by Shilpa Suraj
“Let’s go.” With a smile, she tugged at his arm and led the way out before the outraged couple behind them could spew any more abuse their way and ruin a perfectly wonderful moment.
They were still laughing when they finally stepped out of the foyer and into the open night air.
“Did you bring your car?” Vivaan asked.
“No, I came by cab.”
“I can drop you home,” he offered. “It gives me time to say what I came to say.”
“No, Vivaan. I can’t. I’m supposed to meet Arjun for dinner.”
The laughter and smiles of a moment before vanished at her reply. For a moment, he just stared at her in silence. Then he shrugged.
“Okay. I’ll just say what I came to say here.”
“Vivaan-“ Her heart beating uncomfortably fast, Alisha tried to stop him only to find herself interrupted.
“Let me say what I have to say and then I’ll leave okay?” He took her ice cold hands in his, slowly chafing the fingers to warm them up.
An unconscious gesture that stole another small piece of her heart. At this rate, he was going to take all of her and leave her with nothing.
“You’re not just more. You’re everything,” he said, “Everything and more. We have something special between us. I don’t have a name for it yet. It’s new, it’s exciting, it’s incredible and most importantly it’s something I’ve never felt before. Not with anyone. Ever."
He took a deep breath, rubbed a hand against his heart before continuing, "I look at you and I’m in awe. Of the person you are, of the life you’ve built, of the struggles you’ve faced alone and most importantly of the huge heart you have that beats for your family and friends with a passion, loyalty and a rock solid sense of responsibility. I want to be one of them. I want to be one of your people. I want to be THE person in your life. I want the chance to be for you what you are for everyone else. Give me the chance to be your more. Give me that chance, Alisha. Please?”
Alisha’s breath caught. She tried to get a word out but the emotion choking her wouldn’t let her. Swallowing hard, she opened her mouth only to be interrupted by the harsh jangling of her phone.
“That’s probably Arjun,” he preempted anything she was going to say. “Take the call and meet him for dinner.”
“He’s said yes to marrying me.” Her whisper carried like a bell through the otherwise noisy cacophony of traffic.
“But you haven’t.” He waited till she met his eyes before saying, “As yet.”
“Go have dinner with him,” he repeated. “See how things go, think it through and decide. There’s no wrong choice here. He’s a great guy, Alisha. If you choose him, he’ll be good to you. Good for you too.”
The phone stopped ringing. In the sudden silence that followed, he took a deep breath and stepped away. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”
Alisha watched him walk away until he disappeared into the crowd milling outside the office gate. She was still staring at the spot she’d last seen him when her phone started to ring again. The real world intruded taking away her pretense of a happily ever after.
---***---
Chapter 21
Arjun had picked a small, intimate restaurant for their conversation. Alisha’s heart sank as she took in the lit candles, floral centerpieces and dim lighting. He sat at a corner table, lost in thought, staring out of the window at the city lights. She wound her way through the fairly empty restaurant to where he sat.
“Hi.”
Arjun looked up at her greeting. Something that looked an awful lot like regret flashed across his face.
In the next second, it was gone, and he was giving her his usual warm smile. Standing, he kissed her cheek before holding her chair back for her.
Alisha sat and adjusted her napkin on her lap. It gave her time to collect her thoughts before she looked up at him. She hadn’t realized how hard it would be to meet his gaze.
“Arjun, I need to talk to you,” she started, only to be interrupted by the maître d.
“Drinks, Sir?”
Arjun held up a finger in a ‘one second’ gesture before turning to speak to the man about the bar menu.
Curbing her impatience, Alisha watched the other diners. People watching was one of her favourite pastimes.
A small smile touched her lips as she watched an elderly couple hold hands across the table. The affection in the gesture spoke of years of love and companionship.
It was a blessing few received. One that she’d never expected to have in her life. But…
“Something to drink?” Arjun’s voice intruded on her thoughts.
Starting, Alisha said, “What?”
“Would you like something to drink?” he repeated.
“Sure.” A little flustered, Alisha said, “Could I have a white wine?”
“You can have whatever you want,” Arjun laughed. “You don’t need my permission.”
Flushing and feeling more than a little off balance, Alisha turned to the waiter. “I’ll have a glass of whichever Chenin Blanc you are serving.”
With a nod, the waiter left to place their drinks order.
“Arjun, there’s something I need to tell you,” Alisha started.
“Starters, Sir?” He was back, pen poised over his little pad.
“Alisha?” Arjun looked over at her.
“Anything is fine.”
“We have an excellent fish starter which is on today’s special menu.”
The maître d was fully prepared to give them the full spiel but Alisha cut him off.
“That will be fine.”
Looking rather taken aback at her hurry, he nodded and left. Finally!
“So,” Arjun grinned at her. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “I want-“
A white sleeved hand intruded on her vision and cut off her view of Arjun as the waiter arrived at their table to serve their drinks. Tapping her foot impatiently, she waited for him to be done.
