Chapter 6
Iturned onto McKinney Avenue and navigated the one-way streets toward Cups and Cookies. It had been my favorite coffee shop since I moved into my condo five years ago. Like all hipster joints, this one had a cheeky name and an industrial design with open rafters and exposed pipes. But unlike a great many of them, it had good coffee and spacious seating, which is why I frequented it more often than any other.
As I parked the car, I thought I saw a familiar figure walk into the café. The woman wore loose linen pants and a short top, like Tara had in college. I shook my head in reproach for conjuring her everywhere. There was no way I’d casually run into her because I wasn’t that lucky. My luck had run out a long time ago.
Walking into the café, I removed my sunglasses and spotted Tara placing an order at the register. This was a hallucination. But when her eyes drew to me, she pulled herself upright. I wasn’t hallucinating. Quickly gathering my wits, I walked up and stood beside her as she paid for the order. Her glossy hair was wrapped up in a loose bun at her nape.
“Are you stalking me now?” she asked coolly.
I stole a look at her beautiful face before turning my attention to the barista, who returned my smile.
“I was going to ask you the same question, Ms. Kadam. This happens to be my favorite café, one that I visit every day. Are you stalking me?” She responded with a stern side-eye, while I smiled at the barista again. “My usual please, John.”
John nodded, much to my delight and Tara’s chagrin.
She picked up her coffee and walked toward an isolated booth by a large window at the rear. Her slight heels peeked from under the flowy pants as her proud figure strutted away.
While I paid up and waited for my order, I fought the urge to turn around. I could feel her eyes on my back, searing through to my heart. Those beautiful eyes, rimmed with liner and mascara, reminded me of the first time I had seen her in makeup.
It was Navratri, the goddess festival of nine nights, celebrated with great vigor in Gujarat, especially in Baroda.
Colorful fabric banners were strung from bamboo poles erected around the open courtyard of our college campus, flapping against the jubilant fall breeze. Cascades of string lights added a festive glow. At the center of the courtyard stood a dais for the musicians, decked with garlands of marigolds and roses. The gaiety, the frenzy, the hullaballoo were a little over the top for me, though perfectly normal for the city. Tara told me that the College of Fine Arts was known for its garba, a traditional folk dance of the region, sans modern musical instruments, microphones, or speakers. Students hosted the traditional dance played to the rhythm of the harmonium, the dhol, and the tambourine.
I had been waiting with Amar, both of us wearing kurta and Indian leggings, when Tara walked in with her friends, looking completely different in her embroidered flared lehenga and blouse, chaniya choli. Her usual simplicity of “the girl next door” was transformed into the seductiveness of an enchantress.
Her narrow, long waist was deliciously naked to the curve of her hips except for the breadth of the dupatta on her right shoulder and draped over the midriff. Her hips swayed with the flow of her full-length skirt like they never did in her baggy pants. Deep red lips, kajal-rimmed eyes. Big earrings that bounced gleefully with every step she took. A pair of three-pronged chains ran from her ears to hook into a flirty, messy bun. A long necklace of oxidized silver swung over the swell of her gorgeous breasts. She wore a black bindi on her forehead and three dainty black dots in the shape of an inverted triangle on her chin.
I had never been much of a kinkster, but watching her that night aroused delightful fantasies in me. Smearing the kohl dots off her chin with my forehead as I slid down to dip my tongue into her navel, just below that delicate waist chain. Naughty earrings and boisterous anklets responding with a different tones and cadence to my deep thrusts into her naked body. My hands clasping her perfect, round breasts, her bangles clinking against my ear as she clutched my hair hard until I cried out in pleasure.
When I turned to the campus wall to adjust myself, Amar broke into a smile that was equal parts amused and nasty. “Careful, brother. You might seriously want to reconsider that.”
I had just enough time to mouth him a “fuck you” before Tara approached us, and he burst out laughing.
“Navratri is my favorite festival.” She told me when we had danced ourselves into exhaustion, our bodies glistening with sweat, shuddering gently in the light chill. I sat with her on a thick concrete tree guard around a Peepal. Our friends had exited the garba circle to fetch water and snacks, but I stayed behind. Despite my mediocre dancing skills, I followed her as she dashed, jumped, and twirled, chasing that final beat of the drums.
