“I did not live until today”, Eric, her fiancé, sang off key in front of the guests at the party. A fan of Les Miz hits, Eric didn’t know that his friends sniggered when he sang but Norah his fanceé did and sometimes joined them. She blinked back tears, when the guests applauded Eric. Her tears were tears of shame having seen the mocking looks of Eric’s friends exchanged with each other but who now so heartily clapped when Eric finished. She didn’t miss the irony but Eric did. Her friend, Melissa, who thought Norah was overcome by emotion, clutched her arm. If only she knew.

Eric joined them after accepting congregations from his friends. A waitress from the catering company passed by with a tray of crystal flutes filled to the brim with Tatinger. Eric grabbed her and she dropped the tray.

“Clumsy bitch. No one taught you how to serve?” he barked, an ugly snarl disfiguring his handsome face.

“Sorry sir, I really am,” the waitress said, barely suppressing her tears, as she wiped the golden liquid that shimmered on her ebony skin.

“Accidents happen, let’s not spoil the fun,” Eric’s father Noah said, adjusting his cummerbund and giving the maid a hand.

“Yeah, like the accident of you, my dad’s best friend, coming out of the motel room with my mom,” Norah thought. She did not miss the furtive exchanges of looks and smiles between Noah and Sharon, when Noah was talking with her dad. The three became friends twenty-five years ago in college. Norah smelt her mother’s favorite fragrance, Poison, on Noah.

Norah wanted to scream but she forced herself to smile. Eric raised her left hand and showed off the diamond engagement ring. The guests applauded. Eric took a bow. “From Tiffany’s,” he said. “Nothing but the best for the best girl in town.”

Her mom joined them. Again the quick exchange of looks between Noah and Sharon that Norah could not help but notice. She felt her skin crawl.

“My! I’m lucky to have such a handsome son-in-law soon,” she told Tom. “Smile more, darling,” she told Norah, “You look as if you’ve bitten into a tart cherry.”

“That dry white,” Norah explained, defending herself from her beautiful mother who was now reliant on Botox. Norah’s friends sometimes told her that she looked more like Eric’s sister than her mother. She doubted whether Eric would have wooed her if not for her mother’s hold over Noah. It also didn’t hurt that Norah would one day inherit the slaughterhouse business owned by her wealthy dad.

Norah looked up at the crystal chandelier hoping to control her nausea. Was this what marriage was, she wondered. The vows, the rehearsal dinner, the church ceremony, the reception at the country club and the honeymoon only to be followed by betrayal, adultery, alimony disputes and hypocrisy. Eric, after all, did have a reputation as a ladies’ man who played the field. Perhaps, his father was a role model.

She recalled the gap year she spent in Dharmasala in one of the ashrams of the Dalai Lama where she painted the Himalayan mountains draped in snow. The people who cooked her simple meals of lentils, greens and rice were poor. They would smile at her with their wrinkled faces that would never experience Botox. But there was a beauty and sincerity in those faces, the colour of cinnamon, that she never did find in Brentwood, although she had looked and looked.

Norah wanted a life of freedom and to truly love and be loved. But in Brentwood, she would never have that and would live in a gilded cage. All the Range Rovers, and the country club dinners, the affairs, and celebrity parties would not fill a void that would be hers.

She liked but did not love Eric, never loved him and pitied him for his insecurities. Eric told Norah a few days ago that he didn’t want children. “Wouldn’t be fair to bring them to our screwed up world.” An only child, Norah missed having siblings and wanted to be a mother of a brood. Raised up to conceal her feelings and be the perfect girl, Norah did not tell Eric that he just ruled out what she most wanted from a marriage. Instead, she told him, “With the planet going to hell, what future do kids have?”

Norah saw her mother and Noah exchange more furtive looks and smiles. She felt the vomit building up in her throat. She rushed away to the toilet and heaved into the toilet bowl. Tears streaming down her face, she looked at the mirror. Instead of daring to ask “Who’s the fairest one of all?” she looked at the sad person staring in front of her. “Who am I? What am I doing here?” were her unspoken queries to the full length mirror.

She wiped herself and returned to the party. Her mother frowned and coming up to her said, “You look like death warmed over. Don’t embarrass your father and me. We have spent a fortune on this party.”

Eric who was next to her laughed and said, “Norah’s not going to make it to the Victoria’s Secret catalog if she doesn’t tart herself up even though she could not match you,” he told her mother. Norah then saw that Eric knew of his father’s affair and was taking joy in this.

Norah laughed, a forced laugh. She pretended to playfully punch Eric on his arm, and, without his noticing, slipped the engagement ring into his coat pocket.

“Going for some fresh air,” Norah told her mother and Eric. Outside, she looked at the glittering stars above and inhaled the intoxicating smell of night jasmine. It reminded her of the breathtaking nights in Dharamshala where no polluting city lights obscured the magnificence of the heavens. But outside her house, an unbearable loneliness was all she felt.


She scrolled through the Lax website on her phone. Finally, she summoned an Uber entering Lax as her destination. She looked back at the festivities but not in regret but in joy. As she tracked the progress of the Uber, she gave a joyful laugh, pumped her fist into the air, twisted the lyrics of Eric’s favourite song and sang as loudly as she could:

“One day more
Tomorrow I’ll be worlds away
And yet without any of you
My world has started.”