Girl Most Likely To

by Poonam Sharma

  “We’re all alone,” Salt-and-Pepper replied with a grin.

  “Don’t be smug,” I said. “You surprised me.”

  He shrugged.

  “You know, I don’t even know your name.” I tilted my head to hide from the sun behind his shadow.

  “Does it matter?” He dropped his satchel and took a seat beside me, facing the ocean.

  “I guess not,” I replied. “Anyway, how was it up there?”

  “You don’t look so good.” He ignored my question, focusing instead on the bags under my eyes. “Are you hung over?”

  “No,” I protested while struggling to sit up. “Well, not exactly.”

  “Don’t tell me you got into the Kava with the cannibals,” he said, as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about our conversation.

  “They’re not cannibals. Some of their ancestors were.”

  “Oh, okay.” He grinned, clearly amused.

  “Did you come over here and intrude on my privacy just to judge me?”

  “No, I’m quite sure you do enough of that for yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, you’re scared. I get that.”

  “You’re a nice guy, but you don’t know me.” I looked away.

  “I think I do.” He paused to remove and then re-don his baseball cap more than once. “You know, I didn’t always have cancer and study meditation and camp out on mountains in the South Pacific. Let me tell you more about myself.”

  I gave him a look that signaled he had my attention.

  “I used to be a priest. Back home, I grew up in a very religious family. I always felt as though I didn’t belong. As I was told to, I grew up and became a priest like my two brothers. I thought I was happy. I saw a lot of people struggling and I was able to help them. I thought that was all I needed. Then one day I met a woman and I fell in love with her so immediately and so deeply that I didn’t know what to do. Of course, I knew the church wouldn’t allow a priest to marry. I struggled with it, and eventually decided to leave the church for her. My family shunned me. A few months later I found out about the cancer. After I tried every possible medical treatment, with my wife by my side, I thought about looking into alternative healers in other parts of the world. My family thought I was crazy, and forbade me to try any treatments or healing methods that might fall in line with what the church deems heresy. They said I should surrender myself to God’s will. I chose to fight instead, because I couldn’t see why God would give me love and then want me to die. I allowed myself to fight, and to find my own answers, rather than accept what I’ve been told. And I’m still fighting.”

  “No offense, but what does any of this have to do with me?”

  “Look, life isn’t a movie. Things don’t just happen. You don’t go from devastation to epiphany in an instant. You’re not going to get repaired by meditation or anything else. You’ll only see things a bit differently every day. If you’re smart, you’ll always participate. You have to go out and find things, places, people who will see you for who you are, and help you find what you need. Whatever it is you have been through or are going through is valid, but getting blitzed on Kava isn’t going to help you make any progress. There comes a point where healing turns into hiding. Part of healing is taking what you’ve learned and facing your demons again. You need to accept the fear that you will fail yourself again. Some people never have the chance. I know fear because ‘Fear of Anything People Will Think of Me’ is a luxury I don’t have anymore. I don’t have the time for it. I wish I had the chance that you do.”

  “You don’t even know what I’ve been through.”

  “It doesn’t matter what it is in particular. You’re walking and talking and able to move forward. That’s not a lot. That’s everything. Take it from a dying man.”

  “Did you face your demons?”

  “Yes, I believe I did. But for me, like for you, part of it was my parents, who forced me to go into this life, and part of it was myself.”

  “My parents never forced me. They did their best, I guess.”

  “Well then, stop blaming them.”

  “I don’t blame them.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me and then continued.

  “Healing is not a process with a beginning and an end. It’s a road you keep walking. You don’t sit down and wait for life to come and find you again. You expose yourself to it. Truly rip off your clothes and see what happens. Because you can. Bare yourself. Let the wounds have air so that they can scab over and start to heal. If you’re very fortunate, you might find someone who will recognize that you’re searching, even if you can’t or won’t admit it, because they’ll be searching in a similar way. Someone who can love you for who you are and who you want to be and how you choose to occupy your space in the world. Then it doesn’t seem so much like healing anymore. It starts to seem more like life. Like being alive again.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  “Because there’s a seaplane leaving here in a few hours for the mainland.”

