“You know, the noise shocked me the first week I was here,” Emma said. “But now, it just feels normal. Like it’s always been there.”
“It has always been there.” Rishi laughed.
“I guess I mean in my life. I’m surprised I’m so used to it after a few months.”
“Well, it seems like you’ve acclimated to everything here. I don’t think a lot of foreigners do. Last time this guy visited from the Seattle office, he wouldn’t go anywhere without a car with air-conditioning, kept the windows rolled up, and only ate at his hotel. I was like, ‘Dude, you are missing out!’ But he didn’t care.”
“He was missing out. What’s the point of even traveling if you don’t eat everything you can? Such good food. It’s amazing to me how many of the Indian restaurants in Seattle serve the same exact thing. And now, being here, it’s like I’ve never had Indian food before. Like dosas. Poriyal. Pesarattu. Idlis.” She’d just had lunch a little over two hours ago. Was it possible she was hungry again?
“What’s been your favorite?” Rishi asked.
“I think the most interesting dish I’ve had was okra, I mean bhindi, cooked in some kind of mustard sauce. Something I never thought I’d like, but it was amazing. I’m like salivating right now.” She laughed.
“You should have my mom’s. It’s so good.”
“That would be fun!” The words just came out of her mouth. What would it be like to meet Rishi’s family? His sister? Eat his mom’s cooking? See the bedroom he grew up in? What kind of posters did he have up? Or did he have a collection of sports trophies? She turned to ask him but saw he had a far-off look in his eye. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. Was it inappropriate to say she would like to visit his family? God knows it wasn’t the only inappropriate thought she’d had about Rishi lately.
She cleared her throat and got back on a topic that didn’t involve Rishi or his family or the things she’d thought about a few nights ago as she drifted to sleep. Like his chest and the way his shoulders stretched the cotton of his shirts. “Oh, and the parathas, I forgot to even mention those. I mean, I could go on for days just about food.”
They’d sat down and had ordered two cappuccinos from the server when Rishi’s eyes finally lit up.
“Hey, Emma, what if we continue your tour of India with a hookah?”
She eyed one of the three-foot-high hookahs sitting next to another table. “Hookah. Hmmm.” Her eyes narrowed as she watched two guys smoke at the table across the patio. She’d never smoked before, except for a failed attempt during a phase of high school rebellion that had made her cough so hard it hurt. But when would she and Rishi have more moments like this? When would she ever get another opportunity to try it?
“It’s good, I swear. I’ll order one, and you can try it if you want.”
“Okay.” That seemed easier than admitting she was nervous about hacking fit #2—not the sexiest event to witness. Although she shouldn’t care about that. She wouldn’t.
A man set one of the tall hookahs on the floor next to their table. Rishi stuck the pipe in his mouth, and she could have sworn he was teasing her with it as he gently cradled the end of the hose, his tongue curling around the end, a serious look in his eye as he sucked in deep, his cheekbones like razors as he looked at her. The sound of bubbles erupted from the base on the floor, and she looked down at it and realized that her mouth had been hanging open, the drool ready to spill out.
And it was not drool from wanting to smoke.
Jordana had once listed out the things she’d done to impress Charlie—eaten brains of something when they went to Japan, taken surfing lessons at a wave pool in February, and spent a week at his parents’ small town in Kansas, population 450. She’d never understood the lengths that Jordana went to, to make Charlie happy, and vice versa. But sitting here, she wondered if maybe when it was the right guy, this was one of those things you sacrificed on your quest to impress him. Even if that quest was futile and buried under an algorithm and a portentous marriage, with a side helping of childhood asthma.
“Do you want to try?” Rishi held out the end of the pipe like a dare.
She took the pipe from his hands. “What is it exactly?”
“Watermelon mint.”
“That’s the flavor, but what’s in there?” She pointed at the metal dome resting on top of the pipe that was almost at eye level. She had to get her mind off the eroticized sucking in front of her.
