Arjun rubbed his temples. He’d been hoping to see Rani tonight but it didn’t look like he’d make it out of the office before midnight. He was having trouble with his liquor license in addition to the red tape being thrown up by the gaming commission. It was the usual headaches that came with opening a hotel. Whether it was India or America, the last-minute troubles were the same. He’d hired a Las Vegas firm to make sure the right palms were greased and the appropriate people wined and dined, but he had to personally show face and kiss a few rings to make it all work. He half suspected that since he’d used the gaming commission as an excuse not to return to India for the Diwali holiday, effectively postponing his engagement, it was the universe’s way of making him pay.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Rani. He’d only seen her once since their first night together. He’d taken her out to dinner at an exclusive Japanese restaurant on the outskirts of the city. The food was amazing, and her face glowed in the soft lights.
They’d talked about politics, religion, even his problems with the gaming commission. Normally Arjun kept to superficial topics with his dates, like food and travel. It was his stress-relief time, when he didn’t have to think, plan, solve a problem or make an impossible decision. But with Rani, they lapsed naturally into meaningful conversations. He asked her opinions about how to resolve the problems he was having with the hotel and she offered solutions and helped him think through thorny issues. She was a good strategist and he liked talking things over with her.
He looked at his calendar again to see if there was something he could move to make time for Rani. While he enjoyed the company of women, he fit them in during holes in his schedule. He never arranged his meetings around them. But Rani was special. He wanted more time with her, in and out of bed. It was the last time he’d get to be with a woman because he wanted to be, not because he had to.
His mother had made it very clear that she was planning the wedding as soon as the hotel was done and she would not accept any more excuses from him. Hema was sending him daily text messages freaking out. He had finally told her that she had to accept the inevitable just like he did.
His assistant buzzed to let him know that Rani was downstairs and he asked for her to be sent up immediately.
“This is a nice surprise.” He greeted her from behind his desk. His office walls were all glass and he didn’t want to give his staff a show.
She smiled and took a seat opposite him. Her demeanor was professional but her eyes glinted with excitement. “I have the final designs for the guest rooms. Your team has already approved them but I wanted an excuse to see you.” On Rani’s advice, Arjun hadn’t fired Vanessa, but he had read her the riot act and she’d been much more pleasant to work with.
“I’m glad you came. I have yet another dinner with the gaming commission tonight.”
She held up a brown bag. “Then how about lunch with me?”
He smiled. “That depends on what you brought me.”
“The best drunken noodle you’ll ever have. This Thai food truck near me is amazing, just the right amount of spice and heat.”
He smiled. Just like you, Rani. The right amount of spice and heat.
She took out a container and handed it to him with a plastic fork. He stared at it, the foil tin with the paper lid stinging him with a long buried memory.
“Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “The last time I ate out of a container like this was eleven years ago.”
Her face fell and she set the container on the table. “I’m sorry, I should’ve thought about the fact that you’re not used to eating food out of plastic.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that. It reminds me of this time in Mumbai with my ex-girlfriend. It didn’t end well.”
Rani tilted her head, her eyes begging him to tell her more.
He sighed. Why was he thinking of Lakshmi now? The last time he had talked about her was five years ago, when he’d agreed to marry Hema.
“I’m so sorry. That must have been so painful for you.” Rani extended her arm across the table and put her hand on his.
“I was going to marry her. Her parents didn’t approve and neither did mine so we were going to elope.” He waited for the familiar ache to settle into his heart but it didn’t come.
“Why didn’t the parents approve?”
“Hers did not approve because they knew my parents would never accept her and they were worried that I’d dump her. Mine took issue with the fact that Lakshmi came from a poor, unknown family.”
“Ah, truly the makings of a Bollywood film.”
He smiled. “We thought so too when we decided to elope. We were meeting in Juhu Beach to plan the details. I stopped at her favorite restaurant to pick up hakka noodles. We were sitting on the sand eating out of containers exactly like those.” He pointed to the takeout food she’d brought. “Then she broke my heart.”
Rani didn’t say anything, giving him the space to tell his story.
“She decided she didn’t want to marry me.”
“Why not?” Rani’s voice had the same incredulous tone his had when he’d asked the question of Lakshmi.
“That day she’d auditioned for a role in a Bollywood film and she was offered the part. It was her life’s dream.”
“I understand such a profession wouldn’t have been acceptable in your family, especially eleven years ago, but was it worth letting go of the woman you loved?”
