Page 23

“Remember, Deens, how I mentioned you just had to come with me to visit Deepak and Hassan tomorrow afternoon?” Arshad said. “You promised them a visit.”

She had done no such thing, but Arshad seemed intent, and she wasn’t sure what he would say in front of Lucky. She nodded, a small tilt of her head, and Arshad turned to Lucky with a big smile.

“You’re free too, right, Lucky?” he asked.

Lucky seemed to hesitate, gaze lingering on Dina. “I suppose so,” he said.

Arshad clapped his hands together as if the matter were decided. “Amazing. I’ll text Deepak and let him know. Now, let’s get inside. Dina and I have a little surprise for everyone. You won’t want to miss this, Lucky—I know how much you love to sit back and watch things unfold.” With this strange comment, Arshad returned to the restaurant.

Dina ducked her head and followed Arshad inside, not realizing her Post-it Note slipped out of her pocket. Reaching down, Lucky picked it up.

The familiar strains of “Dola Re Dola,” from the 2002 blockbuster movie Devdas blared from the speakers, and instantly the crowd gathered around the dance floor in the middle of the restaurant started to cheer. The A girls, dressed in matching green lenghas, their hair and hijabs ornamented with sprays of fake jasmine flowers, their wrists and necks adorned with elaborate costume jewelry fit for a Mughal princess, converged on the center of the dance floor from its four corners and launched into a precisely choreographed number, clearly the result of many, many hours of practice.

Watching them from her seat at the very edge of the dance floor, Dina felt nauseated. Sensing her friend’s unease, Lisa leaned over. “Kind of a basic song choice. Like, even I know this song. The early aughts called—they want you to expand your palate.”

“Hania told me she was going for old-school Bollywood glamour,” Dina said through frozen lips. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

The A girls were jumping in unison now, fierce smiles fixed on their faces. No doubt they were thinking of the thousands of social media followers watching their performance from all over the world and also likely responding in real time. She spotted Ambreen, wearing a complicated-looking camera harness that resembled a steering wheel, capturing every flourish and elegant dance move, and tried to calm her breathing.

“Arshad is just trying to push your buttons,” Lisa whispered to Dina. “I say call his bluff. Refuse to participate.”

“And risk having him grab the microphone and reveal the truth about our divorce in front of everyone? You know he’s capable of anything,” Dina hissed back, keeping her voice low so they wouldn’t be overheard. She shouldn’t have bothered; the music was so loud, she could have yelled at Lisa and no one would have been the wiser.

“That man is the definition of chaotic evil,” Lisa said. “I could stab him on his way to the dance floor, stop him in his tracks?”

Dina shook her head. She couldn’t feel her hands. That wasn’t a good sign, surely? Come to think of it, she couldn’t feel her face, either. She put a hand to her cheek and realized she was grinding her teeth so hard, her jaw had locked. She rubbed her chin, trying to get the feeling back. “How long does a dance last? Three minutes, four tops. I’ll just get up there and . . . sway to the beat. It will be fine.”

Before Lisa could respond, Arshad, who was also the master of ceremonies, took up the microphone. Hania’s friends were crouched on the ground after their big finish, their faces flushed after their stunning performance. “Wow, that will be a hard act to follow!” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be next.” He pretended to consult a piece of paper in front of him. “Then again, I do love a challenge. My beautiful wife Dina and I have something special prepared to celebrate Hania and Samir’s big day! Something we’ve been working on for months. Dina, honey, won’t you join me onstage?” His smile was wicked, and Dina wondered if it was too late to ask Lisa to initiate her stabbing plan. She walked toward her ex-husband slowly, death and destruction in her eyes. When she reached his side, Arshad leaned close to Dina and whispered: “On second thought, I think I’ll sit this one out. Have fun.” He gave her a gentle push to the middle of the dance floor. She whirled around to stare at him, which was when he suddenly started to limp, rolling his eyes in pain and stumbling. He waved off any help. “Sorry, everyone, I seem to have turned my ankle. Dina will just have to go on without me.”

He shooed Dina toward the center of the stage just as the opening chords of the 1993 banger “Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai,” with its distinct notes performed on tabla and harmonium, blasted through the sound system.

Dina’s eyes widened in panic, and the crowd tittered at the famous song’s cheeky chorus, which translated to “What’s under your blouse? (My heart).” Dina scanned the eager, expectant faces in the crowd and spotted Ambreen, camera pointed directly at her. She met Arshad’s mocking smile from the periphery of the crowd and realized she had underestimated her ex-husband. He was intent on humiliating her, and he was about to succeed. As the chorus started, Dina stood rooted to the spot.

