Nita laughed. “I would still hate to impose on you more than I have. I can manage here.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist. My mother would slap me silly if she knew I’d let a lady spend even a single night on this sofa, let alone two of them. Careless mistake for sure. She is a force to be reckoned with, so you’re saving me the grief if you just say yes.” He raised his glass, and Nita did the same.
“What are we toasting?” she asked.
“Your resilience,” he said as he clinked her glass.
Embarrassed, she politely took a small sip. “We should be toasting your kindness.”
He shrugged off her praise. “This wine needs some cheese.” Simon went to the refrigerator and retrieved a wedge of comté and a small plate and knife. He cut a few slices and handed her the first one.
“Your mother did raise you well,” Nita said. “Not like what we heard about in India.”
“What do you mean?”
“My parents always warned me that people in the West always put themselves first. Not like the collectivist community mentality we were raised with.”
She felt like an impostor, suggesting she was included in the collectivist mentality. Her selfishness had been unparalleled, so maybe that’s why she had felt the strong need to leave India, and those values, behind her.
She let the saltiness of the cheese linger on her tongue. “Never mind that my parents had not left India to know for themselves. Such a detail did not stop them from being an expert on Americans!”
“Not having the facts doesn’t stop any parent from acting like they know everything!” Simon laughed but then grew more contemplative. “I suppose there are different types of people everywhere: some good and some bad.”
“It’s true. You’re the first American I’ve ever met, though, so you have set a high standard for the rest!”
Simon swallowed his cheese. “No pressure. And you? How is a girl like you raised in India?” He refilled their empty wineglasses.
“If you ask my parents, I’m afraid they’d say not very well.”
He laughed. “Somehow I doubt that. I’ve never—make that almost never—seen you act out of sorts.”
She sipped from her wineglass, enjoying the taste of the smooth liquid that had once burned her throat on the way down. “It’s a different place with different expectations. You’d be surprised how obedient girls can be. Raised to dote on their husbands and rear perfect children, all without ever having a single sari pleat out of place.”
“If that’s the case, then I’m packing up and moving there tomorrow!”
Now it was Nita’s turn to laugh. “I somehow think you wouldn’t be so thrilled with an arranged marriage. And with you not having a place in the caste system, they wouldn’t even know what to do with you! Sure, vendors want American money, but marrying their daughters . . . that’s something else entirely!”
“Fair enough. Guess I better stick to where I am.”
Simon opened a second bottle, and with the wine flowing, they talked for hours, sharing stories about growing up in their respective countries and trying to explain things to the other person, who had never set foot in it. He couldn’t believe how straitlaced Indian children were meant to be, and she couldn’t believe the brazen behavior American children engaged in. If she had done half the things Simon said he and his sisters had done while growing up, like skipping school to go to the beach and drink beers with their friends, her papa would have swiped her straight across her bottom with his belt. She may have had her knuckles rapped with a ruler in school, but even she knew the limits to avoid the belt. She couldn’t believe that Simon’s mother would let such behavior go with simply a warning and a promise to never do it again, though he assured Nita that they never kept those promises and were just more careful not to get caught.
Simon picked up the bottle of wine from the floor next to the couch and stared into it as though he were looking into a telescope. “Seems we’ve gone empty again. Time to replenish the supplies.”
Nita shrugged, knowing she was already drunk. Her words had been slurring, but she was too far in to stop herself from drinking more. She was right in that danger zone, but it felt good to relax for a night. She heard the cork releasing from the bottle, and Simon handed her a freshly filled glass of wine.
“This is fun,” she said.
He plopped onto the sofa next to her. “It is. Funny how more alcohol leads to more fun.”
“No wonder my family in India was so boring.” She laughed. They’d already discussed how her home state was dry and she’d never tried alcohol until that first time when she had tried it with Mathieu.
“Also explains why you are such a lightweight.” Simon playfully punched her arm. “Although you are managing to hold your own today. Just like a regular French wino.”
Nita took another long sip from her glass, the liquid tasting earthy and rich as it slid down her throat. “I’m a quick study.”
Simon nodded and leaned back against the sofa cushions and stretched out his legs. As soon as he did that, she heard the thump of the wine bottle hitting the floor. They both swooped down to pick it up and hit their heads instead.
“Ow!”
They jerked their heads back, and then Simon finally righted the bottle, but not before most of its contents had spilled onto the floor. Nita brought her face back down to stare at the red mess. Neither of them moved to clean it up and instead just watched the liquid snake across the floor.
“Maybe the universe is suggesting we stop drinking,” Nita said.
“Or it thinks that wine wasn’t good enough for us and we should open a better bottle,” Simon said in a low voice, continuing to stare at the floor.
Nita laughed, and he eventually joined her in her drunken laughing fit. The two began laughing so hard that they held on to each other to keep from falling backward. Nita had tears in her eyes, and Simon’s were glistening as well. She wiped hers with the back of her hand and then stared at the moisture on her skin.
“It’s kind of nice to know these are from laughing and not sad crying,” she said to him. “These past couple days—”
Simon’s warm wine-stained lips were on top of hers before she could finish her sentence. She felt her eyes widen and wasn’t sure what to do. Just as quickly as he’d kissed her, he pulled away, keeping his face close to hers and staring, as if waiting for a sign. She could tell that he didn’t know if she was going to slap him and jump off the couch.
37
SOPHIE
2019
The wheels are turning in Sophie’s mind as she tries to think of other ways to find Nita, and she is completely startled when she walks into the reception area of Le Canard Volant that night after her shift at the restaurant and sees Kiran sitting on the grimy purple sofa. She freezes as soon as she lays eyes on him.
He stands to greet her. “Hello, Sophie.” He shifts shyly. “Or perhaps I should be saying bonjour.”
She glances from him to the reception desk, where Cecile has muttered an annoyed bonsoir to herself and is watching the two of them. Sophie then turns back to Kiran. “What are you doing here?” she stammers.