Girl Most Likely To

Hoping for an emergency exit nearby, I lost balance and fell into a pile of coats. Prakash collapsed on top of me. The snapping of my left heel was practically expected, but the groping by the coats I landed on was most certainly not. Rolling Prakash off of myself, I struggled to my feet, and sprang into a defensive judo-stance. (Note to self: Stay away from Austin Powers reruns on cable.)

From below the pile of coats, a giggle and a pair of heads emerged. And one of the heads had something to say for itself. “Heeeeeey baby, don’t be like that. There’s always room for one more person at this party.”

I blinked to confirm what I was witnessing: the missing coat check girl grinning over a bare shoulder while straddling the bartender, who raised an eyebrow as soon as he noticed that I wasn’t alone. And I could’ve sworn I heard him add, “Or room for two more, should I say?” as I darted for the door.

With one hand to my forehead, I sprinted across the lobby, slowing only to throw the broken shoe into the trash. Soon enough I tripped on the other one, and crashed into the lobby’s glass doors, badly skinning my knee. Rather than taking the moment to feel sorry for myself, I remembered that Prakash was close behind. I clambered to my feet, threw open the doors and leaped into a waiting taxi, with just enough time to hurl my other heel out the window before the cab driver gunned the gas.

“My parents don’t know that I’m gay,” Prakash yelled at the window as the cab began to pull away.

“I don’t know why he thinks that’s my problem,” I told the cabbie, who grinned and whisked me safely home.

4

“Chica, who has time for a four-hour Sunday brunch and still manages to pay their rent in this town? That’s what I want to know.” Cristina dragged a chair over to our table at Starbucks. She paused to lay her cell phone and her BlackBerry beside my own, and then checked her pulse on a wrist sensor before acknowledging Pamela. “Oh, no offense, Pam.”

Cristina had an obsessive relationship with her physical fitness, but she also had a point. She and I had spent the better part of our Sundays during the last four years hidden in our offices, catching up on work before Monday morning. In our industry, that didn’t make us competitive; it made us competent. And in an effort to burn off some of the resulting stress, Cristina had become a genius at self-defense. She mastered everything from model-mugging (assault scenarios simulated by mock-attackers in padded suits) to Krav Maga (hand-to-hand combat training based on the principles of the Israeli national army). An even more unfortunate habit of hers was using Spanish words and phrases when trying to convince me of something. She was reminding me of that additional camaraderie all ethnic women supposedly shared. It was unforgivably manipulative. Sure, I had thrown in the occasional Schmoopie or Honey when trying to steer a steak-loving boyfriend toward a Thai restaurant (because the variety would make him a better man), or to convince him that rubbing my feet could stave off the effects of carpal tunnel (I swear, I had read that somewhere). But I would never have stooped so low as to use any of these tactics on my girls.

Pam, on the other hand, hailed from a very different school of thought; a school that didn’t bear the burden of rent. Her father—still guilt-ridden over leaving her mother for an au pair twenty years ago—bought her a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side as a college graduation present. The arrangement kept her in clothing that Cristina and I wouldn’t dare buy for ourselves, even though we each earned roughly three times Pamela’s salary. But I guess Pam needed it more than we did; Chanel, Gucci and Polo were standard dress code at Windsors, the devastatingly upper-crust art auction house where she worked for pennies, and the occasional invite to some of the swankiest social events this side of the Riviera. It was a good arrangement for Cristy and myself, too, since some of those invitations trickled down to us. Each event held the promise of champagne and the company of international aristotrash who probably assumed that our presence meant we were royalty ourselves.

“None taken.” Pamela waved the comment away like so many pesky fruit f lies, and then scrunched up her nose and peered suspiciously into the whipped cream covering my Caramel Macchiato. “Is that decaf?”

“Yes. It is.” I stirred the caramel carefully, trying not to risk whipped cream deflation. Then I realized I should probably have resented the judgment in her tone. “So what?”