“Molasses. And a little bit of tobacco. It tastes sweet.” The words that followed in her mind were sweet. Naughty. Forbidden. Lips. Suck. A little shiver crept up her back. “Try it.”
She put the tip of the hose to her lips, the same small plastic piece Rishi had put his around, and sucked. She’d once passed a lollipop to a boy she thought was cute. He’d stuck it in his mouth, and she’d cried out in disgust, but when he gave it back to her, like a secret, she put it back in her own mouth when no one was looking, thinking it was like a kiss. She was regressing to her ten-year-old emotional self with this boy in front of her. Maybe inadvertently sharing some saliva. The crush from hell.
She sucked in gently, letting the smoke roll around her mouth, making sure not to inhale to avoid creating a horror movie called The Hack in front of Rishi. And yet, she couldn’t help it as she felt the smoke tickle the back of her throat and then grip her larynx. “Oh no!” But she didn’t get the last word out, just the cough.
He set her water in her hand, and she drank. “Ugh!”
“You inhaled quite a bit. Just keep it in your mouth, like this.” Rishi took the pipe. She was staring at his parted lips as the smoke rolled around, he was staring into her eyes, and the intensity between them was strung tight like an invisible force, freezing them both where they were, unable to look away or move. Her breath tightened in her chest, and it wasn’t from the smoke or the choking. She blinked, needing to break the spell, and he shifted in his seat. What the hell was going on?
Maybe it would have been better if they’d just sat there, her coughing while he was disgusted, because whatever this was, it wasn’t good. It had fired up a little hope that was promptly extinguished as she thought about their reality. Marriage. Coworkers. Wife algorithm.
Rishi was trying really hard not to laugh. At least this was getting his mind off his family and his current predicament. It was comforting to know that Emma wasn’t an expert in everything.
“Try again. Less inhaling. Or not inhaling at all.”
“Are you sure?” She wrinkled up her face at him, but the smile was still there.
“It’s quite pleasant; just don’t inhale.” He handed the hose back to her, and her fingers tentatively pinched it. Their eyes locked again, and her fingertips slid down the hose until her hand met his.
A wave of nerves zoomed up and down his arm from the heat of her hand. It was like a spark had lit up his entire groin before exploding into needy firecrackers that threatened to disintegrate him. Zigging and zagging around, they played a game of billiards across his lap and thighs, and then the cue ball landed straight in his chest.
Like a bomb had exploded right in front of him, he was speechless. Rishi stared down at her fingers grasping the pipe. Fingers. Emma’s fingers.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, his head slowly tilting up to meet her gaze. The one thing he’d been waiting for, searching for, had just hit him. The one reaction he’d been looking for in every woman he’d met over the years, at his parents’ request. And now here it was.
With Emma.
Her mouth closed around the pipe, and her cheeks hollowed as she sucked. Those lips parted, and her tongue curled as she released it, and the smoke exited in small billows and ribbons from those perfect pink lips. Her tongue. Her lips. Her hooded eyes. He was almost in a trance, watching as the smoke curled around her tongue.
“Like this?” she asked. Was her voice like two octaves deeper?
He cleared his throat. “Keep doing it just like that.” The words had escaped his mou
th before his brain could tell it what to say. Yeah, that didn’t sound sexual at all.
He was so screwed.
How had it happened? Had they just been spending too much time together?
His entire life had just done a 180-degree turn, while she was looking at something on her phone like nothing had happened. Emma was oblivious as his heart crumbled along the fault line that ran through him.
He was terrified of what he would do. What his body would do. And this was just after touching her hand. What would happen from a kiss? Or more?
He needed to leave, but he couldn’t leave. He’d just gotten a hookah. “I’m going to get something to eat. Do you want anything?”
“Sure, surprise me.” She smiled like he knew her. It was the kind of smile a girl in a movie would give a guy she was in love with. Who knew her inside and out. His hand ran through his hair, and he wanted to just yank it all out. Instead he walked to the counter.
