Opening Night

by Diksha Basu

  i cant get youre smile out of my head

  That was it. One line, no punctuation, no capitalization, an extra ‘e’. Maybe he was trying to tell me that I was a smile. The ennui of my nap dramatically lifted and I jumped out of my bed and into Jess’s room. She had to be home by now. She wasn’t. Neither was Dino. For two nearly unemployed people, they were at home rather rarely.

  I danced around our flat with an uncontrollable grin and made myself a cup of coffee. I stopped to check out my smile in the mirror. It was quite nice. My mind was a whirl. Was I supposed to reply? Did this mean we might have our Happily Ever After? Or that he thought I had the potential for a ground-breaking role? That I hadn’t upset or bored him earlier in the day? Since I couldn’t make any sense of his behaviour or locate any of my reliable friends, I changed and dashed off to the gym to release some of the energy.

  While on the StairMaster for a full six minutes, I decided that I had to answer. Something polite, positive and professional. After long internal dialogue, I got out of the gym and texted him back, an hour and a half after he texted me. I was following the unwritten rules pretty well.

  thanks so much. very nice meeting you today. see you around.

  Too glib? Too formal? Too boring? I really had to tread carefully here. Jay was clearly neurotic, I didn’t know then how he was going to affect my life. How he would have the power to create or to destroy me. Right then, all I knew was that it was exactly the hope of this opportunity that had made me walk away from the cubicle that was my prison in Manhattan.

  To: NaiyaKnows@gmail.com

  From: NalSharma84@gmail.com

  Naiya,

  I’m auditioning for a production of Taming of the Shrew in Baltimore. I’ve been called back and the production sounds really good, but this distance thing with James is getting a bit difficult. That, and Baltimore is just about the worst city in the world. I’ll have to pick between dying of gun shots or boredom.

  I’m off for my voice lessons now.

  Love,

  Nal

  To: NalSharma84@gmail.com

  From: NaiyaKnows@gmail.com

  Dear Nal,

  I’ve been reminiscing about NYC a lot lately for some reason. I think it’s mostly because I’ve been listening to Jay-Z and Alicia Keyes singing about the streets of New York. Bombay streets don’t quite have the same effect. In fact, the streets here make me feel kind of dusty and used, but there is something about this place, Nal, I just can’t explain it. It’s a very different kind of energy from New York, but there’s still that throbbing, pulsating feeling of masses of people on the move. It feels on the cusp of something so big, so different. I really don’t have the words for it.

  Anyway, the good thing is that I’m feeling quite gung-ho about the meeting with Jay. I’ve been re-inspired and watched two Bollywood movies back-to-back yesterday. I really need an excuse to wear my slinky chiffon sari out somewhere. Ideally a place that has trees and a handsome man chasing me.

  You let me know about Baltimore. You really need to get over this Shakespeare obsession of yours.

  Love,

  Naiya

  Naiya Kapur is swimming in her fancy fishbowl. on Friday x

  I didn’t hear from Jay again after that message about my smile. I was beginning to give up on him. My mind was mixing up my goals – it kept picturing me cooking Jay breakfast in our home instead of walking the red carpet as a star. I was feeling disappointed with myself. I wasn’t supposed to be looking for love. It could come later, even come when I was in my thirties, but stardom could only come when I was twenty-three and beautiful.

  That Friday night I decided I had spent enough time obsessing over someone I hardly knew. Dino was upset that he still hadn’t found true love, and Jess had decided that she had worked hard all week – she claimed she had written a song, but refused to play it for us or even let us read the lyrics. We all agreed that a night at Zaza’s was in order. We opened a bottle of Sula Sauvignon Blanc and started to get ready for a night out on the town.

  We were recapping our weeks to each other when my phone rang. Jay. I rushed to lower the volume on the speakers, clear my throat and quickly answer before Jess could tell me not to. For some reason, Jess had decided that Jay was bad for me. I thought she might just be a bit envious about this handsome ex-model who liked my smile. Gay or straight, man or woman, nothing mattered if you looked like Jay. And, I suspected she was jealous that this could help my career move.

