by Sonia Singh
Goddess for Hire
Sonia Singh
This book is dedicated to my mother, Manjeet, who agreed to pay for all my writing classes if I promised not to get drunk and dance on the tables at any more Indian gatherings.
Okay, so I’ve yet to keep my end of the bargain…
Seriously, Mom—
Thank you!
And no, I didn’t forget you guys—
My dad, Bob; my brother, Samir (who, even as a zygote, showed far more sense than six-year-old me); my sister, Anita; Max; and my grandfather, Gurdial Singh Sindhi, who taught me to cherish books and always keep them close.
Contents
Chapter 1
I NEVER BELIEVED in dharma, karma, reincarnation, or any of…
Chapter 2
“OH, I CAN’T WAIT to tell you!” My undimpled aunt…
Chapter 3
HIS FLIGHT was late.
Chapter 4
“NO, NO, I WANT a Coke. Pepsi is too sweet.”
Chapter 5
AFTER THE INITIAL SHOCK of hearing I was a born-again…
Chapter 6
I FELT LIKE a character in a bad movie who…
Chapter 7
“TEN BUCKS,” the thin, pimply-faced, male attendant said in a…
Chapter 8
MY EYES OPENED at the crack of noon.
Chapter 9
INDIA IS CONSIDERED the bastion of spirituality. Every mountaintop is…
Chapter 10
DESPITE THE FACT it was Monday afternoon, the two-story Barnes…
Chapter 11
POPPING TUMS LIKE CANDY, I drove down Newport Boulevard, traffic…
Chapter 12
A FIERCE WIND, warm and carrying the scent of a…
Chapter 13
RAM WANTED to meet immediatel.
Chapter 14
THIS TIME I didn’t chant.
Chapter 15
MY GAS-GUZZLER of a tank was nearly empty, and I…
Chapter 16
THIS WAS NEW TERRITORY for me, and I thought about…
Chapter 17
I HAD TO CLEAR my throat several times before anyone…
Chapter 18
“BLOODY HELL, you drive like a whirling dervish on PCP.”
Chapter 19
I REQUESTED the patio.
Chapter 20
GATED ENTRANCE. High walls. Armed guards. Maximum security.
Chapter 21
NO AURAS. No gale-force winds.
Chapter 22
I WAS LATE to Aunt Gayatri’s dinner party.
Chapter 23
YOU WOULD THINK that a goddess could just point, click…
Chapter 24
BY THE NEXT MORNING I was as fresh as a…
Chapter 25
RAM WAS CARRYING a long, slim package wrapped in brown…
Chapter 26
“THIS MUST HAVE BEEN a bitch to get through customs.”
Chapter 27
ACCORDING TO RAM I didn’t have to wait for the…
Chapter 28
IGNORING TAHIR’S BOASTS of parallel parking excellence, I drove to…
Chapter 29
I’D SWEAR THERE WERE more people in the lobby circling…
Chapter 30
THE FIRST THING I DID was retrieve my sword from…
Chapter 31
THE LAST CAR had finally left.
Chapter 32
THE NEXT FEW DAYS took on a routine.
Chapter 33
AUNT DIMPLE and Uncle Pradeep lived in Anaheim Hills.
Chapter 34
MY PARENTS OPTED to have dinner at Aunt Dimple’s.
Chapter 35
NOW I’VE SEEN ENOUGH horror movies to know not to…
Chapter 36
THE GODDESS was an alcoholic.
Chapter 37
“I CAN FEEL your heartbeat,” Tahir murmured.
Chapter 38
I WAS DEFINITELY feeling the shakti.
Chapter 39
“SO THIS WHOLE TIME I’ve been pursued by Dilbert with…
Chapter 40
MOM WAS IN FRONT of the TV watching the latest…
Chapter 41
MY WORLD had been turned upside down.
Chapter 42
SOME WOMEN will only sleep with a guy after the…
Chapter 43
SOME PEOPLE found their peace in ashrams.
Chapter 44
MY LIFE HAD BECOME about running.
Chapter 45
DO UNTO OTHERS, as you would have them do unto…
Chapter 46
THE LAST THING you’d want to think about when you’re…
Chapter 47
SUPERMAN HAD X-ray vision.
Chapter 48
THE QUICKEST PATH to parental approval?
Chapter 49
I LOVED my worshippers.
Chapter 50
AS DAWN BROKE through a cotton candy sky, I thought…
Chapter 51
TAHIR WAS just being a bitch.
Chapter 52
BY DINNERTIME Ram still had not returned.
Chapter 53
I DIDN’T GO to the hospital.
Chapter 54
BY 7:00 A.M. I was in the car and headed…
Chapter 55
I SAT ON my favorite stretch of beach.
Chapter 56
HOAG HOSPITAL was a state-of-the-art facility located off the 55…
Chapter 57
EXITING THE HOSPITAL, I nearly ran into someone else.
Chapter 58
USING MY DIVINE navigation system, I tracked Sanjay down to…
Chapter 59
SANJAY CAME DOWN the stairs with, of course, a gun.
