“Uh-huh.”
Could I really pull this off? Posing as an arranged fiancée, using a smattering of my rusty Hindi, immersing in a culture I hadn’t been a part of since my family had moved to the States when I was three. Though I was half Indian, spending the bulk of my life in New York had erased my childhood memories of the exotic continent that held little fascination for me. Sure, Mom told stories about her homeland and continued to whip up Indian feasts that would do a maharajah proud, yet it all seemed so remote, so distant.
It hadn’t been until I’d become friends with Rita, who worked at Bergdorf’s in accounts—and who gave me a healthy discount once we’d established a friendship—that my latent interest in my heritage had been reawakened.
Rita had intrigued me from the start, her sultry beauty, her pride in her culture, her lilting singsong accent. She encapsulated everything Indian, and though my life had temporarily fallen apart thanks to the Toad—my penchant for nicknames resonated in this instance, considering Tate was cold and slimy—the opportunity to travel to India and help Rita in the process had been too tempting to refuse.
“You sure this Rakesh guy doesn’t know what you look like?”
“I’m sure.” Her smug smile didn’t reassure me. “I’m not on Facebook and I Googled myself three times to make sure there were no pics. You’ll be pleased to know I’m decidedly un-Google-worthy. As for the photo my parents sent before they left… well, let’s just say there was a little problem in transit.”
“Tell me you didn’t interfere with the U.S. Postal Service.”
“’Course not.” Her grin widened. “I tampered with the Muthu Postal Service.”
“Which means?”
“Mom gave Dad a stack of mail to send. He was giving me a ride, and when he stopped to pick up his favorite tamarind chutney I pilfered the envelope out of the bunch.”
“Slick.”
“I think so.” She blew on her nails and polished them against her top, her ‘I’m beyond cool’ action making me laugh. “Besides, we look enough alike that even if he caught a sneak peek at some photo, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Luckily, I had cosmopolitan features that could pass for any number of backgrounds: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or Mexican. Few people pegged me for half Indian, not that I’d played it down or anything. In a country as diverse as the U.S., an exotic appearance was as common as a Starbucks on every corner.
“I like your confidence,” I said, my droll response garnering a shrug.
“You’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say.” I twirled the stem of my cocktail glass, increasingly edgy. “Even if this works, won’t your folks fix you up with another guy?”
“Leave my parents’ future matchmaking propositions to me.” She snapped her fingers, her self-assurance admirable. “If they try this again, I’ll pull the ‘I’m your only child and you’ll never see me again’ trick. That’ll scare them. I would’ve done it now but they’ve planned this Grand Canyon trip for a decade and I would’ve hated seeing them cancel it, and lose a small fortune, over me.”
She paused, tapped her bottom lip, thinking, as I inwardly shuddered at what she’d come up with next. “Though I do feel sorry for them, what with Anjali being their only living relative, which is why I pretended to go along with this farce of marrying Rakesh in the first place.”
“You’re all heart.”
She punched me lightly on the upper arm. “You can do this.”
“I guess.” My lack of enthusiasm elicited a frown.
“Here’s the info dossier. Keep it safe.”
She handed me a slim manila folder, the beige blandly discreet. Welcome to my life as a 007 sidekick. Halle Berry? Nah, I’m not that vain. Miss Moneypenny? Not that old, though considering the time I’d wasted on Tate, I was starting to feel it.
“My future as a single woman able to make her own life choices depends on it.”
I rolled my eyes but took the folder. “I know everything there is to know about the Rama family. You’ve drilled me for a month straight.”
“Okay, wiseass. Who’s the father and what does he do?”
I sipped at my mojito and cleared my throat, trying not to chuckle at Rita’s obvious impatience as she drummed her fingernails against the armrest. “Too easy. Senthil Rama, musician, plays tabla for Bollywood movies.”
“The mother?”
“Anu. Bossy cow.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Rita’s crimson-glossed mouth. “Sisters?”
“Three. Pooja, Divya, and Shruti. Watch them. If the mom’s a cow, they’re the calves.”
Rita’s smile turned into a full-fledged grin. “And last but not least?”