  ‘What are you doing tonight?’ was all he said. Maybe I should have waited until Jess stopped me from answering. She was looking disapprovingly at me from across the room, fully aware of who it was. I decided I would not take disapproving looks from someone who took emergency contraception all the time, and so continued talking. I had no idea what to say to Jay. I wanted to see him, yes, but I didn’t want to put that pressure on my night. Wednesday’s meeting had proven that it was going to be high-maintenance friendship, and all I wanted that night was to go out and have fun. Fun that included tequila shots and then jumping over the fence into the pool at Rimola. I decided that on that night, fun would win and so I vaguely answered, ‘Oh. I’m pretty exhausted. Just a drink at Zaza’s and then home in a little bit. Why?’

  ‘That’s it? Fine. Bye.’

  I turned towards Jess, who had decided to move on from being disapproving to being drunk and was on to her third glass of wine. I refused to let Jay and his monosyllables confuse and fluster me. He was a little crazy. End of story. Forget the risk of a heart- break, this flirtation ran the risk of a career-break. Although, can something that doesn’t exist break?

  ‘Jay?’ Jess asked.

  ‘Yes, but it’s nothing. I told him I’m stepping out for a drink.’

  ‘Shouldn’t he not be calling you on a Friday night if your interaction is “professional only”, as you claim?’

  ‘Jess, relax, it’s nothing. It’s done. Let’s just have fun, okay?’

  Jess and her accent … she always sounded so proper and scary. It was this strange mix of a British accent, an American accent that she tried to suppress, and a sprinkling of an Indian accent to make herself understood by shopkeepers. She shook her head at me and refilled my glass while spilling half the wine on the table. The three of us eventually made it out of our door, hailed a rickshaw and got in. Four minutes and eleven rupees later, we stepped out in front of the familiar friendliness of Zaza’s and I managed to almost completely put the nagging Jay thoughts out of my mind. Jess, Dino and I stepped in, air kissed our way along the narrow outdoor section, and walked towards the dead-end indoors. We found a whole group of our friends gathered cosily on the beds in one of the inside rooms after taking part in the Friday night swing dancing session at Zaza’s. It was nice to see everyone. There was Aaron, who had become disillusioned with the American academic system and come to India to teach English and be a personal trainer. He trained people in some new-fangled routine involving ropes and their own weight. There was Kevin, the devilishly handsome man from New Zealand who worked as a music producer in Bollywood. He was my personal favourite in this group because he was just so pleasing to look at – deep blue eyes and a smile that made me giggle. There was Violeta, the beautiful Brazilian who did art therapy. I didn’t even know what that meant, but wasn’t garbage like that a luxury of the West? Ritesh, of course, was there. He was wearing jeans, a black kurta, and two rudrakshas and a mangalsutra around his neck. Nick, the special effects editor from Portugal, who was one of those annoying expats who believe they’re Indian. You know the kind. He would walk around discussing spirituality and acting all pally with rickshaw drivers and wearing FabIndia kurtas and doing the infamous Indian head wiggle. Arvind, the photo-journalist from Bangalore. Nancy, the Chinese American graduate student from Harvard who was interning with an NGO. Neeti, a journalist and Kathak dancer from Delhi. Oh, and Emilia, the European girl who wanted to make it in Bollywood. She wasn’t one of my favourites. What is it with average- to below-average-l
ooking white women thinking they are going to make it in Bollywood? The most awkward-looking ones call themselves ‘models’. Emilia always answered everything in a variation of, ‘Ya. I vill talk to zee producers tomorrow and ve vill see’. And she rarely meant the Zee TV producers. We were quite the motley crew. The veritable United Colors of Benetton. I was once again picturing my life as a movie, à la Auberge Espagnol, when, reflected through mirrors and screened through glass walls, I saw … Jay.

  He caught my eye, waved animatedly, and walked purposefully over in my direction. Thanks to all the mirrors and glass at Zaza’s, I wasn’t quite sure which direction he was coming from. I turned to Jess for help, but she was already on to drink number god-knows-what. Nervous, I downed the glass of wine I’d been nursing until then and turned to face the music. Jay strode handsomely towards me. Well-fitting jeans, a black-collared shirt, sleeves rolled up, and that smile. Zaza’s blurred around him. As my mental camera switched on, I swear, he took on a sepia tint and I could sense his shirt melting off him to reveal his perfectly neat and tight abs with just the lightest sprinkling of dark hair on his torso leading from his belly button down to his …

  My thoughts were rudely interrupted by his sudden proximity and knee-weakening cologne.