Chapter 60
I WAS ON A ROLL, so I decided to cover…
Chapter 61
“THE BANNER is crooked,” Ram said.
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
I NEVER BELIEVED in dharma, karma, reincarnation, or any of that spiritual crap, which caused sort of a problem growing up because my parents are devout Hindus. Dharma, by the way, means life purpose in Sanskrit. By the time my thirtieth birthday rolled around, I still hadn’t found my dharma, which caused my parents some worry, [read: anxiety, loss of sleep, despair, hand-wringing, tears, dizzy spells and a constant mumbling of nasty things about me in Hindi under their breath].
My birthday fell on the second Saturday of January, and as I zipped down Pacific Coast Highway in my canary yellow Hummer H2, I thought about upgrading to a bigger car.
Newport Beach, where we live, is a nice-looking beach city. Streets are wide, cars are expensive, bodies are beautiful, and neighborhoods are well tended. A French Colonial–style roof is not allowed when the zoning laws call for Spanish. For your coffee-drinking pleasure there is a Starbucks on every corner.
I like living in a place where the air is clean and neighbors hide their trash in discreet garbage cans made to blend in with the shrubbery. I am, however, tired of the impression that blond, blue-eyed families are the sole inhabitants of Newport Beach. This isn’t Sweden for God’s sake.
Indian people like to bitch about the big bad British ruling India for two hundred years. Big deal. Try growing up in Orange County. Most of my cousins sport blue contact lenses and dye their hair ash-blond. How’s that for colonial impact?
For the record, I do not dye my dark tresses. I do, however, highlight.
I’d spent the afternoon enjoying a manicure and pedicure at the Bella Salon and Spa, followed by shopping at South Coast Plaza. My birthday happened to fall on a Saturday, but even if it hadn’t, my plan would have
been the same, one of the benefits to being unemployed.
Eight shopping bags later I was back in my SUV slurping on a Mocha Frappuccino. I’m not into meditation, and I don’t do yoga. I don’t blast sitar music in my car either. I prefer Madonna. I turned up the volume and felt my spirits rise.
As if it hadn’t been bad enough rolling out of bed this morning knowing it was the start of my third decade, the night before my aunt Gayatri, a gynecologist, had come over to the house lugging an enormous chart of the female reproductive system.
By the time she was done I knew more about my vulva than I ever wanted to, and that I was fast on my way to acquiring the shriveled ovaries of a crone. Basically my dear aunt was hinting I’d better find a man and reproduce then and there. Well duh! She couldn’t have been less subtle if she’d hit me over the head with the pink plastic vagina she kept in the car.
In traditional Indian culture, a woman is supposed to get married and have children—strictly in that order—by the time she’s twenty-five. My female cousins and I, having been born and raised in America, have it considerably harder, not easier. We’re all supposed to get married, have children, and be either a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, all by the time we’re twenty-five.
My female cousins all found proper careers, married proper Indian boys, had proper Indian weddings, and properly lavish wedding receptions. If I ever get married, I definitely will not have some decrepit Hindu priest muttering in Sanskrit while pouring clarified butter over a fire, as I struggle not to inhale great quantities of smoke, praying frantically that my sari doesn’t unravel, fall off, or burst into flames.
Now instead of spending my birthday with people whose company I enjoyed, I was on my way home to have dinner with my family. The last thing I wanted to do was eat Indian food and discuss recent advances in medical science. Hobnobbing with doctors wasn’t my idea of fun. If it were, I’d be crashing AMA conferences across the state.
My mom’s a pediatrician in private practice, my dad, a renowned urologist, and I mean the man gets absolutely giddy over bladder infections. My younger brother, Samir, is in his final year at Stanford Medical School. In fact, of all the ninety-seven adult members of the Mehra clan spread throughout the United States, ninety-six are doctors, the sole exception being yours truly.
Thereby proving, that contrary to popular belief India produces far more doctors than snake charmers. I would put engineers at a close second and, okay, maybe snake charmers at third.
Thereby also proving, that if life were a vegetarian Indian buffet, I’d be one, big, steaming plate of haggis.
I thought fleetingly of avoiding the dinner tonight, but with my mom it wasn’t a request, it was an order. God, just because I live at home and spend their money, my parents think they can tell me what to do.
Maybe it was the fact I was consuming a beverage, conversing on my cell phone, and steering my behemoth of a car, but I failed to notice the dark blue Mercedes S600 parked on the curb in front of our Mediterranean-style house. I pulled into the three-car garage, left the bags in the back for later, and stepped inside.
“Maya!” I was nearly knocked over as my aunt barreled into me. Now I’m not that tall, about five-three. Aunt Dimple, a dermatologist, barely comes up to my chin. In a detail that greatly puzzled me as a child, Aunt Dimple did not have a single dimple on her face. “Happy birthday! I can’t wait to tell you my surprise!” As I stared down at her, I felt a sick malignant tumor of dread take form in my stomach.
“Tell her the news, Dimpy,” my dad smiled.