Despite the god-awful preppy clothing Pamela had seemed to know it all nine years ago, when she strolled into my freshman dorm room. It was day two of the fall semester. She breezed in, made herself comfortable among my unopened boxes, pointed to a literature textbook and asked if I was taking the Friday class with Professor Feineman. I nodded. It was a bad idea, she told me, unless I wanted to miss out on Thursday-night parties just to be awake in time for the only 8:00 a.m. class requiring attendance. As effortlessly as she said it, she lifted a heap of Ramen noodles neatly into her mouth, using chopsticks. Never having seen anyone my own age handle them properly before, I naturally assumed this was a woman from whom I could learn. Time cured me of that misconception, but Pamela’s perspective had narrowed while her opinions had sharpened with age.

“So…you never drink decaf.” Cristina sided with the enemy.

“Yes, I drink decaf.” I scrolled through old messages on my BlackBerry.

“When?” Pam asked, picking imaginary lint off of my shoulder. “When do you drink it?”

“I don’t know…sometimes. Who cares when I drink it? Why does it matter?”

“Hijole…because you’ve been acting weird lately, and we’re worried about you.” Cristina thrust her chin out at me.

“Why?” I asked. “What’s the problem? Maybe I don’t want to get myself all riled up.”

“All riled up…with coffee? Most of your blood has already been replaced by it, Vina. And do you even hear yourself? You sound like you’re about sixty years old.”

“Decaf is not like you, Vina,” Pam interrupted, “any more than letting your parents set you up on a blind date is. And you know that I don’t have anything against you meeting potentially compatible guys. However, we want to talk about what’s really been going on with you. You’ve been frazzled lately.”

Frazzled? I thought. If they had any idea what I had gone through before I arrived at Starbucks that morning, they would consider me incomprehensibly composed.

Three hours earlier, I was feeling even more exposed before a larger and more sympathetic audience. I probably could have been better prepared, but who would’ve guessed that there were so many “Closeted Claustrophobes” in New York City?

“I, umm…my name is Maria,” I had stuttered when thirty pairs of eyes collided upon me. “And I’m a Closeted Claustrophobe. It’s been about eight hours since my last attack.” I cleared my throat, making a mental note to make sure none of these weirdos tried to follow me home.

Admitting that I had a problem was difficult enough. I didn’t see the need to share my name with the motley crew who had gathered in the basement of St. Agnes’ 13th Street Church that Sunday morning. I could just imagine being outed when I bumped into one of these lost souls while strolling through Bergdorf’s with my mother. You wouldn’t have to struggle to fill your time with such silly things if you were married and settled into life, she would explain, before shaking her head at whatever heels I was considering, and strolling off in search of a Talbots.

Emotional problems, according to my parents, were a luxury of the lazy, self-indulgent American. I had learned this early about my parents, and decided around the same time that the best way to maneuver my Indian and American cultural identities would be to keep certain things about myself to myself. I knew that I had overreacted in the coatroom. And I was as sure that I needed help as I was mortified to have finally come looking for it. Twisting in my plastic seat, I cupped the bruise on my knee while committing the Five Cs of the Closeted Claustrophobes to memory: Check for exits, Close your eyes, Count to ten, Calm your nerves, Center yourself.

Delilah, the middle-aged receptionist who spoke before me, teared up twice while describing the torture of her cramped bus ride. Arthur, the elderly man preceding her, explained how his frustration over claustrophobia had resulted in an anger management problem, which was magnified by his Tourettes, and had effectively ended his acting career. Already I was glad that I had come, since I didn’t have it nearly as bad as any of these freaks. Things were going smoothly, especially in comparison to my first attempt at one of these meetings. Three months earlier I stopped short of entering the doorway when I overheard the Rage-aholics director threatening the Claustrophobes director with physical harm unless he surrendered the larger, first-floor room to the Fear of Heights support group, whose director was his ex-wife.

I was wondering how the albino to my left could call himself claustrophobic, given such a determined obliviousness to my right of personal space, when I saw a familiar figure coming through the door. It was my cousin, Neha.

“The government stole my shoes!” Arthur announced without warning, startling everyone, including himself.

I was halfway to the Starbucks before my seat had probably gone cold.

“He’s gay?” Cristina blurted out, nearly choking on her drink. “Wow…I knew your parents were a little out of touch with what you’re looking for in a man, but that’s ridiculous!”

“Obviously they didn’t know he was gay.” I spoke up to dismiss the uninvited pity rushing at me from our neighbors.

