I cast my eyes downward and nodded.
34
On New Year’s Day, I awoke with an all-too-familiar red wine headache. After my monthlong forced detox since arriving in India, my body was struggling to process it.
“Worth it,” I mumbled to myself as I lay in bed with my eyes closed, thinking about how nice it had been to spend time with Tushar and just be two adults talking about our lives.
I felt a bit guilty that he had lied to his parents. It was the type of innocent lie I had told my parents countless times, but Tushar was different, and this type of lie had different stakes for him. But then another side of me appreciated that he had done it for me because I knew the list of people he would have lied for was very short. It was increasingly difficult for me to navigate the waters of a society that did not date in the way I understood. Meaning, they didn’t date at all. I thought of my parents and realized I could not have done what they each had done—marry a total stranger. People had serious expectations at such an early stage, and the whole process of getting to know someone was circumvented entirely.
Once my headache cleared, I sent Biren an email saying I knew he needed space but would be there whenever he needed someone to talk to or listen. I checked in with him every day, and he would occasionally send a short response, so I knew he was seeing my messages even if not responding to them all. Neel and Dipti were still fighting a lot, but at least now they were fighting with each other under the same roof and not on their own. There was a certain comfort in that.
A couple days into the new year, Carrie called me and said her case had settled, and she was going to get a ticket and arrive in India on January 10. I could hardly contain my excitement at seeing her in such a short time.
Tushar and I didn’t speak of the moment we’d shared on New Year’s Eve and carried on putting the wedding album together with the utmost professionalism. It seemed we were both trying to heed our families’ wishes and keep our relationship platonic. There was so much I needed to share with Carrie when she arrived.
Spotting Carrie coming out of the Ahmedabad airport was easy—she was the only white person amid the sea of brown. Even with her red hair pulled into a ponytail, she was impossible to miss. It was probably the first time in her life she had experienced being a minority. She emerged from the terminal with a look of utter confusion and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.
Men were approaching her, offering to carry her bags or serve as her driver. She kept saying, “No, thank you,” not realizing she’d need to be much more assertive if she was going to make it through her India trip. Her pale skin made her an easy mark. Children ran up to her and stopped inches away as if an invisible shield had risen. They shyly looked at her. Those more daring reached out to touch her skin and then giggled as they ran back to hide behind their mothers, covering themselves with dupattas as if that made them invisible.
I stood on the hood of Virag Mama’s Fiat and waved wildly until she saw me. Relief registered on her face, and she wheeled her suitcase in my direction. I jumped off the car and gave my best friend a fierce hug while the people around stared openly at us and tried to decipher the context in which this white woman was in Ahmedabad.
“It is so good to see you! I can’t believe you’re here!”
“You and me both,” Carrie said as she released me and glanced around her unfamiliar surroundings. “People here are really not into personal space, are they? I’ve had so many strangers touch me between the customs line and here.”
“They’re touching you because they’ve never seen a white person in the flesh before. Be glad you aren’t a blonde. People would be begging for a strand of your hair.”
Virag Mama had been standing a respectable distance away so we could greet each other privately. I introduced the two. He looked mildly startled when Carrie extended her hand to shake his. She looked at me, her eyes asking if she had done something wrong. I shrugged, not knowing if she had. It was custom for me, as an Indian, to touch an elder’s feet upon meeting them, but I had no idea how Carrie, as a foreigner, was supposed to behave.
Our driver and Virag Mama took Carrie’s suitcase and hoisted it onto the roof with a low grunt. Then the driver tied it down with yellow string. Carrie’s small leather satchel went onto the passenger seat.
“Guess people here are also not into trunk space,” Carrie said, gesturing toward the dozens of others who were undergoing the same exercise of tying luggage to the tops of their cars.