I pushed the thought out of my mind for no other reason than the preservation of my sanity. Through three more cups of chai masala tea, I still hadn’t heard anything so I popped upstairs, grabbed my camera, and sat cramped in a corner next to the one outlet in the room, keeping myself occupied by editing images and updating my Facebook and Flickr and blog through the morning and afternoon, as the wait staff tidied around me.
Rising to relieve myself from all the tea, a message blinked. It was Jeff: Hey, we’re taking him home in a few hours. He’ll be online at twelve-thirty our time, so ten p.m. your time.
With my pulse normalizing, I blew out a sigh of relief that he was well enough to go home.
Chapter 12
Standing in the room after locking away my computer and camera, claustrophobia clawed at me. Why was he in Toronto and not Ottawa like he said he was? I told myself that maybe his plans changed and it slipped his mind to tell me. Or he was so mad at me, he decided not to. Either way, it still felt like he was lying to me.
There was a time where we would burst to tell each other even the most mundane detail of our day.
I squeezed my fists so tight I could feel my skin tearing under my nails. I had to get out of there. I needed fresh air. As I walked past the hotel gate and into the sandy road, Hari called out to me. Stomping out his cigarette, he asked me how we enjoyed our time in the desert and if we needed to be taken anywhere. Despite our little tiff at the water palace in Jaipur, we didn’t hold a grudge towards each other. After I declined, he shifted nervously and then said, “As it is your last night in Pushkar and…” he cleared his throat… “last night with me, I would like to take you ladies somewhere tonight for dinner. It is nearby and I think you will like it.”
I nodded and told him that I would speak to the girls about it. Lifting my face to the sun as I walked away, I focused on my breath as I let its rays beat down on me. Even with just that I felt myself returning to my body. After shaking the nerves out of my arms and legs, I checked my watch. It was four-thirty. The girls should be back soon. To stretch my legs I wandered down the road towards town and bumped into my two best friends, smattered in sand, telling me of how their bike broke down in the middle of the desert and their ordeal making it back to civilization.
After taking Hari up on his offer, (he knew this place better than us), we returned to the room. While the girls were taking turns showering and napping, I took Lana’s Cosmopolitan magazine and caught the last of the sun’s rays lying on a lounge next to the kidney-shaped pool. I opened it up and flicked through the sex advice, glossy ads, airbrushed models stopping when I reached an article titled: Are You Ready To Break Up?
The first line read: if you need an article to help you decide, the answer is yes. I slapped the magazine shut and dropped it on the floor.
As the cool evening breeze swept over me goose bumps spread across my arms. Glancing to the sky, the sun began to tuck itself behind a mountain range, and I thought of the day before. I thought of Audrey’s last words to me: I am with you always.
I whispered to her, “I don’t know what to do. I need you.”
A voice inside my head, this time sounding more like my own, echoed back, You’ll know what to do.
***
At six o’clock on the dot, a gentle knocking rattled the door. I turned the handle and peered beyond the chain lock, meeting a pair of familiar brown eyes under a mop of black, slicked back hair. Hari had really outdone himself tonight. I struggled to maintain my poker face as my eyes fell upon the yellow and orange bouquet in his hands.
This won’t end well.
“Lana, I think you should come here a second,” I called as I closed the door and undid the chain.
After taking his flowers and throwing them on the bed, we followed him to the car. He opened the passenger door for Lana, who instead opened the door to the backseat, climbed in, and slammed it shut. With Jade taking shotgun, I slid into the backseat next to Lana. A cooler was strapped into the middle seat.
“What’s this?” I asked Hari.
He turned the key, and the engine rumbled. “I have a connection to a very special vineyard in India. I have brought some bottles for you to try.”
So, India had vineyards — you learn something new every day.
