Sister of the Bollywood Bride

by Nandini Bajpai

  “They also have a dual-degree program with Brown,” she said thoughtfully. “Did you know?”

  “No!” I said. “Really? How do you apply to that?”

  “I think you have to apply individually to Brown and RISD,” she said. “And if you get in to both, you can apply for the dual-degree program.”

  “That sounds great!” I said. “I mean, it’s really, really tough to get into either of those schools, but I could try!”

  “There are the Tufts SMFA programs too. They offer a combined five-year BFA and BA degree, and a four-year BFA,” she said.

  “I love the Museum of Fine Arts,” I said. “I didn’t know their school was part of Tufts.”

  “And it’s only a couple of miles from MIT,” Vir said. “Both the Medford and MFA campus.”

  “That should not weigh on her decision, Vir,” his mom said.

  “Thanks for all the advice,” I said. “It’s really helpful.”

  “You’re welcome.” She smiled. “Remember that closest to home there’s always Fellsway.”

  “Fellsway is definitely on my list,” I said. “I love it here.”

  “We don’t have a design curriculum,” she said. “But we’ve had a fashion design club since 1999, and they manage to pack in a great deal within the liberal arts framework. Vir will be happy if you do choose Fellsway, though. And I might see more of him if you go here too!”

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it,” I said. “You must be so proud that Vir got accepted into MIT.”

  “Yes, I am,” she said. “And so is his father. He went there too, you know.”

  “So you’re legacy?” I asked Vir.

  “That’s not why I got in.” Vir sounded a little defensive. “It’s the reason I’m going, though, instead of to the other colleges I was accepted at, like Stanford, Columbia…”

  “Okay, I believe you!” I said.

  “I wanted him to go to Oxford,” his mom said. “But he’s kind of set on following in his father’s footsteps.”

  “Only where school is concerned, Mum!”

  I tried to keep a straight face while they bickered about Vir’s father, but she must have seen something in my expression that made her add, “Vir, I think you should tell her”—she waved a hand around vaguely—“about Dad.”

  “Fine,” Vir said shortly.

  “Before the August fifteenth thing,” she insisted.

  “What August fifteenth thing?” I asked, feeling a bit lost.

  “There’s an event for India Day in Boston,” Vir said. “It’s sponsored by my dad’s company. I want you to come, but Mum wants me to give you a heads-up about the family before then.” He had a sheepish grin on his face. “They’re a bit much.”

  Bit much how?

  “Your dad’s in farm equipment, you said, right?” I said, totally confused by now. “Why are they sponsoring stuff here?”

  “He told you his father is in farm equipment?” Vir’s mom sounded like she was choking on something.

  “Yes,” I said. “And that he was a genius in his field but it’s too boring to talk about.”

  “That’s not entirely accurate, is it, Vir?” she said. “Well, I have to finish up some work in the office, so I’ll say bye now. It was wonderful meeting you, Mini. I’ll see you again, I’m sure! Vir, you can’t spring the whole circus on Mini without telling her what to expect. You need to talk to her—now!”

  Well, that was direct!

  She laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so happy Vir found you!”

  “Me too,” I said, and she vanished into the house, leaving Roshan to keep us company.

  The sun was setting over the lake, but it was still warm on the stone terrace.

  “So, what’s the big mystery about your dad?” I asked Vir.

  “It’s just that—I can’t stand my stepmother,” Vir said. “I really don’t like her. And I was stuck in Mumbai living with them for ten months. I loved working with my dad, and I learned a lot—but I was sick of her. She’s one of those socialites, you know, and she dragged me around to parties like I was some kind of lapdog, and dangled me before her friends’ daughters. So I left without telling them, and for a few hours they even thought I was missing. They got mad, and I got madder. It was ridiculous. Anyway, my dad and I have made up, and they are coming to Boston in a couple weeks, and it’ll be nice if you could meet him—so, will you?”

  “Fine,” I said. “But who is your dad?”

  “Ramesh Mirchandani,” he said. He looked braced for impact like he had just launched a nuclear missile or something.