Grabbing her wine glass, she took a large sip, partly for courage and partly to wet her throat, at the same time as Arjun lifted his beer mug and said, “Cheers.”
Her mouth full of wine, she swallowed hastily, dabbing at her chin with the napkin to get a drop that escaped.
“I’m sorry. I should have waited.” Flustered and embarrassed, she put her glass back on the table.
“Are you okay?” he asked, gently. “You’re not yourself tonight.”
Grateful for the opening he gave her, Alisha said, “Actually-“
“Would you like to order the main course now, Sir, or wait for a while?”
Alisha wondered if waiter sheekh kabab was on the menu. She was going to skewer the annoying little man with the horrifyingly bad timing.
“A little later, perhaps,” Arjun said, hastily. Correctly interpreting Alisha’s expression, he thought it best to get the maître d out of her range before she attacked him.
With a polite nod, the man left unaware of how close he’d come to needing a hospital emergency room.
“You said yes,” she blurted out before anybody else could come and disturb them.
“I have, and I also noticed you haven’t.” He took a sip of his beer and watched her.
She looked frazzled, annoyed and more than a little tired and yet, she was lovely in an innately gorgeous way that made it easy to keep watching her. Emotion raced across her expressive face making it easy to guess what was coming next.
“You didn’t think it was necessary to ask me first?”
He chose his words carefully. “I thought that since we were in the process of getting to know each other in an arranged marriage set up, it was a natural progression since things were going well. I planned to have a conversation with you but I’m afraid my mother kind of jumped the gun.”
“But…”
“But?” he asked, when she trailed off.
“It’s too soon,” she burst out.
“It’s an arranged
match, Alisha. We’ve already had more time than most people do in these situations.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” she mumbled.
“What are you waiting for? To fall in love?”
The words dropped like stones between them.
“Alisha? Is that you?” The nasal pitch was annoyingly familiar.
Wincing, Alisha stood to face a distant relative. “Hi, Aunty. How are you?”
“Fine. Fine.” She darted an appraising look at Arjun who’d also risen to his feet. “So, how is Sushant?”
Alisha’s smile froze.
“Fine,” she bit the word out.
“We haven’t seen him for a very long time. Where is he?”
“Bangalore.” The one word answers didn’t deter the older woman from her prying.
“Lovely city. Do you go there often?” She darted another speculative look at Arjun who hadn’t said a word.
“No.” Determined now that she wasn’t going to introduce Arjun to the nasty old piece in front of her, Alisha kept her painfully polite smile nailed on her face and her mouth shut.
“So…,” Mrs. Saxena said, now staring openly at Arjun.
“So?” Alisha queried pleasantly.
“Well,” she drew the word out. “I suppose I should be going.”
“Yes. Good night, Aunty.” On that polite but firm dismissal, Alisha sat back down at their table.
She opened the menu card and stared at it like she was memorizing it, mentally whispering a prayer that Mrs. Saxena would go away.
Arjun stayed on his feet, a bland impersonal look on his face as he watched the unspoken standoff between the women.
With a determined huff, the plump older woman turned to him. “Hello. I’m Mrs. Saxena.”
Alisha didn’t look up from the menu.
“Arjun Kapoor.”
“Like the actor,” she giggled.
“The name’s the same,” he confirmed. “But that’s about it.”
“Okay. So…”
Alisha had turned into a statue. When she continued to look down, Mrs. Saxena said, “Okay. Bye then. Say hi to Sushant for me, Alisha. Such a nice boy. We all miss seeing him around.”
With that nasty parting shot, she left in a huff.
Alisha finally looked up from the menu. Humiliation burned like two red flags in her cheeks.
Determined not to give the unpleasant gossip any more attention than she deserved, she said, “I’ll have the chicken steak with mushroom sauce for the main course. What about you?”
“Sushant would be your ex-husband?”
The compassion in his eyes was her undoing. Her hand clenched around the stem of her wine glass. Setting it down before she broke it, Alisha nodded.
“She doesn’t know you’re divorced?”
“She does. Everyone does.” God, she was tired. Tired of it all. “She just wants me to say the words out loud so she can enjoy the moment. I’ve never spoken about my divorce or my reasons for it, so she’s fishing for gossip.”
He said nothing. The world could be unnecessarily cruel at times. He should know.
“Why do you want to marry me, Arjun?” She needed to know.
He shrugged. “I like you. We get along well enough. Our families like each other. We understand each other’s past and the baggage that comes with it. I’d like to think that we have the base for a solid friendship.”
“We do.” What more could she ask for, Alisha thought. “Don’t you want more?”
“I’ve had more.” Pain tightened his features. “I loved my wife beyond reason and I think, at the heart of it, I always will.”
“Why are you willing to settle for less then?”
“More hurts too much. I never want to open myself to hurt like that again.”
“Why are you willing to settle for less?” He asked when she didn’t say anything.
Silence reigned.
After a moment, Alisha spoke. “I may not have loved Sushant, but I went into that marriage with all the hopes and dreams that any new bride has.”