We drove only a few hotels over before Hari parked and scampered to open Lana’s door. With a huff, she stepped out, ignoring his outstretched hand. He then grabbed the cooler and locked the car. In the evening glow of streetlamps, we followed him through a stone archway into the grassy courtyard of the hotel. Empty tables dotted the space around the base of a tree with a trunk so wide it would take all four of us linking arms to hug it. Beneath the branches adorned with whimsical white fairy lights, Hari waved at a waiter and chose a table close to the trunk. Pulling out a chair for Lana, he then took the seat across from her. As Jade and I sat down exchanging confused expressions across the table, a waitress came over with the menus and wine glasses.
“Please, order whatever you like. It is my treat,” he said as he placed the cooler on the table, his eyes fixated on a very uncomfortable looking Lana.
“Hari, we can’t stay long, we have dinner reservations,” she said before looking at us with wide eyes.
Dinner reservations? What was she talking abou—” Oh yes,” I realized what was going on, “I forgot…yes, we do. At…that restaurant in town,” I said, fumbling through my lie.
He looked down at the table and disappointment flashed in his face nearly imperceptibly. Then he nodded, and then pulled out two wine bottles from the cooler. One red, one white. Both cold. Horror carved Lana’s face as she stared at the bottle of red sweating with condensation. To a hedonist, defiling red wine was a sin punishable by social exile. When he asked which wine we would prefer, we all chose white.
I read the label as I sipped. As “notes of apricot and lemon ambled like the spring that feeds the Ganges” on my palate, I admired the marketing of wine. The top, base, and bottom notes were listed on the bottle, but it just tasted like any old white wine to me. And as we drank our surprisingly tasty wine in awkward silence, a look of satisfaction danced on Hari’s bronzed face, winking at his waiter friends as they walked by. When the waitress returned, he spoke to her in Hindi and pointed at the menu. Our protests against food were ignored, but the waitress quirked an eyebrow at us anyways as she jotted down the order. We all seemed to be well aware of the inappropriateness of the situation. Well, except for Hari.
“So Miss Lana, how have you enjoyed your time in India?” He purred. “I hope I have been a satisfactory host.”
“Yah, it’s been good,” she said gruffly with her eyes glued to her glass.
“So good you might want to remain here?”
Lana shot daggers at me through her eyes. I pulled my gaze to him and jumped in, “Hari, remember what we talked about the other day?”
He ignored me and kept his attention on Lana. “India is a very wonderful place to live.”
Lana gulped her wine and then emptied the rest of the bottle in her glass. An uncomfortable silence filled the space around us. Anxious about my call with Adam, I checked my watch, thinking that at least half an hour had passed. Nope, not even fifteen. “Awkward” has this very annoying ability to slow down time. And the fact that no one was talking kept time at a near standstill. I had nothing to distract me from thinking about Adam. I was scared to talk to him, but I needed to see for myself that he was okay. I wanted to know why he wasn’t where he said he was, why he didn’t take his insulin, and what he wanted to do about us. I was torn about us. I loved him, but I wasn’t sure that we were meant to be together anymore.
When the waitress finally appeared, I had never been so relieved to see a total stranger, but as she placed two medieval feast sized platters of pakoras on the table, I wished she had never come at all.
“Please, enjoy,” he said, taking a slow bite of one of the golden fried vegetable nuggets.
I plucked one from the pile and ju
ggled it as it burned my skin. As I blew on it, the delicious deep-fry smell tickled my nose, and when I bit into one, I realized just how hungry I was. As we ate, Hari continued to try and sell Lana on the benefits of living in India. When Jade tried to intervene, he pulled out a foil ball from his breast pocket containing a nugget of hash and suggested that she and I take it to the corner of the courtyard. Refusing it, we tried to eat the pakoras as fast as possible and keep the conversation neutral, but when Hari brought up child rearing and how his mother would help her out with their children, Lana’s patience had been exhausted.
“Alright, it’s time to go,” she said, looking at her bare wrist.
“Yes,” Jade said, rising to her feet. “This has been great, thank you for taking us here but it’s time for us to get to our dinner reservation.”
He fought back a scowl then sighed. “As you wish, Miss Lana.”
