Chapter 5
Meghna checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror, turning and straining her neck so she could see the back of her salwar kameez. Convinced that everything looked the way it should, she twirled back around, holding on to her sky-blue dupatta so it wouldn’t slip off her shoulder. She adjusted it one last time, then secured it with a safety pin. There. Now it wouldn’t budge even if she got a little wild on the dance floor tonight.
Her phone buzzed, and she swiped it open, surprised at the flurry of notifications on her screen.
Meghna rolled her eyes.
Meghna hesitated for a second, not sure how much she should tell him.
Meghna snorted.
Well, she was mostly kidding. She and Samir had been incredibly close when they were little, but the distance over the last few years had made it harder for them to connect. Every time they reunited, Meghna had a harder time understanding him. Still, she was glad he was in town. Hopefully they’d be able to spend some quality time together during his visit. Maybe they could make an effort to repair everything between them.
Meghna laughed.
Meghna grinned at the reference to Fiddler on the Roof. Samir may not have willingly shared her love of musicals, but he’d watched all the classics with her when they were children. She sent him a laughing face emoji and told him she’d see him in an hour.
The reminder of the time sent a nervous flutter through her stomach. Karthik would be here soon. He’d been incredibly gracious about coming down to Dallas to attend Ankita’s engagement party. He said he’d been about to ask her to attend an event with him in New York, so it felt like an even trade.
Meghna pursed her lips in the mirror, then grabbed a tissue, wiping her lipstick off. It didn’t seem like the right color anymore. She searched for a more muted shade of pink and had just put it on when the doorbell rang.
She took a deep breath and shook out her shoulders before opening the door.
Karthik stood outside, his form flickering in shadows until she turned the pale porch light on. He blinked against the sudden brightness, and her mouth went dry. He was all crisp lines and sharp edges contained in the best-fitted suit she’d ever seen. Sophisticated. Sleek. Slate gray. It was like he’d stepped off a Tom Ford runway and walked straight to her apartment.
“Hey,” he said, his forehead creased in obvious confusion.
Warmth crept across Meghna’s cheeks. She’d been staring. Like she’d never seen a handsome man before. Like she’d never seen a man before. She mentally slapped herself across the face and joined him outside.
She could handle this. She could be normal. She … she still hadn’t responded to his greeting. She lifted her arms to give him a hug, but dropped them immediately, reaching out to shake his hand instead.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, pumping his hand up and down. Firmly. Then she broke the contact to scan the street in front of them. She’d called a car a few minutes ago and the app said it was almost there.
“Thanks for agreeing to come to New York next week,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I know it’s more than we initially talked about.”
“No worries. Neither of us planned for these things to happen.”
His lips twitched, the smallest beginnings of a wry smile. “Maybe we should have come up with some real terms after all.”
Her instinct was to return the smile, but for some reason she couldn’t get the muscles in her face to cooperate. “Maybe.”
They turned back toward the street, the warm night air thick and heavy between them. She snuck a look at him out of the corner of her eye, but any trace of his earlier smile had disappeared. His mouth was firm. Hard. Set in a stern, straight line.
“Let’s talk about some terms, then,” she said.
He nodded and put his hands in his pockets, slowly returning his gaze to her. “Okay.”
She ran through the list of questions Ankita had asked her, trying to select the best one to start with, but when she opened her mouth, the question that came out was “Are we dating other people?”
Karthik started. “No,” he said. He paused, then continued. “I don’t think we need to complicate this more. And what if our families heard something about it? It just feels like too big of a risk.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “Do you want to? Are you dating someone?”
“No, no. I just wasn’t sure.”
He nodded thoughtfully, and they fell into a silence that felt more strained than companionable. The car arrived, and they climbed in. The backseat seemed smaller than usual, and Meghna held herself as still as possible, not wanting to accidentally brush up against him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this uncomfortable around someone.
Karthik cleared his throat. “So, tell me about your friend. This is her party, right?”
Meghna breathed a sigh of relief. She seized onto the lifeline and immediately launched into a summary of her friendship with Ankita. They’d been friends since they were little, carpooling together every day to school and spending most of their summers at Meghna’s house, where they followed Samir around until he was forced to hang out with them. Samir pretended that he hated playing with them and insisted that he was only there because Mom forced him to be, but they all knew he was actually happy to be a part of their little trio.
“That’s great you were all so close,” Karthik said. “I’m an only child, but I always thought it would have been nice to have a sibling.”
“Nice? Sometimes. Samir and I fought constantly. We still do.”
“Still, it seems like it would be nice to have someone to fight with. And play with. And share things with. My house was so quiet.”
