Just to be sure, I held the lehenga up to me. Way too short, but I’d worn enough of Vinnie’s hand-me-downs to know that it would fit her. The top was loose for me too. Not much at the waist and bust, but a lot on the shoulders. It would totally fit Vinnie.
I did a twirl, swinging the heavy edge of the lehenga out slightly, and threw some packing peanuts in the air in celebration.
I folded the lehenga and put it back into the box. That’s when I noticed the blue silk in the box—there was another lehenga beneath.
It was firoza blue—the color of turquoise, late summer evenings, and sea glass washed up on the beaches of Cape Cod. It had once been my favorite color, and though I had several other favorites now I still loved it. Masi remembered.
The lehenga was an ankle-length circle skirt lavishly embroidered in gold and silver dabka and semiprecious gemstones. It reminded me of the first time I had ever seen a lehenga being embroidered. It was in Mallu Masi’s workshop in Rajasthan. A circle of blue silk fabric had been stretched into a massive embroidery frame, and four of Masi’s best embroiderers were working on it simultaneously with spools of golden thread.
“See the pattern, Mini?” Masi had said, showing me the intricate lines stamped lightly on the fabric. “That’s my design.”
I’d watched as the men painstakingly brought Masi’s design to life—one stitch at a time. It would take months to finish that one piece. That’s when I fell in love with fabric.
But something was wrong. This lehenga was too short, for one. I quickly checked the hem, and there was enough fabric turned in that I could unpick the edge of the fabric and lengthen it by several inches. Big whew! And it was too wide in the waist. Mallu Masi had gotten my size backward and hadn’t bothered clarifying.
The drawstring waist meant I could tighten it to fit, but that would make the fabric bunch up. And that’s the thing with a circle dress design—once it’s been cut and stitched, you can’t size it down without ruining it. There was no way I could wear it without it looking extra bulky around the middle.
I smiled ruefully.
Masi still thought of me as the gawky thirteen-year-old I’d been when she saw me last. Partly my fault, I suppose. After she ditched me that winter, I had stopped communicating with her. And things had changed a lot since then. I’d had a late growth spurt and shot up several inches, for one, and my cross-country running in high school had made sure it was all muscle. Mallu Masi thought Vinnie was the only sporty one, clearly.
The year I got fit started with my Beeji and Bauji packing up and going to India. Bade Bauji was undertaking a major expansion at KDH Spices—he wanted our Bauji’s help to set up the automated plants. Also, both my grandparents were sick of the snow. Other snowbirds go to Florida—my grandparents went all the way around the world instead.
Also, my dad turned into a health fanatic, started cooking all our meals, and sucked at it. I’m not saying he didn’t try to cook well. He tried very, very hard. But most of his efforts were aimed at making sure there were enough nutrients, antioxidants, and vitamins in our food, and minimal amounts of trans fats, free radicals, and other nasty stuff—with cancer in our genes, he wasn’t taking any chances with my health or Vinnie’s. We didn’t eat any fast food. The meals he made were always perfectly balanced as per the food pyramid. But even after I flung liberal amounts of KDH spices on them, they stubbornly tasted like cardboard.
How he could be related to the founder of KDH Spices, I have no clue.
About the same time, I finally discovered a sport that did not involve hitting a ball with any degree of precision—cross-country running. All I needed to do was put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over, and some ingrained tenacity made me good at it.
So between Dad’s healthy food and cross-country practice, I gained a new lifestyle.
Masi still hadn’t gotten the memo, I guess.
On the positive side, Vinnie literally had tears in her eyes when I showed her the lehenga via video chat.
“It looks so filmy,” she said. Which was what Mom called things that could be right out of a Hindi movie.
“It is right out of a Bollywood film,” I told Vinnie. “Look!” I held up a poster of Meri Bollywood Wedding with Koyal Khanna wearing the same gold lehenga as Vinnie’s. I got it from the noticeboard at Ace, where someone had pinned it a few weeks ago. I had recognized it instantly.
“Wow, it was in a movie?”
“The same style was,” I said. “It’s kind of famous, I guess. And sold out everywhere!”
“That’s hilarious,” Vinnie said. “Guess it helps to have relatives in the business. But what about your lehenga?”
“It’s really, really beautiful,” I said. “But it doesn’t fit. Way too short.”
“That’s tragic!” Vinnie said.
“Hey, I’m not the one getting married. And I’ll fix it, if I have time,” I said. “But I’ve been thinking, Vinnie—what about getting saris for all your bridesmaids—including me?”
“We can’t possibly pull that off as well,” Vinnie said. She looked very comfortable today in loose-fitting blue scrubs. But she’d just come off a night shift and also looked completely exhausted.
“We can,” I said. “Saris are one size fits all, so we don’t have to worry about fittings.”
“What about the blouses?” Vinnie asked.
“I can stitch them,” I said. “I’ll just buy an extra sari and use the silk for the blouses. That way they’ll match perfectly.”
“I’ll ask the girls if they’ll wear saris,” Vinnie said. “But won’t it be a lot of work to stitch the blouses?”
“Yeah, but it’s doable,” I said. “And imagine
