“Trust me, his parents can afford it. They kept trying to shove more money at us. ‘Are you sure more backup dancers wouldn’t help?’ I think they knew how bad their son is but still wanted to make him happy.”
“More backup dancers make everything better,” Pari says. “I wish I had backup dancers right now.”
“Oh yeah? What would you sing about?”
“Love, of course. Aren’t all songs about love?”
“Except the ones that are about sex,” Niharika adds matter-of-factly.
Pari and I both burst into laughter. I can’t speak for Pari, but mine was the combination of elegant and maternal with such frank mention of the dirty stuff.
“What? You girls laugh, but there’s a reason Sadashiv and I have been married for almost forty years, and it’s not that he likes my dosas. Though he does.”
“Amma,” Pari protests, though I’m not sure what she wants now. The cat was way out of that bag.
I fold my hands and rest my chin on them. “Do tell.”
“Do not!”
Niharika wrinkles her nose at her daughter, and Pari is saved by the arrival of our food. It looks so good that I feel the hunger at the bottom of my stomach. I push away the top of the bun to balance on the edge of my plate. No one needs that many carbs at one go. Just to be safe, I dump too much salt on it, so it’ll be inedible if I’m tempted to pick at it later. I cut the rest of the sandwich into four pieces. It would be good if I could stop eating at two sections, but if I have three, I won’t be too mad at myself. My back would look leaner in the wedding dress if I stayed on the bottom end of my weight spectrum. Then the red-and-gold ribbon that Niharika wants to add won’t just point to my squishy lack of muscle tone.
I look up from cutting my fresh kale salad into a more chopped style, because I like it better that way, and Pari is watching my silverware. I catch her gaze and lift my eyebrows, but she only shakes her head.
I know I have a lot of leftover habits from my unhealthy days, but they’re just that. Habits. Not the crutch they once were.
“What are you working on most recently?” Niharika looks interested, but I can’t tell if she’s just making conversation or if she really cares. Maybe a little of both, in that way we all have with people we don’t really know yet.
“There’s an actor who’s paying us for a short film. It’s taking most of our effort this month.”
“And how are you helping?”
“Me?” I smile and cock my head. “I mostly make the coffee runs.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Pari says as she studies me. She munches a chip.
“Eh, I help a little bit. Julian doesn’t like this guy much.”
“Who is it?”
“Amma, unless he turns out to be Rajesh Khanna, you’re not even going to know who he is.”
“That’s not true,” she replies firmly, emphasizing her point with a poke of her plastic fork into her quesadilla. “I know the Chrisses. Hemsworth, Pine, and Pratt Pratt Pratt.”
“That is precisely right.”
Pari rolls her eyes at me. I pretend I don’t know what her problem is. Her mom is adorable.
“You both have to swear to never say a word, okay?” I lean in across the table and whisper the name.
It’s actually Pari who has no idea who I’m talking about. Niharika lights up and gestures with her fork. “Yes! I know him. He was in that show with the detective. He had a very fine car.”
“Yup, that’s him. And then he got a very fine heroin problem. But then he got sober, and he wants to prove he can still act.” I take a bite out of my sandwich. It’s so good. I’m glad I salted the top half.
“Can he?” Pari has a tiny bit of barbecue sauce at the corner of her mouth. Her pink tongue sweeps out to clean it up, and I completely lose my train of thought.
“Can he what?”
“Act?”
“I guess he’s fine. As good as most of them. His problem is he may have lost his charm. He’s tired, and the camera can tell.”
Pari angles toward me. “What do you mean ‘the camera can tell’?”
I smile because I know I’m going to sound ridiculous. “The camera can tell secrets that you don’t want the audience to see. The best actors? They’re the ones who let truth through. Directing is the art of harnessing another part of reality.” I shrug, brushing it off. “At least, that’s what I always thought. But no one really seemed to agree with me, so maybe I’m just talking out my ass. Sorry, Niharika, my butt.”
