“Art is about normalizing the natural world.”
What did that even mean?
“How can we love and accept each other if we can’t even accept our own bodies?”
“But this isn’t my body. It’s quilting and . . . steel wool?”
“I thought you said you loved art,” he said, a whine showing up in his voice. “Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Before she could respond, or run for her life, a woman—painted entirely silver and also bedecked with fake genitals—brought him a jar of bronze paint. “So real,” she declared, voice choked with emotion, studying Aly from head to toe.
“Truth,” George said, and they slid into a joint trance of examination.
Aly threw a glance around the garden to make sure Ashish was gone. Because if he wasn’t, she was going to have to run away to Antarctica and never show her face again.
“Your friend is gone,” George said, beckoning her with the brush dipped in bronze paint. “I sensed a lot of negativity in him. You shouldn’t let his energy bind you. If you let it keep you from reaching for this gift of experience, from living your life, doesn’t his negativity win?”
Aly squeezed her eyes shut. And shoved her face at him. “Let’s do it,” she said as paint brushed down her nose, knowing full well that she was going to regret those words.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BINDU
When I wrote Poornima, I hadn’t planned on playing that scene out on film. But then I hadn’t planned on Bhanu turning into Poornima. With her whole soul. And there was no way to keep that final surrender, that ultimate claiming, from the audience.
From the journal of Oscar Seth
The chef, with his pure-white ponytail and almost glacially blue eyes, slipped his hand into Bindu’s. It was a good hand, warm and capable. They walked along Marco Island’s main beach, the art deco high-rises lining the ocean dwarfing them. A salty gust of wind hit her, and she pushed her hand against her sun hat to hold it in place. Nostalgia for Goa slid down her skin like a monsoon shower.
“You’re a vision,” Ray the Chef said. Yes, he’d introduced himself that way: I’m Ray, the chef. Now Bindu could only ever think of him as Ray the Chef.
“I’m Bindu,” she’d answered, followed by a pause that had nothing substantial to fill it. Bindu, the grandma, the mother, the widow? The actress who could’ve been the defining moment in the career of one of the world’s most celebrated filmmakers, had the world been a different place? The latest addition to a community for your vibrant years?
If she had to choose one, she’d choose that last one, because she did feel vibrant. And honestly, that was the one thing still within her control: who she was now.
“You look like you were born to walk by an ocean.” Ray the Chef was still talking. His voice was gravelly with sharp edges, like someone used to issuing commands in a kitchen. A distinctly male tone in her day. Now she smiled every time she thought about her Cullie having it too. This unapologetic authority.
“Funny you say that,” she said, slipping her hand out of his to adjust her hat and retie the strings at her chin. “I was born a few feet from the ocean.”
This seemed to delight him. Ice-chip eyes glittered in a way that made Bindu think of him tasting a new dish and then throwing a chef’s kiss at it.
“In Goa, India,” she added, loving the taste of her hometown’s name on her tongue.
“Goa!” he said, also savoring the word. “It’s been years since I visited. Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten.”
She wasn’t surprised. Almost every American she’d ever met who’d been to India had visited Goa. Agra, Jaipur, and Goa were the trifecta of India’s tourist meccas.
“Vindaloo, now there’s a dish a chef can become obsessed with,” Ray the Chef said, pulling her out of her memories. Memories she wished she could shove back inside the vault. “And xacuti, and sorpotel. I love that the names have Portuguese roots.”
“Goa was a Portuguese colony until 1961.” Bindu had been born in Portuguese Goa. By the time she was five, Goa had become one of India’s union territories. Not that it had changed much about the way Goan people lived. The grand families in their mansions nestled in coconut and cashew groves on cliffs overlooking the ocean. The working fishermen huddled tightly in their hutment communities on the sandy beaches. And families like hers, wedged into the middle, dotted the winding lanes that snaked through the lush green countryside.
Talking about her hometown with this stranger was oddly relaxing. It was also disconcerting how the universe threw things at you once you unlocked thoughts. Ever since Oscar’s grandson had invoked his grandfather and shattered Bindu’s hard-won armor, Goa had moved to the front of her mind, and now here was someone who’d, quite unexpectedly, been there.
They meandered along the sparkly sand, climbing rocks that broke up the beach like scabs on skin. The urge to hum as she walked pushed inside Bindu, but she smiled at how ridiculous it would seem to him to hear her break into an old Bollywood ballad. Not a first-date thing, she heard Alisha say in her sensible voice.
They talked easily, skimming topics until they landed on two things they both seemed to like talking about: food and nature. He, like many native Floridians who loved the planet, seemed seized with the worry of disappearing beaches. He’d traveled across the world in search of sustainable food resources. Apparently the earth’s population was on the verge of an unsurmountable food shortage.
“Ready for lunch?” he said when they’d walked for a good hour and Bindu had internalized some of his panic about how close they were to destroying the planet.
His skin was ruddy with the sun （no ozone layer!）， highlighting the lines on his face. When they’d talked on the phone before they met, he’d asked if she had a food preference or if she was okay with being surprised. Being surprised had sounded perfect. But how could the man talk about food when they were all going to starve to death soon?
How had she gone from nostalgic yearning and peace to apocalyptic panic in under an hour? Well, maybe because he’d walked her through some pretty vivid end-of-days scenarios. And those glacial blues were not for the faint of heart when they predicted doom.
Bindu was shivering when they entered the restaurant. The smell of soy and ginger caramelizing on cast iron hit her, and she felt instantly better.
The inside of the restaurant was overcooled, as restaurants in Florida tended to be, and tiny. Not surprising, because the ocean crashed beside them, and even this much space had to cost enough to feed Florida for a day.
There was one occupied table, and now that she was inside the restaurant, there was something earthy threaded into the caramelized-soy smell. Bindu couldn’t tell if she liked it or not.
“I love that you care,” Ray the Chef said, fixing her with his blue gaze. “Not many people are this affected by what humans have done. We’re all walking around, shoving our feelings down because we believe we can’t do anything about them. But what kind of life is that? Are we even human if we’re this desensitized?”
At this point she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be human. All the times she’d thrown food out because she’d rather toss it than consume the extra calories burned inside her like an accusation. Was she even deserving of forgiveness?