‘We have majors. Mine were Narrative Theory and pre-law.’ Suddenly, she perked up. ‘You’re a lawyer?’

Jesus.

‘No, I’m just qualified to go to law school if I choose to do so. I took courses that are like prep for the LSAT. Liberal Arts stuff.’

I had lost her attention midway through the sentences, but for some perverse, panicked reason, felt the need to reclaim it. ‘But I did study the law a little, yes.’

‘Accha, so tell me something. How long do I have to stay married to Jigar?’

‘Huh?’

‘How long?’

‘What?’

‘Arre, how long till he owes me half the money?’

‘What—Nits, what? What are you—why are you marrying this guy?’

‘I have to, baby. I’m almost twenty-seven, na.’

I voiced incredulousness to her sister.

‘We all hope for a happy marriage, Taru. But girls have to be careful.’

‘Neha, it’s unethical in the extreme, what she’s doing!’

‘Just be happy for your sister, okay.’

She isn’t my sister. She is my mother’s brother’s second-eldest daughter, but I call her my sister. Because we do that in India. We do that especially in Delhi. Falsely inflate the value of relationships, ascribe love to predetermined bonds. We do this because blood is important; we wear its stains like a badge. We take pride in the good and consider it our benevolent duty as kin to fix the bad.

Me, I was as bad as they came. I looked all wrong. Wore combat boots and ripped shirts with Marley or Cobain on them. Read too much and couldn’t tell a tube of mascara from a marker pen. I talked about the wrong things and didn’t know how to flirt without making it obvious that I was doing it, without putting sex on the table. That, I found out, is the key trick for survival in south Delhi. Tricking the boys into wanting you, making a career out of denying your body so that his can be addled into marrying you before he even realizes what’s happened.

Not that he minds, of course. Ownership has its own rush.

I spent a while acclimatizing, registering but not comprehending, bombarded by words that didn’t quite make sense in relation to each other, until they did.

‘Baby, what’s happened to your skin? Why’ve you become so tanned?’