Gently placing the wine bottle back in the cooler with the other two bottles, he left a pile of rupees on the table and began walking towards the archway. As he passed the tree, he slowed down and called Lana’s name. She groaned and halted. Jade and I pressed forward and hid in the shadows in the archway. She had to finally tell him herself that he had to stop.
“Oh no,” Lana gasped.
I turned, and my mouth hung agape.
In a grassy patch in the ethereal glow of the fairy lights, Hari had dropped to one knee. Under other circumstances, this setting would be incredibly romantic. Watching this made me terrified of being single. Good men were hard to find, but the crazy ones grew like weeds. Despite being deaf to the conversation, it was pretty obvious what was being said. Hari begged, reaching for her hand as Lana waved them in the air wildly stomping her feet as her head bobbed, whipping her hair. Turning on her heels, she marched towards us, through the alleyway, and back towards the hotel as Hari buried his face in his hands.
As we followed her down the road, he called out, “Please, I’m sorry. I must drive you to town.” Lana sped up. “It is dangerous at night and it is my duty to keep you safe.”
Hearing his very rational argument, we stopped. Keeping our backs to him, we heard the engine rumble towards us. We climbed in the car, and he drove us in silence. He parked in one of the bays at the entrance to the town center.
“I will be here when you are finished,” he said, still gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead through the windshield.
Before he could finish his sentence, Lana had bolted from the car and down the road. After receiving a stern warning that she was in no mood to be teased about Hari, we found a quirky café in a garden and ordered falafel sandwiches. As we ate, I checked the time every five minutes, and Lana filled us in on what she had told Hari. Long story short, she told him to, “Fuck off.” No surprise there.
“I think we need to come up with a codeword,” Jade suggested. “A word if we feel we need to leave a situation.”
“It would have been useful tonight,” Lana said with a snort.
“I like this idea,” I said, nodding. “It needs to be something that isn’t going to sound weird in regular conversation.”
Jade pulled a cigarette from her pocket and popped it between her lips. “Damn, I need to grab a lighter.”
“What about matches?” Lana said.
“Well, if you have any that would work, too.”
“No no, matches could be the codeword,” Lana said, smoothing her poker straight locks. “Usually you carry a lighter, not matches, so saying something like, ‘Hey, I need to get some matches’ sounds normal in conversation but isn’t something any of us would say.”
And with that, our code word was born.
After stuffing ourselves with chickpeas and cabbage, we hurried back to the car so I wouldn’t be late for the big talk I was about to have with Adam. As the anxiety twisted in my chest, I began to see stars. I still didn’t know what I wanted the outcome to be.
Crossing the traffic barrier just past the center of town, we found the car exactly where it had been before, but with Hari sleeping peacefully in the fully reclined driver’s seat with the doors locked. Jade knocked on the window, softly at first but once she began to bang Hari shot straight up. With glassy eyes he looked in our general direction and unlocked the car.
“Hi Hari,” I said, sliding into the passenger’s seat, filling the space with the smell of my leftover falafel.
He grunted back and turned the key, keeping his eyes forward. As he struggled to complete the three-point turn, it struck me how washed out his skin looked. I could understand his miserable expression, but he looked as if he were going to be sick. What the hell happened to him in the past two hours?
He drove slower than usual, swerving in the barely lit road from side to side, and I noticed that something was off. Something was missing. The bottles had stopped clanking. They stopped clanking because they weren’t there anymore. Someone had drunk them all.
Our designated driver was shit-faced drunk.
Whipping around, I read the girls’ alarmed expressions as they inspected the empty cooler. I mouthed the words, “he’s drunk,” before turning back, trying some conversation topics to keep him lucid. But he was in no mood for chitchat. Finding myself at a loss for words I said the only thing that popped into mind, “Want some falafel?”