Slowly raising her eyes from her wine glass to meet his, she said, “It hurts. It hurts so badly when that’s destroyed. When the one person who should always be on your side leaves you standing on your own.”
“He was the wrong person.”
“Yes.” Knowing that didn’t make the pain go away. “Should I have seen it? Noticed the signs before I was married? Been a better judge of character?” The doubts were endless.
“Your only mistake was trusting the wrong person. It happens to the best of us.” He laid a soothing hand over her own fisted one. “Give yourself a break.”
“I can never trust my own judgment again.” And there it was. The heart of the whole problem.
Arjun’s fingers tightened around hers. Keeping his voice casual, he asked, “Is that why you’re going by your parent’s judgement on this one?”
She nodded.
“Didn’t they pick the last guy too?”
Alisha’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.
“Touché,” she said, on a shaky laugh. “But the final decision was mine. So, the responsibility for its failure is mine too.”
“Bullshit.”
Alisha shot him a wary glance.
“Alright,” he said, “Let’s do it this way. Will you marry me, Alisha?”
She wanted to accept. She really did. She opened her mouth to say yes but no sound came out.
“No?” He laughed, mirthlessly.
“For God’s sake, Alisha, you had the courage to leave the wrong man but you don’t have the guts to risk your heart for the right one?”
“I know you’ll never hurt me and-“
“I’m not talking about myself,” he snapped the words out.
Alisha didn’t answer for several minutes.
“You know,” she said, finally.
“Yes.”
“Tell me it’s stupid and crazy,” she begged.
Arjun smiled. “I can’t because I think it’s fabulous. He has the same look in his eyes when he talks about you that I saw in the mirror when my wife was alive.”
“Why?” Lost for words, she gestured towards the table with its candle and roses. “Why all this then? Why did you say yes to marrying me?”
“Because I figured it was the perfect way to get you to admit how you feel about Vivaan. If I didn’t push you into a corner, you’d continue ignoring it and him. And, Alisha,” He gave her hands a tight squeeze. “He doesn’t deserve to be ignored. He deserves a woman who’ll stand proudly by his side. He deserves-“
“Much better than me,” she finished for him.
Giving her hand an impatient shake, he said, “Are you crazy? Everybody deserves what they want and he wants YOU. And it’s obvious to anyone with even half a brain that you feel the same way. I know what it’s like to love, truly love and if you have a shot at it, you should take it. Without a second thought.”
“But-“
“The way the two of you feel about each other is the music, Alisha. The rest is just background noise.”
“Our families-“
“Will get over their initial surprise and then be there for the two of you. Just like my mom did when I told her about you and Vivaan.”
“She was part of this plan of yours?” Alisha asked, faintly.
“Not so much a plan. More a strategy,” he grinned. “And yes. She loves Vivaan like her own and she’s happy if he is. Although, if you continue to ignore the way you feel and make him unhappy she might come after you with a kitchen knife.”
A small tendril of hope slowly unfurled inside of her. If Arjun’s mother could accept it, then maybe there was a way to get her own to do the same?
“So much of life is mundane, Alisha.” The intensity in Arjun’s voice had her focusing on him. “When you have a chance at fireworks, why are you passing on it?”
Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “There are fireworks, aren’t there?”
“Like Diwal
i on steroids.”
The laughter that spilled out of them was freeing and contagious. Several diners glanced over with a smile but they were oblivious to it.
“Since you’re so good with strategies, help me with something.” Leaning towards each other, they started to plan.
---***---
Hours later, Alisha reached home and went straight to her parent’s bedroom. Knocking on the door, she whispered, “Ma?”
“Alisha?” Her mother’s groggy whisper quickly turned to alarm. Switching on the bedside lamp, she rushed to open the door.
“Are you okay?” Frantic with worry, she asked, “Are you hurt?”
“No.” She saw her father sit up in bed and said, “I need to talk to both of you. It’s important.”
Turning on the main light, she led her mother back to the bed and sat down at the foot of it. Taking a deep breath, she faced the two people she loved more than anyone else in the world.
“I need to tell you why I left Sushant.”
“Alisha-“ her father started.
“No, Dad.” She pressed a palm to her churning stomach. “Let me finish. You never asked me for details and I never gave you any. I owe both of you an explanation.”
“You don’t owe us anything,” her father said, firmly.
“This is something I need to do. Please?”
Taking their silence as acceptance, she started to talk. Sitting in the safety and comfort of her parents’ bedroom, Alisha finally started to tell them the story she’d kept hidden for so long it was almost a physical part of her. An unseen dam broke and the sad, depressing, dirty story poured out of her.
She told them about the abuse, physical and verbal, about his infidelities, about the attempted rape. She left nothing out.
The words lanced a wound she hadn’t known was still festering inside of her. As she spoke, she felt the poison from it leach out of her leaving her with a sense of peace and acceptance she hadn’t felt before.
Her parents sat in silence, unmoving. Tears streamed down her mother’s face but she didn’t make a sound.
Finally, when Alisha’s voice petered out, her father asked, “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”