“Mummy.” I could tell Vir was uncomfortable saying that word. “Meet my friend Mini. And guess what we just found out? She’s related to your favorite designer.”
“Really!” Vir’s stepmother clutched at my arm, but she was staring at my dress, not at me. “Yes! I remember that embroidery! She wouldn’t sell me the lehenga, darling. Said it didn’t come in my size. I didn’t know it came in a dress! How are you related to Mallika, Mini?”
She finally looked at me, and her gaze was friendly and approving.
Vir hadn’t even mentioned Masi’s name, I realized, but she knew from looking at my dress who he’d meant. Maybe Masi really was her favorite designer.
“She’s my Masi,” I said.
“Wonderful! But I didn’t know Mallika had a sister,” she said. “Is your mother older than her, or younger?”
“My mom was older,” I said. “But she passed away years ago.”
Her eyes opened wide. Her sympathy was genuine. “I’m so sorry!” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” I said. How could she? It’s not something people talk about.
She inclined her neck graciously. “Well, any niece of Mallika is a friend of mine,” she said, as if that settled everything. “We’re even related, I think. Her husband is a Motwani and they’re cousins to the Mirchandanis—the Sindhi connection, you know.”
All I knew about my Motu Mausa, Masi’s husband, was that he had a contracting business that managed huge projects—government buildings and roadwork and whatnot.
“It’s amazing that you know Masi and Mausa. I mean, there are one billion people in India,” I said. “What are the odds?”
“Yes, but some circles are quite small, you know?” she said. “I’m very glad you and Vir became friends. We were sooo woo-rried about him being soooo far from home. Didn’t know what type of friends he’d make here. His father and I just hoped he would steer clear of the wrong type.”
It occurred to me that Vir’s mom lived here, and yet they had no confidence in her ability to keep him away from the “wrong type.” And what was the “wrong type,” anyway? I could see why Gulshan Chabra and Vir’s stepmother didn’t see eye to eye.
“I’m sure he will,” I said. I guess I had reason to thank Masi for something. The minute Vir’s stepmother knew Mallika Motwani was my aunt, they treated me like—one of them!
“Mini,” Vir said. “This is my dad.”
Mr. Mirchandani was a handsome man. He looked like an older version of Vir, basically. But Vir was browner, taller, and more athletic-looking. His dad was fairer, and his hair was graying at the temples. He had a sharp, intelligent glint in his eye that reminded me of Vir.
“Nice to meet you, Mini,” he said. “Your Masi is a big friend of my wife, it seems. Small world, isn’t it?”
Chapter Twenty-One
“You were wearing a dress made out of the fabric of the lehenga I sent.” Masi was nothing if not direct. Apparently some of the pictures from the event at MIT had somehow made it back to her. Through Vir’s family or the fashion blogger who had been there, I don’t know. “Please explain.”
“I’m sorry, Masi,” I said. “It’s just that I had nothing to wear.…”
“Who made the dress for you?” she said.
“I did! And I didn’t ruin the lehenga!” I said. “I had to take it in, so there was all this leftover fabric. I just used it to make a dress.”
There was silence at the other end.
“You made that dress?” Masi asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“And ‘took in’ the lehenga?”
“Yes, and I got compliments from everyone. Shayla and Vinnie and Vir and even Dad—not that he knows anything about it. But it wasn’t a bad use of the fabric. I’d have sent it back to you if I knew you wanted it.”
“How did the lehenga turn out?” Masi asked.
I paused, confused. Wasn’t that, like, off-topic?
“Great!” I said. “There’s a lot less bunching at the waist now, because I changed it from a full-circle skirt to a three-quarter. I could send you a picture, if you like.”
“That would be nice,” Masi said. “When did you learn to sew?”
“In seventh grade,” I said. “And I also did a summer course two years ago at the School of Fashion Design—the one on Newbury Street? I’ve done alterations for this fashion consignment store I work at for a while now too. And I should probably tell you I’ve been using your fabric for my Etsy shop. Just in case that’s an issue.”
“What’s an Etsy shop?” Masi asked.