“You’re a terrific dancer,” I said.
A sweet smile rippled across her red lips, and I felt a thrill run up my thighs.
“I love garba, but that’s only partly why I enjoy the festival.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a celebration of femininity and female power. You know the songs we play during these nine nights, the garba and raas songs?”
“The songs are in Gujarati, I didn’t understand a word.”
She smiled again. “They fall under two main categories: songs of worship for the Mother Goddess and songs of love and desire for Lord Krishna.”
I nodded.
“Mother Goddess is Adi Shakti, the original source of energy, of nurture, and of life on this earth. She symbolizes everything that is good. That’s what we celebrate.”
I nodded again. The heat from her body, her intoxicating smell—not her usual rose, but a seductive amber—hit me hard. I swallowed and tried not to stare at her lips.
“But the songs addressed to Krishna acknowledge women’s unabashed, unapologetic desire.”
“Yeah?”
“They talk about women lusting for Krishna, moaning about wanting to spend more time with him. They sing about losing themselves to the sound of his flute, bickering for exclusivity when he was tomcatting around… you know, like you. Even the so-called modern songs are about love and female desire. Just imagine, the same people who celebrate Radha’s affair with Krishna are the ones who criticize women for falling in love and having sex.” She rolled her eyes like she did, playfully, gracefully.
“Sounds familiar. Women are always fighting over me.” Except the one I wanted.
“You wish,” she said with a playful scoff.
I slid my hand next to hers on the concrete, and for the first time, she didn’t recoil. Her touch sent a happy thrill down my spine. We had been friends for a few months, but unlike her friendship with Amar and the other guys we hung out with, we hadn’t breached into the physical. Unlike the others, we didn’t nudge each other after a joke, casually fling an arm over the shoulder while we sipped tea at the stall, or give a low five, which I learned was something they did a lot in this part of the country. Even after an accidental touch, she would apologize. Always an awkwardness, as if we secretly liked each other but were too afraid to confess, in case it messed up what we had. And I had certainly messed it up.
The smell of coffee in my face pulled my attention back to John. “Here you go, Sam,” he said, smiling with his newly aligned teeth. “Freshly brewed. It’s a different blend. I think you’ll like it.”
“It certainly smells promising.” With a smile, I grabbed the cup from the counter, and as I turned, I caught Tara hastily shifting her gaze from me to the laptop before her.
I smiled and walked over. “Mind if I join you?”
“Arey deva!” she cried in Marathi, and I had been with her long enough to know what that meant.
“Invoking God, I see. Was that a cry for help or a cry of exasperation, Ms. Kadam?”
“Knock it off, Rehani.”
“Oh, we aren’t playing anymore?”
“You were playing. I was serious,” she said, but spotting no animosity in her tone, I took the liberty of slipping into the banquette facing her.
“I see your wardrobe hasn’t changed much.”
She scalded me with a glare. “Neither has your condescending attitude.”
I smiled. I had expected nothing less. “Truce?” A standard question from our past.
“Why?”
“Can we talk?”
“Why?”
“Don’t be difficult, Tara.” She served me another glare, and I tossed it away just as quickly. “Your coffee is getting cold, but that’s how you like it.”
She returned her attention to the machine, her nimble fingers flying over the keyboard. “I’m not sure we have much to talk about, Rehani.”
It usually took more than a gentle nudge to dissuade me. “Did you find a place to live around here?”
With an audible sigh, she pushed away the laptop and nursed her gargantuan coffee cup. The slender, tapered fingers, finished with professionally manicured nails, evoked fuzzy memories of cold nights in a warm bed. I tried to focus on her face instead, but her plum-colored lips on the thick rim of the cup did me no favors either.
“Yes,” she said softly. “About a block away.”
“I’m about a five-minute drive from you,” I said.
“What do you want, Sameer?”
“A chat with you.”
“We have nothing to chat about. You made that clear years ago.”
“Will you give it a rest? What I have to say has changed in the last thirteen years and in the last twenty-four hours.”
She pulled herself upright, but the expression on her face remained unaltered. “All right, get to it then. This is your chance. Say whatever it is you want to tell me, because after today, I don’t wish to see you again.”
“What if you accidentally run into me like this?” I grinned playfully. “How will you avoid me then?”