She has a mouthful of quesadilla, but she doesn’t seem too bothered by my slip anyway.
Pari pushes her food around on her plate. She looks up at me suddenly, and I know that whatever she’s going to say is going to leave me … different. “Tell me what you’ve really been doing with this production. We won’t tell anyone.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re not just the coffee girl. And you try to talk of it dismissively, but there’s something there. That you’re not saying.”
Niharika smiles at her daughter. Do they realize they have the same smile? It looks different on the more mature woman, since her cheeks are a little heavier and the skin around her eyes softer. But their truth always shows through. “Listen to your kadhalan. She knows you.”
Pari and I trade glances. Except that isn’t the right word for it. Her gaze traps mine. I’m at her mercy. She does know me. And I think I’m coming to know her … but she still doesn’t want me.
“I’ve rewritten it. I’m doing some of the principal photography, but only when Julian is busy with projects that annoy him less. I can’t tell anyone because the actor wants to retain screenwriting credit if it does well.”
“If it does badly, he’ll throw you under the bus,” Pari says coldly. “That’s the kind of person who wants it kept secret.”
I shrug and ball up my trash, which includes about half my food. I shouldn’t feel proud of how much I left on my plate. I shouldn’t.
I do.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not a bad guy. He wants back in the industry is all.”
“Is it good work?”
“It’s a fuck load better than it was when he gave me the pages.” I wince. I hadn’t meant to say that.
“Then it’s yours. And you deserve credit.”
“I’m not taking credit.” I push away from the table. I might be running away from the conversation.
Pari doesn’t let me go though. She follows with her own trash and shoves it into the recycling and compost compartments after I’m done. “It’s your work.”
“That’s not where I work. That’s not the kind of work I do. We’re not the kind of place that gets that sort of credit.” I’m angry. Holy crap, I’m angry about this.
It hardly even makes sense, but I revel in my anger. I haven’t been actually furious in a very long time. Now it’s Pari who isn’t listening to me, who’s insisting on something that I can’t do. It’s not acceptable, and I’m so mad that I could stomp.
I don’t, but mostly because my sparkly gold flats wouldn’t make a satisfying thump on the patio tiles. “It’s my business, Pari. My job. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Why not?” She looks at me head-on. Her hands are by her side and open.
I tried on wedding dresses with this woman an hour ago. I’m going to marry her in two weeks. And I am absolutely, incandescently furious. I luxuriate in my rage. I let it fire my blood. I’m only moments from letting out some primal roar. “Because I’m my own fucking person!”
“Good,” she says through locked teeth and what looks a little like a smirk. “Good. Hold that. Feel it. Then go tell your boss to shove it, that you’re going to make your own pictures from now on.”
“It’s not that easy.” I’m spitting. I try to let it go, but my fury is something new, and I like new and shiny things. “I don’t work at that type of studio. I knew it when I took the job. I went looking for it, Pari.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t handle the industry for real. I’m not made for it.” I freeze. I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud. Air fizzles out of me in a long, slow breath. I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. You matter.”
“I’m not anyone special. I’ve seen better people than me who’re more gifted and more talented not make it.”
“You’re special to me.”
Four little words. They were only four little words. I hold them to me like they’re made of gold or maybe glass. Glass, because it’s fragile and will shatter if I drop it. I won’t ever drop those words. I don’t mean to ever let them go. I crumple them up in the deepest part of me and carry them with me for the next few days.
They show themselves at the most surprising moments. When I’m standing in line for coffee. When I’m working on a few pages of the script.
When I’m in minute fifty-three on the elliptical, and then they make me wonder if I should keep going. Maybe I should go home.
I go home more often. Niharika cooks dinner, and Pari lets her. They fill the apartment with laughter.
One evening I unlock the front door to an overwhelming wave of giggles. I hitch my gym bag higher over my shoulder as I head toward the kitchen. They’re always in the kitchen. It’s their favorite place to hang out, it seems like. Tonight it’s filled with the scent of bread. I can smell the carbs in the air.