  “I’m not ready,” I mumbled.

  “Who ever is?”

  “You’re a very difficult man,” I said.

  “And you are a woman who is already everything that she needs to be, but insists on believing that there is something missing.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to want to go back. And to be grateful that you have the chance to do it. If not for anyone else then for some crazy guy you had a memorable talk with, while you were hung over on Kava on the beach of some unknown island in the South Pacific.”

  Looking back there wasn’t that much to think about. I knew I couldn’t hide out on that beach forever. Everyone else seemed to be picking themselves up, saying a prayer and facing the day without benefit of one percent of the blessings I had waiting for me. And I knew I had no right to stay down.

  I shook my head, kissed my friend on his cheek and rose to my feet. There was nothing else to say, so I smiled, and he did the same in a way that suggested he knew we would never see each other again. One second later, I was in a dead sprint headed down the beach toward my hut. I had a seaplane to catch.

  28

  While I am the physical antithesis of Annie Reed in Sleepless in Seattle, and have lived through nearly thirty years’ worth of experience to the contrary, I always hold on to the possibility of a chance airport encounter with a handsome stranger who’ll change my life. Oftentimes I’m waiting for my baggage, or to check in, and I will pick the cutest stranger in my field of vision, then imagine the witty things he’ll say to break the ice after we both reach for the same baggage-identification-rubber-bandy-thingy. Or how he’ll smile and insist that I take the seat in the waiting area where we were both headed. Or how our eyes will meet across a sea of dimly lit airplane seats during Casablanca (the in flight movie), when I get his Kosher meal by mistake.

  I don’t know why it’s Kosher. Work with me.

  I do this not because I’m delusional, but because I’m bored. And I’m a woman. And it beats eavesdropping on the almost always boring conversations of the people around me. (Maybe I should start bringing books to airports instead?) And since, on my return to my so-called life, which consisted, at that point, of a mailbox full of bills, miserably failed attempts at love and career, family and friends who had deemed me insane and a bizarrely intimate relationship with my gay neighbor and his cat, I would rather think about anything other than what the hell I’m gonna do once I get there.

  I was settled on the plane and noticed a young married couple squabbling near my row. The husband of said couple begged my pardon and proceeded to ask me to switch seats with him. His wife contributed by glaring fiery daggers into the back of his skull.

  “She’s upset that I didn’t force them to seat us together at the check-in counter,” he implored me with a defeated whisper. “We’re already trying to work through some marital difficulties to begin with. It would really help
if I sat next to her. Could you switch seats with me?”

  It was at these moments that I was glad to be single. Even though I had specifically requested the window seat, I gave it up without a fight to this sad, sad man. What other choice did I have? His wife was radiating negativity so powerful that I feared it might swallow me whole. I suspected that this might be the only negotiation that worked out in his favor all day.

  Of course, I gave up my seat so the couple could sit side-by-side. I was such a Good Samaritan, I told myself. God must have seen that gesture. So as I made my way to sadhusband’s originally assigned row, I feasted on visions of the original-James-Bond-look-alike who would rise from the adjacent seat to f lash me a winning smile, and insist on using his chiseled forearms to hoist my bag into the overhead compartment. Then he would proceed to entertain me with stories of his travels as an investigative reporter for National Geographic, which was how he was killing time while on sabbatical from his teaching position at the Harvard Business School. Obviously. Did I mention he would have a thing for short, brown women with delusional imaginations?

  He would tell me that I had the most marvelous laugh, and take the liberty of asking me to dinner that night. He would invite me to Le Cirque, where he could always get a table, since his brother was the sommelier, kiss me under the moonlight outside the front door of my apartment and call me once he got home to ask if we could make an immediate promise to see each other exclusively. He would propose in a combination of English, French and Hindi, which he would’ve learned within a year without my having had to suggest it, in order to win over my family.

