Chapter 20
Two days until the wedding
As the woman pulls her hand taut and draws swirls of henna all over Simran’s palms and fingers, she takes a moment to consider what’s coming.
The wedding weekend is here. In the next few days, there’ll be at least six separate occasions, each with its own outfit and anywhere from fifty to four hundred attendees.
Today’s mehndi, held at Iyer House, is the kickoff event.
Tents and chairs are set up all around the backyard so the women can get their henna done and then sit in the shade as it dries.
The only men attending are Rishi, who’ll make a special appearance as the groom at the very end, and Leo, who has been claimed by Manjula aunty to help her since her hands will be out of commission.
He’s been dashing around like a dutiful errand boy.
After Simran’s turn is finished, she takes advantage of the downtime to sneak off to the outcrop of trees beyond the edge of Iyer House’s backyard.
The conversations are muted to a buzz, the bass of the music pleasantly dulled by the distance—almost as if she were in a completely different place.
She lies down in the grass, a few feet from the trunk of a big, leafy tree that provides shade, the sun dappling in between the branches.
The next few days are going to be crowded and chaotic and loud—and she’s really excited for them.
She loves Indian weddings, the pomp and the fashion and the sense of occasion.
They’re more than just an event to attend; they’re an experience.
Indian weddings happen to you. And once the wedding is over and she has the key from her aunt, she’ll go back to Chennai.
She wants to run her hands along the walls of her bedroom, remembering when she got in trouble for drawing on them with crayons.
She wants to stand in the living room and let the hymnic tones of Suprabatham, the morning prayers her mother used to listen to, echo in her memory.
She wants to sit in her father’s old study and taste the sweet sting and snap of the ginger cookies he used to keep in a jar on his desk, the ones she’d sneak in to eat covertly that he’d refill without a word.
And she’s loath to admit it, but after her aunt mentioned it, she’s even envisioned the intimate marriage ceremony out on the front verandah she might have one day.
A shadow falls over her and she opens her eyes to Leo’s smiling face above hers. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she says, sitting up. “What are you doing here?”
He holds up a lemon wedge crusted in sugar. “You forgot to take your, uh, nimboo?” She nods. “I volunteered to bring it to you.”
She holds her elbows out and Leo curls his hands around her upper arms to lift her to stand.
Her palms face up in between them, they bend their heads together as she tells him to dab the slowly drying mehndi with lemon juice and sugar to make it darker and last longer.
His thick lashes lower and remind her of pulling the shades down before bed.
“Everyone says the darker your mehndi turns, the more your husband loves you,” she says, not sure why she’s decided to share this.
He says nothing as he continues dabbing the lemon juice on her hands.
Her eyes move over him; the white of his shirt, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, sets off his tanned summer-sun skin, bringing out the gold flecks in his eyes.
She realizes she is staring when she sees his knowing, pleased smile. “What are you thinking, Sim?”
She’s thinking that her blood feels like kerosene and his hands are a matchstick. Just one scrape against her and she will be ablaze. The air shifts, moody with wanting, and he takes a step towards her.
She shakes her head, holding out her hands.
“My mehndi isn’t dry.” It’s barely a protest and it doesn’t stop him.
Caught up in the hot snare of his gaze, all she can do is retreat as he moves in closer.
Her back hits a large tree and he takes her left hand, then her right, circling them at the wrist with his forefinger and thumb.
He pulls her arms above her head, his fingers pinning her against the trunk, mehndi safely out of the way.
She looks up at him. “Manjula aunty might notice you’re missing.”
His voice drapes over her. “Let her.”
“Neeta aunty might come looking for you,” she breathes.
“Let her.”
“Veena perima might catch us.”
“Let her,” he says, and presses his lips to hers.
Simran tries to move her hands—desperate to slide them through his hair, over his shoulders, below his waist—but he holds her wrists firm and all she can do is arch into his body.
Leo stops, his breath ragged, jaw pulsing.