With the foil unwrapped around the soggy remains of my sandwich, I held it out. Without a glance, he took the foil in his hand and devoured the sandwich in one bite, then tossed the foil out of the window. Letting out a loud belch with a smell that made me worry for his digestive health, he kept driving in wide zig-zags, and I kept my hands ready to grab the wheel if need be. A wave of relief washed over me as I spotted our hotel down the road. But the wave broke when he began retching and swerving uncontrollably as he tried to pull over to the side of the road. I reached for the wheel but before I could get a grip on it, the car lurched to a stop with a loud WHUMP.
Sliding off my seat, I collided with the dashboard. I yanked up the hand break, rubbed my sore elbow, and opened the door, joining the girls outside to inspect the damage. Hari remained in his seat doubled over with one foot out of the door. The car had crashed into a shallow ditch, narrowly missing a cow that was now hightailing it into the darkness.
“There will probably be a bit of a dent,” I said.
“Perhaps a few scratches. I hope Hari’s okay,” Jade added.
“It was nothing major, he and the car will be fine,” Lana said, waving her hand dismissively. “He’ll just have to deal with his boss back in Delhi. Let’s just get back to the hotel.”
I glanced at my watch. It was nine forty-seven. If we left now, I’d have time to prepare myself.
“What’s going on here?” An unfamiliar male voice startled us.
We turned around to see two figures approaching us. As they strode through the light of a street lamp my stomach flipped. Fuck. The. Police. I glanced back at Hari, who was still slumped in his seat. There was no way we could pass him off as sober.
“Nothing, officers, we’re fine,” Lana said, her voice dripping sugary sweet.
Ignoring her, they marched towards the car. I grabbed the girls to form a human wall in front of Hari. “Now would be a great time to get some matches,” Lana said.
No kidding.
“Please step away from the car,” the taller officer barked.
Slowly, we stepped back. Please, Hari, pull yourself together.
With possibly the worst timing ever, Hari pushed the door open and vomited into the sand. The taller officer raised his foot and inspected the drops of red-wine sick that had splashed onto his toes. He then grabbed Hari by the right arm, and the shorter officer took the left. His knees buckled, and they struggled to keep him upright as they yelled at him in what we presumed to be Hindi.
“Please let him go,” Jade said, mustering as much conviction in her voice, but it was as intimidating as a hungry kitten’s mew.
“Your driver is clearly intoxicated. We will not tolerate
this.” The shorter officer snapped.
As Hari struggled to stand the foil ball fell from his shirt pocket. Then I thought I was going to vomit.
The hash.
The taller officer restrained Hari as the shorter one picked it up and opened it up. With bulging eyes, he sputtered, “Drunk driving and possession of an illegal substance?” Then he grabbed one of Hari’s arms.
Turning, they dragged Hari down the road. I looked at my watch. I had to get to the hotel. But we couldn’t just let Hari get arrested. Despite his faults, he was one of us, and no one gets left behind. Think, Harper, think! Then an idea hit me. “How much US cash do you guys have on you right now?” I said to the girls.
They pulled some green bills out of their purses and adding mine, I counted it. Traveler’s tip: always keep some US money on you, you never know when you might need it.
“We’ll give you fifty American dollars if you let him go right now.”
The officers stopped, turned, and mumbled something to each other. “Make it one hundred for each of us and you have a deal.”
“No way,” Lana said, throwing up her hands.
“Well, we will have to arrest all of you for attempting to bribe officers of the law,” the taller one said with a shit-eating grin.
Piling into the car with Lana at the wheel we headed back to the hotel. Jade waited with the officers outside the hotel while we dug out our emergency money. In the lobby with my laptop clutched to my chest, I shoved my cash in Lana’s hand and settled into the table from earlier next to the last diners paying their checks for the night. As it powered up, my stomach roiled, adrenaline surged, and irritation of having just been extorted of money I couldn’t afford gnawed at me.
Once logged in I clicked the dial button. The video kicked in. His face was pale and bags hung from his eyes.
“Hey, baby,” he said, his crackling voice barely above a whisper.
I drew a deep breath before I spoke, trying to figure out what to ask first. “What happened? Why weren’t you in Ottawa?”
Runaways Page 12