“Weren’t there kids in the neighborhood? Or cousins?”
“I had friends at school, but they didn’t really come over. And all of my cousins are in India. My parents are the only ones here.”
“That sounds lonely.”
He gave her a look she couldn’t quite read. “It wasn’t,” he said stiffly. “I had plenty to keep me occupied.” His tone stung, but she wanted to know what he meant by that. She almost asked, but something stopped her. A sense of foreboding. Like she was about to cross some invisible trip wire. She decided to change the subject.
“I think you’ll like my brother,” she said. “He’s a little wild, but hilarious. Way more outgoing than me.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” he said politely.
The car came to a stop, breaking the tension that had been growing between them, though a different sort of tension was building in Meghna’s chest. This was their first outing as an engaged couple. Their first time seeing whether they had any chance of pulling this off. She waited a second, took a deep, fortifying breath, then followed Karthik out of the car.
Karthik pulled at his collar, trying to subtly loosen his tie. He felt like it was closing in on his neck. At least, that’s what he told himself. His difficulty breathing had to be from the tie. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was attending a large party with all of Meghna’s friends and family. There was no logical reason why that should make him nervous.
He opened the heavy door to the building, holding it in place so Meghna could enter. He followed her, taking a few steps inside before coming to a sudden stop, his senses overloaded by their surroundings. Silks in bright pink and yellow and orange covered the walls. Flower garlands were strung up in the entryway and along the ceiling, perfuming the room with the scent of jasmine. Ornate mirrors made the room seem never-ending, and the loud, pulsing beat of Bollywood music filled the air. To his right a group of uncles was already gathered on the dance floor, shaking their shoulders and pointing their fingers toward the ceiling. He watched everything, a bit stunned, until a hand wrapped around his arm.
“Let’s find Ankita and Rishi,” Meghna yelled over the music. “Do you want a drink?” A waiter passed by at that moment, holding a tray of brightly colored cocktails, and Karthik grabbed one, still gawking at everything around him. He’d attended lavish and elaborate Desi weddings in the past, but nothing like this. This seemed more like a Mumbai nightclub than the reserved, stately functions he’d gone to before. And it wasn’t even the wedding.
“What is this place?” he shouted, completely bewildered.
“Ankita’s parents’ restaurant. They tend to go a bit overboard,” she said, still holding on to his arm as she expertly navigated them through the crowd. People called out greetings as they passed, and though Meghna stopped to give a hug or two, she neatly evaded their efforts to draw her into conversation, promising that she would return in a moment. He followed her blindly through the maze until they stopped in front of a woman in a bright red, heavily jeweled outfit and a gangly man with glasses. Meghna threw her arms around the woman and hugged her fiercely.
“Everything looks beautiful,” Meghna said loudly.
The woman, who must have been Ankita, laughed and shook her head. “It looks gaudy. We tried to rein Mom in, but …” She gestured wildly at the room around them. “It was just easier to let her do what she wanted.”
Karthik shook Rishi’s hand. “Congratulations,” he said. “I’m Meghna’s fiancé.” As the words came out, he realized it was the first time he’d ever said that out loud. A strange rush of warmth spread through his chest. Rishi congratulated him in return and Karthik turned to greet Ankita, surprised to see a wary, almost hostile expression on her face.
He stretched out an arm to shake her hand as well, but she enveloped him in a hug.
“I know everything,” she whispered. A jolt of surprise went through him. “If this ends up hurting her, I’m going to blame you.” She ended the hug and shot him a look before returning to her conversation with Meghna. Just a moment later, the two of them were speaking rapidly to each other, and it was clear he and Rishi were not invited to participate.
“They’re always like this,” Rishi told him. “Sometimes it feels like they’re speaking their own language.”
Karthik chuckled. Though Rishi sounded put out, he was watching Ankita with a fond expression, clearly not upset at all. Karthik asked the standard, obligatory, polite questions that were expected in situations like this. Where did Rishi work? How did he meet Ankita? How was wedding planning going?
Once they’d exhausted all suitable topics of conversation, Karthik glanced at Meghna and Ankita, checking to see whether they were almost finished. Unfortunately for him, they were still going and didn’t seem close to running out of fuel. Thankfully, one of his many efforts to catch Meghna’s eye was successful, and she turned to him with a warm smile.
“Do you want to go get something to eat?” she asked.
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
They said their goodbyes to Ankita and Rishi and walked toward the buffet.
“I’m sorry, I know we can get carried away,” Meghna said as she grabbed a clean plate and handed it to him. “And you’re probably tired. We can just meet my family quickly, finish dinner, and leave after that.”
