“I do more than one damn thing for it,” he said when he shouldn’t have. There was a time and place for everything, and this was not the time for this conversation. “I’m sorry about what Mehta did.”

She burst into laughter. And went on laughing until her breath caught and people started to turn and stare. Then she gagged and jumped off the bar stool on unsteady feet. “Shit. I’m going to be sick.”

He helped her to the bathroom.

If there was an outfit that was not designed to throw up in, it was the ghagra choli. Vansh held back her dupatta, which was so heavy with beadwork it kept falling forward as she heaved and spurted into the commode. Hair came loose from her braid and he pushed it off her face. Tears streamed from her eyes. She brought up her guts one painful retch after another after another.

Finally, when there couldn’t possibly have been anything more left inside her, she took a tentative breath and sat back on the floor of the bathroom stall.

He sat down across from her and flushed away the vomit, but the acrid stench still hung in the air. She watched him with wet, exhausted eyes. Liner and mascara and whatever else women used to make their eyes look this lovely were smudged into black streaks like the mask of Zorro.

Her nose ran and her hair had come completely askew. Raising his hand over his head, he pulled toilet paper out of the roll. Then, throwing away the ends, he handed it to her.

It took her a few moments to lift her arms and take the offering. She blew her nose and wiped her face. The sadness in her eyes made something scrape like nails inside his chest. Every bit of drunken recklessness was gone from her. She looked empty.

“Can you stand?” he asked, and she squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. But she didn’t move, so he stood and took her hand and pulled her up.

She stood on shaking legs and leaned on him, and the nails inside him sharpened. Having known her his whole life, he knew how hard this was for her. This loss of control. Without a single shred of doubt, he knew that no one had seen her like this, ever.

On the floor next to the commode was a pink and silver purse, one of those sleek little things that looked like a silk-bound diary. It was splattered with throw-up. She looked at it and a bitter laugh escaped her. “Fabulous.”