Chapter 8
chapter 8
Dinner long over, Naomi grinned as she listened shamelessly from where she sat alone on Aashi’s staircase in the hallway separating the kitchen and family room from the living room at the front of the house. After a busy night of meeting a ton of blunt aunties, their jolly but indifferent husbands, and Aashi’s shy preteen daughters, it was nice to have a moment alone to relax.
And eavesdrop, of course.
“Ooof, her laddoos were on full display!” an auntie jeered from afar.
“Mine would be, too, if they looked like that,” Aashi replied. The ladies congregated in the family room shrieked with laughter.
Although Naomi lost track of the conversation when someone replied in Bangla, the answering chorus of playful jeers brought a smile to her face.
“Has anyone been to that new Punjabi sweet house yet? Their laddoos are first-class!” an elderly voice chimed in.
“As is the Bangladeshi chef they hired!” someone else said. More hoots. So this was what Naomi had missed out on, growing up in a small redneck town that was more likely to witness a tornado on the horizon than another brown person for miles.
From her vantage point, Naomi could hear the low, thoughtful tones of the men—the uncles , she quickly corrected herself—in the living room punctuated by the raucous laughter of the aunties in the family room. The children had been shuffled off upstairs to watch a movie where, Naomi was sure, at least some of the younger ones must have fallen asleep. The leftover scents of clove, coriander, cumin, and who knew what else wafted from the kitchen. Her taste buds were still reeling from the homemade Bengali dishes she had sampled tonight.
Dev was right. It was hard to imagine paying for food at an Indian restaurant after the feast Aashi, Gia, and Priya had created that evening. And her , too, Naomi supposed. Sure, she had done very little and had been completely out of her comfort zone next to the other women’s more competent hands and yet, even under Gia’s critical, watchful eyes, it had felt inordinately nice to be part of something like that. Even helping the other women clean up after dinner had felt important. Significant.
A short vibration on her lap alerted Naomi to a new text message, and she glanced down where her phone was balanced between her thighs.
Nick: Hey Spy Girl. How goes reconnaissance?
Naomi’s thumbs hovered over the keyboard as her mind sought an appropriate response. Although she’d mentioned attending dinner at Aashi’s house to Nick earlier that day, she hadn’t mentioned her agreement with Dev. And while keeping her friend in the dark left her uneasy, it wasn’t the full reason behind her hesitation in answering. Naomi’s feelings felt too big and raw to put into words properly. Or jokingly. She felt like she was sitting in a pool of new emotions that, while not entirely unwelcome, were overwhelming nonetheless.
Naomi: The food here is UNREAL.
Nick: Nab some in your purse for me!!
Naomi: Oh yeah, that’ll get me invited back.
Nick: If you truly love me, you’ll do it.
“What—” Dev said, rounding the corner from the living room into the hallway.
Naomi stuffed her phone into her pocket before lifting her hand to stop him in his tracks. “Let me guess,” she teased before dropping her voice several octaves in an attempt to mimic the velvet timbre of his voice. “What are you doing here?”
Dev ducked his head as he sprawled on the stairs a few steps below Naomi. “I don’t sound like that.”
She thought she’d matched his cranky undertone quite well. “I’ll keep practicing.”
“The question still stands,” Dev reminded her.
“I’m…” Loving this. “Taking it all in.”
Although Dev looked puzzled, he didn’t prod. Instead, he held up his phone—the latest model of a smartphone, Naomi couldn’t help but notice—to show her that it was after eleven o’clock. “I think the dangers of my marriage-infatuated mother’s scheming aren’t going to surface tonight. You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to.”
“Are you kicking me out?” Naomi feigned puppy-dog eyes.
Dev rolled his eyes. “It’s the weekend,” he said matter-of-factly, like the old, crabby man he was. Naomi half expected him to pull a nickel out of her ear and encourage her to treat herself to an ice-cream cone. “I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.”
“Like kicking up my heels with other young whippersnappers?”
Dev glared back.
Leaving was the last thing she wanted to do, but Naomi had no idea how to put her feelings into words. There was something captivating about the ease and familiarity of the women clucking away in a language she didn’t understand, and the way the men, bellies full, sprawled out on couches, comfortable and at home with one another as they picked away at their teeth with toothpicks.
Even though Naomi’s family had been the only mixed one in her small town, they hadn’t been lepers. She had been to large family get-togethers with her stepfather’s extensive family of beer-guzzling aunts, cowboy-boot-wearing uncles, and shrieking cousins. The Kellys had accepted Naomi and her mother as casually as they accepted that sometimes Great-Grandma Kelly would jab you with a knitting needle when she wanted you to straighten up.
But then a curious aunt would run her fingers through Naomi’s coarse dark curls and marvel at the texture, or her cousin would make some stupid vow that this summer she would achieve a tan comparable to Naomi’s dusky skin, and Naomi would feel something dark brewing inside her—a whispered hiss from deep within.
“I’m okay to hang out a bit more. I’m kind of feeling the vibe around here,” Naomi said.
Dev glanced around, disbelief splashed across his face. The hallway was lined with pictures of Aashi’s daughters, from kindergarten to present, in outdated gold frames. The conversations swirling around them were punctuated every few minutes by the flush of the main floor’s toilet as it valiantly tried to accommodate the thirty or so guests in attendance.
“And what vibe are you feeling, exactly, on this Saturday night?” he asked, as if he expected to be on the receiving end of the perfect punch line.
