Chapter 6
Leo stands on the front porch of Iyer House, his left foot tapping wildly. He cranes his neck towards the music and voices coming from the backyard, but there’s no one out front.
He could tell his interview went well from the way they kept bringing in more of the higher-ups to meet him.
But today, with nothing to do, his brain had started overthinking.
Simran had texted that she’d be gone for two weeks and then hadn’t picked up any of his calls.
She hated talking on the phone, so maybe that didn’t mean anything.
But she’d also blown off his offer to come see her.
If their situations were reversed, he’d have wanted her to stop by, even if it was just for five minutes.
He didn’t think he was being ghosted, but things between them were still so new.
Then, out of the blue, right as he was leaving for the airport, that text: I wish you were here.
A few seconds later, she’d shared her location. He was in a cab within minutes.
But now he is here and she’s not answering her phone.
He doesn’t want to show up to a family occasion he wasn’t officially invited to without at least talking to her first. But maybe Indian families have the same approach to wedding functions as his mother does for their Sunday dinners: the more the merrier.
He glances at his phone again, willing her to pick up.
He doesn’t have much time before he has to leave for his flight.
“Can I help you?”
Leo whips around at the sound to find a guy his age, dressed in a deep purple velvet tunic-type thing over tailored pants, with his arms crossed, dark eyebrows raised.
“Hey, sorry,” Leo says, unsure. “My name is Leo. I’m a … um, friend of Simran Gopal. She’s attending a family wedding here.”
The guy chuckles. “Yeah. My wedding.”
Leo’s eyebrows go up. “No shit?”
“I’m Rishi, I’m marrying her cousin Geeta,” he says, walking up the porch steps and extending his hand. Leo shakes it and congratulates him. “So you’re Simi’s um-friend?”
Leo grins. “Something like that.” Realizing he’s just been caught doing what can be, at best, interpreted as loitering, and, at worst, stalking, he grows serious. “I was in New York for work and I wanted to see her before I went back to Toronto. Just to make sure she’s okay.”
Rishi frowns. “Why wouldn’t she be okay? She’s with her family.”
“Oh. Yeah, no,” Leo says, backtracking. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”
Rishi holds his palms up as he laughs again. “Relax, dude. I know the family history. I’m marrying the family history. I get it. Simi’s back for the first time in seven years, of course there’s going to be drama.”
Leo hadn’t realized that’s how long it had been. Even he sees his absentee father more often than that. “Listen, can you help me find her? I don’t want to crash the party or anything, I just want to talk to her.”
“You know, the thing in your hand is pretty good for that,” Rishi suggests, gesturing at Leo’s phone. “It would be, if she answered it.”
“I can go get her,” Rishi says. “But it would be irresponsible for me not to verify that you are who you say you are.”
“Are you going to show me nine squares and have me pick which ones have motorcycles in them?” Leo asks.
Rishi laughs but lifts his chin in interrogation. “What’s Simran’s middle name?”
Leo narrows his eyes. “Trick question, she doesn’t have one.”
Rishi nods in approval. “Listen, if you do turn out to be a burglar, can you please leave the record player in the study? It’s an antique and I’m hoping to inherit it through marriage.”
Leo smiles. “For my accomplice? You got it.”
“That’s exactly what the police are going to call me, isn’t it?” Rishi mutters. He opens the front door, poking his head inside. Stepping through the threshold, he motions for Leo to follow him.
“I’ve got to tell you, that is a really dope look,” Leo says.
Rishi looks down at his outfit as they make their way through the living room. “Yeah? I didn’t know if it was too over-the-top.”
“Dude, I’m a total stranger giving you a compliment. There’s no reason for you not to believe it,” Leo tells him.
“I guess,” Rishi says, a hitch in his voice.
“I listen to this podcast and the host says, ‘Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart,’” Leo replies. Then he stops short, cringing. He’s lost his ability to have casual conversation thanks to his therapist mother and guidance-counsellor sister.
But Rishi stops too and turns around, his eyes wide. “You listen to Unlocking Us with Brene Brown?”
Leo can hardly believe it. “Hell yes I do!”
“All the guys I work with make fun of me for listening to girly shit,” Rishi says.
“Oh, you work at Incels ‘R’ Us?” Leo asks.
Rishi laughs as they make their way through the dining room into an awkward annex at the rear of the house.
The bass of whatever song is playing in the party out back thumps and someone sings lyrics in a language he doesn’t understand, except for the intermittent English words: “sup” and “party all night” and—he’s sure he’s mishearing this phrase—“yo-yo honey sing.” But he feels very far from all the action in this mazelike hallway.
“I’ll go find Simran,” Rishi says. “Why don’t you go wait in the room on the left? There’s never anyone in there.”
Leo stops outside a door. “This one?” he asks Rishi’s retreating back.
“No,” Rishi calls over his shoulder. “The next room. The study.”
Leo finds himself in a square room with a large oak desk in the middle.
It’s stuffy and outdated, from the tufted leather executive chair and the fax machine in the corner to the dark damask wallpaper, but Leo’s not looking at any of that.
At the back of the room is a gallery wall crowded with photos, most in black and white, of what look like family members.
But the two larger portraits in the center stand out.
They are somewhere in their forties, younger than any of the others by decades.
The photo on the right is of a woman with high cheekbones and a braided rope of dark hair pulled over one shoulder, her face made incandescent by the red of her sari.
The man in the second portrait has deep, flawless skin and wears metal frame glasses, grooves on either side of his mouth like bookends.
Leo smiles at that smile, recognizing the dimple—not a pair but a lone one—as the same one that pops into Simran’s cheek.