He needed to put some distance between them. Distance. Kilometers. Not the three meters from here to the counter. He got a veg puff and a samosa, just pointing at the two things nearest him in the bakery case. He didn’t care, just needed some excuse to let his body calm down. To reset his mind.
He set the two small plates in the middle of the table. “What’s this?” She pointed.
“A veg puff.”
“May I? You can have this hookah back. I got a taste, and that’s all I needed. Checked it off my list.”
Just a taste. He’d had that too. But he wanted to check more off his list. He really had to stop thinking that way.
She moaned a little as she took a bite. “What is this flavor? It’s so good!”
“Oh, just some spices.” Maybe food would distract him from what had happened. “You know, everything here is just sautéed with some spices. It’s essentially all the same technique, with a variation on the spice and amount.” So clinical. He just needed to talk in recipe code. If he actually knew any, of course, that would’ve helped.
“Yes, I’m sure it’s that simple. You just sauté vegetables with spices, and that’s it?” Her eyes shone like green glass, and her bottom lip curled up, mocking him. He wanted to grab her jaw and show her lips how serious he could be. It didn’t help that she was ecstatic about all things food. She was going to get that foodgasm look all over again, and then his mind would just go back to where it shouldn’t be.
“Yes, and maybe some coconut.” He cleared his throat. What was he going to do?
“That sounds a little too easy.”
Nothing about this was easy anymore.
“I’m not a great cook, so I usually make eggs and toast or something.” She shrugged.
His mother would be horrified that a woman in her late twenties couldn’t make anything but eggs. And his mother was a strict vegetarian who didn’t even eat eggs, nor did she know Rishi did. His and Emma’s future flashed in his mind: the two of them living off omelets and feeding two little brown-skinned, redheaded children. He laughed darkly, wondering from which part of his subconscious that image had materialized.
But that was the problem. It wasn’t his subconscious anymore. It was something real. His body had just proved it to his mind. That question of What if? now loomed before him, penetrating his more sensitive organs and drawing them to attention.
And would he ever know the answer to the question he most wanted to ask: Did she feel it too?
CHAPTER 23
Emma ordered tea and samosas while she waited for the flight to be called for boarding to Cochin. She examined the crowd while trying to find Rishi. She hadn’t seen him much that week after their hookah outing except for meetings, where he’d given her perfunctory greetings and status updates. As she sat on one of the barstools, she pulled out her guidebook and started reading about Kerala.
Just from reading the first pages about the Indian state on the Arabian Sea where the conference was being held, she’d discovered that Kerala had a tiger preserve as well as houseboat tours down something called “the backwaters”; it was also home to Ayurveda, the traditional Indian medicine of herbs and oils. Kerala was “God’s own country,” the book proudly exclaimed.
“Staring at a girl in her underpants getting rubbed with oil? For shame, Emma.”
She swiveled around on her barstool to find Rishi and Kaushik standing behind her, Rishi with a delicious grin spreading across his face.
Heat crept up from her chest and threatened to take over her face and neck with its particular brand of embarrassing rouge. “I was just reading about the ancient art of Ayurveda,” she stammered, which was skewed by her struggle to get the right sounds out. “I’m staying in Kerala until Monday, so I’m trying to figure out what to do.”
Rishi nodded, looking into the distance. “That’s a good idea. Almost like a free vacation, since you don’t have to pay for the flight. What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea.” Emma sighed and looked at her guidebook. “Jas said I could get a car and driver from the hotel, who would drive me around. Maybe I’ll see a tiger or go on a boat ride . . . I don’t know.”
She leaned back against the bar, taking in the sight of Rishi, his T-shirt clinging to the curve of his biceps and fitting a little too tightly across the chest, his jeans hugging his thighs like they were in love and never wanted to let go. And his eyes, which somehow she’d once described as concrete, were shining and silver, like labradorite stones. When the sunlight filtered in through the window and his eyes caught the light, they almost glowed like a cat’s.