  ‘Gin ’n’ tonic, large, no ice. Hi you. What a coincidence. You just vanished after our meeting. I’ll have to keep an eye on you.’ He smiled cheekily, looked at my empty glass, turned back to the waiter and said, ‘And a glass of whatever she’s been having, please.’ With that, before I got a chance to open my mouth, he began introducing himself to my friends. A few people in the group recognized him, but one of the luxuries of a predominantly expat circle was that fading celebrity names and faces didn’t figure high on their priority list. Dashing good looks, however, were on every priority list. Emilia, of course, recognized him instantly, and I swear she yanked her shirt a bit further down and pushed her elbows together to enhance herself. Tramp. Jay was an instant hit. He smiled, charmed and flirted his way into my friends’ hearts … and managed to start making a dent in mine. He asked just the right questions, gave the perfect answers, and engaged me just the perfect amount. I couldn’t help but feel pleased that he’d shown up, and felt strangely proud to have him there for me. More so because every single girl at Zaza’s was doing a nice long double-take at him. I even placed my hand on his knee and laughed just as a group of really short-skirted girls was looking over and obviously discussing him.

  When he got up to go to the bathroom, he whispered breathily into my ear, ‘Bathroom? Line?’ I replied, ‘What? There’s a line at the bathroom?’ He just smiled, flicked my cheek with his finger and excused himself. Odd man. But handsome. Odd + handsome = charming. Odd + ugly = creepy. Rudimentary math.

  After another hour or so at Zaza’s and another handful of drinks for us all, we decided to move the party to Rimola. About seven of us were energized enough to keep going. Unfortunately, Emilia was one of them. Jay called to the bartender, asked for the bill for the whole group, and handed over his credit card without a second look or allowing anyone else to contribute. We all made our way out of Zaza’s and towards Jay’s car.

  ‘One drink at Zaza’s, huh?’ he leaned over and whispered to me. I just smiled in return. He patted my bottom and said, ‘Well, your smile seems to have stood the test of time.’ Had I really allowed him to pat me on my ass? Not just allowed it, but maybe even giggled at it?

  The car wasn’t big enough for all of us so I took the reins and made the arrangements. ‘Emilia, you and Violeta take a cab. Cool? See you there.’ Done. The slutty one and the pretty one had been sifted out of the car. The rest of us piled into Jay’s car – I territorially took the front seat despite being just three inches … my doctor claims two, but I think he’s wrong … over five feet tall, and headed off to Rimola. Jay was driving while chugging from a can of beer. I was more than a little scared, but it would be disastrously uncool to admit that. I just gripped my seat until my knuckles turned white, and enjoyed the ride. In this scene in my movie, there would be a perfect, high-energy, bass-heavy song playing while a montage of us – hair flying, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, laughing – cuts through the suburbs of Bombay.

  Rimola was one of the new big clubs in town that was attached to a five-star hotel, thanks to which, it managed to avoid the 1 a.m. closing time and continued until an ungodly 3 a.m. Done up in a minimalistic, Japanese style, it was a restaurant during the day and transformed into a thumping club at night. Knowing all that goes on there at night, I would never eat there during the day. Rimola boasted of long lines, picky bouncers, celebrity clientele and a white bartender. I had been there a few times and usually found the line and the crowds far too taxing. This time, though, Jay confidently walked to the front of the line and pulled all of us in with him. We were escorted straight into one of the private spaces at the back. Emilia and Violeta were chugging slowly along in the cab and, oops, I guess they would just have to wait in line and come in with all the average people. We, on the other hand, got to be in our all-glass enclosure, spending lots of money while being surrounded by lots of beautiful people. Happy little rich fish in our fancy fish bowl. It made good footage for my imaginary camera. I was too drunk and too happy to worry about my imaginary camera, though, and apparently I was not the only one.

