Chapter 27
After the joothe negotiation is settled with Ravi uncle begrudgingly handing over a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills to the girls’ side, lunch is served.
There’s some downtime until the cocktail hour and reception, or, in Geeta’s case, just enough time to change out of her ceremony clothes, eat something, and then start on her reception outfit, hair, and makeup, the final and most extravagant look of the whole wedding.
Simran finds an empty table, wanting to eat by herself—she’s not in the mood to speak to anyone, but Kamal and Payal sit down next to her.
“Indian wedding food is the best,” Kamal says as they eat. He looks over at his sister, who is scarfing down her meal. “P, slow down, they’re not going to run out.”
“You know the family rules. If you don’t eat fast, you might not eat at all,” Payal says, and then grabs a papad from her brother’s plate and bites into it.
“There’s, like, a thousand papads over there, why do you have to take mine?”
“Because the food I steal from you just tastes better,” she retorts.
Simran laughs, despite herself. “Kamal, this is her birthright as a younger sister.”
Kamal clears his throat. “Speaking of, where is Kavitha?” he asks. “She’s upstairs in the bridal suite,” Simran says. “She ate earlier so she could help Geeta iron her outfit.”
“I see,” Kamal says. He clears his throat again. Payal looks at him, confused, and he widens his eyes before motioning for her to leave.
“Wow, I’m full.” Payal stands abruptly. “I’m going to go. I’ll talk to you later, Simi!”
She’s gone before Simran can even say goodbye. Kamal chuckles. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so obvious about it. But I can’t help it.”
Dread creeps into Simran’s stomach, replacing her appetite.
“You know …” Simran stands, plastic chair scraping the ground noisily.
“I have to go too. Sorry, Kamal!” She dashes to the elevator bay, where she finds almost the whole crew—Geeta, Rishi, and both sets of parents—heading upstairs.
Ravi uncle’s continued grumbles about having to pay for the joothe echo through the tight space, allowing Simran to roil in her bad mood from the back corner of the elevator.
She’s not the only one. Manjula aunty scowls at Veena perima crowing about her side winning, their détente over.
Simran is about to head to the room she and Kavitha have been getting ready in when Geeta says, “Come with me, Akka. I have a necklace that I think will go really well with your outfit tonight.”
The seven of them enter the bridal suite, a cluster of noise and movement, stopping short when they find Kavitha standing in the middle of the room. Next to her, hair mussed suspiciously, is Payal. Silence falls over the group as Veena perima looks from Kavitha to Payal and back to Kavitha.
All of Kamal’s comments about the specialness of childhood friends and getting time to connect and him making his sister leave the table click into place.
Kamal’s not interested in Simran. He’s been trying to get Kavitha and Payal together.
Simran wishes she could telepathically tell her cousin to wipe the guilty look off her face.
“Kavitha? Payal? What were you two doing?” Veena perima asks, and behind her, Manjula aunty crosses her arms. Simran feels panic rising in her. Kavitha is a bad liar on a good day. Under scrutiny, she doesn’t stand a chance.
“We were just catching up,” Payal says, when Kavitha won’t speak up. “Up here? By yourselves?” Veena perima asks, suspicious.
Simran can see it unfolding like a fragile porcelain vase toppling from its perch, about to hit the ground and shatter into a million pieces. Kavitha is going to be outed against her will.
And then, like an outstretched hand that catches the vase, Geeta steps in front of Payal, turns to face her parents and in-laws, and with her arms outstretched announces, “I’m pregnant!”
“What?” That one word comes out in unison. Ashok peripa’s eyebrows go high on his forehead. Simran sees Rishi fondly shaking his head from the back of the group and when she turns back to Geeta, she sees her smilingly shrug back.
“Gits,” Kavitha says, as Payal quietly lets herself out the other door, her hasty exit unnoticed. Simran’s heart might burst; she knows this is not something that Geeta and Rishi were planning on revealing for a while. GNN has tattled once again, but this time on herself. For Kavitha.
In a rational world, it would be fine, but as expected, three of the four newly linked Iyer-Chopra parents burst into a frenzy of overreaction. Manjula aunty covers her face with both hands, letting out a wail that would give any soap opera actress a run for her money.
“Geeta, ni wodhe vangaporey. This is a terrible joke,” Veena aunty says. It’s the ultimate threat, telling Geeta she’s asking for a beating (even if the beating never actually materializes). But Geeta simply beams at her mother as Rishi moves to stand next to her and takes her hand.
“It’s not a joke, Amma. You’re going to be a patti,” Geeta says calmly. Simran is in awe of how cool she’s playing this.
“But the child is out of wedlock,” Manjula aunty sputters. Rishi runs a hand over his face, the gold of his new wedding band catching the light.
“Wedlock,” Kavitha repeats, incredulous. “I’ll take ‘patriarchal bullshit’ for a thousand, Alex.”
“We’re married now,” Rishi reasons.
“But you weren’t married when you became pregnant, correct?” Manjula aunty retorts, swinging her gaze around like a cocked pistol.
“Geeta, I cannot take this right now,” Veena aunty says, pinching the bridge of her nose as she sits on the edge of the king bed in the middle of the room. She’s so short that her feet barely touch the ground.
“Everyone needs to calm down,” Kavitha says. “Gits and Rishi are married! She’s only twelve weeks along. By the time the baby comes, no one will care.”
“Twelve weeks along,” Ravi uncle says. “So six months after the wedding, you’ll have a baby! You think people can’t do the mathematics? Log kya kahenge!”
Kavitha bites her lips and cringes, realizing she’s given out more information than she should have.
“Thanks for that,” Geeta mutters.
“This is ridiculous,” Kavitha says, half to herself. “It’s not a big deal.”
But the parents have worked themselves into a tizzy.
