Unfinished

by Priyanka Chopra Jonas

  About five days before the gala, Nick and I met for a drink at the Carlyle, an elegant hotel full of old-world charm located on New York City’s Upper East Side. The neighborhood is largely a mix of upscale residential brownstones and high-rises, the designer shops of Madison Avenue, and Fifth Avenue’s stately museums. I was forty-five minutes late because I came straight from shooting Quantico and the day had run long. He had recently been to the Masters golf tournament, and early on the conversation veered into two topics that threw me for a bit of a loop: cigars and golf. Cigars and golf? What twenty-four-year-olds talk about cigars and golf? (A lot, as I now know.) Much later, we would laugh at our initial misunderstandings—he’d thought I’d been playing a game by making him wait; I’d thought he was trying to assure me that he wasn’t too young for me given our ten-year age difference.

  We enjoyed the conversation enough for me to invite him back to my apartment nearby after the Carlyle closed, around midnight. It was also a place where Nick, prohibited from smoking at the hotel bar, could enjoy a cigar. In the car on the way there, I’m certain that I told him that my mother would be there, but Nick doesn’t remember that. All he remembers is walking into my rented duplex expecting a private romantic setting, and seeing my mother curled up on the L-shaped couch in the living room in her nightgown, watching TV—she was getting her nightly murder fix with an episode of Law & Order: SVU. Our favorite show.

  “Oh shit,” she said, in an embarrassed whisper. I’d failed to alert her that I was bringing someone home. Oops.

  So I took Nick downstairs. I put on some music and we sat on the back patio to talk. It was raining a little, and unseasonably chilly for a night in late April, and while there were sparks of real intrigue and interest between us, it was clear that nothing was going to happen that night. When Nick left at around 1:30 a.m., he gave me a nice little platonic hug and a pat on the back. A pat on the back???

  The night of the gala, we both had rooms at the Carlyle. Nick’s older brother Joe and Joe’s then girlfriend (now his wife) Sophie Turner, whom I knew from Montreal—I had filmed Season 1 of Quantico there while she was filming X-Men: Apocalypse there—were also staying in the hotel, and they suggested that Nick go to my suite to see how I was doing. “We’re not a couple,” he responded, and instead went to the lobby to wait for me downstairs.

  Which is where Dana, my publicist, found him. In classic Dana style, she urgently whispered, “We need you right now. We gotta go.” Idling outside the hotel was a fifteen-passenger minibus, and when Nick climbed aboard, there I was, standing at the front and taking up the entire vehicle with my trench-coat dress, the very long train of which had been carefully draped over the seats from front to back in a sea of lustrous, khaki-colored silk. Nick was undaunted by the spectacle. “I don’t need much space,” he said with a hint of a smile, maneuvering around the train to make his way into a corner. My heart may have fluttered just a little.

  When we got to the Met, we ended up taking some pictures together on the carpet and some separate photos, too. There are a few where it’s just me with Nick photobombing at the edge of the shot, having to work hard not to step on my train. But as tricky as the dress was to maneuver in, I felt great in it.

  Not long after we’d entered the grand marble foyer of the museum, Nick went off to say hello to some people. While I knew this wasn’t an actual date and I didn’t really know this man, I was acutely aware of his absence. Suddenly there wasn’t a person I knew in sight. I felt adrift in that moment, which was strange because I’d done so many big events in my career and I was accustomed to navigating them on my own. But at that particular moment, in a room full of strangers I’d mostly seen on TV, the world seemed to freeze, and I felt utterly alone. That’s when Nick turned around, took one look at me, and immediately brought me over to include me in the conversation. After that, we didn’t leave each other’s side.

  The night flew by in a haze of flirtation and champagne. As we got into a car to leave the after-party, we held hands for the first time. I was flying out, almost straight from the event, for a UNICEF trip to Zimbabwe—my first trip as a global ambassador for the organization, though I’d been involved with UNICEF India for a decade—and I think we both felt a sense that there was now something between us. Again, there was no kiss—and this time not even a pat on the back. But there was a lingering hug. I’d had so much fun that evening, and I was now deeply curious about this man.

