The Bollywood Bride (19 page)

20

F
inally, it was here—the henna ceremony, and the wedding celebrations were officially in full swing. Uma was going to play the mother of the bride for the day and host the ceremony that was traditionally held at the bride’s home. It was an all-female affair—mothers and daughters and sisters. The men had been banished until dinner. Left to their own devices, they had picked golf. Uma looked relaxed and excited for the first time in days, and Ria couldn’t help the relief that washed over her.

She looked at the five women gathered around the kitchen table. The aunties had arrived early to get the last of the to-do list taken care of.

Today the dress code was red saris, and each one was decked out in five different shades and five different fabrics. From Anu’s simple chiffon to Radha’s ornate georgette and everything in between, there was no way to keep their unique styles and unique personalities from shining through. As they worked around the kitchen with busy hands and purposeful eyes, a sense of belonging so intense wrapped around Ria that she never wanted to let it go.

Anu, who had been keeping track of the dreaded to-do list, scratched forcefully at one of the few remaining items and they all cheered. By now almost all the items on the list had been crossed off with emphatic lines. Including packing coconuts, which Vikram had crossed off with a pointedly sheepish nod at Ria. All the supplies for the various ceremonies were packed into laundry baskets and plastic hampers and stacked in the garage to be taken to the hotel for the wedding. The table runners for tomorrow’s dinner were finished and folded into neat stacks. The milk fudge candies were wrapped and put into silver baskets lined with tie-dyed silk. Even the ginger for the evening’s chai had been grated and packed away in a Tupperware container in the fridge.

Appetizers for the day’s ceremony sat stacked on the island in foil containers, ready to be popped into the oven. The rest of the dinner had been catered, and Uma had reminded Vikram and Nikhil several times before they left that they were supposed to pick it up at five. “We’re doing it, really?” Vikram had asked lazily when Uma had repeated herself for the tenth time. “Let me write that down.”

Uma would have glared at Nikhil for saying it, but with Vikram she laughed like she had never heard anything funnier.

Ria thought it was pretty funny too. But she shouldn’t have smiled, because he looked at her as soon as the words left his mouth and caught her grinning like a fool. The smuggest, most self-satisfied grin spread across his face. She tried to look annoyed, but his smile didn’t fade and he gave her a private little wave before walking out the door.

That unshakable look in Vikram’s eyes as he waved good-bye stayed plastered inside Ria’s head for the rest of the day. As Jen sat on a thick pillow on the floor surrounded by a circle of women. As the henna artists piped swirling patterns onto their palms. As

Radha beat her
dholki
drum and Priya sang folk songs in her earthy voice. As all the women joined in for the choruses, clapping and dancing in circles. As they played word games and talked about what they were going to wear for each ceremony. As they munched on fresh fried
bhajjias
and sipped spicy chai, Ria found it impossible to get the unflinching faith in his eyes out of her head.

And he seemed to know exactly how her day had been when he returned. The moment he walked in his eyes searched the room, the silver depths brightening with relief and darkening with yearning when they found her.

“Can I see?” He strode up to her, not stopping until he was too close.

His scent filled her brain, his body filled her vision. She stared up at him with no idea what he was talking about, her brain refusing to process anything but her body’s reaction to him.

“The henna.” He pointed to her hands. They hung by her side, carefully suspended away from her body to keep the dried paste from staining her
salwar kameez.
She lifted them up and cupped her palms in front of him.

He studied the intricate patterns swirling across her palms, his brows drawn together in concentration. “Wow,” he breathed. “This is amazing.” Automatically, his hands came up and cupped hers, a featherlight caress because he didn’t want to damage the henna. The warmth of his touch seeped into her skin and traveled up her arms. It reached inside her and spread through her. She soaked him up, branded the feel of his skin into her consciousness. She didn’t realize she had closed her eyes until she opened them and found him watching her. Familiar and painful panic flooded through her, and she pulled her hands away, taking them from his open palms.

