Nights Like This

by Divya Sood

  She placed her head on my shoulder and as I closed my eyes, I felt the hot air sticking to my face. I smelled charcoal and perfume and manure and hot asphalt and grass all at once. I heard voices and horns and sputtering engines and the wheels of the horse carriage. When I opened my eyes, I was assaulted with lights: red lights and fluorescents and gleaming metal halide domes from within stores. Colors were vibrant and I focused on the bright yellow of a taxicab before I started to notice the darkness that had descended over the city. I started noticing not the cars but the night that was seeped into everything, into every space that was left open.

  I pulled Anjali to me and when she looked at me, I focused on her face, her soft skin and thin, small features. I focused on her mouth, her lips so pink she looked like she was perpetually smearing them with lipstick that was too bright for her. I kissed her mouth softly and her presence calmed my heart, allowed me to lose myself in something other than darkness and nighttime.

  Nights like those, I was intermittently grateful for her. As our carriage ride came to an end, she waited for me to reach the ground and then kissed me, full of happiness and hope.

  “Was it that bad?” she asked.

  I laughed.

  “You knew I wasn’t crazy about this?”

  “I did. But I did it for you.”

  “Why for me?”

  “So at least once in your life, you could ride in a carriage and lose yourself to me.”

  I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

  “Jess, we’re amazing together.”

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “So you think that maybe we’re in a relationship?”

  I looked past her and then at her, wondering how to make this tsunami of a question pass us by.

  I saw the anticipation on her face. I leaned towards her. She held me away from her with her hand. It was a gentle push but enough to keep me at a distance. I saw her eyes fixed on my face, waiting for me to answer her in the affirmative. I had never seen Anjali so serious about receiving an answer from me about anything, let alone our situation and my admission that we were in what she called a relationship.

  I looked at her eyes, dull with patience and her mistaken belief that we would share anything more than an apartment and convenient fucks. But then, I was wrong too because we shared much more than that. I just didn’t see it.

  “We are in a relationship,” I said. “Haven’t we been?”

  I wasn’t lying when I said that. We were in a relationship however dysfunctional. And however much I loved the phrase “situational partners” to describe us, I could never tell her that or else she would break like an eggshell. And I didn’t have what it took to put Humpty Anjali back together again. But I wasn’t lying to her either, was I? The truth was, we lived together and ate together and fucked. So technically, we were in some semblance of domestic paradise, weren’t we? And I was asking for money to run away with someone else. Who could ask for more? I tried not to think of the money just then.

  “I didn’t know if you saw it that way,” she said.

  “I do. It’s just that I wanted to leave possibility open if something were to come up.”

  “Like what?”

  “Anjali, I don’t know where my life is going. And I don’t want to say I’ll be here forever or that I won’t. I’m just asking you to take it one step after another. And we’ll see where it goes. How do you know what you’re going to do until you do it? I just don’t want to put blinders on and pretend that things will always stay the same. That’s for those fucking carriage horses, blinders and walking in circles.”

  I watched her face to see what she would think. She seemed blank, as if she had no thoughts or had not heard what I said. But then, slowly, she smiled at me. I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely satisfied or if she were appeasing me. My only hope was that she would let things be just the way they were. If she thought we had had a breakthrough in our situation, then I had more than what I had bargained for.

  “That’s fair,” she said, “I think that’s very fair. Like you said about the ring, ‘It’s not 'no.' It’s not now.’ I’ll be honest; I was really upset for a while. But then I realized you might be right. Maybe now is not the right time. Maybe there are more people out there that we should both consider before making such a big commitment. I mean who knows? I might fall in love with someone else. I may be the one to leave one day, just like that.”

  I think I stopped breathing. I couldn’t imagine life without Anjali. I couldn’t. And the more I thought about her with someone else, the less I could breathe. Then for no particular reason, my thoughts turned to Ish and I imagined Ish leaning close to Anjali’s face, kissing her cheek. My stomach churned. I really thought I was going to be very sick.

  “Would you?” I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. “Would you leave me for someone else?”

  She walked to me and placed a kiss upon my forehead.

  “No, jaan,” she said softly.

  “Anjali?”

  “What?”

  I touched her face gently.

  “I’m here now,” she said.

  “That you are,” I said as she smiled softly.

  “It’s late, Jess. I have to work early tomorrow. I have to get home.”

  I took her hand and we walked to the corner to hail a cab. With Anjali, trains were a rarity and I remembered being on a train with her twice in all the years I had known her. Once it was because she was happily drunk on her birthday and didn’t contest us getting on a train. The second time there had been a thunderstorm and she had not wanted to get her new leather jacket any more wet than she had to.

  She was a cab hailer. She was all about comfort and ease. How someone that was used to the easier things in life could want to be in the difficult situation that we had chosen to be in, I could never understand. At those times, I had to believe that she genuinely loved me. Was there anything other than love that could make someone act stupidly time and time again?