“It’s a website where you sell handmade items,” I said.
“Can I see it?” Masi asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll send you a link.”
“Just tell me the address,” Masi said. “I want to see it now.”
I felt a twinge of irritation breaking through my guilt. Did she have to be so demanding?
“If you Google ‘Etsy’ and ‘Megha & Me’ it should come up,” I said.
There was silence at the other end.
“That’s the name of your shop?” she asked softly. “Megha & Me?” She’d lost the combative tone. “That used to be us growing up. Megha and me.”
“I didn’t realize… that,” I said. “Did you find it?”
“Wait…,” she said. “Yes, I see it.”
“I didn’t really use a lot of your fabrics,” I said. “Just recycled bits and pieces from the clothes I’d outgrown. It seemed such a pity to throw them away. I hope that’s okay.…”
“It’s fine, Mini,” Masi said. Her side of the phone fell silent; all I could hear was static crackling.
“Do you still want a picture of the lehenga?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it now,” Masi said. “I’ll see it at the wedding.”
I nearly dropped the phone. “You’re coming?” I said.
“I’m invited, aren’t I?” Masi said. “I got a card and everything. Nice card, by the way—did you design that too?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “When are you, um, arriving?”
“On Tuesday,” Masi said. “And how come you were with Vir?”
She knew him, I guess.
“He asked me out,” I said. “We’ve been… dating.”
“Where did you meet him?” Masi asked.
“He’s DJ’ing Vinnie’s wedding,” I said, not wanting to get into the whole long story.
“You’re paying Vir Mirchandani to DJ Vinnie’s wedding?” Masi sounded incredulous.
“Yes,” I said.
“Mini, do you have any idea how much that kid is worth?”
“Masi, I know his family is wealthy,” I said. “But kids take jobs even when their family is well off. It teaches work ethic. What’s wrong with that?”
Masi sighed in exasperation. “Nothing at all, Mini. I’ll see you on Tuesday.”
“She can’t come now, Vinnie,” I wailed. “She’ll spoil everything!”
Vinnie was no help. “It’s time you stopped trying to keep her out of everything. And anyway, it’s my wedding and I want her here helping.”
“What help can she possibly be? And I haven’t kept her out!” I said. “She’s the one who’s always kept herself out. She didn’t even come when Mom—”
“Mini,” Vinnie said sharply. “That wasn’t her fault!”
“How can you say that?” I asked. “She was always flying around the world—she could totally have come. You’re the one who ended up doing everything.”
“I didn’t,” Vinnie said.
“You did! You even dressed Mom. God, Vinnie, I don’t know how you even…” I fell silent, overcome by memories.
“It wasn’t hard,” Vinnie said at last. She was always solidly dependable in an emergency. “I wanted to be a doctor, remember?” Funny, we had not talked about any of this—ever. Why it came up just now, I have no clue. But I couldn’t stop.
“You put Mom in that long dress she wore when she and Dad first met—I re
member. How did you find it? How did it even fit her after all those years…?”
“It fit because Masi made sure it did,” Vinnie said quietly. “She sent it.”
“Masi sent it?” I asked. “I… it was always here.”
“Masi went to the old house in Karol Bagh,” Vinnie said, “and dug through all the steel trunks in the storeroom. The ones that hadn’t been opened since Nani died.”
I have a vivid memory of those trunks. Large black-painted iron trunks that had been over the length and breadth of India on Nana’s army postings. They said LT. COL. P. S. RAGHAV in crisp white letters. Mom’s whole childhood was stored in them. Masi had to dig through them?
Vinnie was still talking. “And she found the outfit and she had it altered so it would fit and she couriered it here a month before it happened.”
“She did?”
“Yes,” Vinnie said. “Mom told her that’s what she wanted to wear at the end. You think Masi didn’t do anything—how do you think it feels to mail your sister clothes for her funeral?”
“But she didn’t come…,” I said.