“Rakesh Rama. Betrothed to Amrita Muthu, New York City girl shirking her familial responsibility, besmirching her Hindu heritage, shaming her mother, disappointing her father, embroiling her best friend in deception—”
“Smartass.”
Rita threw a silk-covered cushion at my head, and thanks to the four mojitos I’d consumed my reaction time slowed and it hit me right between the eyes. Reminiscent of the lapis lazuli paperweight I’d thrown at Tate as I slammed out of his office that last time. Pity my aim wasn’t as good as Rita’s.
Her scheme might be crazy but I knew I was doing the right thing. India would buy me some thinking time about what I wanted to do with my life.
I dribbled the last precious drops from the mojito jug into our glasses and raised mine in Rita’s direction. “To Bollywood and back. Bottoms up.”
…
“Oh. My. God.”
Shielding my eyes from the scorching glare of Mumbai’s midday sun, I ran across the tarmac like a novice on hot coals, seeking shade in the terminal yet terrified by the sea of faces confronting me. How many people were meeting this flight?
A guy jostled me as I neared the terminal, my filthy glare wasted when he patted my arm, mumbled an apology, and slid into the crowd. I wouldn’t have given the incident a second thought if not for the way his hand had lingered on my arm, almost possessively. Creep.
I picked up the pace, ignoring the stares prickling between my shoulder blades. Were the hordes ogling me, or was that my latent paranoia flaring already? There’s the imposter—expose her.
I battled customs and fought my way through the seething mass of humanity to grab my luggage from the carousel. Caught up in a surge toward the arrival hall, culture shock took on new meaning as men, women, and children screeched and waved and hugged. On the outskirts I spotted a woman holding aloft a miniature Statue of Liberty, like Buffy brandishing a cross to ward off the vamps.
I’d laughed when Rita told me what her aunt would use to identify herself at Mumbai airport; now that I’d been smothered by a blanket of heat and aromas I didn’t dare identify, jostled by pointy elbows, and sweated until my peasant top clung to my back, it wasn’t so funny.
I used my case as a battering ram as I pushed through the crowd toward the Statue of Liberty. I’d never been so relieved to see that lovely Lady and her spiked halo.
“Namaste, Auntie,” I said, unsure whether to press my palms together in the traditional Hindi greeting with a slight bow, hug her, or reel back from the garlic odor clinging to her voluminous cobalt sari.
She took the dilemma out of my hands by dropping the statue into her bag and wrapping her arms around me in a bear hug. “Shari, my child. Welcome. We talk English, yes?”
Holding my breath against the garlic fumes, I managed a nod as she pulled away and held me at arm’s length.
“That naughty girl Amrita didn’t tell me how beautiful you are. Why aren’t you married?”
Great. I’d escaped my mom’s Gestapo-like interrogations only to have Anjali pick up the slack. I mumbled something indecipherable, like ‘mind your own business,’ and smiled demurely. No use alienating the one woman who was my ally for the next two weeks.
“Never mind. Once this Rama rubbish is taken care of, maybe you’ll fall in love
with a nice Indian boy, yes?” Anjali cocked her head to one side, her beady black eyes taking on a decidedly matchmaking gleam.
I don’t think so! I thought.
“Pleasure to meet you, Auntie,” I said.
Rather than quiz me about my lack of marriage prospects she beamed, tucked her arm through mine, and dragged me toward the exit where another throng waited to get in. “Come, I have a car waiting. You must be exhausted after your flight. A good cup of chai and a few ladoos will revive you.”
Uh-oh. The sweet-stuffing tradition had begun. Ladoos were lentil-laden balls packed with ghee, Indian clarified butter designed to add a few fat rolls in that fleshy gap between the sari and the choli, the short top worn beneath. Mom’s favorite was besan ladoos and I remembered their smooth, nutty texture melting in my mouth. Despite my vow to stay clear of the sweets, saliva pooled and I swallowed, hoping I could resist.
Exiting the terminal equated with walking into a furnace and I dabbed at the perspiration beading on my top lip as Anjali signaled to a battered Beamer. “My driver will have us home shortly.”
