know the place." She pointed out, still peeling the cucumbers. "Unless you're hiding something from me?"
Hiding something? What the hell did I have to hide, my collection of Taj Mahal related stuff? I was no chump or a liar. I had no secrets. If it was my house she wanted to go to, then my house was our next destination.
"You have a point. Why don't you come over next time? Don't know if you can see my father but my mother will be happy to meet you. She's been dying to know her future daughter-in-law. Ever since fortune tellers told her I'd get married late in my years, she's been hoping and praying that she'll live long enough for the engagement."
"Fortune tellers? You went to fortune tellers?"
"She dragged me to them. Not that I enjoyed it much. Half the time they were in India where it was a billion degrees outside and the fortune teller didn't have air conditioning, a fan, or even a pleasant breeze blowing outside. I smelled like the inside of som
eone's sweatshirt after a long day at the gym." I crinkled my nose. "It didn't help that some of those houses were made out of dried cow dung patties."
"Dried what the hell now?"
"Cow dung patties. People use it to make walls and for cooking. You can make a pretty good meal burning chunks of dried cow dung. That stuff burns fast and it actually doesn't smell when it's on fire." I said. She looked impressed by my knowledge so I had to ask her, “Did that gross you out or something?”
“Oh no! Don't think I'm being offensive because I'm not!” She went back to peeling the cucumbers. “I know you guys worship cows but I didn't know you used their poop. I guess you use what you can sometimes, right?”
“Yeah. In a country as poor as India, you have to do what you can and with whatever you have. It's pretty sad but it's the awful truth.”
“You do with what you can.” She repeated. “Kinda like what you're doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You're not ready for marriage but you can't get out of this situation. So you're doing this, pretending to be engaged, and hoping everyone backs off. Am I right?”
I nodded. “Never thought of it that way but you might be right.”
All at once, I felt guilty about the whole thing. Even though Rachel was in on the plan, I didn't like that I was fooling my family. The idea had been brilliant when Mary first suggested it. Rachel had been willing. I was willing. And now I had no desire to go through with it. It couldn't be because I was falling for Rachel. Her curiosity was cute and I loved how candid she was. She was listening to my every word and she watched me as I tried to show her how to make raita. We were having a splendid time as I tried once again to give her the gist of the Mahabharata.
But she couldn't have been the girl that all those fortune tellers were going about. She was not the R named girl. My mother was convinced it was an Indian girl. I was sure it would be an Indian girl. Rachel was still learning about my customs and ways of life. She couldn't have been the person they were talking about.
No, she definitely wasn't my future wife. No matter how badly I wanted her to be it ; , she wasn't going to marry me.
127
Carter Tachikawa
Chapter 5
The two of us finished making raita and I allowed Rachel to take the first taste of it. It turned out well for her first Indian dish. She seemed to agree and we washed it down with a few sweets left over from yesterday. She poured me a glass of Coke and we decided that our first attempt should be good enough to impress my family. The next time, I would only supervise as she recreated the dish. Rachel agreed that this was a good way to go about her cooking lessons. Bit by bit, I promised to teach her how to make more things like uttapam and biryani.
“I can't wait to go to your house.” She said, taking a sip of her drink. “Do you think your mother will like me? And do you think I need to take out the piercings?”
“It might be a good idea. My mother has seen people with piercings but she still doesn't understand why people get anything besides ears and noses pierced.”
It was true. Anytime she saw someone with a piercing in a place it didn't belong, she would ask me about it. After I explained the whole thing to her, she would click her tongue and shake her head and complain about young people having no discipline. If the person was far away, she'd go “Chee!” at them in disgust. At first, her complaints annoyed me but now I let them just roll by. It was a little more amusing to watch her do this. The best part was when she went 'Cheeee!' whenever she saw something out of the ordinary. It wasn't a quick 'Chee!' but a long one and her voice went about two oct a i ves.
“Okay then. I won't take out the navel piercing until you show me how to wear a sari.” She said. Then she saw my face go pale because I had no idea how to wrap a sari. I had never done it in my life. I had no desire to wear a sari. “Or she can show me. Relax, Anwar. All those wrinkles don't do your face any good.”
“I have wrinkles?”
“Only when you get worried.” She playfully punched my shoulder. “I enjoyed our cooking lesson today. Are you sure this is okay to let others eat?”
“Are either of us puking our guts out now?” I wanted to know. “We've tried it.”
“Um, no?”
“Then it's perfectly fine to let others eat this.”
“You're cheeky. I like that.” She took another spoonful of raita and swallowed. “Okay, that was good. I made something new and the house did not burn down. Rory would be pleased to know this. Hell, I am so proud of us.”
“And I'm proud of you.” I admitted. “So far, we got one thing down. Now , I don't know if I'll ever have time to teach you Hindi but my parents know English , and my grandparents will be able to understand whatever I translate for them. I can give you a few lessons but I don't think it will be enough to get a good grasp of the language.”
