Ravi rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Back up. She’s a straight-up bit—”
Rohan chucked the ball right into Ravi’s stomach. He groaned and bent over. “Not in here,” Rohan warned. “Not in a place of worship.”
“What’s so bad about her?” I asked.
Ravi held up a finger before stating, “She moved out of her parents’ house after high school.”
“To go to college,” Rohan intervened. “Not that moving out when you’re single is a crime or taboo anymore.”
“She never moved back in. She’s been living on her own, not even with a roommate, doing whatever she wants.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Rohan repeated calmly.
“I went to high school and college with her. Since sophomore year, in high school, she was always on some guy. Plus, she hardly talks to her parents, and when she does, she’s rude to her father. Ask anyone. Ask her parents, even.”
“You actually saw her with all these guys? Or know for a fact that she moved out to spite her parents?” Rohan asked, anger evident in his tone.
“I saw her with plenty of guys. Mostly athletes. At lunch, after school, during class, she got along with the guys real well. I’d overhear them telling each other what she’d done with them. It was like something in her snapped during sophomore year. Same thing in college,” Ravi said.
“Maybe she got along with guys better than girls because she didn’t have the right girls around her then,” Rohan said. “She’s got an inner circle of female friends now, but she doesn’t mess around with toxic ones. It doesn’t prove anything because you don’t see her with other women. Even if she was the way you remember her, it doesn’t mean she still is. Or that we should judge her. Maybe the reason you don’t see her here is because she knows she’s being talked about, and no one wants to hang around people who constantly gossip about them.”
“You know her that well, huh?” Ravi asked.
“Yeah, actually I do,” Rohan spat. “I’m not going to lie and say I know everything about her, but I do know if you’re nice to her, she will be a good friend to you. If you’re a jerk or start judging her, she’ll probably put you in your place. Liya is opinionated and strong and doesn’t take crap from anyone. Maybe the problem here is you and not her. All that judgmental, sexist shaming you’re doing isn’t reflective of her but defining you.” His gaze wandered to each of the guys, finally landing on me. “If you’re going to label her a bad person, do it on your own experiences with her, not what anyone else says.”
“You feel strongly about her,” I commented. Not that a woman should be labeled as “bad” or “unworthy” because she wasn’t “proper.” That double standard always got me. I’ve had my fair share of girlfriends, and some of them ended up in my bed, but no one slapped a label across my face that read defiled.
“She’s a friend of my fiancée, who is the sweetest,” Rohan continued.
“Definitely. Reema is awesome.” I’d been around her at mandir, and it was easy to see how lovely she was.
“Then you know she wouldn’t be best friends with Liya if Liya was such a horrible person. Now let’s play.”
While the guys grunted and returned to the game, albeit a little annoyed at being called out, I mulled over Rohan’s words. He was right. I shouldn’t judge Liya except on my own experiences with her. We had one experience. Bailing was something that I could get over. But being that rude and inconsiderate toward Ma was an entirely different matter.
We played another thirty minutes, my thoughts alternating between the game, Dad, and Liya, before a group of women walked into the room.
A couple of them seemed to recognize some of us guys and waved. But the last girl, who strolled in with a bright, glossy smile and the eyes of a Bollywood starlet, ran her gaze over us and met her friends against the wall.
It was her. Liya Thakkar. There was no denying it, not with her devastatingly beautiful features and arrogant tilt of the chin.
After a few minutes, one of the ladies approached us and said, “Are you done yet? We booked this room for five minutes ago.”
I was ready to drop the game, seeing that time had gotten away from us, and stepped out, but Ravi said, “Give us ten more.”
She shrugged and returned to her friends. After a few moments, Liya approached, hands on her generous hips, one foot tapping, and said in a rigid tone, “Are you done yet?”
“Ah, come on. How many times have we stopped in the middle of a game to let you all take the room?” Ravi asked.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never booked this place.” She swept a tired glance around the room. “If you’re so gentlemanly, then you’ll stop now. How many times do we have to ask? You know we’ve been waiting.”
“All right. All right.” Ravi and Rohan pulled the basketball hoop stand into the corner while Jahn and others swept the floor, as was the policy after using the room.
“What are you ladies doing?” I asked, digging through my irritation to give her one last chance. Maybe, just maybe, she’d been having an off day and had some hilarious reason to bail on dinner.
“Practicing,” she replied, her focus on the area as if mapping out the logistics of the room.
“Practicing what?”
She peered around me without a second glance. Did she not recognize me? “We’re going to perform a couple of dances at Rohan and Reema’s wedding reception.”
“That’s pretty cool. Need some guys to help?”
She paused, her sparkly red nail against the corner of her mouth. “No.”
“You sure? I can dance pretty well.”
“Not interested.”
“I’m just saying. Those dances are usually better when you have guys and girls in them.”
Every time Ravi walked by, they exchanged surly glances, and her mood was clearly moving toward angry.
“Are you done yet? We don’t have a lot of time left, thanks to you guys,” she said finally.
Actually, that was Ravi and the guys. I’d immediately stopped and was ready to clean up, but whatever. Instead, I said, “We’re putting things away. You don’t have to be so irritated.”
“Really, when we reserved this room, patiently waited, politely asked, and now I’m being told by some guy that I should be…less irritated?”
“Well, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“What exactly did you mean? I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. Now, are you done?”
“Well, unless you want to play,” I said jokingly, to lighten the mood. Maybe if I smiled, if she knew we could be cordial, Liya would relax a little.
“Listen, you are wasting our practice time.”
“I was actually kidding. Of course we’ll get out of your way.” I seriously wondered if this was the woman Ma had actually wanted me to meet, the one whose parents spoke so well of her. Or was I just catching her on a very off week?
“Can you move a little faster? We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Wow. Liya, right?”
“Yes. Obviously…” she muttered, the only indication she gave that she did indeed recognize me. “I would just like for you and your friends to leave. At this point, you’re just being a pretentious ass.”