“You needed to move on with your life. A mother-in-law in the house couldn’t possibly bode well for that.” Bindu never added the prefix ex to their relationship.
She wasn’t entirely wrong. Aly was starting to love the simplicity of her life. The ability to do whatever the heck she wanted whenever the heck she wanted was only a small part of it. Until Ashish left, Aly hadn’t realized quite how much work marriage was. Actually, during her marriage she’d sometimes grasped it in flashes and fought to grapple with it, but she’d never considered that she had a choice.
Unlike her ex-husband. Obviously, it had always been a choice for Ashish. Because the moment things hadn’t gone his way, he’d neatly exited the scene.
Bindu pursed her Gina Lollobrigida lips, stained an elegant yet risqué shade of ripe raspberries. “You’re forty-seven, Alisha. Your life is just starting. The earlier you stop worrying about other people’s opinions, the better.”
Bindu was not usually the lecturing type. That job belonged to Karen Menezes, who could never let a teaching moment pass by without squeezing it for everything it was worth. Bindu had never been a conventional mother-in-law, but she’d only ever lived on the precarious line between living life her way and conforming, never pushing all the way into one side or the other. Until now. Now she was pushing against conformity with all the force of true regret.
Which meant she believed she had suddenly earned the right to dispense this particular life advice as though she’d always embodied it.
Not that this was a conversation for a quick lunch on a workday. “This isn’t about me, Ma. I’m not asking you to be what the HOA wants you to be. But you insist you love living at Shady Palms. You love your Sunny Widows. So can you please stop annoying the Grumpy Wives for sport?”
With another scoff Bindu picked up the chocolate mints the waiter had left them, four instead of the usual two, and popped a couple in her mouth at once.
“I’m not your child, Alisha, so I owe you no explanations, but you know I don’t sleep with married men. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to have fun.” She held out one of the remaining chocolates to Aly, but Aly had already exhausted her calorie quota for today, so she waved the offering away.
“You know that I would never create any real trouble. But if you are going to be swayed by that coven and try to get in the way of me enjoying what’s left of my youth, then I must ask you to stop.” With a shrug Bindu popped the spurned chocolate into her mouth and closed her eyes as she soaked up the taste, making Aly’s mouth water. Then, with a smug smile, she fed the last remaining piece into Aly’s mouth and stood. “It’s time you took a page out of my book. You’re not going to look like this for too much longer. I know I make it look easy, but gravity is not forgiving, beta.”
A smile broke across Aly’s face. “You do make it look easy.” Rising, she followed Bindu past a throng of tourists to her car. The happiness of the chocolate on her tongue warred with the failure to stick with her calorie count. This was such a perfect metaphor for how she felt about her mother-in-law that it made her laugh. “Also, I’m a bit terrified of what you think causing real trouble might mean.”
Bindu threw her perfectly highlighted head back and gave a throaty laugh, making every man within a twenty-foot radius turn toward them. “You don’t want to know. Shady Palms is filled with opportunity.”
Her mother-in-law was right. She didn’t want to know. What she did know when she got back to the station was that she was smiling for the first time that day, and she felt oddly filled with hope as she got ready to tell her boss that she’d thought about letting Jess do the interview and she’d decided against it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BINDU
I knew she would be the death of me. I knew it the first time I met her. That she’d end me, burn down everything I believed about myself before I met her, before she showed me my soul and then took it.
From the journal of Oscar Seth
I bought you penis,” Richard said when Bindu opened the door for him.
Her shock must’ve shown on her face, because he cleared his throat and held out a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers, each bloom a profusion of petals coalescing to form almost perfect globes.
Oh, he said peonies! Get your mind out of the gutter, Bindu!
“You okay, Bindu?”
She took the flowers from him. “Yes, of course. I love penis!” Shit. “I mean peonies.” She enunciated the o hard this time and turned away quickly. Had anyone considered how unfortunately named these poor flowers were?
He was laughing when he followed her into her open kitchen. “I love a woman with a dirty mind.”
All those shades of pink and magenta made a stunning contrast against the white quartz of her countertop. The sight made happiness glow inside her, and she used it to shove away her embarrassment.
“Let me find something to put your peonies in,” she said, barely enunciating the o this time, face absolutely straight. “Wouldn’t want any wilting.”
He barked out a delighted laugh. “That’s awfully kind of you. The propensity to wilt is the cruelest curse of these golden years.”
She filled a vase and met his eyes as she arranged the plump blooms in an alternating pattern. “With peonies this large, a little wilting is of no consequence,” she said, then burst into laughter.
“You’re a gift, woman. Has anyone told you that?” His face was ruddy with his laughter, as though they’d been walking on the beach under the burning sun.
A memory from her youth in Goa—the salty breeze of the Arabian Sea whipping her face and snarling her hair—rose so starkly inside her she had to catch her breath.
“No,” she said, the words leaving her before she could swallow them, “but I’ve been told I’m trouble.”
“Oh, you’re most definitely that too,” he said, holding out his hand.
Holding hands was such a childish thing, or a little too American, and she wasn’t sure she could do it. Rajendra had never held hands with her. Given how much sex they’d had, that realization made her suddenly and inexplicably sad.
She took his hand. It was tough and papery at the same time, like holding bunched-up newsprint. She imagined how many times his hands might have crushed up paper in frustration over words not doing his bidding, an image she’d seen in so many films.
But there was warmth under the leathery flesh. Life, even after more of it had been lived than was left to live.
He squeezed her hand and brought it to his lips and dropped a kiss on her knuckles. Oh yes, this man was definitely expecting more than just dinner tonight. The thought made her smile. A lifetime ago she’d loved this mix of power and nerves. Now it made feathery wings flutter in her belly.
“Let’s get that dinner warmed up, shall we?” She’d cooked the meal yesterday. She was no longer young enough to cook all day, clean herself up, and have the energy to be charming at the end of it all. That had been her job for twenty-two years. She’d done it excellently and for long enough that it was well and truly out of her system.
Managing your energy and your assets was the key to aging right.
“Yes, please. Before my belly starts to growl,” he said. “If I eat too late, I fall asleep right after. And I’m not planning on that.” The suggestive smile on his deeply lined face made his shaking just a little bit worse.