“Ria?” He said it as if he wasn’t sure she could hear him.

She turned and hurried away. For the rest of the evening she kept her eyes under control and kept as far away from him as she could, not staying in the same room if she could help it. He didn’t make an effort to seek her out. Every now and again she felt his eyes on her, but she ignored him, ignored what it did to her. The evening spun by in a blur of activity.

After dinner Vikram disappeared. The guests had started to leave, so he might have gone to drop someone off at a hotel. She refused to acknowledge the force with which she wanted to know where he was, and tried to focus on the aunties as they settled into dining chairs looking exhausted. They had all scraped off the dried black henna paste before dinner, leaving behind the red-stained designs on their palms. The patterns would continue to darken overnight. Every woman’s hands would take on a different shade as deep and dark, or light and bright, as her man’s love, or so it was believed.

Ria’s henna was already darker than anyone else’s.

“Aha! You have an intense love,” Radha said, studying Ria’s palms.

“No, no. It means she has a steadfast love,” Sita chimed in, looking over Radha’s shoulder at the maroon patterns on Ria’s hands.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they both went together?” Anu said wistfully, and they all sighed.

They took turns examining and analyzing the color of their own henna and what it said about their husbands. They had stayed back to clean up and finish the centerpieces for tomorrow’s cocktail dinner, which was going to take place in a tent in the backyard.

The finished centerpieces, twelve silver plates with hand-painted earthen lamps, lay spread across the dining table and the island. A set of red and gold glass bangles tied with gold string, a packet of
bindis,
and plastic-wrapped cashew brittle sat in a circle around the lamps on each plate. Every round table was going to be dressed with cream silk tablecloths, gold runners, and the silver-platter centerpieces. It had taken the aunties hours to come up with the entire arrangement.

Everything but the tablecloths was ready to go for tomorrow, and Ria went down to the basement to find them so everything would be in one place. She found the twelve unopened packets on a shelf and tried to stack them up in her arms. It was impossible to carry them up in one trip, so she searched through the overflowing shelves lining the unfinished concrete for something to carry them in. There were no empty bags or boxes in sight. She wandered over to the guest room, thinking maybe she could find something there.

The moment she stepped into the guest room Ria knew she had made a mistake. A scent so intoxicatingly familiar hit her that all her senses buzzed to life and started to hum to a slow thumping beat. This was Vikram’s room.

His imprint was everywhere. The clothes he had worn over the past few days lay in a careless heap in a laundry basket in a corner. Each balled-up piece of fabric sent a shiver of recognition through her. She rubbed her palms on her
kurta
. A blue-and-green checkered comforter was pulled across the bed, not overly neatly, but not sloppily either. He had made the bed but he hadn’t brushed the rumples out like she would have done, like she itched to do now.

A stack of oversized books lay by the bed.
Sir Banister Fletcher’s History of Architecture, The Postmodern Town Project, Chicago Modern.
Ria walked over and picked up one of the books. Vivid pictures of buildings, ancient and modern, stretched across the pages. An electronic drawing tablet with mathematical formulae scrawled across the screen lay on the bed. Her turquoise scarf was slung over the back of a chair. A pinewood drafting board sat on a desk pushed up against the back wall. Just the kind that Baba used to have in his office.

Why was all this stuff here? The room didn’t look like it belonged to a wedding guest. It looked like someone lived here. There was so much she didn’t know, so much she hadn’t considered. She ran her fingers over the unfinished pine. With magical ease a picture of Vikram sitting at the drafting table formed in her mind. His body leaning over the board, intense concentration making his face meditative.

“What are you looking for this time?” His voice wrapped around her from behind.

The fine hairs on her nape prickled to life. She should’ve been used to it by now, this all-consuming awareness when he was near. Yet, it still engulfed her. Her breath sped up. Heat suffused her belly and tugged between her legs. She didn’t turn around to face him. He couldn’t see her like this. She was wide open, completely exposed.