I thought I was being clever, but she gulped down her coffee, shoved her laptop into her shoulder bag, and slid out of the booth. “Like this.”
I quickly reached for her wrist. “Please.” With her body still attempting a getaway, she turned her head and gazed into my eyes. I’m not sure what she saw in them, but she set her bag down.
“I need another coffee. Anything for you?” she asked, retrieving her wallet from the bag.
I shook my head. By virtue of old habits and male socialization, I would’ve offered to get her the coffee, but I knew better. I hoped to remain on her good side for at least a day before she blackballed me again. In college, she had always been bluntly honest about her tight finances. Her furious sense of dignity and her fierce self-respect had me completely defenseless even before I fell in love with her. I had never expected it, nor had I experienced anything like it, so I didn’t know how to react except to offer veneration. And that’s what I did.
That same night of Navratri, as I’d sat wrapped up in her perfume, we’d smelled something else.
“What’s that strange smell?” she asked as a young couple walked past us sharing a joint.
“It’s what they’re smoking,” I whispered.
“That doesn’t smell like cigarette. Is it a flavored stick?”
“You really don’t know?” I asked with genuine surprise.
“Know what?” She turned to me with a slightly gaping mouth, eyes blinking with innocence.
I had to smile. She was smart and savvy, yet totally clueless and childlike in some matters.
“It’s weed.”
She gasped. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve smoked it.”
Another gasp from her made me laugh out loud, just as our friends returned with water. I grabbed the bottle Amar tossed at me and said, “She hasn’t smoked weed.”
This time the others gasped, and I burst out laughing again.
“Have you all?” she asked.
Everyone either nodded or shrugged matter-of-factly. Even the good-boy extraordinaire Amar had smoked with me when he came home that summer.
“Then I want to try it too! You know, I read somewhere that a good artist needs to immerse herself in every experience, every emotion.”
“Yes, academic curiosity is the only reason you want to smoke weed,” Amar said with his usual dry wit, and she giggled.
After a few days of the right kind of flirting and a few nights of debauchery, I managed to locate a reliable source for the good stuff in the new city. But when I brought the information to the group, Tara said she’d have to wait until the end of the month to get the necessary cash. Any of us could have offered to loan her the money, but we didn’t. We knew she would uphold her dignity even when she was breaking the rules.
So, we waited until she got the money from her tutoring, then spent the weekend in a weed-induced daze at Amar’s apartment. That was the first time I kissed her, or she kissed me. I’m hazy on the details, but I have a distinct, vivid memory of locked lips, tangled tongues, and our bodies wedged tight for several minutes. We never spoke of it again, though, not even after we slept together, because it was an aberration between friends and best left unaddressed.
“What are you thinking?” She returned with a steaming cup and sat down across from me.
I knew it would remain untouched until it became tepid. I used to give her a lot of flak for that in college. The cutting chai—a very tiny portion served at tea stalls—was the perfect size for her. A normal-sized beverage was wasted because by the time she got to it, it would be unpalatable for almost everyone else. But Tara wasn’t like everyone else.
I smiled. “The past. We’re as much in the past as we’re here right now.”
“But not in the future.” She established without blinking.
I swatted that away too. “How are you settling in?”
She took a moment, but answered, “Alright, I think. I don’t know anyone in the city, so it’s been quiet, but I’m doing okay.”
“Well, I’m here if you need anything or want a friend to talk to.”
She looked at me pointedly. “What are you doing, Sameer? What are we doing here?”
“What do you think we’re doing?”
“Don’t mess with me,” she growled. “I’m not that tame girl anymore.”
I smiled. “Two things. I am going to mess with you, that’s just who we are, but more to the point, you were never tame.”
“I fell for you once Rehani, it’s not going to happen again. I’m not nineteen, and I’m not smitten with you anymore.”
“Wait…you were smitten with me?” A deep color rose to her cheeks. “I thought I was the only one with the raging infatuation.”
For a moment, we both gazed at each other with a look of mild shock in our eyes. Then she remembered herself. “This conversation is over,” she said and pulled out her laptop. “Get lost.”
“This isn’t over, Tara. We need to talk.”
I felt heroic, Bollywood heroic, as I strode away from the booth before she had a chance to react or retort.