It was kind of her to offer to leave early, and he wanted nothing more than to escape to his quiet hotel room, but he reassured her that they should stay. She and Ankita were obviously close, and he didn’t want Meghna to have to leave the party early just for him.
After they filled their plates, they spotted her family sitting at the table farthest from the dance floor and went over to join them. Karthik greeted Meghna’s parents and met her brother, Samir, for the first time. He looked a lot like Meghna, except Samir wore his curly hair cropped short, and his wide smile was slightly crooked compared to hers.
“Mom says you’re an engineer?” Samir asked.
“I am,” Karthik replied.
“What kind?”
“Mechanical.”
“Nice!” Samir said with genuine excitement. “I studied computer engineering, but I’m mostly doing programming these days.” He clasped a hand on Karthik’s shoulder. “It’s great to have another person in the family business.”
Meghna coughed, half choking on the mouthful of rice she’d just swallowed.
“You okay?” Karthik asked quietly, his hand reaching out to pat her on the back. But she waved his efforts away, taking a sip of her water and turning to talk to her mother.
“Mom and Dad are engineers too,” Samir continued.
“I didn’t know that,” Karthik replied. They continued their small talk over the course of the meal until their conversation was cut off by the sound of an incoming phone call.
“Sorry,” Meghna said, fishing her phone out of her purse. “That’s mine.” She checked the screen, and a small smile crossed her face. “I have to take this, but you guys keep talking, I’ll just step outside. Be right back.”
As she walked away, Samir’s face darkened.
“I bet it’s Seth,” he said conspiratorially. “She always gets that goofy look whenever he calls. Man, that guy is such a prick.”
“Seth?”
Samir’s eyebrows jumped. “You don’t know Seth?”
Karthik shook his head. “Who is he?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. He’s just an old friend of hers. From college. Speaking of which, where did you go to school?”
Karthik narrowed his eyes at the deflection, but answered, “Berkeley.”
Meghna’s mother must have overheard because she looked over with a smile. “Isn’t that impressive, Samir?”
“Very. But West Coast, huh? Must have been an adjustment for you after growing up in New York.”
It had been. But the distance had been the point. Karthik had wanted to be as far away from his father as possible.
“I bet living in India after growing up here has been an adjustment for you as well.”
Samir shrugged. “It’s been a few years now, so I’ve gotten used to it. Honestly, both places feel like home.”
Meghna’s father leaned forward. “But you’re planning on moving back soon, right?”
“Maybe,” Samir said distractedly, his eyes scanning the room. “Depends on a few things.”
Meghna’s mother frowned.
“Aunty, Uncle,” a high voice called from behind Karthik. “Have you seen Meghna? I needed to ask her—”
Karthik turned around and saw Ankita, her heavy earrings swinging in the air and her mouth open in shock.
“Hi, Ankita. It’s good to see you,” Samir said, his eyes fixed on her. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” she squeaked. She cleared her throat, then addressed the group. “I was looking for Meghna, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. Do you know where she is?”
Karthik stood up from the table. “I’ll go get her.” She’d been gone awhile. And this seemed like the kind of thing a fiancé was supposed to do.
He followed the path Meghna had taken, but without her to guide him through the crowd, it took longer than before to get through the room. After a few sidesteps and swerves to avoid crashing into strangers, he made it to the door and found her outside, standing on the sidewalk, talking animatedly into her phone.
“Miami’s a great idea!” she said. “Much better than Vegas. I’ll look up tickets when I get home and start doing some research on things to do.” She looked up and saw Karthik standing there, waiting for her. She grinned apologetically. “I have to run,” she said into the phone. “But we’ll talk soon.”
She’s planning a trip? With Seth?He frowned. Is he her boyfriend? He resisted the urge to ask her about it. It was none of his business. And she’d told him earlier that she wasn’t dating anyone.
“Coming back inside?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. It was just a friend of mine.”
Karthik nodded but didn’t say anything in response.
“Actually, that wedding I need a plus-one for?” Meghna continued. “It’s his.”
So, not a boyfriend, then. Something odd rushed through his body. It felt a lot like … relief? He rubbed his chest absently. It couldn’t be that. Maybe it was indigestion.
“Okay,” he said. “You still need to send me the date for that.”
“I do,” she replied. “I’ll send it tomorrow.” She smiled, slightly hesitant.
“I like your brother,” he said.
Her smile grew. “He’s a brat. But I love him,” she said. “It seemed like he liked you too.”
“I take it you haven’t told him about us? The truth, I mean.”
“No, but I will. Soon.” A determined look settled over her face.
