by Sonya Lalli
I scoffed. Goa felt like paradise, and LA—well . . . OK, fine. LA was pretty great, too. If there was one other city I could see myself living in besides Seattle, it was LA.
“Tell me about your ex,” Sam said after a moment.
I stood up, my head spinning as I shook water out of my ear. We were treading in dangerous territory again. Ex-boyfriends and-girlfriends definitely counted as a serious subject best avoided with a fling.
“I mean, besides the fact that he competed in StarCraft tournaments,” Sam continued.
I laughed, stalling, dancing my arms around in the water. “Are you jealous?”
“Extremely.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Where did you guys meet?”
I dug my heels into the sand, hesitating. Exfoliating. “Same as you and Amanda. In college.” I paused. “At the library, to be specific.”
“Naturally,” Sam grinned. “So why did you split up? He didn’t cheat on you, did he?”
“No, not at all.” I paused, wondering why Sam had assumed that. “He couldn’t multitask to save his life—juggling girlfriends would have been too much for him.”
“Then?”
“Sam . . .” I was uncomfortable, both annoyed and pleased but more so annoyed that Sam was pressing this subject when both of us should have steered clear.
“Come on—”
“He broke up with me,” I said quickly. “I don’t know why. I guess I wasn’t what he wanted.”
“It’s hard to believe that you’re not what everybody wants.”
Sam edged in closer and put his hands around my waist. I bit my lip, trying not to smile.
“Should we join the others?” I pulled my bathing suit strap to the side. We’d been in the sun for only a few hours, and my tan lines were noticeable. “I’m getting dark,” I joked.
Sam sighed and groaned into my neck, pulling the strap back up.
“I like your skin. I like you however you are.”
“What a line.” I laughed, glancing toward the beach. The group was far back on the sand, toweling off and not paying attention to how close we were standing.
“You don’t actually care about tanning, do you?” His eyes were searching my face, but I was trying to avoid them. “Your skin is beautiful, Niki. You know that, right?”
“When I was young, some of the aunties at the gurdwara used to give Jasmine and I a hard time in the summer when we played in the sun.” A wave crashed into my face. I spit out the salt water and then continued. “They told us we’d never find husbands if we got too dark. But I’m over it.”
“Are you?”
I caught his gaze, shaking my head when the realization hit me that Aasha Auntie must have mentioned the incident with the sour-faced auntie in the restroom.
“Your mom told you.”
“Sorry,” Sam mumbled. “Is that OK? We tell each other everything.”
“Did you tell her about our second kiss last night?”
“Every detail,” he deadpanned.
I splashed him in the face, and in turn, he pulled me in even closer. My heart raced as I pressed against him, wrapped my legs tightly around his hips. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, or maybe it was Sam’s. Maybe it was both of ours.
“I’m mostly over it,” I whispered, quickly kissing him on the cheek. There were still people nearby in the water—Indian people—and I wasn’t comfortable taking this any further.
“Which auntie do I need to take down?” Sam asked me, his hands gripping my back.
“Basically, every auntie who’s ever been told to buy Fair and Lovely.”
“Haven’t you heard? Colorism has been dismantled,” Sam joked. “It’s called Glow and Lovely now.”
I laughed out loud, as if changing the name of the skin lightening cream made a single bit of difference. As if people of color all over the world, particularly women, weren’t still made to feel inferior for having a healthy dose of melanin.
I glanced up at the beach, and I could just make out Diya and Mihir staring at us. We were too far away, but I could almost see the shit-eating grins on their faces.
“We have an audience,” I said, tearing myself away from Sam, and suddenly out of his arms, the water felt cold.
Too cold.
So. I got out of the water, with Sam following me, and did my best not to think about how good it felt to be held by him.
CHAPTER 24
Of course I thought about it.
It was impossible not to, the way Sam kept looking at me like I was his favorite flavor of ice cream, and he had a hankering for mint chocolate chip. The way he . . . Christ. Just everything about him.
Sam was making my heart palpitate in a way that would have Jasmine screaming “I told you so”—that is, if Jasmine were speaking to me. So, as we packed up our stuff and joined Diya and the others at a nearby café, I instructed myself to get my shit together. To talk myself down from the ledge.
So what if I heard the lyrics to “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin every time our knees touched underneath the table? So what if I found him sexy beyond measure, even when he was stuffing his face with nachos?
It was a fling. An F-L-I-N-G.
After lunch, while everyone returned to dozing on the beach, I replied to the two e-mails burning a hole in my inbox and booked both job interviews for the week after I arrived back in Seattle. At some point, I needed to get back to my real life, and this—lounging here in paradise—was not reality. It was a vacation. A break. And whether I stayed in Goa only one more day or the full ten until my flight home, Sam and I would come to an end.
* * *
• • •
Sam cooked a delicious meal for Aasha Auntie and me that evening, and the following morning, we woke up early to join Diya and the others for a full day of sightseeing in the gorgeous historic town of Old Goa.