  While we tried to connect in the weeks and months after the Met Gala, it never worked out. Nick had been quite clear about wanting to take me out the next time I was in L.A., but to be honest, I may have been a little reluctant to move things forward. As intriguing as I found him, I knew that when I was ready to be with someone again, I wanted to be with someone who wanted a family. He was twenty-five and I was thirty-five, and I assumed he didn’t, at least not anytime soon. (Note to self: Remember that lesson you thought you’d already learned? When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.)

  * * *

  IT WOULD BE a whole year before we’d meet again. We continued to be in touch randomly during that time—a funny text here, a flirtatious one there. Then, a few weeks before the 2018 Met Gala, I texted to ask Nick if he would be there. He said he would.

  That year’s theme was “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” and I again wore Ralph Lauren, a long, dark red velvet dress with an intricately bejeweled gold hood that had been embroidered in India. I arrived at the gala, joined the line for my entrance onto the carpet, and bowed my head to adjust the gold mesh of the hood. When I looked up again, the man in line in front of me turned around: Nick. We looked at each other with expressions that said This is unbelievable. Because the timing actually was unbelievable. But we didn’t talk much in line; I, for one, was trying to play it cool. Or coy. I couldn’t decide. We walked the carpet separately, did our own photos, and hardly saw each other once we entered the museum.

  A couple of weeks after the 2018 gala, I posted some photos on social media from a UNICEF trip I was on in Bangladesh. Nick responded, saying that he found the pictures moving, and that the good I wanted to bring into the world inspired him. I was touched by his thoughtfulness and we exchanged a few more texts. It was late May and we had no idea that in less than two months we’d be engaged.

  * * *

  WHEN I GOT back to L.A. from Bangladesh, Nick texted to say that he’d gotten tickets to see Beauty and the Beast at the Hollywood Bowl. He was going with his brother Kevin and his friends Greg and Paris Garbowsky, and he invited me to come and bring a friend if I wanted. No pressure. Have I mentioned that he’s a smart guy? My friend Rebel Wilson, with whom I was filming the movie Isn’t It Romantic, was playing LeFou in Beauty and the Beast and I really wanted to see it. So I called Mubina Rattonsey, a longtime friend from Mumbai who now lives in L.A., and she and I joined Nick’s party.

  We all met up beforehand for drinks at the Chateau Marmont, and Kevin—who had been married for eight years at the time and was the father of two young daughters, and therefore didn’t get out as much as his single younger brothers did—was essentially playing Nick’s wingman. Every time there was an opportunity in the conversation to hype Nick—“Nick’s the best baseball player! Nick could have gone pro!” “He’s the best housecleaner! He could go pro at that, too!”—he took it. It was totally hilarious and charming and I loved seeing that relationship between the brothers; I’d seen the closeness between Nick and Joe, too, when I’d watched them together at the 2017 Met Gala. I know now it’s that closeness that infuses everything the brothers do together.

  After we got engaged, Nick told me that the minute I walked into the bar at the Chateau Marmont that night, he’d said to himself, That’s my wife. And that the following morning he’d called his mother and told her he was going to marry me. And that shortly thereafter he’d flown to Australia to meet up with his brothers and told them, too, that h
e was going to propose. But of course I knew none of that at the time.

  We spent every day of the week following Beauty and the Beast together. We went to a Dodgers game, we went out to dinner, we hung out at his place or mine just getting to know each other. One day he invited me to the studio to watch a fifteen-member gospel choir record a song from a musical he’d written. As I observed him conduct these incredibly gifted musicians and understood what total control of his craft he had, my knees literally went weak.