Something had definitely happened when they’d had coffee. Or had she hallucinated it? You couldn’t get high off a hookah, could you? If so, it was a high that had carried over for days.
“Excuse me—I’ll be back in a minute.” Rishi walked off, his head swiveling around, likely searching for the bathroom. Kaushik followed behind him but made a turn for the line at the gate.
Too bad she couldn’t be touring the state with Rishi all weekend.
What was she thinking? Somehow all this marriage searching must have plucked a bright jewel of jealousy from her chest. He was soon going to be matched with a perfect woman who’d checked off all the boxes. Not that any of that should matter. She and Jeremy had been perfect on paper, but that thing that said I can see myself discovering you for the rest of my life just hadn’t been there. But Rishi had goals. He had a sister. He had a plan to get married, and soon. He didn’t have time to date, and even if he had, Emma would not have been the type of woman he’d consider casually dating. What would be the point?
She jumped off her stool and swallowed the rest of her tea and headed toward the growing line for her flight.
It was after ten, and the three had checked in and had dinner and were still sitting in the hotel’s restaurant, Kaushik talking and talking while Emma and Rishi split dessert—gulab jamun, round, syrupy balls lightly scented with rose. Every time their spoons clanked in the bowl, her heart seemed to ridiculously reply with an elevated beat.
“It’s almost ten thirty,” Kaushik said, looking at his watch. “We’d better get to bed. Our presentation is at nine.”
Emma looked across the table at Rishi, who nodded and downed the rest of the beer in his glass. Sighing, Emma did the same, and they all went upstairs together, Emma falling behind the two as they had some kind of heated conversation in half English, half Hindi. Hinglish, Rishi called it. Everyone in India seemed to speak at least three languages. The small amount of time she’d devoted to learning Hindi had only let her ask if someone wanted something to eat or what their name was. She tried to catch what they were saying, but they were too fast.
“Good night!” Emma called out at her door. She knew she sounded annoyed but couldn’t bring herself to care. Rishi waved from outside his room but was still talking to Kaushik. About cricket? Was that what she’d heard? She shut the door behind her, shaking her head. Ignored. Whatever.
She’d made a pact with herself when starting college that she w
ouldn’t be the odd man out anymore. The wallflower. The nerd with hand-me-downs and crazed hair that wound itself into frizzy knots. And yet here she was again, the outsider. All because she wasn’t learning Hindi fast enough.
What was that phrase Rishi had said to her in Hindi a few weeks ago? She looked at her phone, where she’d noted it down right after they’d talked. It had slipped from her mind, only to resurface now. Maybe she hadn’t spelled it right, but she could trust in the internet to correct her mistakes. She copied the words she’d transcribed and pasted them into the browser.
Tum harai ankhen bohoot sunder hai.
The top result shot a bolt into her abdomen. A bolt that zapped below her navel and then sank lower. She collapsed onto the bed, heart racing, stomach swimming. That couldn’t have been right, could it?
She swiped her thumb across the phone. All the results were the same. While she didn’t know what a few of the words were, she knew tum was you.
And the key words were bohut sundar hai. Very beautiful.
Rishi had said she was beautiful. Correction: very beautiful.
A ridiculous smile ached at her cheeks, and she fell on the bed, delirious. She burned inside to tell him what she’d discovered. Her cheeks hurt from smiling so wide.
But did it matter, when he was trying to find a wife?
She lay still, but confusion swam around her, creating the kind of ache she had when she couldn’t solve a challenging coding problem, her stomach sinking after she’d stared at the computer all day and forgotten about lunch. And pondering the puzzle of this man was causing clenching and twitching between her thighs. It wasn’t math. It wasn’t being engaged in her work. It was lust and longing and want.
She hypothesized what Rishi would do if she knocked on his door. If P, then Q. What were the potential outcomes? What did the consequents look like?
If Emma knocked on Rishi’s door and he was asleep, he would be upset and ask her to leave. And remind her that no matter the attraction, he had to find an Indian wife with shampoo-model hair, even if he once thought she was pretty.
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