The next day, Sam and I took a taxi into Bardez bright and early. Diya had finagled us guest passes for their resort, and I was more than happy to go along with her plan of relaxing by the pool and drinking overly sweet cocktails. It was another gorgeous, sunny day, as I sprawled out on a patio chair in literal paradise.
There was only one problem. Sam and I barely got a moment alone together.
At the apartment, Aasha Auntie was always around, and even though she went to great lengths to “give us space” and remind us the walls were soundproof (ugh!), I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything rated higher than PG-13 with her in the next room. And during the day, we were always with the honeymooners—talking, eating, swimming, sightseeing, and everything in between as one large group.
I was having a great time—don’t get me wrong—but I was starting to feel uneasy. Sam and I still hadn’t discussed when I should leave for Amritsar, and I wanted to turn the notch up on what would be my only vacation fling ever before it came to an end. Hand-holding and secretly making out a bit were great and all, but I was desperate to be with Sam.
As Sam would say, I was thirsty.
By late afternoon, I was extremely hot and bothered, both from the weather and the view from my deck chair, which featured Sam shirtless, floating on a pool lounger a mere twenty feet away from me. Luckily, Diya came to my rescue. She needed to grab her meds and asked if I wanted a walk. Her allergies must have been acting up again; she’d been unusually quiet all day.
As soon as we got to her room, Diya flopped tummy-first onto the king-size bed. I searched for her signature gold-and-white medicine bag, rummaging through the bathroom and then her suitcase, which was mostly empty as clothes, shoes, and swimsuits were strewn all over the room. I loved Diya, but for the sake of our friendship, thank god we never lived together. Diya’s college roommates were probably the only people on this planet who despised her.
“I can’t find your meds,” I said, after I’d checked th
e wardrobe. “Where are they?”
“Tote bag.”
I crossed my arms. “You mean the tote bag that’s on your arm?”
“That’s the one.”
Laughing, I cannonballed onto the bed. “You just wanted me alone, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” she squealed, rolling away from me. “Is that a crime?”
We’d ended up on our sides face-to-face, and I smiled at Diya as she brushed my hair out of her eyes. Sam wasn’t the only one who I couldn’t get alone; Diya and I hadn’t been together one-on-one since before the wedding.
“This bed is so comfortable,” I said, wriggling farther into the spongy mattress. “You must be having one hell of a honeymoon.”
“You and Sam can use it if you want.”
“Diya.” I laughed. So she had been eavesdropping that morning when I’d told Masooma about Sam and me not having space to “escalate” the fling.
“Should we call him up? I’ll distract Mihir—”
I muffled her with a pillow until she shrieked.
“Seriously, dude! Someone should use it . . .” My mouth fell open, and she continued. “Honestly. We haven’t done anything since we arrived. Not a thing.”
“But it’s your honeymoon!” I sputtered, still not believing her. “If all the group stuff is too tiring, you guys should—”
Diya waved me off. “We’re good. I’m literally not in the mood. Neither is Mihir. The wedding took a lot out of us.”
I sat up and suddenly realized that Diya knew she had her allergy medicines with her the whole time. She’d brought me up here for a reason.
“What’s going on, D?” I said quietly.
She pressed her palms over her eyes, pushing down harder than looked comfortable.
“Did something happen with you and Mihir?”
She sighed heavily and then shook her head. “He’s great.”
“Then?”
“Then . . .”
I only dragged it out of her because I could tell she wanted to talk. But I was completely unprepared for what she told me next: shortly after the engagement, their families had hired an astrologer to read Diya’s and Mihir’s birth charts, sign off on the marital union, and propose an auspicious day for the wedding.
Although many Hindus were ardent believers in astrology, no one in Diya’s and Mihir’s families could have cared less about the results. For them, it was just a ritual. A rubber stamp. A photo opportunity. So it came as a shock to everyone when the astrologer predicted the marriage would not be successful; he told Diya she would never be able to have Mihir’s children.
“The astrologer used the word ‘barren,’ ” Diya said, her voice shaking. “He seemed to think he was saving Mihir’s family.” Her eyes were watering, and I wiped them away from her cheeks. “It’s been months now, and I had practically forgotten about it. But now that we’re married . . .”
She trailed off, although I knew exactly what she was getting at. Now that they were married, pretty soon the pressure would ramp up on producing the next generation of Gaurs and Joshis, and the bogus premonition was haunting her.
“What did he expect us to do?” She laughed. “After more than a decade, did he really expect Mihir’s family to call off the wedding?”
“That’s so fucked up,” I said, furious on her behalf.
“We know it’s crap. Our families think so, too—”
“Then forget about—”
“But Niki . . .” Her voice wavered, and I could tell she was holding back, that this was affecting her even more than she was letting on. “What if the astrologer is right?”
I scooped her into a hug and whispered, “He’s not right. None of us have any control over this sort of thing, even him—”
“But it’s possible.”
“Anything is possible, Diya. It doesn’t make it statistically likely.”
She pulled away from me, defeated. “Do you think I should freeze my eggs?”
“Do you want to?”
Diya shrugged. She’d already told me that she and Mihir were in no rush to have children; they both loved their jobs and wanted to focus on their careers for a while.
