The Mirrors of Fate (16 page)

“
You can’t be quicker about it, girl? Here, take it!”

She held the phone questioningly. When she didn’t put it to her ear, his brows started furrowing.

“
The person is waiting, Maria. Is that how you make everyone wait when they call you?”

The real question was, who the hell was on the phone that he so greatly wanted her to converse with? Slowly she put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“
My lovely! You have such a terribly sweet phone voice.”

Maria’s eyes sprung open wide at the familiar, highly elated and garish voice at the other end of the receiver. Rendered temporarily speechless, she was struck by an involuntary flood of irritation and annoyance.

“
Lovely, no big hellos for me? You’re offending me.”

And then quickly came an accompanying wave of sickness. She looked up at her father whose smug look manifested into words:
Caught you. Nowhere to run now.

“
You be nice, do you hear me?” His hardened eyes were a silent warning.

Maria stared at him helplessly like an animal trapped in a slaughterhouse. She eventually nodded her head, and in a few moments he and his intimidating presence left her bedroom, closing her door.

“
Is your father gone now?” the man on the other end asked. “He sounded so happy to hear from me when he answered the phone. I love your father. He’s such a hard-working, honorable man.”

“
What-the-hell-do-you-want?” she said with rude disjointedness. But Maria was sure to keep her voice down when she spoke, in fear her father might be listening at the door.

“
What? You don’t sound happy to hear from me at all. I must say I am quite disappointed. What have I done that was so horrible?”

Just being alive,
Maria thought to herself in disgust. Louie Singh, the vice president of the bank her father worked at, and one of the men whom she had turned away the night she met all three suitors, had that kind of effect on her. Louie was the one she had slapped, and amazingly, was the one who had made arrangements to see her again on the thirtieth. Tonight for sure, she would make him regret his decision.

She did nothing to hide the impatience in her voice. “Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Singh?”

“
There are many things, but we can discuss that later. Don’t be in such a rush to get me off the phone. I doubt your father would approve of that. Just sit down and relax.”

She felt a nerve in her face react and make her eye twitch. “I don’t plan to stay long, Mr. Singh. Unlike you, I have
homework
. You know what that is, right? That thing girls
my age
have to do? So go ahead. What do you want?”

His laugh rang in her ears. “I only want to simply steal a minute of your time. I felt it was appropriate to speak with you a little before we meet again on Saturday. I’m sure you would agree that our first encounter wasn’t to much avail. I think many things need to be said. May I borrow your time?”

Maria stood there considering the proposition. She knew whatever he said would involve trying to convince her to somehow soften up to him, to somehow accept him. But that was never going to happen. Not after the way he had acted. Not after what he had done to her.

“
Fine, just a few minutes.”

“
Thank you, thank you,” he repeated graciously with a gentlemanly lilt that sickened her but fit him perfectly because for all intents and purposes he was a gentleman in everyone’s eyes.

Maria sat herself rigid on the edge of the bed and waited for him to speak.

“
Well, what can I really say to you now? You must be disappointed it was me who called back with interest in you, rather than one of those younger boys. But rest assured, I care about you three times more.”

Imagine my joy
.

“
But certainly, my first place should be to apologize and apologize I will. Profusely. I acted ungentlemanly when I first met you at your father’s house. It was wrong of me and I had no right to do what I did.”

“
Whatever. Is that all?”

“
No, no, lovely. Just give me a minute. I had this all rehearsed.” He chortled heartily at himself. “I assure you I don’t act like that with ladies. I really have no excuse for it, and while it is inexcusable for groping you in such a manner, I do ask that you forgive me for it.”

“
Is that all?”

Her curtness only made him laugh again. “You really must hate me, don’t you? I know I deserve it, but goodness. Since when did I become unable to woo with expertise like Pertruchio to his Catherine? Honestly I have never been in this situation before.”

“
Of having to apologize to people?” she asked him sardonically. “Welcome.”

“
No, no! Of someone hating me so much. Probably your hatred for your family spills over onto me.”

“
Why would I hate my family? Why not just
you
, Mr. Singh?”

“
Humph, come on now, let’s make this conversation as honest as possible. I’m not here to banter you or pry into your life. I just want to talk. Honestly, you must hate your family for making you do this whole marriage nonsense.”

Maria was silent for a moment. “What is your point?”

“
I’m saying this isn’t easy and I understand that. If it were me in your shoes, with your mindset and all, I’d pretty much tell them to go screw themselves.”

Maria smiled a little.

“
Isn’t that what you want to say to them? Come on, you know I’m right.”

He was right, but she would never admit it. “Quite possibly, Mr. Singh. Quite possibly.”

“
Please call me by my first name. Mr. Singh is my father.”

“
And you’ve worked with mine for an exorbitant amount of time, Mr. Singh.”

“
Yes,” he began, sounding like he was growing impatient, “but if you’re comparing me to your father age-wise, I assure you I haven’t reached anywhere near fifty as yet. I’m only in my thirties, sweetheart. I still work out and make sure to eat right. I’m very well-toned. I know girls your age look for that in a man, isn’t that right? But, sad thing is though, you’ll just have to tolerate me when I get old and decrepit. Nothing can slow down the hands of time, I’m afraid. Sooner or later you’ll be sponge-bathing me and smoothing away my wrinkles.”

She waited for him to stop laughing and said, “Well, as appealing as that sounds, Mr. Singh, I look more forward to being with someone who is my age. At least my wrinkles will appear in the same time as that person’s. Anyway, your time is up, I’m afraid.”

