Nights Like This (26 page)

 

 

During Anjali's recovery, as peaceful as it was, Dr. Abhay Gulati became a constant visitor in our lives. I didn't like having him there but he either didn't notice my dislike or he didn't care. Sometimes he brought someone along, a friend from med school Anjali hadn't seen in years or a colleague of hers from when she did her residency. I watched them those evenings as if I was not a part of them. Truth is I wasn't a part of anything when he was there. He soaked all the energy in the room and used it to impress and amuse Anjali. She laughed at his jokes and listened to him drone for hours. I usually spent the time criticizing his outfit in my head or noticing the filth on his shoes. I asked Anjali about him one night as I was helping her get settled into bed.

“What's up with Abhay? You act like you're straight around him.”

“Jess, I have to act like I'm straight around him. You know that. I don't talk to people about my life. Especially colleagues. You know that.”

“You act like you like him.”

“I do like him.”

“I mean like you want him,” I said.

“Jess, you're fucking crazy.”

“Am I?”

“Being that I'm madly in love with you, yes, I think you are.”

Anjali pulled me by my shirt and kissed me. I kissed her back and something inside me jumped. I had never felt that way kissing Anjali. I started to kiss her neck and she closed her eyes.

“I don't know how we can do this,” I said.

“We'll have to go to my room, that's all.”

“I don't want to hurt you.”

“Then find ways to touch me.”

It was a sweet invitation. I slowly moved my hands across her face then her neck then her body. I was careful not to touch her side. I was careful not to lean on her. I didn't touch her in the most intimate of places. But as I ran my hands constantly over her body, she leaned back and enjoyed me. As I kissed her breasts she moaned. I watched her glow with pleasure and I enjoyed touching her even more. I wished at that moment that I could make love to her. But I was also satisfied just discovering the places to touch that pleased her. She loved it when I traced the edges of her ears with my fingers. She moaned when I kissed her neck. She was neutral about her stomach and thighs. She liked it when I kissed her breasts but only if I sucked her nipples.

“Is Abhay coming tomorrow too?” I asked.

She opened her eyes and stared at me.

“Jess, I really don't feel like talking about anyone right now.”

“No, I want to know. Because I'll leave.”

“Relax. I'll tell you when he's coming. You can go to Starbucks and work on whatever it is you're doing.”

“I'm finally writing,” I said.

“What's it about?”

“It's just something I'm working on. Aren't you sleepy?”

“I'm taking less of the painkillers so I don't get as sleepy as I used to. But I guess I should go to bed.”

“You should.”

We spent the next three hours caressing, hoping, longing. I think back and that evening with Anjali was the most sensual of my life. Neither of us came and neither of us tried to touch the most intimate of places. But we kissed and touched and talked and laughed the entire time. Anjali told me stories about herself I had never heard. I told her things she knew but loved hearing about my childhood and college days. At that moment, I loved Anjali wholly without exception or doubt or deceit. She was a beautiful woman, Anjali Chopra.

When she grew tired, I sat beside her as she drifted to sleep. I listened to her breathing. Those days, I never slept until Anjali was asleep. When I heard her snore slightly, only then did I get up to go to bed.

I took the journal out that night and read the line I read every night before I slept.

I was the best story that ever eluded you.

I loved that line. And, as time went by, I wondered if Vanessa had any way of knowing that although she had been referring to herself, her words held true for all of us. If Vanessa was the best story that ever eluded me, I was also the best story that ever eluded Anjali. But those nights when I sat beside her as she slept, I did not feel elusive. I had started then to feel a tenderness towards her I had never known before. And I wondered if, ironically, Vanessa had written a prophecy that had twisted itself and only now come true: perhaps Anjali was the best story that ever eluded me.

 

 

 

One fine day in October, while Anjali and I were playing gin rummy on the couch, there was a knock on the door. We were confused as to who could have come up without the doorman alerting us to visitors. I opened the door cautiously. There in front of me stood Ish and Kat, grinning from ear to ear.

“Happy Diwali!” they shouted in unison as they entered the apartment. I noticed Kat was holding a huge bar of Toblerone.

“How did you guys get in?” Anjali asked.

“Your doorman's asleep, babe,” Ish said.

We laughed.

I was actually relieved to see Ish although I couldn't explain why. I believe that perhaps the momentum of our lives changed a bit, that Anjali and I could breathe a bit, talk a bit, let go a bit even if it was with Ish. And not for nothing, it was always nice to see Kat.

