Okay, maybe he thought I was coming on too strong? Being all sneaky and stalkerish or something? This was awkward!
“Look, whatever-your-name-is,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I’m on Facebook as Padmini Lata Kapoor. Feel free to friend me whenever you want. I won’t Google you or anything until you do.”
“Promise?” He smiled.
“Totally!”
Chapter Nineteen
When Vir called and asked if it was okay to meet his mom today, I was covered in mud, sweat, and hot wax.
There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Vinnie and Shoma Aunty had put their heads together and come up with some complicated floral centerpiece. It was a tall glass column vase filled with water, with colored pebbles at the bottom, submerged orchids in the middle, and floating candles on top. Given a choice, Vinnie always preferred the simplest of floral arrangements, so I was dumbstruck that she wanted this thing, but she’d seen it at a friend’s wedding and had fallen in love with the look.
Arrgh! Thanks for the inspiration, Mark and Hannah Richelt! I bet you had a big extended family and/or a well-paid florist to put these things together, but sadly for us, it was going to be me and my dad fussing around with candles and orchids the day of Vinnie’s wedding!
What, I ask you, was wrong with those gorgeous Moroccan lanterns that Shoma Aunty had offered to loan us?
Anyway, back to the centerpieces. I was nervous about meeting Vir’s mom, so I decided to try the arrangements that morning, just to stay busy. I didn’t have anything as exotic as orchids on hand, but I got some hydrangeas from the garden and dug up some regular pebbles (literally, hence the mud) and some Yankee Candle tea lights.
Surprise! It only took ten minutes to fill up our biggest vase with water, throw in the rinsed pebbles and the cut flowers, and float some lighted tea lights on top. I did get some hot wax on me trying to position the tea lights, but OMG, it looked fabulous! No wonder Vinnie was going on about it. I took a bunch of pictures and emailed them off to her. I might still need her girlfriends’ help, but it wouldn’t take long to put them together—whew.
The phone rang. “Vinnie, did you see the pictures?” I said. I might have looked like a hot mess, but the pictures were excellent!
“No,” said Vir. “It’s not Vinnie—sorry!”
“Hey.” I tucked a sweaty hank of hair behind one ear. “What’s up?”
“You free now?” he said. “Mom wants to meet you. I can come get you in an hour if it’s okay.”
“In an hour?” I cast a panicked look at myself in the mirror across the hall. “How about an hour and a half? I’ve been in the garden, and it was crazy hot. Let me get showered and changed!”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
“She won’t eat you!” Vir said bracingly. “Stop hyperventilating!”
We drove up the long drive to the Georgian-style building at the top of the hill—the dean’s residence.
“She sounds so intimidating,” I said. “What if she hates me!”
“My mom? Intimidating?” Vir looked genuinely puzzled. “No way. Wait till you meet the rest of my family!”
I didn’t point out that he still hadn’t said anything about his dad or the rest of his family. But taking the high road was killing me.
Vir’s mom was waiting outside, with an incredibly fat and fluffy cat by her side. I recognized him as the creature Yogi had chased up the hill the day I first met Vir.
“Mom, this is Mini,” Vir said. “And this lazy thing is Roshan.” Vir’s mother didn’t look intimidating, actually. She had a curly mop of salt-and-pepper hair, and a sweet smile, and a rather stylish dress, in an academic sort of way. She held out both her hands to me. “It’s great to meet you, Mini!” she said.
“It’s great to meet you too,” I said.
“Let’s go on the terrace and we’ll have some tea,” she said, and opened the door for me, her pearl earrings swinging prettily. Roshan the cat followed us, rubbing up against Vir’s sandal-clad ankles.
“You’re so pretty,” Mrs. Chabra said. Or was that Ms. Chabra? I was wearing something resembling my math tutor outfits. Skinny jeans, white cotton top with pretty eyelet lace—basic but cute. “I told Vir you were, the first time I saw you.”
“When was that?” I asked. I didn’t recall meeting her before.
“When your dog had the run-in with Roshan here,” she said.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I said. “Yogi hasn’t been around too many cats and—”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You did us a favor!”
“How d’you mean?” I asked, mystified.
“Vir had just gotten here from India, and he was so jet-lagged he was sleeping till noon every day,” she explained. “But after he saw you that morning, he started getting up and shaving and jogging around the lake at the crack of dawn.”
“He did?” I gasped. “He did not!”
“Mum,” Vir said, red in the face. So it was true? I’d never in a million years have guessed! And he had played it so cool, just smiling briefly if I did run into him.
“Yes he did,” she said. “And then he’d say ‘I saw the girl with the dog today’—and smile till evening.”
“I’m not sure I believe it,” I said, stunned.
“And I love your dog,” she said. “He has such an ancient silhouette, like he stepped out of an Egyptian frieze!”
“Doesn’t he?” I said. “Like Anubis! The Romans had dogs like him too. I went to the Pompeii exhibit last year at the Museum of Science and saw a picture of the Cave Canem mosaic. It’s a sign with a picture of a dog just like Yogi and it means—”
“Beware of