“Hey,” I say at the doorway.
Pari is at the stove, which is the unusual part of the picture. Niharika is sitting at the island. Spread out in front of her is a poster-sized diagram. She has a lined notebook next to her right hand too.
Pari looks at me and smiles. She’s tired. I see it in the weariness of her cheeks. “Hey.”
I use the pretense of giving her a kiss on the cheek to get closer. “Are you okay?”
“Just tired.” She shrugs. She glances back over her shoulder before leaning closer to me. “Amma is driving me nuts. We’re up to three hundred and fifty guests.”
I manage not to gasp.
“I heard that, young lady,” Niharika says without ever lifting her head. Her hair is parted down the middle and smoothed into a thick braid that hangs down her back. “We have a large family. We’ve been blessed.”
I like that Pari leaves her hair down so often. Will that become part of her maturity, braiding her hair? I won’t know, not in the same way that I get a look inside her life right now. If I’m lucky, we’ll be the kind of friends who meet for lunch monthly. Her life will probably be too full for more than that.
Pari gives me a strained smile.
“Is there any way I can help?”
“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Come make conversation that doesn’t have to do with wedding plans, and I’ll love you forever.”
“Consider it done. I just have to get showered up.” I flick toward my sweaty tank top and yoga pants. “I’ll make it fast.”
Pari’s gaze travels up and down me. I shift from foot to foot. “What?”
“Nothing,” she answers, but it has enough bite that it doesn’t feel like nothing.
I shrug it off though. She’s stressed. I give her another kiss on the cheek, even though I don’t want to get closer for fear of rubbing my sweat on her.
I love the shower in the master suite. It’s worth the price of admission, no matter what it cost. Two showerheads are mounted on opposite walls, with a waterfall-style one at the ceiling. After I’ve done the actual work of getting clean, I stand beneath steaming-hot water, letting it turn my skin pink. The sting is so sweet that it’s good. I drop my head back until I’m getting water pattering down on my face. With my eyes closed, it’s like standing in the rain.
Maybe after the wedding, when Niharika goes home and I have to go back to the other bedroom, I can bargain for time in this shower.
I giggle as I shut off the taps and wrap a bath towel around myself. I look at the countertop for my change of clothes, but the creamy marble has nothing clothes-like on it. I’ve forgotten them. Damn it. I don’t want to take longer than necessary, since Pari needed help, so I tuck the towel tighter under my armpits and hustle into the bedroom.
Where Pari is waiting.
“Oh!” I think I’m blushing, but the water left me so flushed that it’s kind of hard to tell. The tips of my ears tingle. “Sorry, did I take too long? Is dinner ready?”
“How long were you at the gym?”
I turn away and pull a pair of panties from the top drawer of my dresser. I step into them and pull them up under the towel. Instantly I feel a little more dressed. Funny how those silly things work.
I laugh. At what, I’m not really sure. “Are you doing the nagging-wife thing already? I don’t need you to rescue me. I didn’t think we had that kind of setup.”
“Were you there two hours?”
“How do you know that? Are you tracking me?”
She shakes her head. “It was a guess.”
I turn away from her again and shrug into a bra. I let the towel slip once I’m mostly covered. “I’m not going overboard. Most of my time was in the sauna, relaxing. Julian was an asshole this afternoon. He asked me yesterday to interview extras, then got mad at me today because I’d only called three casting directors. If he needed it done faster, he could have just told me.”
Pari’s shoulders loosen. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“You’re sweet to say that.”
And then. Then. That’s the moment I realize that I’m almost naked, and I’m pretty sure it’s the moment that Pari realizes it too. Nothing changes and everything does. I actually back up a step, but it’s okay because Pari … she comes two steps closer.
The air in my lungs is thick. I whisper her name. She doesn’t answer.