  We rode home sitting in the middle of the seat, together, as if we were holding onto one another through a difficult journey. As the cab started and stopped to accommodate city traffic, so did the slight wind sailing through the open windows. Somewhere in the distance, amid the sound of horns and screeching tires and conversations, I heard the smooth, sultry notes of jazz. I leaned back on the seat and closed my eyes, pretending that someone was playing a medley for us, comforting our confused minds and offering beauty to our tender souls.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I could not sleep that night. As Anjali slept, I paced the kitchen and living room. I picked up my phone and looked at the time. It was one half past one. Fuck it. I dialed.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey…Tiffany?”

  “Jess? Why aren’t you asleep? Are you okay?”

  “I’m not okay. I need to talk to someone and I wanted to talk to you. And why are you awake?”

  “I’m catching up on some work. I need a break anyway. So what’s up with you?”

  “Two things.”

  “First?”

  “First is, I lied to her to get money to go away with another woman.”

  “Okay…Second?”

  “She asked if we were in a relationship and I said I wanted an open relationship and no strings. She didn’t get angry. She said…”

  “Said what?”

  I cleared my throat.

  “She said she might be the one to pick up and leave one day. And it killed me inside.”

  “How did it kill you if you just lied to her to go away with another woman?”

  “That’s just it. I love her. I do in my own weird way. But I love this woman too. I mean can you help falling in love?”

  Silence.

  She laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Ask yourself. I mean not for nothing, didn’t you tell me last we met that you would never forgive me for falling in love with someone else while being with you?”

  I sigh
ed.

  “That’s different.”

  “No it’s not.”

  It was my turn to be silent. To think.

  “How does it feel?” she asked.

  “How does what feel?”

  “Being in love with two people at the same time? It kills you doesn’t it?”

  “I’m not in love with two people.”

  “Then what do you call it?”

  I stopped pacing and stared at Poet’s Walk in the Winter. I turned it over and stared at her hand written words.

  “What do I do, Tiff?”

  “I don’t know, Jess. I would say ‘Let your heart lead you’ or some bullshit like that but…”

  “But?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me. What?”

  “I made the wrong decision. I don’t want you to do the same.”

  I stared at my phone. I had waited four years to hear her say it and now that she had, instead of feeling victorious, I felt awful. I didn’t want Tiff to hurt. Despite everything. Because at that moment, for an instant, I understood what her predicament must have been.

  “You there?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s my big secret.”

  “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  “Jess?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to try to get some sleep. You do the same.”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  “Sure thing. Those were our words.”

  “I know.”

  “If you ever bring up this conversation, I will deny it. “

  “I know,” I said.

  “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  I started pacing again, wondering what or who could take from me my confusion. There was one more number I wanted to dial. I did. It was temporarily disconnected.

  Damn it, Kat.

  I paced some more. Would I go with Vanessa in the morning? I knew I would. But then what about Anjali? I decided I needed a sign. I decided to pray. I went to our eclectic alter atop a bookshelf in the living room where Ganesh sat beside the Virgin Mary who was looking towards St. Anthony who stood tall beside a laughing Buddha. I took an incense stick from one of the boxes my mother had sent a while back. I lit it slowly. I stared at the flame and waved it into a glowing tip of orange. I placed the incense in the elephant holder we had so carefully selected in Chelsea at a mom and pop shop that no longer existed. I closed my eyes and joined my hands and asked for guidance. For hope. For love.

  I don’t know how long I stood there. I prayed. I breathed. I cried. I prayed. I breathed. I cried. And then, finally, amid all my confusion, I stopped thinking for the first time that night. I inhaled. And I recognized and I absorbed the sweet scent of the incense. I had expected Queen of the Night. Somehow, the scent that emanated was jasmine. There lay my answer. There lay my absolution, or so I believed or wanted to believe. I opened my eyes. I placed my hand to my head and then my heart. And then I walked to Anjali, lay next to her and held her tightly. After all, I wouldn’t see her for ten days.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Vanessa had rented a Chrysler Sebring convertible at a car rental place on East Twelfth for our ride to wherever we were going to go. I didn’t ask her why she had chosen it but she offered an explanation saying that she wanted to enjoy the journey as much as the destination or some crap that made me nervous about riding for hours with her. I hoped she wouldn’t be turning intellectual on me and I made a promise to myself that if she did, I would come back to New York alone and never call her again.

  We were leaving on a Wednesday. I had to say goodbye to Anjali and call Vanessa to pick me up when I was sure that she was well on her way to work. I walked into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee for myself. She was at the table with her coffee and an organic bran muffin.

  “So I guess I’ll see you in ten days or so,” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

  I sat at the table across from her, placing my coffee cup gently on the glass tabletop. She looked up from the medical journal she had open in front of her.

  “You going to be okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

  “You must be so exited. You don’t seem it though.”

  She paused, smiled faintly.

  “Is it because you’re going to miss me just a bit?"