  “Like the…” Why did the name sound familiar? “Like the… car?”

  “Yeah,” Vir said. “Mirchandani Motors is the family company. My dad and his brother run it.”

  I was too astounded to speak. My boyfriend’s dad was one of the Mirchandani brothers who owned Mirchandani Motors. What?

  “FARM EQUIPMENT?” I said at last. “Vir!”

  “Hey, we’re big in tractors too,” Vir said. “That’s how the company started. In fact, tractors are still sixty percent of the business.”

  “So that’s why your mom has a Mirage?” I asked.

  “It was an exhibition car,” Vir said. “Mom liked it, so Dad arranged for her to have it. They still, you know, communicate.”

  “So, are you rich or something?” I asked.

  “Rich is relative, but yeah,” Vir said. “My dad’s side of the family is well off, by any standards.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Does that mean you don’t really want to set up a DJ business?”

  “That was just so I could see more of you,” Vir said. “But I’ll do Vinnie’s wedding, of course. I promise!”

  “You had better!” I said. I sat still, trying to take it in. “Vir, it might take me a while to process this!”

  “Can I hold you while you do?” he asked.

  “Please!” I said, and laid my spinning head on his shoulder. “You know, I may owe my Ernie Uncle an apology. I think he tried to, like, set us up, and I totally doubted his judgment.”

  The surprise was that Dad knew.

  “Yes, he told me that day he brought you home from the movies,” Dad said.

  “When you were driving around in the Lotus?” I asked.

  “That’s how it came up,” Dad said. “We were talking cars. He knows a lot about automobiles, and engineering, and he’s going to MIT. I like him. He doesn’t act entitled or anything.”

  “And when exactly were you going to share this with me?” I asked.

  “I thought you knew,” Dad said. “Anyway, what’s the big deal? It doesn’t change who he is otherwise.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I was “officially” meeting everyone at the India Day concert.

  Vir’s dad, uncle, aunt, and two cousins—all the rich, successful Mirchandanis—and also the dreaded stepmum slash socialite. No pressure, right?

  Seriously, what do you even wear to something like that—a party dress, an evening gown? Nothing I owned was remotely suitable, and it was too late to order online. The only thing left to do was to (a) check out the Turnabout Shop just in case someone unloaded a stunning dress in mint condition and/or (b) go shopping with my emergency fashion fund clutched in my hand.

  I headed for the mall. No luck. The only possibility that I actually considered was a dress that looked like something Audrey Hepburn would have worn back in the day. But would it work for the event? I tried it on for laughs before changing back. It was fantastic! But, alas, it was also $1200! The sticker shock was still with me when I left the mall.

  But I knew how to fix that.

  Mum always said when you can’t buy something because it is very, very expensive, go treat yourself to something happy, and fun, and beautiful that is very, very cheap—a pretty pair of earrings, a bright scarf, or a small cup of Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

  So, on the way home I stopped at the little garden shop on Route 27, and bought a gorgeous bright red geranium plant in a pl
astic pot. For $1.20!

  “Enjoy!” the guy at the checkout said to me as I paid up.

  “Thanks, I will,” I said. He was holding a sign that said HARDY MUMS. “When are the mums coming in?” I asked.

  “Another couple of weeks,” he said, leaning on a rake. “They’re just about ready in the greenhouse.”

  “I’ll come get some when you get them in,” I said.

  “You always do,” he said.

  They always came in right before school started in September. Mom used to buy a minivan-load of chrysanthemums around then. A present for the Hardy Mums, she called it, meaning mums as in mothers. And she dedicated the first day of school to transplanting the flowers into window boxes outside our house. I remember coming home from school to see her looking happy and rested and the front windows in our house full of bright blooms.

  I was still smiling when I watered my bright red geranium at the kitchen sink and set it in a sunny spot on the windowsill. I could buy a thousand of these plants for the price of that dress. Imagine! That was the same price tag as that lehenga that Masi sent.