  Oh, and there would be roses. Everywhere we went. Always.

  However, instead of canoodling with my international man of mystery, on one side I found a severely obese preteen, who laughed so violently each time he scored a point on his Game Boy that he spat damp Doritos crumbs onto my lap, and on the other, a Mormon preacher, who thought this f light was the perfect time to teach me everything about The Joys of Jesus. Neither one of them would allow me the privilege of an armrest. But I wasn’t surprised. The kind of touching-happenstance romance that always sweeps perky-girl-next-door heroines off their feet by genuine-but-still-doable-male-co-stars almost never happens in real life.

  My maternal instincts have been in hyper-drive since approximately the twelfth grade. Three seconds is the typical amount of time it takes for me to lose my composure along with my posture, and regress to a point where I begin babbling to infants, as if I just picked it up one summer on a bike tour of Europe. Entire romantic evenings have been ruined when I, at the subtlest hint of a bright-eyed, pudgy-cheeked, round-bellied potential new playmate, have forgotten that my date was in the room. I have been known to get down on all fours, in a red dress and heels no less, just to meet a toddler at eye level.

  It wasn’t so much that I wanted children of my own right away; it was more that I wanted to devour everyone else’s. Perhaps I envied them their innocence. Whatever the reason, I’ve always wanted to gobble them up. That is, of course, if they were the cute-and-playful-and-well-behaved-and-ticklish-but-not-chronically-gassy type. If they were the screaming-bloody-murder-while-biting-everyone-and-throwing-pancakes-at-the-walls variety, then I found myself leaning back and admiring my tummy. All the while I would repeat Niiiice, flat stomach in my mind, and congratulate myself for having wasted all these eggs.

  Regardless of how many pancakes a child might have thrown at the walls, however, I cannot abide the image of one being hit. As if the baggage claim at JFK wasn’t violent enough to begin with, I was frozen in my tracks by the sight of a curious young girl who’d placed her hand gently onto the luggage conveyor belt, full of excitement at the way that it moved. When her mother saw this, she yanked the girl away and after shaking and scolding her, slapped the child across her face. Hard.

  Welcome back to New York.

  It could have been the sensory overload of the airport after two weeks of meditation, but I was in shock. Normally, I would have bitten my tongue. For another moment, the woman continued to scold her now sobbing daughter while a growing number of people couldn’t help but stare. Finally, I decided I would have to say something. But before I could, someone else stepped in. A man walked over to the woman and her child, and carefully interrupted them with what I assumed was an appeasing smile, despite the fact that I could only see the back of his head. Then, in a voice so delicate that it was contradictory to everything about the well-built warrior, he said, “Excuse me, ma’am, I think the girl’s learned her lesson. Maybe it’s not my place to say this, but maybe you should take it easy on her. She’s only a kid.”

  The moment I heard his voice, I knew it was Nick. What was he doing here? Was he here by coincidence? Or did he spend his Saturday afternoons trolling the baggage claims, looking for children to save from the wrath of their disgruntled parents? Either way, I wasn’t ready to see him or to apologize for my earlier behavior. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I knew I should take the opportunity to disappear while his back was still turned to me, but I was too interested in what would happen next. So I edged myself within earshot, trying to hide behind a few people.

  “You’re right,” the woman snapped, rising to her feet and getting within a few inches of the man’s unwavering face. “It is not your place to tell me how to raise my daughter. Where the hell do you get off trying to tell me what I can and cannot say to my kid?”

  “I was not trying to offend you. But I’m not the only one who was startled by your yelling. I can understand that you’re upset and worried about your daughter hurting herself. But there is no need to raise your voice at me.”

  “How dare you!” Her eyes widened as she became increasingly aware of the crowd nearby. “This is none of your damn business!”

  Nick raised his hands before him protectively, attempting to calm her. “As I said, please keep your voice down. And for the record, it is my business, as much as it is everyone’s business to stop someone from hitting a kid. Maybe I have no business telling you what to say, but I do have every right to stop your abuse if I see it in public. And you hit her way too hard.”