Standing here in the house of the family Simran never talks about, staring at the photos of the two most important people to her who she also never talks about, people he’ll never get a chance to know, a realization hits him with full force.
There is a whole part of herself she keeps buried that, if he wants to be with her, he has to find a way to reach.
And then, for the second time today, he gets caught.
“Aiyo! Who are you?”
Leo whirls around to see a woman in a blue sari slam a tray onto the desk, making the cups and a teapot rattle. She advances on him. Leo swallows audibly, spine going even straighter. All six-foot-two of him towers over this woman, who can’t be more than five feet tall. And yet, he feels cornered.
It dawns on him: This is Simran’s aunt, Veena, whom she has mentioned in passing, mostly to tell stories of how strict she was when Sim was growing up.
“Hi! I’m sorry to intrude, I’m Leo. Leo Bridgers,” he replies. She looks him up and down and it’s the same feeling he got when he had the MRI for his shoulder: trapped and seen right through.
“What are you doing here?” She’s wearing a maroon bindi the size of a thumbnail on her forehead and her mouth twists in horror when she looks down. “And why are you wearing shoes inside the house?”
Shit. He knows better than this. This was a rookie mistake.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, toeing off his sneakers but the woman’s expression doesn’t change. He feels his face heat up and can tell that he’s going splotchy.
“Who are you? Why are you here?” she repeats, a bark more than a question.
“I’m Leo,” he attempts again. He presses his lips together because he has a feeling that anything he says will be the wrong thing. But he is, even under far more favorable circumstances, a chronic silence-filler. “I’m a friend of S—”
At that moment, the door slams open and both their heads swing in unison to see Simran with Rishi.
She’s got a hand clamped on each side of the doorway, and she surveys the scene, chest heaving as if she ran here.
He’s never seen her in Indian clothes before; she looks gorgeous in a green outfit.
Her gaze pivots from Leo to the portraits of her parents behind him before landing on her aunt.
From over her shoulder, Rishi peers into the room.
“Simi, Rishi! Look at this! Some strange white boy has gotten into our house,” Veena says. “Maybe he’s one of those thieves everyone keeps sending WhatsApp forwards about.” She whips her head towards him. “Are you a thief?”
He shakes his head back and forth, a few too many times but he can’t stop. “No, I work in translation.” God, he sounds like an idiot. This woman’s laser stare has disintegrated some of his brain cells. Her face scrunches in distaste, like she can hear his inner monologue.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Leo,” he repeats, eyes flicking to Simran. She has that same shuttered look on her face as the night of her birthday.
Veena crosses her arms. “What are you doing in my house, Leonardo?”
“It’s just Leo, actually.”
“What?” The word comes out like a gunshot.
“You said Leonardo. That’s … not my name.” He trails off.
Veena simply stares at him. Leo gulps. He shouldn’t have corrected her. He doesn’t quite know what’s happening, but he knows it’s all going horribly wrong. And Simran keeps standing there, not saying anything.
Veena squints. “Where did you come from?”
He’s not sure how to answer so he just says, “Toronto.”
“Toronto?” Veena’s shoulders stiffen. “Simran lives in Toronto.” Her voice is tinged with suspicion.
A little ping goes off in Leo’s head: Simran hasn’t told her family about him.
Not even as a friend. He’s about to explain that they know each other through his sister but something, maybe the way Simran remains wordless, makes him snap his mouth shut.
Veena’s voice is minimally gentler as she turns back to Simran and asks, “Do you know this boy?”
Simran swallows, blinking fast as she answers: “No, Perima, I don’t.” She bites her lips immediately.
She lied.
What the hell? Leo tries catching Simran’s eye, but she is determinedly looking at anything but him.
He feels embarrassed—but also a little betrayed.
He shouldn’t have come here without an actual invitation, but it cuts deep that she’s pretending she doesn’t know him at all.
It doesn’t matter that he’s had a thing for her for more than a decade.
Doesn’t matter that she is his dream girl. He deserves more than this.
Veena, hands on her hips, has turned back to Leo. “So who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Veena aunty, this is my friend,” Rishi says, stepping around Simran in the doorway to let himself into the room. He stands next to Leo and slaps his shoulder as if they’ve not seen each other in months. “Good to see you, man! I didn’t realize you were coming to the engagement party.”
Leo is infinitely thankful. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I should have called.” He glances at Veena. “And taken off my shoes.”
“But why are you in this room?” she asks.
“I was looking for Rishi,” Leo explains. Simran is staring at her feet, her expression stony and unreadable.
“This part of the house is not open to strangers!” Veena says.
Rishi tries to pave over the awkwardness, slinging an arm over Leo’s shoulder and tugging him in the direction of the door. “Sorry about that, Aunty. Come on, buddy, let’s go out back and get some food.”
But Leo doesn’t move. He looks at Simran again, raking a hand through his hair. He thought they were on the same page—that this was real and so good. Whatever is happening here, she doesn’t want him to be a part of it. And he doesn’t want to stay where he’s not wanted.
“Actually, I just wanted to swing by and say congratulations,” he says, clearing his throat, looking at Rishi. “I can’t stay for the party, I have to go catch my flight back to Toronto.” At this, her head jerks up.
“Oh.” Rishi’s gaze darts around, as if he wants to look at Simran to intervene, but then realizes Veena is watching all of them closely. “… Okay.”
Leo bends down to pick up his sneakers and murmurs a final congratulations to Rishi. He walks past Simran, deliberately not looking at her and leaving a wide berth between them, as if they really were strangers.