“This feeling of fam—” The sudden lump in Naomi’s throat cut her off, both a warning and a mocking reminder of how out of her element she was. She knew Dev’s family wasn’t perfect—his chauvinistic older brother was proof of that—and yet their closeness with one another and with lifelong friends pulled forward the questions she had tucked away long ago. Had her mother not run away from her family, would she be enjoying this same closeness? Would she know how to prepare biriyani and payesh, guided by the hands of a doting grandmother whose protectiveness was as sharp as her tongue? What would it be like to be a strong branch of a larger family tree whose roots ran deeper than a rebellious daughter’s rash decisions?
“This feeling of community,” Naomi said instead, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice. “It’s sweet.”
Dev snorted and stood to lean against the staircase banister, his button-down shirt stretching over his chest as he crossed his arms. “Sweet?” His voice dripped with skepticism. “They do this every single weekend, Naomi. And it’s the same thing over and over again. The house may change, but it’s the same people stuffing themselves with the same kinds of foods and then moving to the same corners of the house to talk about the same things.”
Naomi’s eyes widened. Taciturn Dev could really get going when it came to a rant.
“The men,” he continued, “talk about politics and the state of the world—even though they refuse to step out of their own communities and do anything about it—and the women cook and clean together while gossiping shamelessly the entire time. It’s…it’s…” Dev exhaled. “Suffocating.”
Naomi fought to keep her smile in check. With everyone else, she always tried to get along, stay in good graces, but with Dev, she couldn’t resist poking the bear. “What’s wrong with good food and good company?”
“It doesn’t feel too good when it’s been shoved down your throat your entire life.”
This time, Naomi was powerless against the bitter downturn of her lips. He had no idea how lucky he was to have this in his life, this particular brand of asphyxia. Loneliness was worse. Being on the outside, fated to forever pick the lock with a hairpin that was always either too short, too thick, or too hopelessly curved to gain entry to whatever was inside was a far worse fate. But she didn’t know how to tell him that as the swirl of voices circled them, together but apart.
In the end, she didn’t have to because a small, elderly woman ambled toward them, a mischievous smirk on her prune face. She began rolling her wrists above her head, sashaying in small, shuffling steps. “Sajna, kya yeh mera pehla, pehla pyaar hai,” she sang with a warble, finishing with a darling little shimmy of her shoulders.
Charmed, Naomi grinned back, but Dev blushed. “She doesn’t understand Hindi, auntie,” he said. “And she’s not Bengali.” He turned to Naomi to explain: “That was a popular song from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham , a famous Bollywood movie.”
“Not Bengali? But you’re so pretty.” The old lady peered into Naomi’s face. “What are you?”
Naomi cleared her throat. “My family lives in a different province.”
“Province, schmovince,” she answered with an impatient bobble of her neck. “I mean, where is your family from? What country?”
“India.” Under the old lady’s curious but kind gaze, Naomi bit her bottom lip and backed up a step. One of the gold picture frames on the wall dug into her shoulder.
“She’s a brand consultant. My mother hired her for the bazaar,” Dev said, a hint of sharpness in his voice.
“And you don’t speak your mother tongue?” The woman looked at her with concern. “How do you talk to your relatives back home?”
“We’re not that close,” Naomi said tightly.
“Oh dear, that’s awful.”
“I disagree,” Dev muttered.
“What’s that, Devdas? I didn’t catch that.” The elderly woman seemed immune to the sudden coolness that had descended upon them. “Well, no matter. Who needs flowery talk? After all, they say music is the language of love,” she said as she glided past them to the bathroom, humming and swaying her hips in her peach sari. She shot them one last cheeky grin over her shoulder before shutting the door.
“I’m doomed,” Dev said darkly, shaking his head.
Naomi huffed a sigh of relief. “The matchmaker is going to send both the young and old, huh?” When Dev slouched moodily against the banister, Naomi thought that, at this rate, the shimmying old lady had a better chance of attracting a match than he did.
But Dev didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he drove his hands through his thick black hair. “That old lady is just a taste of what you’re going to have to deal with over the next few months.”
“What do you mean?”
With surprising grace, Dev pushed himself off and angled his chin to the bathroom door. “I mean this weird obsession with love and marriage and romance.” Dev spat out the last word like it was rice pudding poison. “It’s like when you reach a certain age, a wedding is the be-all and end-all.”
“The expectation to get married isn’t just a South Asian thing,” Naomi pointed out.
Dev snorted. “Maybe not, but I’m still doomed. God forbid I want something different than what the community decides is appropriate or what my parents based their lives around. Get married to someone who ticks all the boxes or choose for yourself and risk being a leper…Those are the only two options.”
“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” Naomi said with a chuckle. “You’re exaggerating.”
“Sure. I love joking around about my bleak future.”
“Dev, Prince of Doom and Gloom,” Naomi teased. She gestured to the closed bathroom door where the elderly woman’s faint humming warbled behind rushing water. “She’s harmless.”
Dev responded with a dubious glance. “Don’t let the sappy lyrics convince you otherwise. This community is obsessed with matrimony. Don’t get swept up in the idea that an arranged marriage is the answer to all my problems. Don’t forget our deal.”
A high-pitched shriek followed by a chorus of giggles from the women’s area was enough to mask Naomi’s sigh of resignation. Dev was wasting his breath. Being in the presence of people who shared the texture of her hair and color of her skin wasn’t enough. Nor was secretly knowing she came from the same roots, could claim the same Bengali heritage even if it refused to claim her.
It was never enough. She couldn’t understand the sappy lyrics, nor could she go home and re-create the complex flavors she had tasted tonight. Even after Dev’s explanations—and rants—Naomi could barely wrap her head around the customs motivating Gia to go as far as to hire a matchmaker for her very unwilling son. There wasn’t any danger of getting swept away, not when, even in her element as a brand consultant for the bazaar, doing what she loved, she was barely hanging on by her fingernails.
Getting swept up in the South Asian community was the last thing Naomi would allow to happen.