The Vibrant Years(80)

Finally, after ten years of fooling herself, Aly knew what that meant.

She was never getting her segment. Her dream was over.



Where are you? Bindu’s text came through as Aly was pulling into the Shady Palms parking lot. The gold lettering on the sign loomed huge in front of her. SHADY PALMS—LUXURY LIVING FOR YOUR VIBRANT YEARS. Aly sat there staring at it. Mesmerized by how she’d ended up here. How she’d had everything and then lost it.

Reaching across to the passenger side, she picked up the wine bag. She’d found a bottle of Goan port in a liquor store in Miami months ago and saved it for something special. Fine, she’d saved it for the celebration when she got her segment.

To hell with that. She was celebrating this day just the way it was. Even though it was a day when she had to give up on a dream. To hell with her dream; she had her backbone.

And yet her hand stilled on the door. She couldn’t get out of the car, couldn’t move. The huge gold letters of the sign hypnotized her. She twisted open the cap and took a swig straight from the bottle.

The sweet, sharp liquid burned down her throat and tightened her chest. Memories of cousins’ weddings in Goa danced around her like the aunties and uncles jiving on the dance floor, henna-reddened hair coifed into bobs, lace dresses swirling.

Aly had hated dancing. Until Ashish had shown her how to love it. How smitten she’d been at how well he led, arms strong and in control, moving her at his will even as he gave himself over to the music.

I’m a Bandra boy, of course I can jive, he’d said with the sense of belonging she’d never felt in her home. I have you. Let go.

There was no dance if she resisted. If she let go, she became the music, the swinging, the spinning, the sliding.

Putting the bottle to her mouth, she started chugging in earnest. Sugar and alcohol burned through her body.

She didn’t know how long she’d sat there nursing the bottle when a knocking sounded on her car window.

“Aly?”

Ashish?

He gestured at her to unlock the door. She lowered the window and watched as his face appeared from behind the reflected lights. Her lips felt warm and tart from the wine.

“How long have you been sitting here?” His eyes slid to the bottle.

She took another swig before getting out of the car and making her (only slightly swaying) way toward Bindu’s lobby.

It took him a while to catch up with her. He took the bottle swinging from her hand, capped it, and put it in the bag, which he’d gathered from the car. He was holding her purse. He’d cleaned up the car after her.

She laughed. Because the role swap was hilarious.

“I’m not getting back with you, Ashish,” she said as he followed her into the elevator. It needed to be said. So many things needed to be said.

He didn’t deny that’s why he was here. Evidently the tongue he had so skillfully shoved into her mouth couldn’t make up that lie.

She shoved a finger into his chest. The bastard was wearing a pale-yellow linen shirt with the tiniest cracked hearts. Yup, so many truths in that clothing choice. Her mouth watered at the feel of his chest under the textured weave. The headiness from the wine didn’t help. “Don’t you want to know why?”

He didn’t move. Not even a twitch of an eyebrow.

Well, she was telling him anyway. “I don’t think I have it in me to dig up all the patriarchy buried inside you and then fight it for you.” She used her hands to dig up the air between them.

His eyes were steady on hers. “What if I fight it myself?”

The laugh that erupted from her almost choked her. “Then why didn’t you before? Why didn’t you when you had me and I was asking for your help? When I was asking you to examine why you were acting the way you were acting?” Her voice rose and echoed around the mirrored elevator. The force of her feelings, her rage, might have pushed the elevator doors apart because they slid open.

“What if I’ve done that now?” he said, following her out of the elevator, the corridor lights too bright above them.

She spun on him, and he steadied her because the travertine floor leading to Bindu’s new home spun with her. “Don’t you see. You’re still thinking the word I. Me. You think I’ll come around just like that. Now that you’re ready. Now that you’ve realized what you want and realized that the way to get it is to do this . . .” She danced her hand around his face. “This.”

“Is there no place for forgiveness in all this, Aly?”

The bastard had divorced her when she didn’t jump at his whim to move across the world. He wanted to talk forgiveness?

A wild craving for the sweet, thick wine that hit fast and furiously stomped through her. She reached for the bag in his hand, and he pulled it away. But she snatched it from him.

“I’ve forgiven you, Ash. I spent every day during our marriage forgiving you because you were human, because you loved me, because there was so much goodness in you, because I loved you, because you saw me.” She counted off on her fingers and followed it up with a long gulp of the wine. “You saw me, and you did the thing that you knew would hurt me the most because you saw me!”

How he’d laugh if he knew what had just happened. That the segment was gone from her hands. Up in flames. All the things he’d believed about her were true.

“And I forgave that too. What about me? If I keep forgiving you, keep making excuses for you, then what about me? When do I forgive myself for not having the self-worth to stop forgiving you over and over again, for blaming myself for not being enough. For taking that on for you?”