“We got you chocolate,” Kat said, “cuz we know Anjali hates mithai.”

“Mithai!” Anjali and I said I unison.

“Are you learning Hindi Kat?” I asked.

Kat was quiet.

“Well, sort of,” she finally offered. “I mean when you're engaged to an Indian…”

I think I almost fell to the floor. Was she serious? What had happened? What had changed? Apparently I was the only one out of the loop because everyone else laughed a bit and then the room was pleasantly quiet. I had to talk to Kat.

“Um…what do you guys say Kat and I go to Starbucks and get us all some Frappachinos?” I finally said, “I would love one right now.”

“Sounds like an idea,” Kat said.

“Sure,” Anjali said.

Ish smiled and fidgeted with her wallet. She pulled out her Starbucks gold card. Kat took it and kissed her on the forehead softly.

Kat and I left, closing the door behind us. I said nothing until we had exited the building. When we were out in the cool air, I spoke.

“Kat, what the fuck happened?”

Kat turned to me and smiled.

“She did it, Jess. She did it.”

“She did what?”

“She told her parents. She flew to Nairobi and told her parents.”

“And how do you know she did?”

“Because…she's gonna take me with her.”

I stopped walking and faced Kat. My heart was sinking.

“Kat, you believe that bullshit?”

“It's not bullshit! What's bullshit is you, runnin' off with a lie and tellin' everyone else how to live their lives or what to believe. Who are you to tell me about bullshit?”

She pushed me aside and kept walking.

I ran after her.

“Kat! Kat!”

She stopped and turned around.

“Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Maybe you are right,” I said.

“I am right.”

“So how did it all happen?”

“I left. Cut my phone off and everything. And then last week she came to me. And she told me she loved me. That she told everyone. That she wants to marry me.”

“And you said yes?”

Kat held out her hand, where a one and a half karat Tiffany's signature ring sparkled on her finger.

I kept staring at the ring. I thought back to my own ring still sitting on Anjali's bedside table. I wondered if Ish was finally coming to her senses or if Kat had lost hers. My heart broke for her. What if Ish was lying? But then what if she wasn't? Kat looked happier, talked more, and had more “conviction” as Vanessa would say. But what would happen if this were all a lie? Would Kat fall like a house of cards? Would she survive?

“Just be happy for me, can't you?”

Her words jarred me out of my thoughts.

“Congratulations,” I said as I tried not to let my voice convey how disappointed I was that Kat was falling for whatever it was that Ish was up to.

“Thank you.”

As we entered Starbucks, we said nothing. We held no more conversation until we ordered and then only to ask each other to get straws or napkins. And then, armed with four grande Frappachinos, we made our way silently home.

When we arrived back at the apartment, Anjali and Ish stopped talking at our entrance and stared at us. I felt they had been talking about me. I was actually sure that this was the case as Ish was glaring in my direction.

“Hey guys,” she said.

Kat handed out the drinks.

“Jess, can I talk to you in the bedroom for a minute?” Ish asked.

“Sure,” I said although my instinct said, “Fuck you.”

“Lead the way,” she said.

I entered the bedroom and she slammed the door behind us.

“I called you while you were with the tramp,” she said “And you didn't have the decency to pick up.”

“This is about you?” I asked, “About your damn phone call?”

“No, this is about you and how you left Anjali to die on the street while you were out with some tramp.”

“Don't call her that.”

Her eyes met mine.

“That's what you're worried about? What I call the tramp? Your girlfriend nearly died and that's what you're worried about?”

I walked around the room, sipping slightly.

“This is none of your concern.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She walked to me and pulled my hand to make me face her.

“You don't get it, do you? She loves you more than life itself. Trust me, I didn't get it either until I lost Kat. And then I was lucky enough to get her back. Will you be so lucky?”

“So you really told you family? You're taking her to Nairobi?”

“Tickets are booked.”

“Whatever.”

She sighed.

“Do whatever the fuck you want,” she said. “I'm done.”

She took wide strides to the door.

“If you're so fucking concerned about Anjali, why haven't you been here? I haven't seen you since the day I got back.”

She pivoted to face me. She walked back and stopped so close to me I thought she was going to run into me.

“Why haven't
I
been here? Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Because, if you must know, although it's none of your fucking business, I'm in the process of moving to Philly, buying a practice and maintaining my relationship. But I've called her every fucking day, making sure every fucking minute that you weren't the asshole I know you to be.”