I didn’t care if her driver beamed me up to the moon, as long as the car had air-conditioning.
While Anjali maintained a steady stream of conversation on the way to her house, I developed a mild case of whiplash as my head snapped every which way, taking in the sights of downtown Mumbai.
Cars, diesel-streaming buses, motorbikes, bicycles, and auto-rickshaws battled with a swarming horde of people on the clogged roads in a frightening free-for-all where it was every man, woman, and rickshaw driver for themselves.
The subway on a bad day had nothing on this.
Anjali—immune to the near-death experiences occurring before our eyes—prattled on about parathas, my favorite whole-meal flatbread, and her Punjabi neighbors, while I gripped the closest door handle until my fingers ached. Our driver, Buddy (Anjali had a thing for Buddy Holly and thus dubbed her man-about-the-house Buddy, thanks to his Coke-bottle glasses), maintained a steady stream of Hindi abuse—at least I assumed it was abuse, judging by his volume and hand actions—while his other hand remained planted on the horn.
Pity I hadn’t held onto those earplugs from the flight. Would’ve been handy to mute the Mumbai melodies. I squeezed my eyes shut for the hundredth time as a small child darted out after a mangy dog right in front of our car. On the upside, every time I reopened my eyes, something new captured my attention. Fresh flowers on street corners, roadside vendors frying snacks in giant woks, long, orderly lines at bus stops. Bustling markets and sprawling malls nestled between ancient monuments.
Amazing contrasts—boutiques and five-star restaurants alongside abject poverty, beggars sharing the sidewalks with immaculately coiffed women who belonged on the cover of Elle, smog-filled streets while the Arabian Sea stretched as far as the eye could see on the city’s doorstep.
When Buddy slowed and turned into a tiny driveway squeezed between a row of faded whitewashed flats, I almost missed the frenetic Mumbai energy that held me enthralled already.
“We’re home.” Anjali clapped her hands. “Leave your luggage to Buddy. Time to eat.”
As I followed Anjali into the blessed coolness of her house, my hands shaking from the adrenaline surging through my system, I had an idea. Maybe soaking ladoos in white rum and lime juice would counteract the calories?
My very own Mumbai Mojitos.
Take a bite, get happy.
Eat two, get ecstatic.
Eat a dozen, get catatonic and forget every stupid reason why I’d traveled thousands of miles to pretend to be someone else.
Great, perpetuating this scheme had affected my sense of humor, along with my perspective.
Hoping my duty-free liquor had survived the road trip from hell, I perked up at the thought of my favorite drink (to be consumed on the sly as Rita reminded me a hundred times, in case I forgot I wasn’t supposed to drink while impersonating her) and climbed the stairs behind Anjali, trying not to focus on her cracked heels or the silk sari straining over her ample ass.
“Hurry up, child. The ayah has outdone herself in preparing a welcome meal for you.”
Wishing I had a housemaid-cum-cook back home, I fixed a polite smile on my face as Anjali launched into another nonstop monologue, this time about the joys of grinding spices on a stone over store-bought curry powders. While she chatted I surreptitiously loosened the top button on my jeans in preparation for my initiation into India’s national pastime—after cricket, that is.
“I hope you enjoy your curries hot, Shari. Nothing like chili to put pep in your step.” Anjali bustled me into a dining room featuring a table covered with enough food to feed the multitudes I’d seen teaming the streets earlier. “Eat up, child. Men like some flesh on their women. Perhaps that’s your problem?”
With an ear-jarring cackle, she proceeded to show me exactly how attractive men must find her by heaping a plate with rice, Goan fish curry rich in spices and coconut milk, baigan aloo (eggplant and potato), chana dahl (lentils), pappadums (deep-fried, wafer-thin lentil flour accompaniments resembling giant crisps), and raita (a delicious yoghurt chutney).
Had she noticed I hadn’t said more than two words since I arrived? If so, she didn’t let on, happily maintaining a steady flow of conversation while making a sizeable dent in the food laid out before us. With constant urging, I managed to eat a reasonable portion of rice and curry, leaving room for the inevitable barrage of sweets, wondering if I could sneak up to my room for a fortifying rum.
