She still doesn’t understand why she omitted that tiny detail about being engaged until now.
Neil laughs. “And the floodgates of expectations and demands have just opened.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I guess if you two have been together that long,” Neil says, “you’re pretty much married.”
Simran shrugs and nods, thinking that their union does often feel as though it contains the reliable comfort of a marriage. Or at least what she thinks a marriage would have, since she can’t use their parents’ arranged marriages as a measuring stick. She and Kunal often joke that their relationship is like an “arranged dating” situation: both of them embraced the commitment from their parents’ arranged marriages and applied it to their own.
“Are you in a relationship?” she asks, regretting the words as soon as they leave her mouth.
Neil shifts in his chair. “Not really.”
“Not really?”
“It’s, uh, complicated. Long story.”
“Sure, I get it,” she says.
She doesn’t get it at all.
While Simran and Neil eat, they learn that both of them come from doctor parents, have older brothers (Neil also has a younger sister), and love watching the Food Network. They also learn that they both had slob roommates during the first two years of college. The entire conversation passes quickly, and although Simran can’t remember if she’s ever had this much fun with someone she barely knows, she imagines that Neil has this type of effortless, lighthearted time with many people.
She glances out the window and notices an Indian woman walking with her son across the street. She’s wearing a blue, cotton salwar kameez, the type of outfit that Simran’s mom only wears when she visits India.
“That’s strange,” she says. “That actually looks like my fiancé’s mom.”
“Really?” Neil asks, stretching his neck to get a closer look. “Do you want to step out and say hi?”
Kunal’s mother, Meghna Auntie, and Simran have spoken several times since he’s left for Africa. She pictures Meghna Auntie’s face if she saw her here with Neil. No, thank you.
“No, no.” She shakes her head. “I doubt that it’s her. She never comes into the city. Usually stays at home.”
Meghna Auntie thrives off domesticity; the kind of woman who gets excited about a sale at the grocery store so that she can cook more for her three sons, an ideal candidate for a wife during Simran’s parents’ generation. It’s a matter of time before Simran will be expected to call her “Mom,” something that still seems forced but yet is another part of her heritage.
She hears her own mother’s voice: The relationship with the man’s mother is very important.
Once an Indian woman is married, she’s expected to embrace her husband’s family as her new one. Her mother-in-law becomes a dominant force, and pleasing her might even hold more importance than pleasing her husband.
While Meghna Auntie sometimes seems like the opposite of her mom, Simran can’t help but think that her future mother-in-law also finds Simran’s ways inadequate, her preference of books over boiling vegetables, candor over compliance, a dramatic contrast from what she would have picked for her son if they lived in India, where parents have a heavier hand in their children’s choices.
“You know,” Neil says, “you and your fiancé should go to this place called Marta. It’s mainly pizza, but they have good dessert, including a cannoli cheesecake.”
She makes a mental note of the place—to pass on to Sheila, Vishal, or her family—but refrains from telling Neil that she and Kunal probably won’t go there. Besides Kunal’s general apathy toward trying new restaurants, his busy schedule and financial constraints don’t allow him to truly take advantage of New York.
They saunter outside, and Neil makes a comment about the pleasant weather.
“Yeah. Ice-cream weather,” she says, thinking of the way her father used to make her feel better about the weather by equating it with something she liked. Hot chocolate weather. Good book weather. Long nap weather.
She gazes at the now-closed street carts, the empty bus stop, and the stacked black trash bags on the sidewalk. Certain corners of New York pacify around this time, while the sky balances day and night. Her favorite element of this hour is the apartment lights turning on, each one its own wink of comfort. People share sparkling cocktails at outdoor tables.
While they stand at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Second Avenue, she rummages through her tote for her phone, which is somewhere in the abyss of her massive handbag. There’s a text on their family group chat from her mom: Simran, we need to run through the list of potential wedding photographers tonight. They get booked very fast and if we don’t do this soon, we may have to get one of those terrible ones that makes every picture sepia-toned.
Of course, the text goes on with more anxious concerns, but she stops reading and tells Neil she’ll take a cab home. He walks to the corner and raises his arm. She forgot how lean his body was. It’s fit, with a defined collarbone and flat stomach, but not nearly as full as Kunal’s.
As a van cab slows down, she gives Neil a full hug (no handshake) and thanks him. He shakes his head and smiles before sliding the passenger door open for her. They linger against the cab. She wishes she had more days like this with people like Neil.
When she sits inside, he leans in and softly kisses her cheek.
“I had so much fun,” he says.
“I did, too,” she says, wishing she could brush her finger against his cheek. Instead, she finds herself stretching out of the cab and into another hug, this one tighter than the last.
“I’ll see you soon, hopefully,” she says with a sigh, wishing she didn’t have to go home. She presses her cheek against his for a split second.
From the corner of her eye, she notices someone standing outside the restaurant, facing her and Neil. She stretches her neck to get a better look. Her breath freezes.
Meghna Auntie.
She’s standing with Kunal’s brother, Mehul, with an expression on her face that anyone else might call serious but that Simran knows is angry. Livid.
Shit.
Simran steps out of the cab with one foot, considers saying hi first. But Meghna Auntie shifts her weight onto her heels and turns in the other direction, as though Simran was someone she didn’t even recognize.
Simran stands at the corner with Neil, not knowing where to go. Guilt isn’t always in the form of an upset stomach or elevated pulse. Sometimes it’s the smooth texture of a truffle or as light as a drained bottle of cereal milk.