  The week tumbled into Memorial Day weekend, and Nick had rented a boat that Saturday to hang out with a small group of his family and friends—and Mubina, whom I was now dragging everywhere with me. I’d been swept away by this magical day of eating and drinking and laughing, but now it had to end because I needed to get to a meeting that night with my Indian management team and my American management team, who are hardly ever in the same place at the same time. Nick’s friends had other ideas.

  “Don’t work!” they cajoled. “It’s Saturday night of a holiday weekend!”

  The water rocked the boat. The gulls screeched overhead. “Well,” I said, “if I had a reason to stay, I would, but clearly there’s no reason to because no one is telling me to stay.” I may have sounded just a bit like my six-year-old self wheedling to get my father’s attention. I said it once. I said it twice. I may have even said it a third time. Finally Nick took me aside.

  “I’m not going to ask you to stay,” he told me. “Not because I don’t want you to, but because if you could cancel, you’d have done it already.” Then he took my hands. “I’ll never be that guy, Pri. You’ve worked so hard for so many years to be where you are, and you know what’s best for your career. And I will never stand in your way.” A small smile played at the corners of his mouth. “But I know you’re feeling some FOMO here, so I’m going to take all our friends out for dinner while you’re at your meeting, and we’ll wait for you to come back.”

  That may have been the moment I started to suspect he was the one for me.

  The whirlwind romance continued in June when I flew to Atlantic City, New Jersey, for the wedding of Rachel Tamburelli, a longtime friend of Nick’s who, like the rest of her clan, was more like family. There I met Denise and Kevin Sr., his parents; his younger brother, Frankie—the only brother I hadn’t met—his best friend, Cavanaugh James; and aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was perfect timing because I was eager to meet everyone who was important to him. The entire month was spent exploring what his life was like, what my life was like, who his people were, who my people were.

  In the first few weeks of our getting to know each other, Nick had told me that he had type 1 diabetes. I remembered seeing a mention of that when I googled him after he’d first reached out to me in 2015, but I hadn’t thought too much about it. Once I understood what a serious condition it was, I found myself worrying about him almost constantly. Fortunately, that didn’t last long. As we spent more and more time together, I saw how extremely disciplined he was about checking his blood sugar multiple times daily and monitoring his food and making sure that he was 100 percent on top of his health. He’d been managing his illness since he was diagnosed with it at the age of thirteen while touring with his brothers, and I came to understand that he is never reckless with his health. Instead of letting the disease control him, he’s controlled it so well that he leads an almost completely normal life. I observed what he did to keep himself well and I observed how fully he embraced life, and my love for him only grew.

  There was a lot of attention on us by then—the tabloids had picked up on the fact that we were together—and paparazzi were following us constantly. In our business, there are some people who can handle the relentless public scrutiny and then there are others who prefer to safeguard their privacy ferociously. Previously, I’d been part of the latter group as far as relationships were concerned. With Nick, it felt like nothing mattered but us. If we wanted to go out for dinner, we’d go out for dinner. If we wanted to go to a movie, we’d go to a movie. It was unfamiliar territory for me, but also liberating. I felt protected whenever I was with him, and slowly, all the walls I’d built up over the years crumbled away.

  * * *

  MUMBAI, THE MAXIMUM CITY: maximum people, maximum traffic, maximum noise, maximum energy. The city I now call home in India is a whirlwind of chaos that somehow works beautifully. I had a trip scheduled there later in June, and Nick wanted to come with me. “I want to see your country, your home, where you come from, meet your friends,” he said. And then he added, “And I want to see your mom.”

  Really? Had meeting my mom that night when she was watching Law & Order on the couch in her nightgown left that much of an impression?

  As much as I really, really liked him, I was nervous to have Nick come home with me. It was a huge trip for a new boyfriend to make, and we’d be there for a good ten days. I was going for work, for a friend’s pre-engagement party, and to see family and friends in general. Other than visiting people, what would we do in Mumbai all that time? And what would he do by himself when I was working? I can be a bit of a worrywart, but Nick being Nick, he calmed my overactive nerves and took the stress out of the situation. “Don’t worry, babe. Just do your thing and I’ll take care of myself.” And so I agreed.