  “Anjali…”

  “I’m just saying. Ten days is a long time. Maybe I was just hoping you’d miss me just a little bit.”

  “I will,” I said, “I’m just nervous.”

  Would I miss Anjali? I tried to think of time without her touch, not turning my key to unlock our door. I tried to imagine days where I wouldn’t sleep softly in her bed, nights without turning to find her there, snoring slightly next to me. But then I remembered I would wake next to Vanessa and we would have our own rhythms, our own routines. I looked at Anjali, my eyes fixed on her face, asking her to forgive me before I even transgressed. “Platonic,” I thought as a defense to my own musings. Platonic my ass.

  She took my hand across the table. I looked at the reflection of our hands in the glass, her fingers wrapped around mine with promise and concern, her French manicure perfect without a crack or crease.

  “Jess, don’t be nervous. You’ll be great,” she said, “And I don’t want you to worry about anything. Just go up there, be confident and write. I know you’ll be great. I want you to know that and believe that.”

  She leaned forward and kissed my forehead and then my temple. I looked at her and as my eyes said, “Forgive me,” I searched for her eyes to say, “Of course.” But no such dialogue came between our gazes. For all I knew, she thought I was sad at the thought of leaving her, not that I begged forgiveness for lying to her.

  But then was I really lying to her? I was going to write. Even Vanessa’s reason for me leaving New York was so that I could find out who I was and what I wanted and, most importantly, so I could write. It wasn’t that I was lying about that. I was just neglecting to tell the entire truth. It wasn’t lying. It was telling the selective truth. And there was nothing wrong with that. And if I could stay without touching Vanessa, without crossing boundaries, then I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But then what had Anjali said that night when I had returned from Vanessa’s? She didn’t even want me talking the night away with someone else. And this was ten days.

  “Start something,” she said and startled me from my thoughts.

  “Start something in Toronto. You can finish it at your own pace, in your own time. But you have to start something.”

  “I will,” I said. “I will.”

  I walked her to the door.

  “Take care of yourself,” she said.

  She kissed me goodbye. It was a long kiss full of her concern and confidence. I hugged her and held her close, not because I had to but I wanted to. I smelled the freesia as I kissed the top of her head. I held her locket in my hand and kissed it gently.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  I smiled at her.

  “Yes. Just I don’t know.”

  “You’ll do fine. And I’ll be here when you get back, waiting at the door for you.”

  I felt so much guilt at that moment I felt my entire body tingle. Could I do this? When I looked in her eyes I couldn’t bear to look at her. I looked away.

  “Remember, start something.”

  “I’ll try.”

  She leaned towards my ear, kissed the lobe and my small gold hoop earring.

  “You had promised you’d write a whole book about us,” she whispered, “So do it.”

  I turned and without answering, kissed her.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” she said as she stroked my face.

  “I love you, Anjali,” I said without awkwardness, with honesty.

  “I love you too,” she said, “But I have to get going.”

  “Want me to walk you down?”

  “No, it’s okay.”

&nbs
p; She pushed the button for the elevator.

  “I’ll call you,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  I watched her enter the elevator, watched her wave as the doors closed and swallowed her whole. Then I walked back into the apartment, shut the door and leaned against it, wondering what I was doing and how I could so blatantly lie to her. I told myself I needed this space to think and that’s really what it was all about. I told myself that when I returned, I would try again with Anjali. Wholeheartedly. I knew I was lying to myself because when I closed my eyes, the only person that mattered to me was Vanessa.

  I went to the kitchen and slowly put the dishes in the dishwasher. The quiet of the apartment seemed to scream at me. I hated being in the apartment alone. Although it was now, after four years, my home as much as hers, I couldn’t stay in the apartment for a long time by myself. It seemed dead to me, devoid of anything that made it home. The only thing that fixed that feeling, the only presence that livened the apartment, made it home, made it whole, was Anjali Chopra. Anjali…

  I decided I should leave before I lost my nerve. And I was close to cancelling, close to calling it all off. I hadn’t forgotten that in the hallway, I had said ‘I love you’ first. I hadn’t forgotten that I had meant it, that I had wanted to cling to her cream-colored blouse right then, had wanted to tell her everything. But then when my thoughts had shifted to Vanessa, I had been torn in a different direction, a different guilt had surfaced. So I had kept my mouth shut, not divulging the secrets of my life and had instead prepared to run away with a near stranger to an unknown place. I took my phone out of my pocket. I pressed the button, stared at the Eiffel Tower. I slid my finger across the screen. I called Vanessa. There was no answer. I disconnected the phone, felt disconnected myself and didn’t know what to do.

  Had she changed her mind? Was she just a tease? Here I was jeopardizing my relationship with Anjali for what? For someone who, at the last minute, decides not only not to go, but who doesn’t have the decency to pick up the phone and tell me so?

  I would call once more and if she didn’t pick up, the fucking trip was off and I’d never see her again.