“
My goodness, you’re so abrasive. Retract those claws a little, my dear. I’m just trying to get to know you. I don’t want this to be an uncomfortable experience for either of us. I would like to know more about you.”

Maria gripped the bed sheet in building anger. “You want to know more? Is that so? Then how about knowing more about how I
feel
and
accepting
what I say to you? I am nowhere
near
a good example of someone right for you. I am an adopted, stubborn, poor excuse for a lady who has no interest in being forced to do something as ancient as an arranged marriage. Who does that in this day and age?! Some traditions have no reason to keep on living, and I think even my father believes it too. Why do you think he doesn’t tell anyone on the outside about what’s going on? He’s ashamed of it. I don’t care how my parents view things. I want you to use your head and say you don’t want to do this either. Or, the least you could do—that is if I’d even let you—is get to know me, not Maria Jaghai the daughter, but Maria Jaghai the individual, before you shove a piece of useless metal on my finger!”

Silence set in and she hoped it was due to her words sinking into his brain. But instead he spoke and slowly formed the words “useless...metal?” He became quiet once more, and somehow, finally with his reply, she had realized she definitely struck him harshly.

“
Ms. Jaghai, when I put a ring on your finger, rest assured it won’t be a symbol of ‘useless metal.’ My late wife never viewed it that way.”

Maria felt a lump in her throat. A current of guilt ran up her spine.

“
I-I’m sorry,” she said, genuinely apologetic. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I didn’t know that your...I’m sorry. But listen, Mr. Singh, I’m sure you’re a nice person, but I’m just trying to be honest here. I have no intentions of marrying you, even if my parents say I have to. What sense does it make marrying a person like me? Everyone deserves someone they know they’re going to be happy with. I’m sorry, but despite what my parents say, I will get around this one way or the other.”

As much as she hated everything that was happening, in truth, she could see the appeal such a practice possibly held for a man like Louie Singh. He was a man evidently annoyed by his increasing age, and he wanted to wed a girl who still had her youth. He wanted someone he could brag about to his other cultured, older friends who had wives trying to hide their aging with plastic surgery and make-up. He wanted someone he could easily coax into doing his bidding based on the naive, false pretences of love, and someone who could make him feel young when everything else around him reminded him that no man could escape mortality.

But there was no such appeal for her in this as there was for him. She could never see herself with a man like her father. And that was the problem. The disagreement was more with his personality than his age. Mr. Lohan was older than Singh, and he was much more appealing. What drove her mad was Singh’s character, and she feared what would happen to her if she ever accepted his ring on her finger.

The future by his side was not hard to imagine. He would come home and strip off his tie; complain about how his feet hurt; complain about the incessant, nomadic ramblings of his superiors and what types of things he would like to do to said superiors if given the chance; he would speak of net income, GNP, and the intricacies of proper investment plans; he would complain about not getting paid enough, and all this would be during the process of asking where his meal was. Then of course he would ask whether or not she cleaned the house, if the beds were made, the floors swept, the furniture polished, the calls taken and the mail received. And let’s not forget the grocery shopping done and the children picked up from school. And this was all only when he just came home. He would then throughout the course of things put her under intense scrutiny, always reminding her she wasn’t as capable as his late wife. The list could go on and on.

She did not want a life like her mother’s.

“
I’m very interested in you, Maria. I don’t want to have another of my late wife. I want you as my new one.”

But they were two entirely different people, and if Louie Singh was anything like her father, she knew the words “Abused and Misused” would have to be engraved on her tombstone. She refused to go down that route.

“
Could it be that you don’t like Indian men and our culture?”

What a question. Did he even know what he asked? He claimed to be Indian, but a “cultured” one who knew how to embrace the modern and neglect the backward things of his culture. Fixed marriages would have been backward to him if this particular arrangement wasn’t so convenient at this stage in his life.

Her father was the same, claiming to know what being one thing was about. He had left most traditions about his culture behind, but believed embracing this one tradition with his own rules still linked him to his past and relinquished the possibility of being called a deserter or a hypocrite. His relatives who had moved back to India were probably still disappointed and unimpressed with his choice to marry outside of his race. Somehow through Maria’s union with Louie, he must have seen the means to regain approval. That need for acceptance, she could not understand. If against all odds he’d proudly chosen his own path, what force now battered against his soul for him to wish to salvage the approval he had lost?

But even with all his flaws, Maria had to give her father credit where credit was deserved. He’d chosen love over tradition, and taken a little black girl into his home when he could have just as well walked right by her that day at the orphanage. Like so many others did. In truth, she really, really did love him for that.

“
What can I say to you to get you to just soften up to me?” he searched.

“
Don’t you understand? There’s nothing you can do.”

“
But I’m really not as bad of a person as you are making me out to be.”

Yet the moment he introduced himself to her, she realized what ugly traits defined him. Although he was the most attractive one out of the three suitors who came to see her, before long, a conversation with him became grippingly boring. His level of self-absorption astounded her. Not only would he try to steal a glance every minute or so at himself in a mirror hanging on the wall, he constantly put a hand to his head in attempts of flattening down his slicked-back style that already was too pressed onto his head.

Nothing about him was appealing to her.

“
Sorry Mr. Singh, I have no intentions of letting my guard down with you. There will always be a brick wall between us. I hope you understand.”