However, like most of my dreams in this world, it wasn’t to be.
“Excuse me, Missy.” Buddy shuffled into the room, his dusty bare feet leaving faint footprints on the polished white tiles. “There’s been an accident.”
Rather than looking at Anjali, Buddy darted glances at me with frightened doe eyes.
“Spit it out, man. What’s happened?” Anjali spoiled her attempt at playing the imperious master standing over her servant by stuffing another ball of rice into her mouth with her curry-covered fingers and smacking her lips.
Buddy stared at me, panic-stricken. “It’s the missy’s bottles. They broke. Leak everywhere.”
“Bottles? What bottles?” Anjali paused mid-chew, her plucked eyebrows shooting skyward.
I rarely swore. In fact, the F-word made me cringe. However, with my stomach rebelling against the onslaught of food, my nerves shot by the drive here, and my secret duty-free mojito stash now in ruins, all I could think was fuuuuuck.
…
I wanted to sleep in the next morning but Anjali didn’t believe in jet lag. She believed in breakfast at the crack of dawn.
“Eat more, my girl. Idlis will give you strength for the day ahead.” She pushed the tray of steamed rice cakes toward me along with the sambhar, a lentil soup thick with vegetables.
Not wanting to appear impolite on my first morning here, I spooned another idli onto my plate and ladled a sparrow’s serving of sambhar over it. “What’s on for today?”
“I’ve planned a grand tour of Mumbai especially for you.” She held up a hand, fingers extended. “First stop, the Gateway of India.”
One finger bent.
“Second, a boat cruise on the harbor.”
Another finger lowered.
“Third, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Then Mani Bhavan, at the home of Mahatma Ghandi.”
She waved her pinkie and I hoped our last stop included shopping.
“And finally, we eat at my favorite restaurant.”
The thought of more food turned the idlis to lead in my stomach, and I edged my plate away. She didn’t notice, her face glowing with pride, like a kid who nailed a test. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was more interested in Mumbai’s malls than cultural icons.
“Sounds good.” I injected enthusiasm into my voice, but it wasn’t enough to distract Anjali as she eyed my plate and untouched idli with a frown.
Thankfully, Buddy entered the dining room and Anjali clapped her
hands. “Time to go.”
Relieved, I followed her to the car, thanking Buddy for holding open my door as I slid onto the back seat. He shuffled his feet in embarrassment but I caught the flicker of a bashful smile before he slipped behind the steering wheel. He’d been mortified over the duty-free bottle breakage, but what could I do? Confess to a secret alcohol stash? I’d brushed over the incident last night, citing special clear coconut juice I’d brought from the States before hiding the broken glass and condemning labels deeply in the trash. That’s all I needed, for some nosy neighbor to out Anjali for secretly swigging alcohol.
As Buddy tested his Angry Birds skills—people were like the game app birds, seemingly flinging themselves at our car—I swallowed a curse. Oblivious to my morbid fear of inadvertently killing one of the many pedestrians jamming the sidewalks and spilling onto the road, Anjali stared at my hands, where I clutched at the worn leather.
“That’s a lovely ring.” She pointed at the ruby. “From someone special?”
“No.” I released my grip on the seat to twist the ring around, wishing I didn’t love it so much. Definitely not from someone special.
She didn’t probe, her curiosity snagged by my watch. The gold link and diamond TAG had been a gift to myself with my first paycheck at Tate’s law firm, a splurge I’d justified at the time by saying I needed to look the part at an upmarket practice, when in reality I’d wanted to impress the boss who’d already made a pass at me during the first two weeks.
“That a gift, too?”
Jeez, who was she, the jewelry police?
“A gift to myself.”
Needing a change of topic fast, I pointed out the window. “That’s the third cinema we’ve passed in a few blocks.”
She craned her neck for a better look. “Nothing unusual. We’re the movie capital of India, so there’s a multiplex cinema on every street.”
Bare-Naked Lola (A Lola Cruz Mystery) Page 25