“Just promise me one thing, OK? If you freeze your eggs, do it because it’s the right thing for you. Not because of some sign from an astrologer.”
She squeezed my hand, her beautiful smile cascading up at me. I hated that this had crushed her spirits.
“Please do not repeat anything downstairs, OK? I have not told anyone else. Not even to Masooma and Sam.”
I crossed my heart, and when she nuzzled into my shoulder, I wrapped my arm around her. “I’m sorry I didn’t know. I wish I could have been there for you.”
“It is a weird thing to explain over FaceTime.” She smiled sleepily into my armpit. “This conversation required a hug.”
“I would have FedExed you one of my sweaters,” I joked. “And you could have worn it like a hug.”
“Would you have sprayed it with Dior?”
I laughed, happy that she remembered my brand of perfume. “Absolutely.”
We lay there for a while in a comfortable silence, the kind of silence you only get with a friend who really knows you. After a while, Diya unfolded herself from my limbs and looked at me searchingly.
“Tell me something happy.”
“Like?”
She wiggled her eyebrows at me.
“Oh, that.” I giggled just at the hint of Sam. “I thought you were Switzerland.”
“I can’t be involved in whatever is happening, but I still want to know.” She petulantly tugged on my arm. “Spill!”
“There’s not much to say.” I tucked my hands behind my head, stalling. While I was tempted to update Diya on how things were going with Sam, it all felt rather unimportant after what she’d just experienced these past few months.
“Sam and I haven’t really discussed what’s going on,” I said finally. “But it’s a fling, I guess.”
I guess. Thank god Jasmine wasn’t here; she would crucify me with that sort of language. But what was I supposed to think?
Our chemistry was undeniable. We were like the coals of a campfire. With the right gust of wind, sure, we could burst into flames, but that wasn’t going to happen when I lived in Seattle and Sam was going back to London. It was inevitable that we’d die right out.
Diya smirked. “A PG-13 fling, you mean.”
“I know. I hope somebody is having sex on your honeymoon.”
“There might still be time to—” She made a vulgar hand gesture, causing me to burst into a fit of coughs. “Will you stay longer? The rest of us are leaving in two days’ time.”
“Two days,” I echoed, catching my breath. In some part of my brain, I knew that Diya and Mihir’s group honeymoon was coming to an end, but I’d somehow forgotten. Feeling guilty about not yet confirming my arrival date with my family in Amritsar, I added, “Maybe I’ll leave then, too.”
“Luckily, you still have two full days left to—” Again, she made the gesture, and I pushed her hands away.
“Gross, D!”
“Just please be careful, hah?”
I held my breath, waiting for a lecture, wondering if she’d echo what Jasmine had said to me. “Sam is a very sweet guy. It would be wise to give someone like him your F-card.”
I sighed in relief. I’d been planning to tell her about how Jasmine had thought it was a bad idea for me to have a fling, but I liked Diya’s advice better and didn’t want her to change her tune.
“F-card,” Diya repeated. “Your fling card . . . Like a V-card?”
“Yes, Diya.” I groaned at the pun. “Hilarious. Ha. Ha . . .”
“Maybe this time you will have a better experience.” She shot me a knowing glance that made me grimace. Back in our senior year, Diya had been t
here for every agonizing step in the process of me losing my “V-card.”
The anticipation after I’d first met my ex and he asked me to be his girlfriend.
The debate after a few months of dating (and pressure), and I kept finding excuses not to follow through with it.
The remorse after it happened, and I wondered if that—the anticlimactic awkwardness I felt for months—was all physical love was supposed to feel like.
The Cinderella stage, as Diya liked to call it, when I convinced myself that sex equaled love, and that meant we were going to get married.
And finally, back to remorse. After my ex dumped me out of the blue and I realized that the aforementioned steps had been for absolutely nothing.
CHAPTER 25
I could tell Diya was still feeling down about the astrologer’s premonition, so while she was using the restroom, I called our circle of college friends on a group video chat. About half of them answered, and by the time Diya came out, I had four other friendly faces on my phone, eager to hear all about our trip and congratulate her on the wedding.
It cheered her up, especially because she hadn’t seen some of them in a while, and by the time we went down to the pool, she was back to at least sixty-five percent classic Diya. It made me shake with anger thinking about what had happened. Sure, everyone was allowed to believe in what they wanted, but to tell a young woman that she would be barren with absolutely no scientific proof?
Disgusting.
Diya was exactly like her namesake. She was a light, a shining gift to the world. And I was determined to help wind her back up to the one hundred percent sparkly, optimistic, and love-fueled Diya she always was.
It was nearly dusk by the time we returned to the group. Sam had abandoned the pool for the lounge chair right next to mine, but instead of sitting down in it, I headed straight to the bar.
Although I’d opted out of most of our college group’s big nights out, Diya had lived on campus and spent every weekend chugging beer from red plastic cups at some frat party, wrangling exclusive passes to a club opening downtown, simultaneously having a blast and holding her liquor a thousand times better than anyone else her size or age.