  “F—off, buddy. I am not abusing my child. You have no idea what you’re talking about, and you better stay the hell away from us, or I’ll call the police,” the woman concluded, before grabbing her daughter by the arm and dragging her toward the exit.

  Having witnessed the scene from only a few feet away, and being embarrassed that I failed to step in and echo Nick’s sentiment, I felt compelled to pat him on the back, but didn’t. I turned on my heel and headed in the other direction, not ready to deal with him yet. In moments he caught up with me and laid his hand on my shoulder. My stomach leaped.

  “Nick! Hi!” I greeted him way too enthusiastically. “Listen, I saw what you did with that woman and you were totally justified. I’m sorry I was running off. I’m expecting a friend to meet me here and I don’t want her waiting too long.”

  “I’m waiting for a friend, too.” He smiled.

  Maybe it was too soon for me to be back in New York. Because his mouth, his eyes, looked waaaaay too inviting to me. I felt self-conscious, and realized immediately that I had no makeup on and hadn’t had my eyebrows or skin attended to in weeks. I appreciated the attention, but knew he was probably here to pick up someone else. Regardless, if meditation had taught me anything, it was that I didn’t speak up for myself nearly enough. Maybe this was an opportunity to test out what Salt-and-Pepper was talking about. Maybe it was time to expose myself.

  “Okay, Nick, I need to talk to you.”

  Before I could finish, Cristina bounced over and swept me into a hug which included a squeeze and a little jig. Then she draped herself across Nick.

  “Welcome back, Vina! I was in the ladies’ room. Oh, and you’ve already seen Nick!”

  “Yeah,” I said, caught off guard. “I didn’t know you guys knew each other.”

  “I didn’t tell you? We met at the gym. Actually, he’s my tra
iner,” she giggled.

  Ooooooooh, so she had a crush on him, and he came along to the airport to do her a favor. Well, it certainly didn’t take him long to get over his crush on me. And he had the nerve to flash that flirtatious smile. Not very superheroish at all. It didn’t matter, though. I still needed to apologize for my past behavior and unfair presumptions about him. I would just have to do it another time.

  “I was sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong,” Nick explained, staring at me, “and Vina here was telling me what she thought about that.”

  “It was no big deal, really. How ironic that you’re friends,” I added. “Why don’t we get going?”

  I headed straight for the automatic doors, determined to find the appropriate time and place to make amends. As for the rest of my thoughts, I’d keep those to myself for now.

  “Okay, I’m confused,” Cristy bubbled, “but I’m sure you’ve had a long trip. Anyway, Vina, I was going to tell you this later, but I can’t wait. Prakash and Christopher are tying the knot next weekend in Vermont. And you and I are both gonna be bridesmaids!”

  Lovely. Everyone else’s life was progressing right on schedule while I was publicly humiliated, probably unemployed, and had been reduced to misinterpreting the flirtations of the crushes of my girlfriends at airport baggage terminals. Pre-Fiji, this would have had me feeling very sorry for myself. But after all that had transpired, it seemed as if I should simply be grateful that Christopher wasn’t likely to be a very bitchy bride. He wouldn’t expect me to wear something bright yellow or polka-dotted or covered with unflatteringly positioned bows. No, at the very least I knew that he would never do that to me.

  29

  Talk about your bitchy brides. Cristy and I were draped in layer upon layer of shrimp-orange chiffon, and bisected by a way-too-tight white bodice that matched the gloves on our hands and yes, the enormous, tacky bows in our hair. I must really love Christopher, I kept telling myself as I watched him and Prakash hand-feed each other chocolate layer cake with peach-infused ganache. The flavor combination, to everyone’s surprise, did work out all right. But there was nothing all right about the way that I looked on the night of Chris’s commitment ceremony with Prakash. We were seated on a podium in front of two hundred people, while photographers’ bulbs f lashed at us from every direction. Did I mention there was also a bow on my butt that was about as elegant and appropriate as a Kick Me sign?