Simran wonders if her uncle might intervene, like he did during the ceremony.
But this time he stays silent, seated in a leather wingback chair not unlike his one at home at the far end of the room, massaging his temples, apparently having hit his quota on involvement.
“Couldn’t you horny kids have waited three months before consummating?” Rishi’s mother wails again.
“Mom, please don’t ever say ‘horny’ again,” Rishi says, shuddering. “Or ‘consummating.’”
“Mummy-ji, Papa-ji, you’re going to be a dadi and dada,” Geeta says, trying to soothe them with her best doctor voice. “What else matters right now?”
“It matters that you are bad children!” Veena perima’s voice rises as if she were scolding a pet who’s chewed up a shoe. “We raised you with better values than this.”
“Clearly, you didn’t,” Kavitha mutters, and Simran nudges her to shut up. She suddenly looks contrite, like she’s remembered that she’s the reason Geeta has to endure any of this.
“Look, you guys can freak out all you want but I think if you just take a step back and see the bigger picture—” Rishi starts.
“Don’t tell us what to do! We are your parents!” his father barks at him. “We see the picture we see!”
“We give them everything they ask for, Manjula,” Veena perima says. Her new in-law walks over and places a hand on her shoulder. “Schooling, food, a roof over their heads. Whenever Geeta wanted shoes, we said okay, we’ll buy you shoes. Anything for our children. And how do they repay us?”
Manjula aunty sits next to Veena perima on the bed and clasps her hand.
In the gravest of voices, she says, “I don’t understand, Veena.
What sins have we committed in our past lives to have to bear this indignity?
” Simran is horrified—and, honestly, a little impressed—to see two tears leak down Manjula aunty’s face.
Rishi had once said she’d wanted to be an actress back in India; she certainly has the knack for melodrama.
“All we can say is sorry to God and the people who look to our example in the community,” Veena perima says, squeezing Manjula aunty’s hand. The two women fall silent, rivalry set aside for now. “We tried our best.”
“What to do, what to do,” Ravi uncle laments.
“Chalo,” Veena perima says, standing up and letting out a gale of a sigh. “We still have a wedding to get through, no matter how sinful.”
Despite herself, Simran barely holds back a laugh. Her eyes meet Geeta’s, whose mouth is wobbling too.
“You all: Get ready and don’t tell anybody about this!” Manjula aunty hisses. Both sets of parents head to their respective rooms, leaving Geeta, Rishi, Kavitha, and Simran behind in the suite.
“Geeta. You saved me and sacrificed yourself,” Kavitha says, but Geeta waves her gratitude away.
“We knew they’d freak out,” Geeta says. “We know they can ‘do the mathematics.’”
“At least now their outrage is for a good cause,” Rishi says.
“Who cares! Can we just celebrate again that you’re having a baby?” Simran says. She moves forward to envelop both of them in a hug.
From behind her, Kavitha says, “I can make an exception to my rule for a good group hug!,” and barrels into Simran’s back and all four stumble a bit, like a multiheaded octopus drunk on joy.
She can be for this baby what her aunt was never for her: a confidante, a safe harbor, a teller of the stories that came before.
“So, Kavitha, what did we walk in on?” Geeta asks. She sits down at the dressing table and begins the arduous process of removing her jewelry.
Kavitha goes beet red. “Me and Payal were just, um, catching up.”
“With each other’s mouths?” Simran asks, and Geeta cackles.
Kavi somehow goes redder. “Shut up!”
“Shut up? Shut up?” Simran says. “You expect me to shut up after you have made fun of me nonstop for two weeks?”
“Speaking of, where is Leo?” Kavitha asks, half distracted as she pulls out the steam iron. The mention of his name feels jagged through Simran.
“Um, I think he went back to the house to get changed,” she says, trying to ignore the sting in her chest at her lie.
“Good for him, he deserves a break from our crazy families,” Rishi says. Grinning, he teases, “Does he really understand what he’s getting himself into with you, Sim?”
The other three laugh and Simran, ever practiced, brings a smile she doesn’t feel to her lips. When she and Kavitha leave the suite, her smile drops immediately.
“Let’s get ready for this sinful wedding,” Kavitha says, cracking up. When Simran doesn’t join in, Kavitha looks over at her. “What’s up with you?”
At first, Simran doesn’t plan on saying anything. But when the hotel room door closes behind them, she can’t hold it in. “Leo and I got into … a thing. A fight, I guess.”
“About Amma making Kamal walk in the wedding with you?” Kavitha asks. “I know she way overstepped, but I’m sure we can salvage something.”
“It’s no use,” she says. “Operation DDLJ is dead in the water. Shah Rukh Khan has failed us.”
“Blasphemy!” Kavitha mimes giving her a tight slap, but Simran can’t bring herself to crack a smile. “Is that why Leo is upset?”
“Yes,” Simran says. “No. He just doesn’t get it. I told him that I didn’t want to tell Perima about us and he got upset.”
Kavitha frowns. “You’re not ever going to tell her?”
Simran clears her throat, trying to tread carefully without lying. “Not anytime soon. She’s still trying to set me up with random men, for God’s sake.”
“Kamal isn’t random. You told her you didn’t want to be set up with strangers,” Kavitha says.
“I told her I didn’t want to be set up at all.” She waves a hand in the air. “It doesn’t matter. This wedding will be over soon and I’ll go back to Toronto and she won’t be able to do this anymore.”
“Just like before,” Kavitha says icily.
Simran is about to agree until she clocks her cousin’s tone. She’s upset. Well, so is Simran. Neither speaks much as they go through the involved process of getting ready, but Simran’s anger whirls and calcifies within her.
Later that evening, she steps out into the cocktail hour, surrounded by her family and hundreds of people. She’s never felt more alone.