Take One Arranged Marriage… by Shoma Narayanan Page A

improve. You could buy me that two-wheeler, for example.’
    ‘Two-wheelers are dangerous,’ he said gently. ‘I need to ring off now, sweetheart. It’s really late here.’
    ‘Goodnight,’ Tara said. ‘Dream of me tonight.’
    ‘I will,’ he said, his voice soft and almost tender.
    Tara put the phone down, feeling very mixed-up. Her heart had gone out to Vikram when he was talking about his parents, but she wasn’t sure about the Anjali bit. He’d said that he’d been negligent and callous with her, but it didn’t sound as if he planned to change his ways. And he’d said that ‘practical and sensible’ was a compliment. For a few seconds she’d felt quite unreasonably annoyed, and not sensible in the least.
    But then he’d called her ‘sweetheart’, and her defences had melted immediately. He wasn’t given to using endearments—not even in bed—so surely it meant something? Or perhaps it had just slipped out unconsciously because he was feeling fond of her for beingso ‘sensible and practical’ as compared to his ‘high-maintenance’ ex? It was all very confusing, and the feeling that she was slowly but irrevocably falling in love with her husband didn’t help.
    Sighing, she got up to get her dinner. Marriage was turning out to be a lot more complicated than she’d anticipated.
    Vikram got back into Bengaluru only a few hours before the party, with just enough time to get home, shower and change. Tara had got ready early, and was typing away at an article she was writing for a scientific journal. Vikram paused at the door of her study to look at her. She was wearing one of the outfits the personal shopper had chosen for her: a silvery-grey cocktail dress that stopped just short of her knees. Her hair was done up in some kind of complicated pleat, with a few stray strands escaping around her temples, and she looked heartbreakingly lovely. A frown tugged at her forehead as she stopped typing and pored over one of her reference books, chewing her pencil thoughtfully as she read.
    Vikram toyed briefly with the idea of taking Tara upstairs, slowly sliding the dress off her, undoing the clips that held up her hair sothat it flowed over her naked shoulders … It was an overwhelmingly tempting thought, but he was late already and he couldn’t afford to miss the party.
    He cleared his throat, and Tara looked around.
    ‘Oh, are we ready to leave?’ she asked, getting to her feet and shutting the laptop.
    She leaned on him briefly as she slid on her peeptoe heels, and Vikram’s resolve almost slipped again. He opened the door and stepped out, taking a few quick breaths of the cold air before Tara joined him and they got into the car.
    Vikram’s confidence in Tara was justified. She was a hit with everyone at the party.
    ‘Lovely wife you have,’ said Justin D’Souza, one of the founding partners of the firm to Vikram in an undertone. ‘Manages to get along with women as well as she does with men, and that’s not an easy thing for a girl that good-looking.’
    Vikram smiled. ‘She’s quite something,’ he said, his eyes following Tara as she moved towards them.
    ‘Done you a deal of good, too, I’d say,’ Justin said bluntly. ‘You work too hard. You alwayshave. And for the last two years you’ve practically lived in the office.’
    Tara had come up to them, and she caught the last part of the sentence.
    Justin beckoned to her. ‘You need to get this young man here to take things easy,’ he said. ‘You’re newlyweds. Take a vacation. Enjoy life. Before you know it you’ll be old like us and worrying about your kids and your blood pressure.’
    Tara laughed, but Justin had made her wonder. All this while she’d thought Vikram worked so hard because he had to, but now it sounded as if he had a choice.
    Justin’s wife Sharon, a maternal-looking Goan woman in her early forties, began to tell Tara about how her kids were pestering her to get them a pet. ‘I’d have agreed, but I know