When she said Philly, my heart skipped a beat or two and my mind slipped into thoughts of fresh guavas and limes and lemons. I thought back to Vanessa's jade green halter-top, her shoulders, and her earthen skin. I remembered her kisses and all of a sudden, I wanted to be alone, to write in our journal the thoughts that were rising within me. I finally said what I thought needed saying.

“Fuck you,” I said.

And then I left.

I returned to the living room and sat and joked and sipped my Frappachino. But within me, there was a storm of thoughts striking like thunder and overwhelming like monsoon rain. Thoughts of Ish and how I wondered where in Philly she would stay. Would it be anywhere near the flags? I remembered “Indo-Rican” fantasies and all I wanted to do was hug a pillow and cry. Or run to Vanessa's walk-up and lie next to her, coaxing the morning into becoming a day.

But then I watched Anjali laughing, sipping her Frappuccino contentedly, and shifting so as to take the pressure off her side and I couldn't take my eyes off her. I was happy watching her and realized for the first time in a long time how utterly delicious she was, how charming, how delicate, how sweet. I was grateful when she glanced at me askance, when she took my hand and pressed it gently to let me know I mattered, when she leaned up and whispered to me, “This is great, Jess, but I'm so turned on right now.” For all these little things I saw the big thing: she was in love with me and right then, I loved her too.

I wondered what would happen if Ish were somehow right. What if Anjali did decide to leave me? Would I run after her or run to Vanessa? Would I be relieved or miserable? But then Anjali would never do something like that. For every transgression on my part, she forgave me or seemed to on her part. We weren't Ish and Kat. We were Anjali and Jess. Our rules were different. At least that's what I convinced myself of that night. But as much fun as that night turned out to be, a question lurked inside me that I couldn't answer for the life of me:
What would you do, Jess, if Anjali were to leave?
I tried to make the question disappear. It just roared louder. And that was the first time I started fearing a life without Anjali Chopra. 

 

 

Abhay decided that he would come by every other day, which meant that every other day I spent three hours at Starbucks. I was tempted many times to take the train to Central Park but I refrained. If I did see Vanessa, what would I say to her? Besides, would she really still be in the park selling photos? And she may, by now, have found someone to deal with her situation with Danny. Or she may have found someone who had yet to find out about Danny. Regardless, I was not going to talk to her. I couldn't.

I wrote a lot those days. Not all of it was for any purpose. Sometimes I just wrote nonsense. But I tried to free myself from all that deterred me. I was once again, and this time proudly, a coffee shop writer. I was inspired by nothing else other than our journal that held words full of fun and love and possibility. I thought back to reading to Vanessa on a bench, her head in my lap, listening to my words. I missed her then. I missed hearing her voice, her stories, and her laughter. I knew that someday I would return to her. I just hoped it was in time for us to start something together.

I watched darkness settle over everything as I sipped my coffee. I felt uneasy and wished the summer had been longer. I settled my gaze on two boys kicking a soccer ball. They were in the distance, the ball looking small and insignificant from where I was. I wondered if they ever thought of impending darkness or of how things are different in winter months. I watched the ball travel back and forth. I looked at my wristwatch and decided to go home. He would still be there but it was my home more than it would ever be his. I looked away from the ball and finished my coffee.

As I walked home, I became agitated at the thought of having to speak to Abhay. I didn't like his demeanor and I knew, for sure, that he was disingenuous because his shoes were never polished. I wondered if there was a possibility that Anjali might be interested in Abhay but I shelved the thought away. She couldn't be interested in him for many reasons the first of which was that she was in love with me as she had said herself. She also did not date men. And before Abhay, I had never suspected that a male friend in her life was any more than a friend or a nuisance. But something about him alerted me and raised questions in me that I didn't necessarily want to ask myself. Perhaps after the shock of Danny, I didn't put anything past anybody. If Vanessa could allow a friend to fuck her, why not Anjali? After all, he had been there for her during her accident. Maybe she felt she owed him whatever he wanted.

I stopped before I made the turn towards Anjali's apartment. I leaned against the brick façade of an insurance company and breathed. I watched people walk by, some quickly, some taking all the luxury time had to give. I didn't want to go home. For the first time in a very long time, I admitted to myself that I didn't really have a home. I had a situational partner to whom I had promised my loyalty because my betrayal had caused her to be dramatic, drink and walk in front of a taxicab with bad brakes. I missed Vanessa and the lightness that we could share. The days I had shared with her in Philly stayed etched like art in my mind. The days I was spending with Anjali each resembled one another and although they had their moments, that's all there was that life had offered me since I had come back. I looked at the sky, a pale haze of dusk, and I wanted nothing more than to go to Central Park.