  Masi’s lehenga! I had forgotten about the fabric I cut out of it. I had one quarter circle of a beautiful firoza-blue hand-embroidered silk. Maybe I could do something with it. I ran into my room and threw open my closet again.

  There it was! I spread it out and considered carefully. If I used the bottom half, there would be enough fabric for a skirt—but what about the top? I pulled out my fabric basket filled with remnants from various sewing projects. I’d collected many shades of silk while I was working on the fascinator fundraiser—including a spearmint-green silk. There was quite a bit of it left over, if I remembered right. Now, if only it would work with the lehenga fabric.

  I spread out the two fabrics side by side. The blue of the ornate lehenga fabric was the exact same heft and saturation as the plain green silk. The contrast in color really made the pattern of the fabric pop!

  Somewhere I had a pattern for a fitted V-neck bodice. It took me ten minutes of rummaging in my pattern drawer to find it. I pulled my dress form to the center of the room and found a box of pins, a rotary cutter, and my heavy scissors. This could work.

  “It’s genius!” said Rachel. “You’ve outdone yourself, Mini.”

  I had FaceTimed Shayla and Rachel to show them the dress. I did a happy twirl and peered over my shoulder at the full-length mirror behind the door to my room. There were threads dangling from the neck, the blue tulle I’d layered lightly beneath the skirt needed to be edged, and the bottom of the concealed zipper had to be tucked and hand-stitched, but I was happy.

  The firoza fabric had been transformed into the bias-cut skirt of my new dress, and the top was a fitted spearmint-green bodice with a deep V-neck, front and back. It was a neat little color-block dress that was totally made of awesome.

  My room, on the other hand, looked like a disaster. It was covered in beads and sequins (from the lehenga fabric) and snippets of silk and thread too—but it was worth it.

  “I agree,” Shayla said. “It’s epic!”

  “It’s Masi’s fabric that makes it work,” I said. The blue fabric really was something special—all jeweled and magical and Arabian Night–ish—god knows how many hours of hand embroidery went into making a yard of it. “The rest of the dress is just a showcase for it.”

  “It is,” Rachel said. “But it’s not just the skirt fabric. It has great structure, classic lines, and it fits really well. It’s outstanding, Mini. You look fantastic in it!”

  “I don’t have any shoes to go with it.” I sighed.

  “I think Mom just got some pumps from a sample sale. They’re that exact shade of blue and green—in your size,” Rachel said. “I bet she’ll let you borrow them.”

  “You’re making my prom dress, Mini!” Shayla said. “I’m booking it now!”

  “I will,” I said, covering a big yawn with one hand. I was so tired. “I owe you guys!”

  “Get in bed!” Rachel said. “Zip the thing off and hang it up. You need your beauty sleep!”

  And so I did.

  Three days later I got dressed in the new outfit feeling like Cinderella going to the ball. I didn’t have glass slippers, but the pumps (Rachel brought them over from Turnabout) were even better.

  My bag in spearmint green looked great with the dress too. Pink lips, smoky eyes, smooth hair, and the gold peacock earrings Mom had left for me in the safe-deposit box completed the look.

  I was ready, or so I thought—I had no clue how crazy the evening was going to get.

  “Who are you wearing?” the reporter yelled at me from behind the barricade.

  This was un-believe-able. I had imagined a quiet cultured evening with slightly intimidating, snooty people. Not so, apparently!

  Instead I, Mini Kapoor, was at a red-carpet event, clutching Vir’s arm with cold, panicked fingers, barely able to balance on my shoes because of nerves. It was supposed to be a concert of Indian classical music at the MIT campus. People rock up to those things in jeans. I mean, I went to the MIT SPARK and SPLASH programs here years ago.

  “Argh!” Vir muttered. “I should have known.”

  “Should have known what?” I asked.

  “That it would be a media circus!” he said. “Anything organized by my stepmother turns into that. Somehow, I thought, since it was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, instead of Mumbai, Maharashtra, that it would be different!”

  “But why’re they taking pictures of you?” I asked.

