Tap Dance (22 page)

"Baba, Turan what's going …"

"Marianne!  Wait!" I heard Ram yell from the doorway.  And he made his way through the press of bodies to join me out on the sidewalk.

"Impromptu party, Ram?" I asked. 

He did have the grace to look embarrassed.  "I didn't know they were coming.  They just showed up and had made themselves at home while I was finishing up at work."

I didn't say anything. 

"They were all here along with the Mistry family…"

I placed my hand on his arm.  "Hey, it's okay.  I get it.  I'm just surprised you didn't call to cancel.  I mean, you didn't just get home now did you?"

He didn't say anything and kept glancing behind him, back to the doorway.

I could see his father with a woman who had a cornea of light red hair standing facing each other in the light of the porch.  "…and I told you, Anant, this was a ridiculous idea before we even left Denver."

"I'm sorry, what?" Ram said but still kept glancing at the people on the porch who I was assuming were his parents.

"I can see you're busy, Ram."

"Just a moment, Marianne…" Ram turned towards the pair on the porch.  "She is coming in, Mom, as my invited guest."

I heard his father's voice, heard the challenging tone, but couldn't understand the words.

Ram listened and said a stream of words back in the same language, before taking my hand and leading me back up into the house. 

As he got closer, he glanced at me then turned his face to his father.  "No, Baba.  This is
my
house and
I
make the rules here."

The pretty woman with the light red hair, placed her hand on my upper arm when Ram and I stepped between their bodies as we made our way in.

I'd always thought of Ram's house as calm.  Very rarely would there be any noise outside of the noise the two of us might make.  But the noise level now was almost deafening and the house that I had thought of as huge seemed quite small with the amount of bodies moving in and around it.

I heard the electronic sounds of a TV as well as some kind of music I didn't recognize coming from the back of the house.

Ram smiled as we passed by  different groups of people and nodded his head but never stopped to introduce me and never let go of my hand. 

He walked me to the very end of the hall, the hall where all the bedrooms led off from although we never went into any of the rooms.  He stopped and turned to face me from a distance of about two feet.

"They showed up sometime today,
Pyari
.  No call, no notice, just showed up.  Dad and his brother plus Mr. Mistry all with families in tow.  I have thirteen people in my home that I did not invite and that I'd not been given even a head's up they were on their way."

My big, bad-assed boyfriend was angry and, quite frankly, I could see his point.

"When I tried to question why they were all here and why now, no straight answers were given.  Even Mataji has been kept in the dark but something is going on.  And, because it seems to have been instigated by my father and my uncle, it's bound to be bad."

I took a step toward him but he shook his head and shot a glance down the hallway.

"I overheard just the last portion of my father running
you
off my porch. 
My
porch. "

He stared into my eyes for a few moments and I watched him move from very angry to fed up as he gazed at me.

"I am sorry,
Pyari
, that our special date night is not able to happen."

"Will you give me a call after everyone leaves?"

"You're leaving?  I don't want you to go, MG.  It's just with them here we will have to be, uhm, circumspect.  When it comes to being with each other."

I thought about was he said and then about what he wasn't saying.

"Before I decide if I want to stay, I need to make sure I understand.  Alright?"

Ram nodded.

"You want me to stay this evening but we can't behave like boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"That I, for all intent and purposes, am just a friend of your family and of you."

He nodded again.

"And Daddy doesn't appreciate the fact you are the Big Kahuna of your house and you have no trouble letting him know?"

He smiled.

"Lastly, your dad and your uncle have something underhanded going on, so underhanded your mother hasn't even been let in on the caper?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure that I should be here for this?  I mean, this is pretty complicated stuff and I'm not a complicated kind of girl, Ram."

"No, Marianne, but you are
my
girl and I would like to have you near me tonight."

I thought that over as I gazed up at him.

"Okay, so then, operation 'Fake out Daddy' is on?  Is there anything I need to know before going in?"

"Stick with my mother.  She's been subjected to the Hindu culture and can guide you on how to behave or what to expect.  She and Turan's wife, Sati, are good women to stick close to.  Don't be afraid to ask them questions if you don't understand something.  I will have to stay with the men in the other room until dinner."

I smiled and, without thinking, moved closer and reached out my hand.  He smiled and made a move towards me before stopping himself.

Okay, then.

I dropped my hand and turned back to make my way towards the kitchen, where I'm sure all good little Hindi wives will have congregated.

The kitchen was hot.  Hotter than hot.  Every burner held a big pot of something and both the oven and the broiler were on.  I saw the microwave was on as well.  I looked around for Ram's mother who, at that particular moment, was being pushed aside by a short, stout woman dressed in a beautiful salwar/kameez.

"Mrs. Patel?  I'm sorry we were not introduced.  I'm Marianne Gibson," I said holding out my hand to Ram's mom.  She grabbed my hand in both of hers and pulled us out of the way of the other women in the room that were rushing back and forth.

"It's so nice to meet you.  I'm sorry for interrupting any plans you two might have had tonight."  I watched her as her large gray eyes roamed over the frenzied group.  "Let's escape this madhouse and go set the table."