I turned the corner and turned my mind away from everything but finding Abhay laughing at his own jokes, sitting on the couch I was using as a bed. When I reached upstairs and turned the key, the apartment smelled like Chinese food. I closed the door behind me and Abhay looked at me, chopsticks held mid-air. He was sitting beside Anjali.

“Hey there, Jasbir.”

Why he still called me that, I didn't know. He irritated me more than I ever realized anyone could.

“Hey. And it's Jess.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Jasbir is just such a beautiful name.”

“Yeah.”

I looked at Anjali as she moved her rice around before putting a spoonful in her mouth. She was, I was sure, looking for the little pieces of egg. She loved the egg more than the chicken or shrimp or pork that was in the rice. I smiled despite myself.

“Anjali, how are you?”

“Hungry.”

“You should have told me. I would have gotten you food.”

“I'm here,” Abhay said as if I had been speaking to him.

I looked at him and wished he could understand that my gaze said, “Fuck you now leave” not “thank you please stay.”

“I wasn't hungry then. But it's okay. We got some food delivered from the new place a block down.”

So technically, Abhay hadn't gotten her food, he had merely opened the door and, my guess was, tried to impress Anjali by paying for her Chinese food. Did he not know that Dr. Chopra's practice was one of the most well-known practices in Manhattan? Chinese food would not make her melt. Neither would his visits. I resolved that I would not leave the next time he came over and eventually, I would tell him that he need not come because he was doing nothing but trying to get in Anjali's pants and I disliked him.

“Jess, you okay?” Anjali asked.

“Yeah.”

“So, Jasbir, I mean Jess, tell me about yourself,” Abhay said as he stuffed his chopsticks and some chicken into his mouth.

“Why?” I asked.

He looked at me blankly.

“What kind of medicine do you practice?” I asked as I sat on the couch across from Anjali and him.

He swallowed. His Adam's apple rose and fell back into place again.

“I'm in orthopedic surgery.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“It isn't until one day, you run into an old friend and renew what you thought you'd lost,” he said.

I looked at Anjali and she averted her eyes. If there was a way that she could seek retribution for all the times she had looked up at breakfast to find a bedmate of mine helping herself to some coffee, this was it. I kept looking in her direction, waiting for her to look my way. She finally turned slightly and caught my gaze. She shrugged her shoulders lightly as if to say it wasn't her fault that his dick was hard for her.

“Well, this has been fun,” I said. “But I do have things to do.”

“Anjali tells me you're not working at the moment,” he said.

“I'm working on a project,” I said.

I knew I sounded stupid. Here I was, in the company of two medical doctors and I was insisting that I had a profession. Did I really believe that somehow my creating stories about women I'd love to fuck came close to what Anjali and Abhay did in their day-to-day routine? I felt small and wanted to slip through a crack in the wall so I could escape on the other side and fly away. I looked from him to her and back at him.

“Well, I was just suggesting to Anjali that if you wanted to do some office work, I could arrange it for you.”

His tone suggested that he was offering me a mine full of gold.

“I'm okay,” I said. “If I want work, I'll return to where I was, thanks.”

“What did you do exactly?”

“I sold glasses for a living.”

“Eyeglasses?”

“No,”
I wanted to say,
“I sold drinking glasses door- to- door you jackass.”

Instead I said, “Yes, eyeglasses.”

“I need a checkup,” he said, “I can't read as well anymore.”

“Yes, well when you get old and gray, these things happen,” I said.

“Jess!” Anjali almost screamed.

“What? It's the truth.”

“So why did you quit?” Abhay asked.

“Because I felt like it.”

I got up and walked to my room. I felt Anjali watching me and I wondered if she was enjoying the evening. I was the first to admit that I deserved to feel insignificant and unimportant. I deserved all the revenge she could possibly deliver. But did it have to be with Dr. I-Don't-Bother-Polishing-My-Shoes?

I opened the paisley cover and leafed through the journal as I settled onto the bed.

After all the nights I'd spent on the couch, the bed felt foreign. Anjali insisted on sleeping on the couch. Her reasoning was that she didn't want visitors, which I interpreted to mean Abhay, in her bedroom and she didn't feel like getting up every time someone stopped by. I accepted the excuse although I would much rather have slept in the bed. For someone who bought the best and latest of everything, I wondered why Anjali's couch didn't pull out.

