He grappled for words. “You had a fire inside you,” he said at last, “like you weren’t going to let anyone tell you what to do. I liked it.”

Tanvi caught the inside of her lip between her teeth and glanced coyly up at him. “What about now?”

Venkat’s heart palpitated wildly. “Definitely now.”

34

With her breath calming and her sweat cooling, and Venkat gone to find Asha, Tanvi realized she and Nitya were out in the open in a dimly lit parking lot bordered by trees. So many light poles and branches garudas could spring out from. She felt like an exposed rabbit, all twitching nose and terrified heart.

They’d already stayed a lot longer than she’d intended. The point had been to see that Nitya was safe, and so far, she was.

Nothing else was keeping Tanvi there. Right?

She hazarded a glance in Nitya’s direction. Nitya waved her over, and Tanvi strode across the parking lot to her sister’s side.

“There you are,” Nitya said, hooking her arm through Tanvi’s. “This is Chitra. She’s a family friend.”

Chitra. For a second, Tanvi had expected Hitesh and the others to recognize her. To wonder why there were two Nityas again. But of course not. She was glamoured.

Nitya introduced her friends, and their names rolled right off Tanvi. Even Hitesh, who glared at her, wasn’t the same person from her memories. The boy she remembered was a shadow. He’d gotten older. All these people had. They’d grown past her. Some had never even met her. It felt like the hole she’d left when she’d run away had been filled in and built over.

But it wasn’t all terrible. Tanvi could still hear the garba singer’s throaty voice calling out the folksy lyrics, something about “cash today, credit tomorrow.” She could still feel how the beat of the drum had set her blood alight with the need to move. How her body had recalled what to do with her dandiya, how to spin and leap. She’d missed that so much, even if she had forgotten until tonight.

She still had anchors if she wanted them.

Did she?

“Can I talk to you alone?” she asked Nitya, once the conversation had shifted away from her.

“Sure,” Nitya said. She excused herself, and, arms still linked, they wandered to a patch of grassy earth off among the trees. It was so isolated, far from the mandir entrance.

Tanvi wanted to protest, but she didn’t. She’d said she wanted privacy, after all.

“You’re not worried about messing up your clothes?” she asked as Nitya sat down.

“That’s what dry cleaning’s for.” Nitya leaned back on her elbows. “Venkat’s cute, huh?”