  “Not me,” Vir said. “They’re taking pictures of you.”

  And indeed they were.

  “Is that a Mallika Motwani?” a woman’s voice said.

  I was shocked enough to turn and stare at the questioner.

  “It is definitely her signature lehenga fabric.” The woman pushed up her no-nonsense eyeglasses and glanced over me critically; she had a camera and a friendly grin—and a notepad. “That scalloped hem is pretty distinctive. It’s from her blue collection, isn’t it? The one she unveiled at this year’s DCW. Could you spin, please?”

  I lost the deer-in-headlights stance and spun obediently, even managing a shaky smile—but I was secretly horrified. A fashion blogger who could ID Masi’s fabric! What were the odds?

  “But the cut is completely different from her line,” the woman said. “She didn’t make the dress—so who did?”

  “An… undiscovered local designer?” I said. It sounded lame even to me. “Thanks, we have to go in!”

  “Vir, is it definitely over between you and KK?” someone yelled as we walked away.

  My head snapped back. “What did he say?” I asked.

  “Didn’t catch it,” Vir said. “They’re talking to someone else.”

  Vir walked rapidly away from the reporters. “It does look like a Mallika Motwani,” he said. “I did see that at DCW. Not her typical style—is it? I like it.”

  I stared at him in wonder. Did he say “her typical style”? Had the world gone completely mad? How the hell did Vir know about Masi’s typical style?

  “What the heck is DCW?” I asked.

  “Delhi Couture Week.” Vir grinned at me.

  “Don’t you live in Mumbai?” I asked.

  “We have a farmhouse in Delhi,” he said.

  “A farmhouse? In a city?”

  “Not a working farmhouse exactly. That’s just what they call it,” he said.

  “Is it, like, a mansion with its own helipad or something?”

  “How do you—”

  “OMG, I was kidding!”

  “Forget that,” Vir said. “I like Mallika, though. She’s great! She wouldn’t sell a lehenga that looked like your skirt to my stepmother—for any price!”

  “Really?” I asked. Vir’s stepmother bought Masi’s clothes?

  “It was really funny,” he said. “I’ve never seen my stepmother so upset. She’s one of her top clients too. Wait till she sees you in this!”

  “Have you met her?” I asked. />
  “Of course,” he answered. “She’s such a battle-ax. How did you get that dress off her, anyway? I know she doesn’t do anything but Indian-style clothes—lehengas, salwars, saris—that kind of thing.”

  Battle-ax! A snort of laughter escaped me. He definitely had Masi pegged.

  “She sent me the lehenga,” I said. “For the wedding. And she had no idea what size I am, of course. So it was huge! I had to alter it to get it to fit—and there was all this leftover fabric. I didn’t have anything dressy enough for today so I used the fabric to make this.”

  “Okay—what?” Vir looked shocked. “How did you get her to ‘send’ you a dress that’s worth lakhs of rupees?” He stared at me critically. “You look amazing in it, but this definitely cost more than your bag from Turnabout—and you’ve been going on about how expensive that was! Wasn’t it a waste of money to buy it if you had to alter it that much?”

  “I didn’t have to pay for it,” I admitted.

  “And why’s that?” he asked.

  I slung my handbag over my shoulder defiantly and raised my chin. In the background I could see cameras flash. “Because Mallika Motwani is my Masi.”

  “This is just too perfect,” Vir said. “They’re all set on disliking you, just because I found you on my own, and because Mum likes you.…”

  “Your mum likes me?” I asked. Yay. That was good to know!

  “Hell yeah!” Vir said. “But my mum and my stepmother—they don’t ever see eye to eye, so I was a bit worried that things could get ugly. But this is good. It could definitely make everything easier.”

  “But you said Masi was rude to her,” I said. “How is that good?”

  “Oh, it’s good!” Vir said. “She thinks Masi is an artistic genius. She doesn’t get offended when she’s rude to her. Okay, here we go.…”

  A tall, slim woman in a deceptively simple georgette sari stood by a man who was definitely Vir’s dad.