He sighed. “She never gave me the chance to make that decision. That role had been offered to her on the condition that she leave me. My mother orchestrated it. Ma challenged me with the idea, and not in a million years did I think Lakshmi would take that offer so I told my mother to try it. I wanted to prove to Ma that our love was real. But Lakshmi came to tell me that it was her big Bollywood break and she couldn’t give it up for me.”
Rani bit her lip. “How could your mother do that to you?”
He bristled at her tone. “My mother has always had my best interest at heart.”
Rani’s lips thinned and Arjun could see the disapproval in her eyes. He didn’t want her to get the wrong impression of his mother. “I’m going to tell you something that only my family knows.” He swallowed to ease the lump in his throat, wondering why he wanted to share something so personal with Rani when he wasn’t yet ready to tell her about Hema. “My biological mother died giving birth to me.”
Rani gasped and squeezed his hand. “This is something I didn’t know until recently,” he continued. “My mother gave me so much love that not once did I question whether she was my real mother. My siblings who are her biological children still say I am my mother’s favorite. She was heartbroken when I found out.” So much so that his mother hadn’t spoken to her own brother for years for telling Arjun.
“You would do anything for your mother, wouldn’t you?”
Rani’s voice held no judgment. Just soft understanding. Arjun nodded.
“Do you still think about Lakshmi?”
“Enough time has passed that I’ve let go.” Or at least he did a good job pretending he had.
“It doesn’t seem that way to me.”
His heart stopped in his chest. On the pretense of taking the Thai food container, he extracted his hand from Rani’s.
“So let’s try this. I really miss street food.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
He opened the lid of the container, and Rani passed him a fork. He chose his words carefully. “No one can take Lakshmi’s place. She was my first love and you know what they say about first loves.”
She nodded and a thought struck him. “Do you feel like you can never love someone the way you loved your ex?” The very idea of her confirming such an idea soured his mouth.
She took a bite of her food and chewed. He did the same, knowing that she needed time to formulate her answer, just as he needed a minute to prepare for it.
“I don’t think I ever truly loved Navin. But he was the best among the choices I had. My parents expected me to marry an Indian and I wanted someone who understood what it’s like to be an Indian American.”
“And Navin was like that?”
“He was. But his family wasn’t.” She paused, clearly weighing her words. “They were very traditional and it was hard for us to see eye to eye on a lot of things.”
“Like?”
“They asked me to stop working because they didn’t want people to think Navin didn’t earn enough to support us. They were constantly harping on my weight. My mother-in-law would make me get on the scale to prove I was trying to lose weight. She would check the food in the kitchen to see what I’d eaten. They had access to Navin’s bank accounts and constantly questioned the littlest purchases. It was suffocating.”
Tears glittered in Rani’s eyes and Arjun wanted desperately to get up and comfort her, but her story was hitting a little too close to home for him. His sisters’ complaints echoed those of Rani.
“At first I resolved to work it out because I don’t believe in divorce and Navin promised me that we’d only live with my in-laws for the first year so we could buy a big house of our own. As it turned out, his parents moved in with us when we did buy our house. And things were getting worse between me and Navin. He was constantly angry with me for every little thing—the way I hung my towel in the bathroom, if I sneezed too loudly, and on and on.”
“I’m sorry, Rani.”
She shrugged. “It’s over now. I’ve learned my lesson—that you don’t marry an Indian man, you marry his family. I wish I’d taken the time to get to know Navin’s parents before I married him.”
He nodded. That was one of the reasons why he had agreed to marry Hema. She was a family friend and familiar with the traditions of his house. He’d been in denial about the fact that he really had no choice in whom he could marry. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t told Rani about Hema. Telling Rani would make it a little too real, too inevitable for him.
He leaned forward. “Don’t blame yourself, Rani. It was Navin’s job to protect you from his parents.”
She gave him a small smile. “It’s very easy to say, but you know that’s not how things work in Indian households. Navin would always remind me that I can walk away from him because I’m not blood but his parents will always be there for him. In the end I proved him right.”
Arjun had no words. She may as well have been talking about his own parents. The parampara of his household were not just old fashioned, they were stringent. There weren’t many intelligent, educated women who would be happy in such an atmosphere. But was it enough of a reason to marry Hema?
His assistant buzzed to let him know it was time for him to leave for a meeting. Rani stood and handed him the design folio she had arrived with. She held out her hand and he took it, holding onto it. “Rani, you are intelligent and beautiful, inside and out. Navin was a fool to let you go.”
She gave him a brilliant smile and retracted her hand.
As he watched her leave, Arjun realized that Navin wasn’t the only fool. He could no longer deny the fact that he was falling for her, and at the same time realized that there was no way they could be together.