Fairy Dust and Jazz

twenty seven

Chapter twenty seven

Don’t You Worry Child

‘There was a time

I met a girl of a

different kind.’

The entire day was spent with my running around with customers going in and coming out. Sama’s father had been kind enough to ask me to join him, which was when the questions started.

“How do you know Sama?”

“Where did you live before?”

“Did you always own the resort?”

“Are you married?”

I looked at Sama when the last question was fired at me, suddenly acutely aware of exactly why Sama was getting a divorce. Her mother was angry, unhappy. Her father was crude, yet practical and easy.

“I met Sama here, the last time you all came down for a vacation. I live here now, but travel back and forth between here and Bangalore. My mother owned it before Patrick did, but now it’s mine,” I looked around the restaurant, at the dais, at the spotlight and bar stool on it as I answered the last question. “I’ve never been married.”

They calmed considerably after this, and my attention was diverted to Sama’s sisters. Sakshi wasn’t as loud and boisterous and before and Siri was growing into quite the intellectually aware lady. She spoke about everything, from politics to business, and I wondered why Sakshi was such a recluse.

“Where’s Renee?” I asked her when I got her alone at the buffet line.

“With her girlfriend, I guess.”

“Oh.” I suddenly understood. “You... miss her?”

“Not in some lesbian way, but yes,” she looked at me uncertainly. “I guess I do.”

I smiled at her, trying my best to sound like I was in charge. “I think they have a game’s room downstairs.”

“They do?”

Happy that that pleased her, I nodded. “Take Sama and Siri. Your father will love it.” I winked. With that disoriented look in her eye, her smile not so happy, but better than before, she finally reminded me of the sister who’d hit on me three years ago.

I finally got her parents alone as they went to their room. Right after lunch with the sun just right, I shook hands with Sama’s father for the second time before getting right to it.

“I’d like to marry your daughter.”

Her father stopped in his tracks before her mother looked at me like I’d lost a screw. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask her but I thought I should run it by you. And before you ask,” my hands come to hang abruptly in the air as I list off. “I make a decent living, through the resort and my club back in Bangalore, where I’ve even bought my own house. I’m drug free, I don’t indulge in anything illegal and I will take care of Sama forever. I just... I’d like her hand and I’d like your blessing.”

They exchanged glances before her mother spoke, completely ignoring my little rant. “Are you the boy Sama was dating in college?”

Unless Sama had been dating someone else, which I highly doubted, then I was the boy, yes. I nodded instead of saying anything else.

“And Sama agrees with you? Does she want to marry you?” Her mother grilled on.

“I don’t know, ma’am. I should probably ask her if she’s even thought about it. We haven’t exactly been in touch.”