shoulder before squeezing between the chairs on her way to the dance floor. “You’ll find someone soon.”
I’m not worried, I agreed with Marty. What I am is thirsty.
I scrunched my nose at the chai-bearing waiter leaning over my left shoulder. “I think I’m in the mood for something a little stronger.”
I pushed back my chair, rose to my feet and made a beeline for the bar.
In my defense, I arrived at the wedding feeling nothing less-than-thrilled for Suraya and Nikhil. I raised my f lute, alongside everyone else, in a toast to the newlyweds. I smiled through hours of idle chatter, and now I made my way rather steadily over to the bar. And that was where, as the twenty-one-year-old bartender started looking a little too good to me, it happened. I was reaching out to take hold of my third martini when I felt a warm hand crashing into my own.
My first instinct was to yank at the drink. Snatch it away and hold it above my head. To gulp it down and Take Back the Night. But I paused when I noticed that the very masculine hand was attached to a confident and sturdy arm, which had brought along an alarmingly attractive head. And the man to whom that head belonged seemed to be thinking the same about me.
“Bartender, I believe I asked for this to be shaken, not stirred,” he announced for my benefit.
Oooph, he’s yummy, I thought. If it meant being closer to a smile like that, I might actually consider climbing inside the martini. He was a cross between James Dean and Sunil Dutt (the James Dean of Indian cinema). I smiled and loosened my grip. Countless witty responses raced about inside my head, apparently bumping into one another enough to cause a massive concussion.
“Mmmhhhaaaahhaaahh,” I said. Or snorted. He must have assumed this was my own personal dialect, because he smiled as if he was impressed. I cleared my throat while he replaced the glass on the bar.
“I’ll thumb-wrestle you for it,” he said.
“Seriously?” I blurted. I was too tipsy to play anything cool in the face of such deep, mischievous eyes.
“No, not seriously.” He laughed, as if I were charming and had said it on purpose. Looking down, I noticed that our collision had splashed the martini across the sleeve of his tuxedo. Then I caught myself considering licking it off him. That was when I decided to cut myself off for the night. I must have reeked of mock-confidence and gin.
“I’m Prakash.” He wiped his hand on a napkin before extending one to me. “You must be Vina?”
Honey, I thought, I’ll be whoever you want me to be.
“Oh! Prakash!” I slapped my forehead, regretting it immediately. “Yes, my mother mentioned you. Well…it’s nice to finally meet you.”
Over Prakash’s shoulder I spotted my mother, who was watching us from across the room. She sat with her thumbs and eyebrows raised, as if she were rooting for the lone Indian on Fear Factor. I assumed that that was Prakash’s mother seated beside her, considering that the woman couldn’t resist a nod of satisfaction at the childbearing capacity that the fit of my salwar kameez made plain. With a full belly and an expectant heart, my father napped quietly in his chair, probably dreaming of telling his grandchildren to sit up straight.
The latest version of a classic Bhangra song, which had apparently been mixed with the theme from Knight Rider, trailed off, and “Careless Whisper” picked up. DJ Jazzy-Desi-Curry-Rupee, or whatever his name was, called out to the crowd, “Can we please haw all the luwly gentleman and lehdees join us on the danz floor now for a wery special slow song?”
Hands cupped behind his back, Prakash faked a nervous glance at the floor: “Your mom told my mom to tell me to ask you to dance. So…I mean…do you wanna?”
I grinned, and he led me toward the dance floor. Crowds dispersed. Couples embraced. Prakash took me into his arms. His frame was stiff enough to let me know who was leading, even as he refused to drop his playful gaze. We sailed around the floor, almost as captivatingly as the two five-year-olds who were probably forced out there by some photo-hungry parents nearby. I didn’t need a mirror to know how perfect Prakash and I looked together.
Imagine my luck, I thought. I’ve found an attorney, who’s adorable, and funny, and a good dancer…and Indian? Tomorrow I’ll start auditioning matrimonial henna tatoo artists. On Monday morning I’ll look into the logistics of renting the horse upon which Prakash will arrive at our wedding.
A lesser man might have dropped me at the pivotal moment, but Perfect Prakash held me firmly, as I leaned into his arm and kicked back my leg. He dipped me so far that the ends of my hair touched the floor. I smiled for my parents, as much as for myself, while all the blood rushed straight to my head.
“So, Prakash…you’re handsome, you’re charming, and you’re a lawyer,” I began once he had pulled me up. “How is it possible that no woman has snatched you off the market yet?”
“Vina, there’s a perfectly simple explanation for that,” he replied, watching my form more than my eyes as he spun me around, and twisted me like a Fruit Roll-Up into one arm.
“I’m as gay as they come!”
I unraveled. I think I would have preferred to have been dropped.
3
My grandparents spoke little English, and lived with us while I grew up. Their presence guaranteed my fluency in Hindi and ensured a steady supply of Bollywood movies in the house. In comparison with what they considered morally questionable Hollywood films, the predictability of Indian cinema must have comforted them. Because while the actors rotate, the story never changes.
Bad first impressions inspire mutual disgust between the bratty rich girl and the rebel boy from the wrong side of the tracks. This disgust evolves through flirtation into puppy love, after she offers her silk scarf to bandage his wound one day, which he earned while fixing the engine of her car that had coincidentally broken down by the side of the road right in front of his home. The pair falls in love and meets in secret to perform choreographed dance numbers. Changing outfits between the ballads they sing at river banks and on mountaintops, they end each number with an almost-but-not-quite kiss, while peasants dance spontaneously around them. All hell breaks loose when their fathers—inevitably embroiled in a vendetta which began long before they were born—learn of their torrid romance. Someone fights, someone is kidnapped and someone is warned to stay away from the girl. Girl throws tantrum, mother shares wisdom, and after more fighting, someone is nearly killed. The parents decide to forget about the past, agreeing that love matters most, and throwing an enormous wedding, with more dancing, much singing and still no kissing.
Basically, it’s Romeo and Juliet with more choreography and less sexual content. And unlike Romeo and Juliet, Bollywood lovers always have a happy ending. My parents had an arranged marriage in India approximately two weeks after their parents introduced them. They don’t use a word like love, but my father cannot sleep when my mother is ill, and I have never seen her sip her morning tea without him. To say publicly that they loved each other, my father once told me, would be like taking out a press release to announce that water was wet.
No man had ever understood why I cling to the idea of a happy ending, even as I claim to have accepted the slim chances of it. These guys told me that I made no sense, or that my fixation on how things ought to be could easily mean I’d end up alone. Lately I worried that if they turned out to be right, I