“Do his parents know?” Pam leaned in and whispered, as if the topic were a ref lection on her.

“Of course not.”

“Que locura,” Cristina decided. “That’s pretty twisted. So much for counting on those underground, Indian-network background checks.”

“There is nothing underground about the Indian network,” I tried to explain. “And it has nothing to do with the background check, anyway. As far as the background check went, everything was perfect. Generally, Indian parents don’t consider, or even think about, their children’s sexualities or sexual preferences. Some things are just assumed.”

“Seriously.” Pam shook her head at Cristy, ignoring me entirely. “You said he was thirty, right? Talk about living in denial.”

Was she referring to Prakash’s parents or to him? In a way, I felt bad for the guy; I could relate. Our parents grew up in a culture that rejected the concepts of premarital sex and romance. Non-arranged marriages occurred so infrequently among their generation that they were referred to as “love marriages.” Like most first-generation Indian-Americans, I had come to accept that my parents could never acknowledge my premarital sexuality any more than Prakash’s parents could comprehend his homosexuality.

My theories on the value of self-discovery through romantic misadventure were lost on mom and dad, so I kept my mouth shut about my relationships, especially the fifty percent that involved non-Indian boys. And somewhere around age fifteen I decided to take the same stance on my claustrophobia.

“Look, I’m not pissed off that he’s gay.” I concentrated on my empty cup. “I’m pissed off that he led me on.”

“What a tease.” Cristina grinned.

“Basically,” I said, sitting up straighter. “But it doesn’t matter. Prakash was only a blip on my radar. An irrelevant data point. My plan holds.”

Two blank pairs of eyes stared back at me.

“Oh, God. Are you still talking about that ‘thirty months until thirty’ garbage?” Cristina practically yelled.

“First of all, it’s not garbage. Ignoring my biological clock won’t make it go away. And I’m finished wasting time. I have to be honest with myself.” I raised my chin toward Pamela. “And I know you can at least understand where I’m coming from.”

To Pamela, thirty and alone was roughly translated as homeless and afflicted with a disfiguring, terminal, sexually transmitted disease. She had been engaged-to-be-engaged with William, a Harvard-educated lawyer of the lightly pin-striped variety, since the beginning of time; or at least since the beginning of college, when she woke up in his bed on the morning after the Head of the Charles regatta. Although it never occurred to her to question his claim that his parents’ divorce made him maritally gun-shy, I was sure that it also never occurred to her that there was anything wrong with treating the search for a mate like the search for an apartment. A good deal was a good deal, period. And the potential for long-term appreciation far outweighed momentary attractiveness.

“You’re right, Vina. I do understand where you’re coming from. And I do not want to see you single at thirty.” She eyed me like a child who had lodged a marble up her own nose. “I also agree with you that we should all be honest with ourselves. So let’s be honest…let’s talk about what this is really about. Jon.”

5

I once broke up with a man for asking if I spoke “Indian.” He wasn’t kidding, so I asked him with a straight face if he spoke “White.” He didn’t get it. That was my cue to leave. On the other end of the spectrum, I once dated an Englishman who had me groping desperately for my can of mace the moment I entered his apartment. He had collected more Indian paraphernalia than was probably ever assembled outside the Subcontinent by anyone who was not, in fact, Indian. He acted completely nonchalant when he struck up a conversation at the bar, made no mention of his fascination with the country, yet he had filled his apartment with everything from statues of Ganesha to an old-fashioned Jhoola chair to wall-hangings depicting village women dancing while balancing water pots on top of their heads.

He offered me some chai without even a hint of irony, and that was when I decided I wasn’t sticking around to hear his Hannibal impersonation. Perhaps he was a perfectly normal guy, and perhaps he merely liked the Indian designs. (And perhaps I’m actually a natural blonde.) Though if that were true, he should have told me before we got to his place. Surprises are not acceptable in New York City. And as all interracial daters already know, or will soon find out, Ethnic Fetishizers cannot be trusted. I cannot tell you whether or not he knew that Bollywood wasn’t an alternative to Sandal, or if there was a shrine to Indian women in his bedroom. What I can tell you is that I was out of there faster than you can say Samosa.