They look at each other for a beat before they kiss again, with force, with the intention of going somewhere and getting there faster.
And then they hear it: “Leo! Where are you?”
It’s Manjula aunty. Her voice comes from a distance on the other side of the trees.
Leo straightens, pulling away. He shakes his head slightly as he steps away, eyes still on her.
He swears under his breath as he walks back towards the party and she almost buries her face in her hands before remembering her mehndi.
Laughing humorlessly, she slides down the tree, the material of her clothes snagging on the bark.
This wanting, this waiting, it’s turning her inside out.
A little while later, when she finds her way back to the deck, she is greeted by the strangest sight: her aunt and Leo carrying on a conversation.
In French.
“C’est super. Je n’ai pas parlé francais depuis si longtemps!” her aunt replies in an enthusiastic tone. Simran has no idea what they’re saying but the way his lips move around the reply makes her gape at him, long enough that Kavitha has to nudge her to stop.
Holding her nearly dry hands out, she sits at the picnic table on the back deck and asks, “Perima, you speak French?”
Veena aunty shrugs, as if it were not a big deal to be, at what is Simran’s last count, quintilingual. “Yes, I speak it fluently. As a young girl, we spent summers in Pondicherry. It was a French colony, you know?”
“Ahh, the sweet fruits of colonialism,” Kavitha says. “It’s called Puducherry now, Ma.”
“You’re going to tell me the name of the place I lived in?
Everyone there still calls it Pondi. The place and the culture is ours; the British and the French left things behind, but they had to leave, didn’t they?
” Veena perima grins, as if she might have personally had a hand in Indian independence nearly eighty years ago.
Then she laughs to herself. “I used to write my diary entries in French, so my mother wouldn’t be able to understand if she found it. ”
Simran and Kavitha exchange a look.
“Ow!” Kavitha yelps as her mother pinches her shoulder.
“So don’t think I don’t know everything you’re up to!” Veena perima says. Kavitha gulps, ever terrible under any scrutiny. “We were doing it before you were even born. Silly children.”
“Ces enfants terribles,” Leo comments and Simran is shocked to hear her aunt chuckle.
There it is: another person who is getting along with Veena perima.
Even Leo, whom she’s literally insulted to his face!
Simran knows that’s the point of Operation DDLJ, but it seems genuine on Leo’s part. He might actually like her aunt.
Geeta steps onto the back deck then, resplendent in her butter-yellow silk pavadai melakku, and everyone at the mehndi emerges from all corners of the house and backyard to get a look at her.
A few minutes later, cheering breaks out when Rishi joins, wearing a cream veshti with a gold border.
Next to Simran, Kavi explains to Leo that it’s a traditional South Indian garment that would not be worn by Rishi’s North Indian family except for the family he’s marrying into.
Manjula aunty walks up to where Veena perima stands and they eye each other as they always do. But then the taller woman breaks into a wide smile. “Thank you, Veena. I could not have asked for a more beautiful daughter-in-law,” she says. “My Rishi is so lucky.”
“She and him will be very happy together. They’re good children,” Veena perima replies, and Manjula aunty puts a hand to her chest, a détente in their domestic warfare.
The six of them take a family photo—Geeta and her parents, Rishi and his—as Simran watches from a few feet away.
What will her family photo look like? She might never have this.
She feels a pang of envy for Geeta’s perfect life as she circles downwards, following the sorrow into a tighter and tighter spiral, a dizzying but familiar path.
Geeta calls for the whole family to come join. Simran hangs back, unsure if that includes her; after all, it feels like this family is closer, happier, since she has left.
“Akka! Hurry up,” Geeta says, annoyed, and Kavitha yanks her arm and pulls her in. After a couple of snaps, Rishi winks at her as he brings Leo into the shot, behind the parents.
The photographer yells, “Say ‘cheese’!” and from a corner, an uncle shouts, “No! Say ‘paneer’!”
Everyone groans as the shutter clicks. The photo is ruined and it’s perfect.