“Oh darn. And here I was hoping to confuse Aurora and Dylan by speaking a language they don't know.” She pretended to be disappointed. “You'll at least teach me a few phrases, won't you?”
“Sure. I'll teach you enough to get by.” I promised. “So what do you want to learn next? When you come to my house, I can teach you how to make butter chicken. Everyone says that I make a mean butter chicken. It's especially good with the naan bread that my mother gets from the Indian store...”
“Kiss me.” She interrupted.
Now that was one thing I never expected to hear. “I'm sorry?”
“If we're going to pretend to be in love, then we have to be affectionate with each other.” She said. “So maybe if you kissed me, we can slowly learn to get used to this. Otherwise, if we go in and aren't prepared, it's just going to look weird. You know what I'm getting at?”
I nodded slowly. “I think so. You want to get used to being affectionate.”
“Precisely. So what do you say? Let's practice some kissing?”
“I guess.” I shrugged. Rachel had a very good point. If she was going to be my fake fiancée, then I had to act like we were in love. Maybe the lack of kissing could work if she was Indian but she wasn't. She would want more and my parents would expect her to want more. So , kissing could not be harmful. It wasn't like she was asking me to strip down and make love to her in a car. Unlike a certain couple, we both had some dignity.
I felt her lips brush against mine and tried to kiss back. I had never seen my parents kiss before, at least not like this. I knew that people made out and gave tongue and all that. Hell, Aurora and Dylan were giving each other more than tongue and I wasn't disturbed. So why was I nervous about this? Rachel had a good point about getting used to being affectionate. She tasted sweet from the raita that we had eaten. I licked my lips and tried to do more than peck her lips. I was getting closer...close enough to smell the perfume on her neck...close enough to...
"Oh for fuck's sake, will you just put your tongue in her already?!"
That kept me from doing anymore and I pulled away. I looked behind me to find an audience. Dylan and Aurora were watching us, smirking and waiting to see if I would succeed. Rachel rolled her eyes and looked over my shoulder at them. Great. I had my own voyeurs who wanted to see if I'd get naked. Well, sucks to be them. My pants were still on. I wasn't like those two, making out in the back of a convertible, and ripping off my shirt so the world could see all those black spots and scars that I had. I didn't have lady with a penis tattoo but I had a feeling my skin problems would be worse.
"What do you two want? I thought you were having sex in the back of a car." Rachel said.
"We were. But you guys never came out to try and stop us so we got curious." Dylan said. "Normally, you threatened to make me eat my balls if I did anything bad to your sister. I got no threats so I figured something must have happened. And damn, something is happening."
"Nothing is happening!" I exclaimed, doing my 'gotta pee' dance. “This is quite nothing, yes! Nothing nothing nothing! We were just practicing how to kiss! We're not actually kissing each other, you kno
w. It was a practice run here! Yes yes yes!”
“So you weren't locking lips with my sister five seconds ago?” Aurora asked.
“Well, I was doing that but...it was for practice.” I admitted. “We were just practicing how to act towards my family when I take her to my house. I mean, this is not my house, it belongs to my parents. I'm just here to see my relatives and then I'm going back. They want to know all about my marriage to her but it's not really a marriage, you see. We're just pretending to be engaged but we are not really engaged. But that kiss...”
“Dude, I just wanted to know what was going on.” Dylan cut me off. “I didn't need your life story. Though I have to admit, you need to finish it. What are you and Rachel doing anyway? I'm trying to figure it out and I can't.”
“Uh, it's complicated.” Rachel covered for me. “I'll tell you one day, leather chump. Right now, we're still figuring it out ourselves.”
“Yeah, sure.” Aurora said. “Look, we were going to watch some of Cal's old performances and were wondering if you two want to join us.”
For a second, I had forgotten who Cal was and then I remembered the picture. Not the one of Aurora with her cream cheese hands but the other one. That one was a nice one, the one that I though t was the more recent one. I was having a hard believing that this guy was a performer. I remembered Rachel talking about him peeing on a stage and I still couldn't picture it. Yet , they were all waiting for an answer.
“Sounds like fun.” Rachel said. “I haven't seen Cal in so long and I think seeing him pee on stage will loosen everyone up. Especially you, Anwar. What do you say?”
I knew I had no choice so I had to say yes. Besides, I was curious about the peeing on stage deal. It was grotesque yet intriguing. I wanted to know how wasted this man had been to pull off that crap. More importantly, I wanted to see everyone's reaction.
“I guess I can stay for a few songs.” I said. “Mary's coming to pick me up in an hour. And I think our lesson for today is done. Now Rachel knows how to make raita and the next time, she can make it for me while I supervise.”
A Promise to Keep Page 5