A quartet of men surround her and Divya, leaning in under guise of appreciation, corralling the two women in. Divya doesn’t seem to mind, intoxicated by the night and her successes.

Seema grips her by the shoulders. “Divya, chal,” she says, rough and urgent. “Bas, kahin aur chalen.”

“Chal?” Divya struggles to refocus attention on her. Her accent even on that simple word is Americanized. “Where to?”

The men around are nonplussed, eyes darting from one woman to the other and back.

Seema ignores them. “Hum in goray aadmiyon ke khilone nahin.” She’s quoting—or misquoting—some long-forgotten movie dialogue, echoing its outraged intonation accurately. The men boxing them in draw back instinctively, to her satisfaction.

Divya seems unsure how to respond. It’s even unclear if she’s comprehended what Seema means—they’ve never conversed in Hindi or Urdu before. She chuckles tentatively, seeking clarification from Seema, indulgence from the others.

Seema is unrelenting. “Aati ho kya, ya main jaoon?” Divya must leave with her, a victory snatched from these men. Her gaze holds Divya’s, boring into Divya as if to impel her to acquiescence.

Something in her gaze—some entreaty, some promise, some threat—makes Divya drop her eyes and nod yes.

Seema takes her by the hand, flits a quick kiss on her cheek—a first—a reward. “Excuse us, gentlemen,” she says, a triumphant smile further subduing the circling men, “but we have to go.”

She leads Divya out of the circle, who follows her meekly, her previous light-headedness replaced by a nervous tripping across the room. Seema steadies her, conscious of all the eyes in the room on them. She holds on to Divya’s hand while they wait for their coats: trophy, security.

“Seema, what’s going on?” Divya asks, when the elevator doors close, leaving them alone together. Her voice rasps, breaks.

In reply, Seema takes Divya in her arms, tilts her face toward hers in preparation for a kiss. Divya pulls back, pointing to the security camera at the upper right corner, but there’s no mistaking her trembling hand, her shallow breathing, her quivering body.

Seema thrills: between the security camera’s silvered lens and the elevator’s gilded mirror, here too are more reflected visions, like the trick cinematography so beloved of Indian movies. She pulls Divya toward herself, presses her lips to Divya’s ear in a whisper—Pyar kiya toh darna kya?—then plants them on Divya’s lips. Whether Divya recognizes the allusion to Anarkali or not, she sighs, allowing her lips to open, Seema’s tongue to find hers.

She should have dared to kiss Divya upstairs, in the penthouse, in full view of all its entitled men, this same way, if only to suck the air out of that ponderous room.

In the lobby Divya asks, “What now?” She suggests—diffidently still—that she spend the night at Seema’s place, since she’s too drunk to drive back home to the South Bay.

Seema recalls she’d told Divya earlier that Bill had chosen to remain in Reno, to explain why she accepted the invitation to the party. A momentary hesitation, confusion, thinking of Bill waiting at home for her, then she says, “No, let’s get a room nearby.”