I don't remember ever seeing the formal dining room in Ram's house before.  Front and center was a huge, huge table surrounded by ten chairs and a large hutch showcasing  a lot, and I do mean, a LOT of china.  She and I were able to speak as we swiftly inserted two leaves into the table and she had Ajit bring in five more chairs.  I saw how she set up one place setting and used it as a primer while I moved with her to finish the rest of them.  She laid an elegant table, I can tell you, with the line of silverware marched five deep on both sides of each plate.

We heard the clank of a pot against the kitchen sink accompanied by a very loud, feminine voice screeching before someone let go with a long stream of words in Hindi.  Ram's mother turned her eyes to me and shook her head with a smile.  "I would translate but I'd be afraid of corrupting you, Marianne."

I smiled back.

"Let me go see how much longer it'll be before we call the men in," and she went back into the kitchen.

I moved around the table straightening and fiddling, trying to look busy so I wouldn't have to go back into the Hades that was the kitchen.

"I'm telling you, Ram, I don't know what Pop is doing.  But he's got something up his sleeve that's for damn sure."

I wasn't trying to eavesdrop but I couldn't help but overhear.  The voices seem to be coming from right around the corner of the dining room.

"Do you know why the Mistry family is here?"

"No, bro, I don't.  But, that girl you brought in here, Mari-something?  Not cool, Ram.  You know how Pop feels about white girls.  When the old man is scheming you don't bring a girl in, especially a white one for God's sake.  Not when the family's here anyway.  You trying to piss him off?"

"No."

"So how tight are you guys?"

"Just friends, Ajit.  She sees other people, I see other people.  It's casual."

I held my breath.   Things weren't adding up here.  First he doesn't call to cancel the date, then he wants me here but is telling his brother that we're casual, seeing other people. 

After he made such a big deal out of us not seeing other people.

I was way out of my element and was not comfortable with this. 

With any of this.

I heard people start to move into the dining room and went back into the kitchen to see if I could help carry out the food.

We were all seated around the table and the different bowls and platters began passing from hand  to hand when Ram's dad clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

"Today, is a very good day.  A very good day, indeed.  Because today the Mistry family and the Patel family have completed the negotiations and will, in one month's time, be joined together."

I looked around at the table to get some sort of clue as to what was going on.  The only person that was not looking at Dr. Patel with anticipation was Ram's mom.  She had one hand resting against her lips and she was staring down at her plate.

Something was wrong.

If
she
was uncomfortable with how her husband was speaking, then I was willing to bet that the rest of his speech was not going to be well received.

"Today, it gives me great pleasure to announce the engagement of my son, Ramjet Patel, to Kanti Mistry!"

The what, to who?  Or should it be to whom?

I shot my eyes to Ram who was looking at his father, but not saying a word.

I shot my eyes to Ram's mother and saw tears running silently down her face.

The rest of the room had erupted in shouts of joy and well-wishes to the happy couple.  Although, I had no clue if the bride-to-be was even
in
the room.

I stared at Ram, willing him, begging him to look at me and tell me this wasn’t true, it couldn't possibly be true.  But he just stared at his father.

I looked down at my plate thinking that I would remember this moment the rest of my life.  The moment when whatever was left of my heart split in two, with the glass shards of the split littering my insides.

I chanced another glance at Ram and it was if I wasn't even in the room.  I glanced around at all the happy faces, I realized I had lost him.  Not by anything I'd said or done.  But because I wasn't 'his kind'. 

And by losing him, I lost a part of me.

A sob broke through but I tamped it down. 

I needed air.

I needed to get away from there.  

I slowly mumbled something as I raised myself from my chair and grabbed my cute navy blue clutch from where I'd stored it on the sideboard before making my way out of the room.

I was doing fine, placing one foot in front of another, virtual steps from removing myself from this nightmare when the toe of my high-heeled sandal caught on the edge of the area rug. 

I tripped and released my grip on my purse, grabbing on to the back of the closest chair to keep myself upright. 

Unfortunately, the chair back just happened to be the one that Dr. Patel was currently sitting in and he yelled as my fingers grazed the back of his neck.

I saw my purse bounce on the floor before the clasp released to dump its contents across the floor. 

My cellphone, my de-tangler and my lip gloss sliding out in the open to everyone's view. 

And settling right next to my clean pair of panties and the length of condoms I had brought with me.

I dropped down, ass to heels and scooped everything up, hoping against hope that no one had seen what my purse contained, when I heard Ram's teenaged cousin, his uncle's son, exclaim.

"See, I told you white girls were always prepared!"

Chapter Twenty Five

I drove quickly back to Aunt Estella's and changed out of my cute Navy Blue dress, which I made a mental note to burn, and jumped into jeans and boots. 

I'm not one of those gals that can go home and have a good cry when her heart has been broken.  Nope, I've had too many instances where of pieces of my heart have been torn from my body to just shed a couple of tears and get over it.  When I'm hurt, devastated, I shut down.  And the best way for me to deal with it is to drive.

So that was my plan.

I was moving fast and looking back on it now, it was maybe twenty minutes after Dr. Patel's announcement and I was back in my car.

But my cell must've had twenty or so calls by that time.

I just turned the damn thing off.

I was not in the mood to talk.

Especially not to him.

I didn't want to think.

I just wanted to drive.

So that's what I did.

At first, I drove in and around our town, and even after I swore I'd been up and down every street, I still wasn't ready to stop driving.