She heard him walk toward her, his steps slow and deliberate, not stopping until the warmth of his body radiated through the filmy silk of her
kurta
and stoked each of her heightened senses.

“When are you going to stop searching and accept what you find?” His breath fanned the sensitive skin behind her ear, running feathers of sensation across her skin.

She spun around and backed away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She hated the tremor in her voice.

“Why is that every second line that comes out of your mouth these days?”

“Because I really don’t. Why are you being so weird?”

“I’m being weird? You’re the one jumping every time I get anywhere near you.”

“That’s ridiculous. I was just looking for a tablecloth for some bags—some cloth for tabl—” She took a breath. “I was looking for a bag. For tablecloths.” Could her bloody heart stop pounding for just one second?

“So you came here looking for it?”

“Yes.”

“To my room?”

“I didn’t know it was your room.”

“I’ve been staying here the entire time you’ve been here.”

“I forgot.”

“Bullshit. Bullshit again. How can you close your eyes to everything you don’t want to see? Is that going to make it go away?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even to her own ears her repetitive mumble sounded pathetic and unconvincing.

He leaned closer, locked her in place with his blazing gaze. “I’m talking about the big, searing holes we’re burning into each other. This insane, crazy thing between us. I’m talking about how badly we want each other. It’s time to finish this, Ria.”

“How romantic. Do you get far with these lines?” She scampered back, but everything inside her grew as molten as his eyes.

“You tell me. How far am I getting with you?” He knew exactly how far he was getting.

“Not far enough,” she said, staring at the door behind him. “All the way out of the room would be better.”

“Great, so we’re going to go on pretending then? Aren’t you tired?”

Tired?
She had left tired behind a thousand miles ago. “I’m not pretending, Vikram. You need to stop this. You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“Then tell me. Tell me what’s got you so scared.”

“Don’t you understand? I have just four more days here. After that I have to leave.” Her voice was a whimper.

“I don’t care. I don’t care what happens after four days, about the future, about the past. I don’t care. I just want you, more badly than I’ve ever wanted anything.” And his eyes backed up his words, every single one of them.

She swallowed a sob. “You can have anyone. Mira will take you back.”
And she’ll keep you safe.

“I don’t want her to take me back! Don’t you get it?” If he took another step closer, if he said another word, she was going to burst into flames. And yet if he didn’t say what he was going to say, she didn’t think she could survive it.

“When I look at Mira, when I look at any woman—all I see, all I do—is search for you. Your eyes. Your lips. No one is you, Ria. Nothing is
this.
When I look at you—what I see when I look at you—” He closed his eyes, the crease between his brows digging a gash into his forehead. Ria squeezed her hands into fists to keep from smoothing it out.

“God, looking at you—how you look at me. It—it puts me together. It’s like being able to breathe again.” He ran his fingers through his hair, raising it into spikes. “I hadn’t breathed for ten years, Ria.” His jaw clenched and his lips parted, opening up that vulnerable O. An intense urge to cover his lips with hers grabbed her.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking right now, you know. How much longer are you going to wait?” He looked so tormented it hurt to look at him.

She crushed her
kurta
with her fists. “I’m not waiting for anything. Nothing is ever going to happen between us.”

“Nothing is going to
happen?
What about what’s happening now?”

“Nothing is happening, Vikram.” She nodded vehemently, refusing to tear her gaze away from the stubborn hope-filled depths of his eyes.

He leaned into her. “So, when I do this . . .” His warm breath caressed her lips. “Nothing?”

Every cell in Ria’s body kicked into consciousness.

She managed only the barest nod, pulling on everything inside her not to close her eyes, not to complete the kiss.

“And when I do this . . .” He cupped her cheek. The electricity of the touch jolted through her, her dimples dancing beneath his touch, sensation buzzing through her like madness. “Nothing?”