The Queen of Retin-A, who cleared up my adolescent outbreak of acne, and was responsible for the glowing complexion I possess today, now stood in front of me, and I wanted nothing more than for the Earth to open up and swallow her plump, perky form.
It’s hard to find an Indian family without an aunt Dimple. Aunt Dimples have one hobby and one hobby only.
Matchmaking.
At that moment, pink plastic vagina or not, I’d have given anything for my aunt Gayatri.
Chapter 2
“OH, I CAN’T WAIT to tell you!” My undimpled aunt gazed up at me beaming. “I’ve found you a boy.”
I felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside me. “A boy? Do I look like a Catholic priest?” I giggled.
No one joined in.
Aunt Dimple grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the sofa. “His name is Tahir, he’s thirty-one and comes from one of the best families in Delhi.”
“Why do they always come from the best families?” I pointed out. “Do the worst families have trouble hooking up? Do Indian parents ever come home to their kid and say, we found you someone from one of the worst families, there’s insanity on the mother’s side and inbreeding on the father’s.”
The silence was deafening.
My mom sat down on the other side, effectively barricading me in a matrimonial-minded sandwich. My dad plopped down in the recliner and turned on the Nightly Business Report, his parental duties done for the day.
I grabbed an embroidered sofa cushion and thought about smothering myself, but with three doctors in the room I’d be resuscitated before you could say “Om.”
Now it’s not as though I’m vehemently opposed to testosterone; like every other heterosexual single woman straddling thirty I was on the lookout for a man, and I wasn’t asking for much. Just a man who respected me, fucked like a stallion, and still paid for dinner.
Not some Indian guy who saw me as his fast track to a green card.
Most Indian parents are Amish-strict about dating, but in a hurry to get you married. My mom didn’t let me date until I was seventeen. My aunt Gayatri, the gynecologist, was even stricter. However that didn’t stop her from happily discussing masturbation at the dinner table, and the best sexual positions for conceiving a son.
Aunt Dimple pulled a large manila envelope from her bag. “I have his picture and his bio data.”
“Hey, why don’t we put our heads together and find a cure for poverty in India?” I volunteered. “Now would be a great time—”
“I know I had his picture,” Aunt Dimple interrupted, frowning into her bag.
“Just give her his bio data,” my mom said. I glared at her. She stared back at me without blinking.
I grabbed the single sheet of paper from my aunt. “What, only one page?” I said sarcastically. Tahir’s bio data listed his height, weight, education, ancestry, and favorite food…Chinese. “But what kind of person is he?”
“He’s a nice boy,” Aunt Dimple said. “I haven’t actually met him, but his mother and I lunched at McDonald’s. She’s a very nice lady. We ate the most delicious Maharajah Macs. I think McDonald’s tastes better in India, don’t you? It’s a status thing there, not like here.”
Oh God, an Indian mother-in-law! I recalled the number of bride burnings in India where mothers-in-law shoved their new daughters-in-law into the oven after dutifully collecting their dowries. Would I find myself roasting nicely at 365 degrees?
I smiled with artificial brightness and started to rise. “I’m not interested, but thanks for thinking of me—”
“It’s time you became an adult, Maya,” my mom interrupted sternly. “When I was your age I was married, I had a child, and I was doing my residency at UCLA. You need some direction in your life.”
“And marriage will give me that? Seriously, Mom, we’re not living in the 1950s.”
“In the 1950s you would’ve been a grandmother at your age,” my aunt jumped in.
There was no point arguing with them. I slumped back against the sofa. Maybe Tahir would find me un-marriageable?
I quickly discarded that thought. I was gorgeous, possessed superb taste, and could make conversation at any cocktail party.
Really, there was only one solution to my problem.
I smiled and sat up. “So when do Tahir and I meet?”
My mom stared at me suspiciously, but my aunt relaxed and returned the smile. “His flight will be arriving tomorrow evening at L
AX. I thought maybe the next day he could come for dinner?”
“Why don’t I go and pick him up? It’ll give us a chance to talk,” I proposed innocently.
“Excellent.” Aunt Dimple patted my cheek. “I know the two of you will hit it off. And I did have an extensive wart removal scheduled with a regular patient, so I was cutting it close. I would have asked your uncle, but he’s performing an operation on this enormous hernia. Apparently it resembles Mickey Mouse’s head and…”
I tuned out as my mom and aunt chatted on about the adventures of my uncle Pradeep, the proctologist.
Tomorrow morning I’d pick up Mr. Tahir at the airport and tell him, in no uncertain terms, he could get right back on the plane to Delhi.
Chapter 3
HIS FLIGHT was late.
I’d been stuck at LAX for over two hours. I toyed with the idea of going home, but the opportunity to talk to Tahir without my family as audience was too important to pass up. If need be, I’d spend the night curled up on one of the less than ergonomic airport seats.
I didn’t have to perform such a sacrifice though; the flight finally arrived just three hours behind schedule. That’s what happens when you fly Air India. Well that and spending twenty-three hours in a cabin that smells like curry. I prefer Lufthansa, efficient, clean, and they hand out Toblerone chocolates.