Upen grabbed her elbow and pulled her toward him. Her body tensed and tightened.
“Wine is fine,” he said. “But first let me do this because otherwise I’ll keep thinking about it until I do it and then we’ll both end up as awkward and tense as you are. So let’s get it over with and then we can enjoy the rest of the evening together.”
And he kissed her. He put both his hands on her shoulders and pulled her in and kissed her. She felt his beard, his skin, his lips and even, she inhaled sharply, a hint of his tongue. Her body remained tense; her arms hung by her side. She wished she could bring herself to reach up and touch him, to let him know she liked this, but she couldn’t move. He released her, let go of her shoulders, and stepped back.
“Was that okay?” he asked.
Mrs. Ray smiled and nodded.
“It was okay. No. It was more than okay. Thank you. For, you know, getting that over with,” Mrs. Ray said, smiling, calmer now. Her hands moved up to touch her own face, which felt hot.
“Try to participate next time,” Upen said, laughing. “We’ll practice. But for now, the wine.”
They drank the first bottle of wine before they even sat for dinner, and they talked without a break, without a single awkward pause. Mrs. Ray couldn’t get the kiss out of her mind, but Upen seemed unaffected. He talked again of travel—his recent trip alone to Vietnam. Vietnam. She had just assumed she would never again leave India, but sitting here, listening to him talk, she was no longer so sure. After all, the Jhas, older than her, had just been to New York. Did she have to assume the doors to the world were closed for her?
“There’s so much of the world to see, Reema,” Upen said, and rested his hand against her thigh. “Japan. Have you been to Japan? I want to go there next. For the cherry blossoms.”
“Japan?” Mrs. Ray said. Of course she hadn’t been to Japan.
“And Cambodia. Of course all the usual places like Europe and Brazil and Argentina, but recently I’ve been excited about exploring more of Asia,” Upen said, the tension of his hand increasing and decreasing against her leg. “The world is just so endlessly fascinating.”
She would travel, Mrs. Ray decided. She would start small—maybe take a trip to Jaipur. And she would try to see the world as fascinating, she promised herself.
“What about you?” Upen said. “What’s on your bucket list?”
“Bucket list?”
“You know—list of things to do or see before you die,” Upen said.
“I’ve never heard that term before. Where does it come from?”
“I’m not too sure. I believe ‘kicking the bucket’ used to be a term for dying, but I’m not sure where that came from.”
“I doubt it was Indian. You say ‘kicking the bucket’ and I just think of moving the bucket aside when I’m finished with my bath; I don’t think of death.”
What was on her bucket list? Being in Mayur Palli day in and day out with nothing new was like being dead before dying. This kind of widowhood wasn’t that different from throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. No, she was being dramatic, she told herself. It was the wine. She would give some thought to her bucket list. Right now, the only thing she could think of was that she wanted to kiss Upen again before she died. Mrs. Ray opened another bottle of wine as they sat down to eat.
“What keeps you here?” Upen asked halfway through the meal.
“Here, as in?”
“Here. Delhi, East Delhi. What keeps you here? Why don’t you move?”
“And go where? Start over how? This city, this country, doesn’t make it easy for single women. You know that. It’s changing—the next generation will have it easier, thank God. But where would I go? I don’t know anything else.”
“Come to Chandigarh,” Upen said.
Mrs. Ray laughed. She wiped her hands on the paper napkin and poured the last of the second bottle of wine into Upen’s glass. How had they finished two bottles already? She was going to have a headache in the morning. And, say what you will, a meal without a nonvegetarian dish just didn’t feel like a full meal, so the alcohol was having even more of an effect.
“I’m serious. Come with me. No, more than that. Marry me. Marry me and then come with me to Chandigarh,” Upen said.
“You’ve had too much wine. We both have.”
“That’s probably true,” Upen said.
“Should I put on some coffee?” Mrs. Ray asked.
“But let’s discuss this anyway. Even if it’s because of the wine. Let’s discuss it when we aren’t thinking straight so I can convince you—and myself. Don’t worry, I’m not completely insane. I hear how crazy this idea is. And I’m not sure either, but let’s just talk. And then we can revisit it tomorrow morning over breakfast. With coffee.”
So he was planning to spend the night, Mrs. Ray thought.
“You ask someone to marry you after kissing her just once?” she said, smiling and shaking her head. She stood and picked up both of their plates and walked toward the kitchen. She was still smiling to herself as she dropped the plates into the sink and ran water over them. She stopped for a moment and imagined having a home with him, picking out bedsheets, agreeing on a brand of soap, and deciding which pictures to frame for the wall. She pictured sitting on a balcony and having a glass of wine with dinner and discussing buying brighter bedside lamps so they could read in bed at night together. She imagined offering him dessert every night, not just tonight.
“Would you like—” she was shouting out to the living room when she turned and saw Upen standing in the doorway of the kitchen, bringing her the dishes from the dining table.
“How many times did you kiss your husband before you decided to marry him?” he asked.
“You don’t need to help with the dishes. Just sit. I’ve got some dessert,” she said, taking the bowls from him at the door and edging him back out.
“How many times?”
She smiled at him. “Zero.”
“Exactly,” Upen said, walking back to the dining room. “And you had a perfectly happy marriage. Bring some more wine. I think we have reason to celebrate tonight.”
Mrs. Ray returned to the dining room with another bottle of wine and a bowl of four gulab jamuns.
“Do you prefer your gulab jamuns hot or cold?” she asked.
“Either way, Reema. But what do you think? Should we do it? They say you’re only young once, but you’re also only middle-aged once. We should take advantage. Why leave all the fun, impulsive things to the youth? Look at it this way: at our age…well, you’re younger than me so let’s say at our stage, there’s less left to lose. Everyone else talks about us anyway. Your guard downstairs asked me if I was your accountant.”
Mrs. Ray laughed.
“That may have been my fault,” she said.
“We discussed this—the fact that arranged marriages have worked so well for years and years and years,” Upen said. “What’s the difference here? We know each other better than either of us knew our spouses before we married them. We just no longer have parents to set us up. But that shouldn’t stand in the way of companionship.”