  Somewhere along the way, Jay had clearly had one drink too many. He was now talking loudly and slapping a very confused-looking Dino on the back. He caught my eye, made his way over and announced, ‘Naiya, you don’t know what you do to me. I’m falling in love here.’ I stared at him, open mouthed, and before I could react, he grabbed Jess by the arm. ‘Please tell your roommate that she’s the one for me.’ Jess tried to gently pry the drink out of Jay’s hand, but he wasn’t having it. He got up on the table and screamed, ‘Naiya. Kiss me.’ He jumped off the table and rushed towards me. Just before he lunged at my mouth, I managed to slide under and out towards the bathroom. Jess, bless her, followed. I had to leave. For multiple reasons. I shouldn’t have been going anywhere near a man like him. But he was just so beautiful. You try resisting him.

  Jess and I decided to make a run for it. We would have to abandon Dino, but he could take care of himself. He had found Nidhi, a girl from Santa Cruz whom the expats infamously referred to as the Gateway of India. Jess and I slinked out of the club and into the night, where I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Both of us doubled over laughing and made our way down the long winding driveway of Rimola. Thirty minutes later, we were home and I was exhausted. Jess poured us two glasses of wine and we chatted before going to bed.

  ‘He seems a bit insane, Naiya.’

  ‘Doesn’t he? But how gorgeous is he?’

  ‘Gorgeous, yes. But insane.’

  ‘Yah, yah. What’s the worst that can happen?’

  ‘Have you talked about auditioning for him yet?’

  ‘No, of course not. I can’t just bring it up randomly.’

  ‘It isn’t really random, though. That’s why you met him in the first place, right?’

  ‘Yeah, and it’ll happen. Relax, dude.’

  Jess definitely did drink a lot. She had already downed the first glass. I tried to change the topic.

  ‘Does Dino do anything other than party and have sex? How does he even pay his rent?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s Jewish,’ Jess said.

  ‘How’s your work going, by the way?’ I asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Bombay’s more expensive than I anticipated. I don’t think my dollars are going to go quite as far as I hoped.’

  ‘Yeah, the city is a bit shocking,’ Jess said.

  ‘I really need to get into the whole freelancing thing. Tell me more about how the hell you do it. You don’t seem to be working absurd hours or anything. How do you make enough money?’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, you just do. You learn to make money. When you begin to run out of cash, you figure something out.’

  ‘I guess. I don’t really want
to wait until I run out, though. Do you think you can put me in touch with some of your freelancing people? I can probably copy-edit too. I feel stupidly overqualified for it, but just for the time being, maybe?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jess said vaguely.

  ‘Right. So, could you—’

  ‘Oh my god. How is it almost four already? I need to get some sleep.’

  ‘What? But … okay. Yeah. It’s late.’

  I guessed there wasn’t that much freelancing work available and she probably didn’t want me adding to the competition. Fair enough.

  Naiya Kapur promises to laugh at all your jokes if you’re handsome. on Monday x

  I woke up the next morning feeling a little annoyed. Jess’s comments the previous night about auditioning for Jay were forcing me to confront things I didn’t want to. I couldn’t figure out why Jay was getting under my skin. I was irritated with him for undermining my desire to work with him as an actor. Yes, he was attractive and charming and intelligent, but I had gone to him for advice and work, and I did not want him turning this into some melodramatic nonsense. He shouldn’t have been putting the moves on me. He should have realized that I wouldn’t be able to resist.

  Should I just have slept with him? It would’ve been better than the pot-bellied, smelly ones. I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. I could blow him off and not have my Happily Ever After and not star in his film, or I could see where this went and maybe manage to secure both in one shot. I couldn’t possibly explicitly say no to his advances and still expect him to work with me. Men don’t work that way. And, more importantly, I didn’t really want to say no to his advances. I kept reminding myself about the cinema, the acting, the stage, the fame, the reasons I had come to Bombay in the first place, but this just added to my list of reasons to be disheartened. I put on my Bollywood playlist on my iPod. If that didn’t cheer me up, nothing would. This was what I wanted – the lights, the action, the perfectly choreographed dancing, the paparazzi, the press. It didn’t work. Even Vishal–Shekhar were leaving me cold.