Girl Most Likely To (2 page)

R
ed rose petals littered golden tablecloths. Gleaming china settings and generous floral arrangements adorned each table. The air was delicately scented. Votives flickered on every surface, fading in comparison to the luster of the many rubies, emeralds and diamonds gliding around the ballroom. Waiters circled the tables while craning their necks to scan the room of the three hundred guests; the servers were determined not to leave any glass unfilled, any mouth unstuffed or any whim unattended. Toddlers peeked from behind the saris of young mothers, while older women sought potential daughters-and sons-in-law. Elders leaned back in their chairs, appreciating how their familiar chai seemed sweeter, and their familiar aches seemed duller in the face of so much life.

By ten p.m., there was no sign of Prakash. I speared a soggy Rasgulla with my fork and lifted the cheese-patty toward my mouth, while glaring daggers across Table 21.

“Certainly I miss living with Mummy and Papa in Delhi,” Cousin Neha gushed at our tableful of captivated parents.

Nearly all of their
Americanized
children had run as amok as I—moving into Manhattan apartments alone, while refusing to acknowledge “thirty and single” as a hopeless disease.

“Those three years after college and before my marriage were wonderful, really,” Neha continued, “I used to enjoy myself, having dinner and going to the cinema with my friends on the weekends. But Stamford, Connecticut, is also quite nice, although it is a bit chilly for us. Vinny and I drive to work together each morning, and then we go to one of the local restaurants in the evening, if I don’t feel like cooking.”

Rather than nailing Neha between the eyes, the fiery daggers I was hurling instantly transformed into plastic cocktail swords before they could make it across the table. They kept bouncing off of her matrimonial shield, and collapsing into a heap on the dessert plate in front of her. From where my second martini and I were seated, it looked as if that heap was about to topple and bury the remains of my self-esteem. My first martini had vanished instantly after the third consecutive “Auntie” (any non-blood-related woman old enough to be my mother who hasn’t seen me since I was
this tall
) inquired, before asking about anything else, when I was getting married myself.
As soon as he’s paroled,
I thought about saying, or perhaps,
Tuesday. But you’re not invited. You can just send a gift to my apartment. I’m registered at Frederick’s of Hollywood.

“Neha darling, tell me…Have you also met any nice young couples to socialize with?” another Auntie-type asked from my right. Why everyone was so interested in my cousin was as much of a mystery to me as how
The Anna Nicole Smith Show
survived while
Once and Again
was canceled.

“Oh, yes! We have met many friendly couples,” Neha beamed girlishly at her husband, Vineet, who slurped his chai and winked at me. The wink was a gesture of encouragement to persevere, despite my tragic state of spinster-hood. “But you know…there are also many single people in Stamford. There are even single girls from India. I honestly feel sorry for them, being in a different country, spending the whole day alone and then going home to an empty apartment. When I talk with them it seems like it really does not bother them at all. They work, they live on their own, and they don’t even have any interest in marriage. They don’t even want to talk about it. Imagine!”

A three-hundred-pound woman who lives in the middle of nowhere, and has no friends outside of her husband, feeling sorry for me,
I mocked telepathically to Marty—I had decided to name my martini by that point, as a reward for all of its loyalty.
Imagine!

The same Auntie leaned over and practically yelled into my ear: “And what about you, Vina?
Koi nehy milha?
” She must have been speaking up to steal my attention from the many voices everybody assumed were living inside my head. These were, of course, the same voices that entertained all single career women when they came home to empty apartments at the end of each day. But I wondered why she also felt the need to shake a hand before her face like a tambourine. Were her fluttering fingers intended to deflect my bad romantic luck before it could infect any of the happy couples in the room?
Great.
I shook my head at Marty.
Now they think I’ve become so hopeless that I require an emotional exorcist.