“Mom didn’t want her to,” Vinnie said. “She didn’t want a big deathbed scene. She just wanted one more normal day at home with us, reading Percy Jackson, training Yogi with you, and talking about plans for college with me. As normal as she could make it. And another. And another. As long as she could. So Masi didn’t come. But she talked to her every night after we went to bed.”
I was probably fast asleep by then, and no one ever told me.
“And when Mom was so drugged at the end because of the pain, the doctor said someone should tell her it’s okay to let go—even if it didn’t feel like she could hear. Masi did it. She talked to her all night that last night before she died. Mom could hear her, I know.”
I had tears streaming down my face. “I didn’t know,” I said. Masi had just gained a whole lot of respect in my mind.
Shut. Up.
That’s why he didn’t want me Googling him!
How could he? Really—how could he?
I didn’t even mean to pry—the trusting lovestruck sap that I was. I was just curious about how I looked in the picture Masi saw on that fashion blogger’s website. Can you blame me? I’ve never been on any kind of fashion blog before, so I had to see if they got my good side, and how my dress looked in the picture, and if anyone had commented on it, or liked it, or hated on it, or whatever.
So I searched for the event and there it was, a super-flattering picture of me in my color-block dress alongside Vir—who also looked gorgeous, though it kills me to admit it. But next to it were pictures of Vir, my Vir, with Koyal Khanna—the Bollywood actress Koyal Khanna! That was why he didn’t want to watch that movie I asked him about. SHE was in it. And she was his girlfriend—at least according to the news reports.
And those pictures! Vir and Koyal on a white-sand beach in Goa—with her in a tiny bikini that I would never in a million years have the guts to wear. Vir and Koyal at a movie premiere—the movie premiere of that movie I tried to get him to watch, in fact! Vir and Koyal wearing preppy, sporty outfits at some IPL match (whatever that means).
How does one deal with something like this? I was so angry, because the Vir I thought I knew was not the Vir who would lie about having a girlfriend and actually keep me from finding out about her by pulling the whole “don’t Google me yet” tactic.
I should have called him and demanded an explanation, but I just couldn’t. I had so much stuff to do for the wedding, and this was all way too much right now. What would I even say? None of it made any sense unless he was really that guy who would actually do something like this. Was he?
I ignored Vir’s texts that day. And I didn’t walk Yogi around the lake as we’d planned. I cried into Yogi’s fur before falling asleep. There was no other explanation. He was that guy and I was a clueless fool.
I was never going to trust Vir again.
Ever.
I carried on planning the wedding.
Now that Masi was coming, I had to make sure that the mehendi—the one event we were having at home—was perfect. I threw myself into planning it, which also helped keep my mind off Vir. We’d booked the mehendi lady already—so the next-most-important thing was food.
That meant a trip to Sher-e-Punjab.
“I’m so sorry I can’t give you the contract for the wedding,” I said. “Ladkewale Tamil hein…” He smiled at my accent as I tried to explain that we had to have some South Indian dishes at the wedding—rasam, sambar, payasam, etc.
“No problem, ji,” he said. “We’ll cater your mehendi. Anything else we can do to help? Have a lassi and samosa before you go. No payment needed.”
I sat down in the pink vinyl booth with the plastic flowers and ate the best samosa I had had in a long, long time. In fact, I finished everything they put before me. They didn’t have a lot of stuff on their menu, but what they made, they made well.
My mad-at-Vir energy (as well as lassi and samosas) fueled my mehendi-planning efforts. Next stop, Talbot Rental. They rent everything—tents, tables, chairs, linens, china, stemware, silverware, heaters, air conditioners, carpets, lights—anything you can think of.
I was sure we couldn’t fit everyone in the house, so we needed tables and chairs. I had a look at the linens as well—just to see—even though it was smarter to get disposable paper and plastic from the party store instead.
But you know what I found? Curry Cuisine was overcharging for the linens! We’d picked the simplest linens and china and silverware—white floor-length table covers, burgundy napkins, simple gold-rimmed china—and he was charging double what Talbot Rental advertised. What was up with that?