Lucky’s hand clutched the Post-it Note that had fallen out of Dina’s pocket, and he read it again, brow furrowed: Lucky can’t hurt you again. What could it mean? He looked around the crowd, then up to the stage, where Dina stood frozen, a frightened animal unable to move. His gaze moved to Arshad, seated on the sidelines, staring at his wife with a cruel expression on his face. In a sudden flash of understanding, he realized that, for whatever reason, Dina’s husband had planned this spectacle. What he couldn’t understand was how the rest of the crowd, consisting of Dina’s family and friends, could just sit there, doing nothing. Was he the only one who recognized the look of terror on Dina’s face?

Lucky knew that Dina hated public exposure of all kinds. He remembered listening with great amusement to her story of that ill-fated third-grade holiday concert. Arshad knew the story too; he had laughed along when she had shared her embarrassment. Lucky didn’t know if this was some sort of practical joke, but Dina clearly wanted no part in it.

Without thinking, he reached for his niece Nisa, who was seated beside him at their table, and strode toward the dance floor with her in his arms, fuzzy on what, exactly, he meant to do once he got there. When he joined her on the makeshift dance floor, he wasn’t sure who was more astonished—Dina, him, or Arshad.

Lucky was no dancer, but one thing he had learned since his niece had been born was that no one paid any attention to you if you were holding an adorable preschooler in your arms. Sure enough, the moment he eased beside Dina, the audience’s attention moved to his niece, just as he had intended. It helped that Nisa was moving to the beat and dressed in a mini lengha outfit, a tika ornament on her forehead, her hair in wispy ringlets around her face. A scattering of “awws” ran through the audience.

“What are you doing?” Dina hissed. Her breath was warm and tickled his ear. She sounded annoyed.

“Trying to help you,” he said. “Follow my lead.” And then Lucky unleashed his limited catalog of desi dance moves: hopping from one foot to the other, pretending to screw in a light bulb, shimmying his shoulders, and attempting some bhangra moves Deepak had taught him long ago.

Dina was no slouch; she caught on and mimicked his moves, Nisa following along with a delighted expression, and then they were holding hands and dancing in a circle, laughing when they stumbled, the crowd clapping along to the beat. Even Hania seemed pleased at the unorthodox turn the dance had taken.

As if realizing that she was holding Lucky’s hand, Dina let go before turning to the A girls and pulling one of them onto the dance floor. Lucky followed her lead, pulling Saleem and Jiya onto the floor too, and within a few minutes, more than two dozen people were doing their best imitation of Madhuri Dixit’s legendary dance moves to “Choli Ke Peeche,” all laughing and having fun.

When Lucky caught a glimpse of Arshad in the crowd, his former friend looked like he had taken a massive bite out of a bitter melon, which pleased him. As for Dina, she looked like she was having fun, shoulder bumping with the A girls, her lithe body shimmying to the music. When he caught her eye, she mouthed, Thank you. He ducked his head, cheeks flushing, and reached down to swing a delighted Nisa up into the air.

Chapter Twelve

The next afternoon Dina was expected at her parents’ large suburban home near Lake Ontario in Mississauga after lunch for the unveiling of her sister’s jahez, the trousseau she had been collecting since her engagement. The custom of showing off a bride’s jahez to family and friends made Dina feel secondhand embarrassment, but she knew Hania would harass her until she showed up, or worse—send one of the A girls to her house. She couldn’t be held responsible for her actions if Faiza sauntered up her driveway.

After she settled onto one of the oversize chairs her mother had arranged around her family room, Dina realized her presence had been required to inflate numbers, rather than for any meaningful role in the ongoing melodrama that was Hania’s search for content. She waved at Ambreen, who had set up both a stationary and mobile camera, and settled in to enjoy the show. If she was being honest with herself, Dina was glad to get out of the house today. Whatever her sister had planned beat sitting in her quiet house, wondering what the hell was going on between her and Lucky.

The mehndi last night had been . . . strange. Her entire life had flashed in front of her eyes when Arshad pushed her onto the dance floor. Then suddenly, Lucky Latif, cosplaying knight-errant, had saved her from complete public humiliation. Judging by the sour look on Arshad’s face, he had been just as surprised as she had been by this turn of events.