The bride and groom swirled past us on the dance floor. Twenty-seven-year-old Nikhil and Suraya, an MIT engineer and an NYU medical resident, had met at a friend’s dinner party the summer before. I spotted a number of single career women hiding behind ice sculptures just to avoid answering the same question posed at weddings the world over. I wondered if there was ever an appropriate response to
koi nehy milha? Did I get anyone yet?
Factually, it sounded hopeless.
No, I have not.
The truth sounded sluttish.
Actually, I’ve had a few men. Even some I would recommend to a friend. But nobody with whom I’m interested in growing old and less attractive.

I chose to hide behind the facade of nonchalance familiar to all unattached Indian women of “marriageable age.” What that means is that I lied. “Oh, Auntie, I don’t have time to worry about that right now. I’m too passionate about my career.”

“Vina is just being shy,” my father interrupted. That man could never be accused of appropriate timing. “We are confident that tonight will be the night. We have found her a lovely boy.”

“Oh? Is this the doctor from Pittsburgh? The one you were telling me about?” Auntie Meenakshi questioned my mother hopefully.
What doctor? Did she say Pittsburgh? How
many other people were my parents discussing my personal life with?

“No, no.” My father shook his head. “We found out that the family in Pittsburgh had a history of divorces. This boy, Prakash, is thirty years old, which is suitable for Vina. He was born in New Jersey, but he lives in Manhattan now. He is an attorney, with a very impressive bio data. He is five feet eleven inches, and both his parents are engineers. We are disappointed that they are not Punjabi—they are Gujarati—but one has got to be open-minded on that point these days. And his father attended IIT in the same batch with the brother-in-law of my third cousin, Prem, who is now settled in Bombay. Everybody agrees that it is a good family. Prakash is the eldest of three brothers, and all are highly educated.”

Table 21 nodded in collective approval. “Lady in Red” wafted through the air. I drained the last of my martini, and checked for emergency exits.

“Why is everybody talking about this?” my maternal grandmother (referred to traditionally as Nani) interrupted in Hindi. “We have done our part. Now we must let the kids decide. And where is this Prakash, anyway? What kind of a boy would keep my Vina waiting?”

My earliest memory is of my Nani making Gulab Jamuns in our kitchen; I watched as she deep-fried and drizzled them with golden sugar water. I must have been six years old when I dragged that stool stoveside, and quietly climbed on top. Elbows on the counter, I waited silently until she tore off a piece of raw, sweet dough, and handed it to me. I never understood how she managed to grab the right amount of dough each time, and roll it so quickly into a perfect ball between her palms. And I asked her about my grandfather, whom I had never met.

“Your grandfather was a very good man.” She shook her head and reached for more dough. “
Ithna shareef!
Here they would have called him genuine, but he was much more than that. He cared for everybody. And he used to give your mother airplane rides on his shoulders. She was too small then to remember, even smaller than you are now.”

“Did he like Gulab Jamuns?” I swung my heels, chewing happily on the dough.

“He
was
a Gulab Jamun, daughter.” She stopped and looked at me. “He was
my
Gulab Jamun.”

“Did he look like a Gulab Jamun?” I leaned my head to one side.

“He did to me. And one day, your Gulab Jamun will come to you.” She caught my chin between her fingers.

“How will I know it’s him?”

“You will know,” she reassured me, before rolling a dozen balls into boiling oil, which refrained from splattering, under her watchful eye.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But what if he looks more like a Jalebi?”

“He won’t.”

“What about a Rasgulla?”

“A Rasgulla looks nothing like a Gulab Jamun. Besides, mommy and daddy will recognize him and they will bring him for you when it is time.”

I paused, tilting my head. “But how will they recognize a Gulab Jamun if he looks like a Rasgulla or a Jalebi?”

She stopped, and eyed me. “You need not worry about such things, Vina. Good girls trust their parents. That is all you need to know.”

With that, I had to be satisfied. My Nani was always right.

“Ma’am? Another Rasgulla?” A waiter appeared. “Ma’am?”

“Vina? Are you paying attention?” my mother asked. Everybody at the table was staring at me. Maybe celibacy
was
rotting my brain.

“Don’t worry, little cousin.” Neha patted my 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?”