We collide instead. Our mouths seek each other. Lips to lips. My hands wrap around the sides of Pari’s face. She’s smooth. Christ, so tender. She buries her fingers in my wet hair. It tangles and sticks, pinching my scalp, and I couldn’t give a shit.
Because Pari is kissing me and I’m kissing her.
We push together so hard that I stumble into her. She turns us. We’re the same height, and it makes our mouths align perfectly. She tilts her head, tongue sliding across my bottom lip. My breasts are tight, but that’s astounding because hers are on me. We’re softness to softness.
I find her curves. I touch them all because she might take this away again. Her back is smooth, and her waist sweeps in. I lose my courage when my palms find her ribs and, instead of touching the sides of her breasts, I reverse direction again. I find an opening at the hem of her blouse and shove my hand up her back.
Silk has nothing on her. Satin has nothing. Baby duck fluff has nothing. I have no words to compare with the suppleness of her skin and the gentle give of her flesh. I just try to touch her everywhere I can.
When I get handfuls of her round ass, she makes a sound that’s both quiet and hungry at the same time. She takes my lip between her teeth, then licks away the sharp pain she’s given me.
My hips are rolling. I only realize it when she holds my waist in one hand and gently pins me to the wall. Cold washes over me, but I run hot with shivers almost immediately when I realize she isn’t going anywhere except to take her mouth to my throat.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she says, then opens her mouth on my neck. I’m sure she can feel my throbbing pulse.
“I know.” I close my hands tighter on her ass. She grinds her hips into mine. “Two years is a long time.”
“We can’t break up.” She adds in teeth. “Not that we’re together.”
“But I know what you mean. Where’s your mom?”
“Her cousin called and asked if she wanted to go over.” Pari finds my breast. With only my lacy bra in the way, it’s almost like she has me bare. My back arches into her touch. I let my head fall back against the wall with a thump. She pinches my tight, beaded nipple, and holy shit, I didn’t know I coul
d work that way. What is this magic? Is she just this good? Because it feels like more than I’ve ever done all wrapped up into one encounter.
When I open my eyes, Pari’s watching me too. Not watching her hands on me. Not watching my body. Her gaze is boring into me. She’s attuned to me.
“Please,” I whisper, because somehow I know that’s what she wants to hear. I’m attuned to her too. “Please touch me.”
She does one better. Her mouth follows the line of my collarbone and then opens over my shoulder. She bites me, and I jump into her touch. We’re electric. I lose track of parts of me and parts of her. We’re sliding down the wall, and I don’t care at all. I’d do anything to never stop this.
She pulls my hips closer to hers. I lose my balance. We go tumbling down in a pile of limbs twisted together the way I’d always thought sex worked. It isn’t the fumbling I’ve had before. It’s still awkward, but in a different way, because we’re awkward together.
I end up on the bottom. The softest carpeting in the world is still rough on skin that isn’t meant for it. My shoulders sting. I wouldn’t stop this for the life of me.
Not when Pari’s hand opens over my stomach. I try to suck flat, but she notices and bends to nip the edge of my ribs.
“Give me you,” she orders.
I breathe and melt all at once.
Her hand slides under my panties. I’ve just put them on and they’re already soaked. How did I not notice that? She strokes between my labia, and only then do I realize that I’m throbbing there just as hard as my pulse is throbbing. With each touch, I explode. She explores me slowly but so fucking efficiently. It’s obvious she’s done this before, had her hand down a woman’s pants, and later it might bother me, but right now I’m so fucking grateful.
She finds my clit with unerring navigation, finding my opening first and sliding straight up from there. Her fingertips slip and slide around it. I’m encircled. She rubs along both sides at first.
I have my eyes open, and she’s leaning over me. Her hair creates a curtain around us. We’re divided from the world, separate. Her gaze flickers between my eyes and my mouth. She’s taut and focused in the very opposite way of me. I’m floating free, even though she’s stretched along my side. She has one leg thrown over both of mine, and I can’t tell if it’s because she’s trying to hold me still or because she wants to get closer to me. Maybe both. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all.
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