“I know you told Ankita,” he said.
“How?”
“She threatened me.”
“What?” she exclaimed.
“It was a kind threat,” he reassured her. “As far as threats go.”
She breathed out a laugh. “That sounds like her.”
“She was looking for you, by the way,” he said.
She nodded, and they went back inside, the loud music immediately enveloping them. She moved in a hurry, but he placed a hand on her arm to catch her attention.
“I’m going to grab a drink and meet up with you in a bit,” he said. He didn’t know what Ankita wanted to discuss with Meghna, but he doubted she wanted him to tag along. “Want me to get you anything?”
She declined, and they parted ways. Karthik headed in the direction of the bar, hoping he’d be able to navigate his way there and back in one piece.
Meghna stepped back into the chaos of the room, slightly unsettled, though she couldn’t figure out why. The pulsing lights and overwhelming music did little to help her introspection. She scanned the room for Ankita, but she could only find her parents sitting where she’d left them.
“Mom, do you know where Ankita is?”
Her mother stood up and grasped Meghna’s hands. “Beta, we love Karthik. He seems so smart.” She waggled her eyebrows. “And looks it too.”
“Yes, he’s great. But did you see where Ankita went?”
“And it was nice of him to come all the way from New York.”
“So nice,” Meghna said. “But I was asking …”
“You’re lucky, you know? Not everyone can find someone like that.”
Meghna grimaced. She hadn’t really found someone. She was still all alone.
“But I found your dad. And you found Karthik,” her mother continued. “With our help, of course.” She let out a tinkling laugh, her eyes filled with genuine warmth. “We’re both so happy for you.”
Meghna took a deep breath. “Thanks, Mom. But I was just looking for Ankita. Have you seen her?”
Meghna’s mother opened her mouth, but her father quickly interjected. “She was looking for you. I think she said she was going to get dessert.”
Meghna gave her father a look of gratitude, and he winked back at her. Her mother frowned, clearly about to say something else, but before she could, Meghna’s father turned and kissed her mother on the cheek. Her mother laughed, and then her father whispered something that made her mom blush.
Meghna had no desire to know what had been said, but she was thankful for the distraction, using it to slip away and head toward the dessert table. She couldn’t see Ankita standing anywhere near there, but she decided that she needed some ras malai anyway. After that conversation, she was certainly entitled to it. She may have even earned a gulab jamun or two.
She spooned a ras malai into her bowl but was interrupted by the voice of a man behind her.
“Beautiful jewelry,” he said. She turned around. The man was older, clearly an uncle, but she couldn’t remember if they had met. If they had, she couldn’t recall his name.
“Thank you,” she said politely.
His gaze crawled over her, starting at her necklace, then roaming over her chest.
“Our women look best in Indian clothes,” he said. “I’ve always thought so.”
Gross. Meghna was looking around for an exit strategy when a warm hand suddenly closed around hers.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Karthik said.
She relaxed at the sound of his voice, soft and somehow already familiar.
“Are you her husband?” the uncle asked.
“Fiancé,” Karthik bit out.
An oily smile came over the uncle’s face. “You’re a lucky man.”
“I know,” Karthik said firmly. He nodded curtly and tugged on Meghna’s hand, gently pulling her with him. Once they were a safe distance away, he stopped and faced her.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. No. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, it’s nothing. That guy was just being a creep.”
Karthik frowned. “Well, that’s not nothing, then.” He looked away for a second, then back at her. He blew out a loud breath. “I’m sorry.”
She scrunched her nose, confused by his apology. “For what?”
“I shouldn’t have cut in like that. I’m sure you could have handled it. It’s just … I was coming to see if you were done talking with Ankita, and then I saw you there and you looked uncomfortable and …”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I wanted to get out of there. Actually, it’s probably time for both of us to get out of here. I promised we could try and head out after dinner. I still need to find Ankita, but after that we can call it a night.”
Karthik inclined his head toward the dance floor. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay longer? Just for one dance?”
She started to laugh at his obvious joke, but stopped when she realized there was no hint of humor on his face. He was serious. She tried to picture him dancing but couldn’t conjure an image of it. She was almost tempted to say yes, but the night had worn her out and she was more than ready to go home.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m just too tired. Let’s find Ankita and then we can go. All right?”
He nodded and joined her, walking around the room, searching the crowd for her friend. Finally, they spotted Rishi on a corner of the dance floor. He was dancing by himself, his hands in the air, his body swaying from side to side.
“Where’s Ankita?” Meghna shouted at him.
Rishi’s eyes popped open. “Bathroom,” he yelled back.