  As usual we were greeted by media when our Emirates flight landed at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International, but we found our way to the car and made it out of the airport. The first thing I did was to roll down my window and take in the heavy, humid air; I never feel like I’m entirely home until I’m breathing it in. With the people everywhere—in cars, on bikes, in the streets, on the sidewalks—and the noise of car horns and vendors hawking their wares, Nick remarked, “It feels like a concert has just let out at every single moment.” I laughed because it was so true, and because it was such an observant, Nick thing to say.

  My first work commitment was a few days after we arrived, and of course I started to worry again about how Nick would spend his time. “I got this,” he assured me. “Go do what you have to do. I’m going to take your mom out for lunch.”

  Some people might think, Oh, how sweet. Not me. I zipped right into worrying mode. Why did he want to take my mother out to lunch alone? What would they talk about? Would either of them accidentally say anything that would embarrass me? That afternoon I sat in a meeting surrounded by twenty people and couldn’t stop wondering what Nick and my mom were doing at that very moment. Unable to take the suspense any longer, I sent a member of my security team out to take pictures of them at the restaurant they’d gone to—okay, to spy on them—so I could study their body language using my Quantico skills. #NotProud.

  As it turned out, Nick had taken Mom to lunch that day to ask her permission to marry me. NBD. Afterward, when I asked, they both omitted that small detail. Much later Nick reported that my mom had told him he didn’t need her permission. “Well, I’m not asking for your permission, necessarily,” he’d replied carefully. “But I do want you to be happy with this, so I’m asking for your blessing.” Nick sensed that what Mom was feeling but not saying was that she didn’t think it was her role to approve of our union; that such a thing would have been Dad’s role. It must have been a bittersweet moment for her. And yet it was already clear to her that Nick was the one for me, so she put aside her concerns about roles and gave her wholehearted and unequivocal blessing.

  * * *

  EVERYTHING BETWEEN NICK and me felt right. But because the relationship was happening so fast, I was having a hard time processing it all. I tried not to overthink things, to let myself just ride the glorious wave that was carrying me forward and bringing me so much joy. Usually I succeeded, but other times I simply could not believe that Nick was real, and that our relationship was as happy and healthy as it seemed.

  Despite my disbelief, Nick was sure. He had been sure from date two or three. Once we were engaged, he even played me a version of a song th
at he’d written after we’d spent only a few days together, a song about our future that would later become the song “I Believe.”

  Call me crazy

  People saying that we move too fast

  But I’ve been waiting, for a reason

  Ain’t no turning back

  ’Cause you show me something I can’t live without

  I believe, I believe, I believe.

  Less than two months after Nick wrote those lyrics, he proposed to me in Greece, on the enchanted island of Crete. We’d gone there to celebrate my birthday, and he held off until the day after my birthday because—wait for it—he didn’t want to take the attention away from My Day; he wanted us, in the future, to always be able to celebrate those occasions separately. It was just after midnight on July 19, 2018, when he got down on one knee and said, “You checked all my boxes. Now will you check one more?” He held out a Tiffany box just the right size for a ring. “Will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?” According to him, I waited a full forty-five seconds before I answered with an emphatic “Yes!” I don’t remember the lapse, but if there was such a pause, please chalk it up to my being in shock.

  I remember telling Nick that night about the list I’d made on New Year’s Eve with Tamanna and Sudeep. He smiled and said he had a similar one. In the days following our engagement, he told me that weeks earlier in London he’d taken his brothers along with him to Tiffany to pick out the magnificent ring I was now wearing on my hand—Tiffany had closed the store to give the brothers privacy—and the closeness of their relationship, the fact that they would do this together, made me want to laugh and weep for joy at the same time.