I scribbled Abhay's words across the back of a page that was nearly filled with writing:

Renew what you thought you'd lost.

I lay back and wondered what I had lost and what I might have gained in the past year. I had lost my ability or energy to hook up randomly and frequently. I didn't know where the drive went but I hadn't gone in search of a bedmate in a very long time, ever since I'd met Vanessa. Was that because I liked Vanessa or because circumstances had been such that I couldn't have? I definitely could have. During all the time Abhay admired Anjali and tried to impress her with his stupidity, I could have gone out for the night. But I hadn't.

I took the yellow folder where I kept the story that I had begun a few weeks ago. It was a rough draft and I read it to get a sense of what story I was trying to create. I read through the pages and felt nothing. It was dry and brittle and had no heart. How could I write a story full of heart when my own heart was so jaded that nothing excited me anymore? I sat and looked through the journal as I did every night and I was reminded of Vanessa's laughter. I remembered the arch of her hand as she held a pen and wrote across the pages. I remembered the look she held when she read her words to me, telling me that someday, she hoped it was she who inspired me.

I lay back and closed my eyes, wishing there was something that would move me. I imagined being in the same place next year, thinking the same thoughts. I heard laughter and imagined what he might have said to make her laugh. I disentangled her laughter from his and listened to the sounds of her amusement. I remembered the first few months that I had moved in, when I was oblivious as to how strange our situation would eventually become. Anjali and I had laughed often back then. We had enjoyed this apartment and this closeness. We had not tainted our enjoyment with streaks of desire or nights of senseless fucking. Back then, we had enjoyed the simple things devoid of desire and love and sex.

I must have fallen asleep. All I know is that I awoke to Anjali shaking me awake, hunched over her crutches, standing and waiting for me to open my eyes.

“Jess.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay, baby?”

I sat up and leaned back against the headboard.

“You want to sit down?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

She maneuvered herself carefully so she could sit on the edge of the bed. I heard her wince and realized that she had probably concentrated so hard on making sure her leg was comfortable that she had forgotten about her ribs.

“What's up?” I asked.

“You were acting kind of strange with Abhay. Anything you want to talk about?”

“I don't like him,” I said simply.

Anjali smiled. She looked amazingly beautiful as if the last few months had enhanced her beauty. She used to look pretty but empty to me. At that moment, she seemed full of all that I could ever desire. I thought of Abhay and it made me sad as if sharing her with him was making her slowly seep away from me.

“Jess, you know I love you. You know that.”

“Then tell him that.”

“You know I can't do that. I can't do that. But how are you even going to think anything's going on between us? He might like me but I don't like him. If he were a hot Indian woman named Jasbir Banerjee, then maybe. If he had that mix of Punjabi rawness and Bengali intellect, I would jump his bones. But he's just a dick lost in expensive clothing.”

I laughed. I held her face in my palms and kissed her with gratitude. When I pulled back, I kissed her neck with tender butterfly kisses. She arched her head back and made sounds of pleasure in the depths of her throat.

“I love you so much, jaan.”

“I'm here,” I said, “Tell him not to come here anymore.”

“Is that what you want, baby? Does he bother you that much?”

“Yes. I just don't like him.”

I wanted to tell Anjali that he was insincere because he did not polish his shoes but I didn't think she would understand. I looked into her eyes and felt myself starting to cry. I was crying because I felt threatened and I knew that. But whether I was threatened because I was scared Abhay would win Anjali's heart in some bizarre way or I was threatened because I felt I had lost control of every situation in my life, I did not know.

“Baby, don't. I'll tell him that you're here and you'll take care of me. I promise.”

“And I will take care of you. I will. Why does he have to be here?”

“He doesn't. And he won't.”

She kissed me softly on my forehead. Of all the places Anjali ever kissed me, her kisses upon my forehead lingered the longest. I kissed her where I loved to kiss her, at the corner of her eye, close to her temple. I undressed her slowly, despite her injuries and despite my hesitation. I was gentle and made sure I didn't press on her as I kissed her body. I made love to her again and again that night and when I came, it was the sweetest release I had ever known.

As we fell asleep on the bed, Anjali stroked my cheek with the back of her hand.

“Baby?” she said quietly.

“Yes, my love?”

“I miss my life. I miss going to work. I miss going to the park. I miss going out to dinner. And I'd kill for a martini.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “This is all my fault. But I'll take you everywhere once you're a little better.”

“It's not your fault,” she said.

“Well it kind of is.”

“I wasn't blaming you.”