There wasn’t much I could do—we had accepted his quote and put down a deposit. We were stuck with him, I guess. I felt deflated. Not only was that Sunny Sondhi a pompous ass who gave us the runaround, but he inflated his prices as well.
I’d call Ragini Aunty and ask about the rates he gave them last year, I decided. And check with Shoma Moorty too. Good thing I had her number on speed dial.
“The rates are fine, beta,” Shoma Moorty said. I could hear loud music in the background—no surprise, she was at a wedding. “But don’t be late paying him, okay? Did I tell you what he pulled at Mishra Ji’s son’s wedding last year?”
“No—what?” I asked.
“The balance was due the day of the wedding. The parents were sitting in some ceremony with their older son, and the younger son didn’t have his checkbook—so he threatened to take all the food away!”
“What?” I asked. “Did he?”
“No, the younger son went to the ATM and took out cash. I thought he was going to knock Sunny Sondhi down, he was so angry.”
“That’s not good,” I said.
“And I told him! I said: Mr. Sondhi, it’s a small world and it’s their son’s wedding. How can you do this and shame them in front of their in-laws? I said I would give him a check myself, and that he knew my credit was good. But did he listen? No!”
“I’ll pay him on time, Aunty,” I said. “Thanks for telling me!”
“And, beta, I never knew that Megha’s sister was Mallika Motwani!” she said. “So many of my brides want her lehengas for their trousseau. Tell me she’s making Vinnie’s wedding dress!”
Could she sound any more worshipful?
“She is, Aunty,” I said. “She definitely is.”
Ragini Aunty had nothing but praise for Curry Cuisine, though.
“He was on time, and the waitstaff was excellent, and the food was delicious,” Ragini Aunty said. “It was buffet style, most practical, you know, with our kind of food. But we didn’t have to worry about annnything.”
She spoke really fast. My brain could barely keep up with decoding her accent in time to hear her next sentence.
“Everything else going well, yes, kanna?” Ragini Aunty said. “I was just telling Uncle, Vinnie is sooo lucky to have a sister like you. You’re doing so much
for her wedding, managing everrrything. Is your grandmother coming from India soon? And your aunty?”
“Beeji and Bauji are coming on Thursday, and Masi is coming tomorrow,” I said. “Actually, I better go, Aunty, I have to clean and stock up before they get here. Beeji and Bauji’s house has not been opened in ten months—it must be covered in dust!”
“You’ll go clean it, and stock it?” Ragni Aunty said. “Such a good granddaughter! I tell you, they’re very very lucky to have you!”
“Thanks, Aunty,” I said.
“Wait, wait, Padmini, there’s one thing I want to ask you,” she said. “It’s about the date!”
“What about the date?” I asked warily.
“I talked to the priest, you know our priest Sundaraman,” she said. “It turns out that the twenty-eighth of August is an Amavasya.”
“Okay,” I said, “Amavasya is a no-moon night, right? Like Diwali.”
“Yes, but it’s not a good day to have a marriage,” she said. “It’s too late to move it, no?”
Too late to move the date? Hell to the yes, it was!
“Aunty,” I said, “it’s too late to do anything now. The invitations have been sent. People have made travel plans. It’s set in stone.”
“I talked to your father before, but he didn’t listen at all,” Ragini Aunty said sorrowfully. “I didn’t want to tell Yashasvini and Manish because they would think it was too old-fashioned to care about astrological dates. But if you talk to the priest, he may be able to fix a better time on the same day. Just talk to him, kanna.”
“I have to get a list of what he needs for the wedding anyway,” I said. “I’ll call him.”
“Here’s his number,” she said.
Did I feel up to calling him? NO. But Vir’s number flashing on my cell phone was enough to make me punch in the priest’s number anyway. Anything for a distraction. I grabbed the calendar on my study desk to check out the moon phase for August 28. Aha! The new moon was actually on August 29, so we were good.
“Hello, Sundaraman here.” I recognized his voice, now that I heard it.
I think I saw him shoot hoops with Vinnie and a bunch of boys after a pooja once. I could see why Manish might want him to officiate.
Sister of the Bollywood Bride Page 15