She flashed him a thumbs up, and he went back to his solo, getting lost in the music.
“Okay, I’m glad we skipped that dance now,” Karthik said flatly. Meghna laughed, happy that someone else was there to share in the absurdity of this night.
When they made their way to the restrooms, Karthik leaned against the wall in the hallway and crossed his arms, indicating that he’d wait for her out there. Meghna pulled the door to the women’s restroom open and called out, “Ankita?”
She took a step inside and immediately froze. She couldn’t process what she was seeing. She blinked, trying to clear her vision, but everything stayed exactly the same.
Ankita, her best friend—her engaged best friend—was standing with an arm draped around a man’s neck. Her hand was tangled up in his hair, and her lips were locked against his.
Meghna could only see the back of the man’s head, but she knew exactly who he was. And it wasn’t Rishi. She’d seen Rishi on the dance floor just a few seconds ago, and even if she hadn’t, she would have recognized this man’s curly head of hair anywhere. Especially since his curls so closely resembled her own.
Ankita was making out with Samir. Meghna’s brother.
The door behind Meghna swung shut with a loud bang, and the couple in front of her jumped apart.
“Oh my God!” Meghna yelled.
The door flew back open.
“Are you okay?” Karthik asked, rushing inside. “I heard someone scream …” He trailed off, taking in the scene in front of them. “Oh.”
Ankita wore a guilty expression, and Samir’s eyes were wide with shock, but Meghna could barely think beyond the questions running through her head.
She turned on her heel and left.
“Wait,” Ankita called after her, but Meghna kept going, uninterested in hearing any explanations.
Her best friend and her brother. How could she not have seen this coming?
Ankita had always had a bit of a crush on Samir, but Meghna had thought she’d outgrown it. In high school, they’d made fun of the girls he dated. And one summer in college, when Samir had kept sneaking out of the house to hook up with some mystery girl, Meghna had jokingly asked Ankita if she was the girl he was going off to meet. Ankita had gagged, thoroughly disgusted by the idea. She’d said she would never in a million years ever, ever hook up with Meghna’s brother. And Meghna had believed her.
But if that was true, what was going on? Why had she been kissing Samir? He’d just gotten back in town. And she was engaged! When had this started? And why had neither of them talked to her about this? Why hadn’t they told her the truth?
Hurt and confusion swirled in Meghna’s chest, and she picked up the pace, moving as quickly as possible toward the exit.
Between the call from Seth, Samir’s comment about “the family business,” her mom gushing over Karthik, and this, she was done. She had reached her limit on what she could handle tonight.
Heavy steps sounded behind her, but she ignored them, stepping outside and pulling her phone out to get a car.
“Are you okay?” Karthik asked, catching up with her.
“No,” she said, not looking up from the screen. “I need to go home.” The night had been so much worse than she’d anticipated, and she wanted to crawl into bed and forget all about it.
He was silent for a moment. “Okay. I’ll call us a car.”
“No,” she said, embarrassed to find herself on the verge of tears. “I’ve got it.”
He hummed in acknowledgment but didn’t say anything further.
“You know,” he said, after a minute or two had passed, “if you want to go home, that’s fine, but I think we should get ice cream.”
“Ice cream?” She looked up, not sure if she had heard him properly.
He nodded once, his honey-brown eyes meeting hers. “Yes. I think we both need to go and get some ice cream.”
“Why?”
He watched her for a moment, then shrugged. “Because it’s too warm to get hot chocolate.”
That didn’t make any sense, and she was too exhausted to try to figure it out. She wasn’t sure if Karthik was mocking her or making fun of the situation or if he was simply clueless as to how she felt, but she wasn’t interested in prolonging this night. She just wanted to leave. She told him as much, and he thankfully didn’t push the matter further. They called for separate cars: one to take her to her house and the other to take him to his hotel.
As Meghna climbed into bed that night, a number of texts and missed calls from Ankita and Samir popped up on her phone.
It’s not what it looked like.
I’m so sorry.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
Please talk to me.
I need to talk to you.
She ignored them and switched off her bedside light. She knew she’d have to deal with her brother and her best friend eventually, but she didn’t have the energy to sort it all out tonight. She was closing her eyes, hoping to fall asleep quickly, when her phone pinged with another text. She reached for it, intending to silence it for the night, but the sender’s name took her by surprise.
An unexpected laugh burst out of her, but the sudden emotion led to a cascade of others: anger, frustration, confusion, sadness, and above it all, a deep sense of having to face everything, having to figure it all out, alone. And just like that, the tears she’d been holding back finally began to fall. She turned her face into her pillow and cried.