“It was a long time ago, Alyona. We were kids.”
“You are kids no more. You be careful, girl.”
Tara nibbled a fingernail. “I’m sure he is happily married. Maybe I’ll get to meet his family soon.”
“If he was married, he would not have contacted you.”
“Should I cancel the lunch?”
“Meet him, have sex if you want to. Just don’t fall in love.”
Tara shook her head in exasperation. “Alyona. I don’t plan to have sex, nor fall in love. I don’t need any complications in my life.”
“Yeah? Then why are you getting your hair done?”
“Why shouldn’t I look nice?”
Alyona bustled about setting up her tools to wash and tame Tara’s hair. “Why you bite your nails like rabbit? How terrible they look,” she admonished. As they waited for the dark golden mahogany tint to seep through Tara’s hair, she trimmed the nails to one length and buffed them until they shone.
Tara smiled at a memory as Alyona blow-dried her hair. Her thirteen-year-old self was taming her unruly hair with her fingers and pressing her lips hard to get color to them, before going in to spend time with Cyrus and the Saldanha gang.
The Saldanha gang. She had lost touch with them all when she changed schools after moving to Model Street. Her new school had been within walking distance of their new home, but figuratively, she had walked many miles before she could adjust to her new circumstances.
Her new school uniform—blue pleated skirt and white shirt—were of fine quality fabric and pressed to perfection by the iron-wallah. Her black leather shoes glinted in the sun every day. But she had no friends. The first six months, she sat alone during school lunch break, nibbling little conscious bites out of the four-tier stainless steel tiffin carrier in which Amma packed a full meal. When the other girls played throw ball during PT, she sat on the grass and watched. There were at least four other girls of her age group in the colony where they lived. She saw them every evening, hanging out on the steps of one house or the other, their voices loud and their laughter unrestrained. They reminded Tara of Annette, Michele, and Angela, but unlike her friends, this gang seemed unapproachable.
She tried to take pleasure in resting her head in Amma’s lap like old times, to have Amma run her slender fingers through her rough hair every night. But her heart had very blatantly shifted loyalties. It felt nothing except the overpowering pain of separation from Cyrus.
She returned to Shanti Nilaya of course, always day visits with her family to celebrate Ugadi or Dassera with her grandparents, but the visits were never long enough that she could slip out on her own. She hoped for a glimpse of him, craning her neck when their car passed by Second Bridge, but she was always disappointed.
Her final year in high school, he ceased to occupy her mind all the time. Yvonne became her best friend at school. The neighborhood girl gang of four was not so haughty after all. They included Tara in their group. She moved on to other infatuations—movie stars, a thick-mustachioed guy in the neighborhood who rode an Enfield Bullet and didn’t know she existed, and one summer, an IIT student with light eyes who came to spend a couple of weeks with his aunt next door. The infatuations lasted a few months each; then they waned without ever being realized. The searing intensity of her adolescent feelings for Cyrus, she had never experienced again. She didn’t think she could feel that potency again as an adult, not even for Cyrus.
When she pulled into the parking lot of the Cheesecake Factory and checked her face in the visor mirror, it still seemed too much: the retro gloss lipstick, the eyeliner. She dug into her purse and pulled out a pack of wet wipes, dabbed off the eyeliner, and patted her lips clean of some of the color. She checked her watch. It was past twelve thirty. She had to get in. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, held it, exhaled slowly. Then she walked toward the restaurant.
She had had a last-minute change of heart about a floral dress she had picked out the previous night. Instead, she wore a rather plain white blouse, a khaki A-line skirt, and flat tan ballerina shoes. She walked up to the hostess and hesitated. She didn’t know if he was already there. She tilted her head and scanned her eyes across the tables. How was she going to recognize him?
“Miss, are you looking for me?”
She whirled around. How could she not have recognized him? His eyes were the same, as was his dimpled smile. After twenty-three years. Only his hair was shorter, darker and brushed back away from his forehead. He wasn’t exceedingly tall, perhaps just a couple of inches taller than she. He looked lean in his khakis and dark blue polo shirt.
He held his hand out. She shook it, embarrassed that hers was cold and clammy. He covered it with his free hand, his skin warm on hers.
“Hi!” she said. Her throat felt dry. “I was looking for a graying, pot-bellied, middle-aged man, ha-ha.” She hoped she hadn’t sounded rehearsed. The words had tumbled out in a sudden release of nervous energy. He threw his head back and laughed. He had even teeth, and his dimples were deep.
“You dig pot-bellied men?” He looked around, still holding on to her hand. “Not hard to find one at the Cheesecake Factory.”
“No,” she said with a laugh.
Once they were seated, she had a sip of ice water. The pounding of her heart had come down a notch, allowing her to talk without seeming breathless.
“So, how did you recognize me?”
“Who doesn’t? You are a famous model.” The dimples were back.
“Oh, the billboard,” she waved her hand dismissively. She told him she was a QA professional by day, that the modeling was a one-time thing.
“But how could you tell it was me? I mean, I was just thirteen when you last saw me.”
He tapped the left side of his chest. “That face, madam, is etched here.”
She blushed, drank a sip of water. He watched her, mirth in his eyes.
The server brought a plateful of fried calamari and their drink orders to the table, a classic margarita for her with salt on the rim and a chilled Bud Light for him. She took a sip of her margarita, the salt causing her face to pucker involuntarily. He watched openly, and laughed.
She cleared her throat. “But how did you get my email address?”
“I have my ways.”
“What ways?”
He took a swig of beer, rested his elbows on the table, and told her of his search. A couple of years back, during his visit home, he had come across an old copy of the Morning Herald in his Dad’s study. It was a comprehensive, well-researched article on the minuscule Parsi community in Mangalore. He had read the article, of course, but what caught his attention was the byline. The article was written by a Tara Raj. He’d called the Morning Herald office, only to be told that Tara Raj no longer worked there.
“And that was the end of my search, until last week, when I saw you on the billboard, causing accidents on I-85. I went straight to Raj Jewelers, who put me on to the photographer who had shot the campaign, and he gave me your email address after I promised to hire him for my wedding.”
“Wedding? You are getting married?”
“No.”
She slipped a casual glance at his sleek fingers—no ring. Of course, that didn’t mean a thing. Indian men did not wear wedding rings. She wondered if she should ask him about his marital status, but he beat her to the question.