I’m lesbian, she’s not, and that’s that, she sighed regretfully. “Hold your hair up out of the way,” she ordered, and as Allison lifted up the mass of golden curls, she draped the necklace around her neck, the ends meeting in a faint click as the clasp took hold. “There,” she said, drawing her to her feet so they could look in the vanity’s mirror. “What do you think?”
“My God.” Allison fingered the necklace. The golden triangle lay heavy against her skin, the final disc a scant inch above the uppermost curves of her breasts. It seemed to point like an arrow down her body, thick with erotic possibility. “I look like a queen in an old movie. Like Cleopatra or someone. Thank you, Shannie!” Her lovely face clouded. “Are you sure your mom won’t mind? This necklace…it has to be worth hundreds of dollars. Maybe more.”
“Definitely more,” she said. “God, the worth of the gold alone would floor you. But I’m sure. Mom loves you like the daughter she never had. Just as long as we get it back after the honeymoon. And it’s mine, anyway. I can give it to anyone I want.”
Like my heart.
Her friend hugged her, and she savored the small moment of intimacy, over too soon as always. “Awesome! Now let’s find something Jenny and Tara and Wendy can use! And you, too!” She carefully took off the necklace and laid it on the vanity.
“I should clean this,” Shanaya said, leaning down. She looked closely at it. Dust lay heavy within the grooves of the sunburst pattern stamped on the discs, robbing them of some of their sheen. “Mom has a jewelry-cleaning kit, I think. I’ll take care of it over the next couple of days and bring it to the bridal shop when we go in for the last fitting for all of our dresses.”
“Cool.” Allison poked through the box, and held up a copper bracelet. “Look at this! Don’t you think this would go great with Tara’s hair? She’s always complaining that redheads get screwed when it comes to fashion,” she giggled.
Allison did stay for dinner, much to her mother’s delight. Her father was busy with a big project at the office, so it was just the three of them at the dinner table. Her mother asked Allison all sorts of questions about the wedding, now less than a month away, which she was more than happy to answer.
“I’m really glad I can count on Shanaya, Mrs. Singh,” she said at the end of a long, detailed answer about the flower arrangements. “Her and Mom. Brad isn’t interested in that sort of thing at all. He just tells me it’s my job to take care of that stuff.” A faint frown marred her lovely features. “You’d think that since it’s his wedding, too, he might get involved.”
“There, there,” her mother said, with a knowing smile. “Most men are all the same. When it comes to weddings, they think their only job is to show up on time and say, ‘I do.’ Is Brad going to have a bachelor party? I know that’s a big thing here in America, but somehow Shanaya’s father seemed to manage without one.”
“Where are they going, Allie?” she asked. “Vegas?”
Her friend shook her head. “Cabo. Apparently Brad and his frat buddies had some pretty good times down there when he was at school over at WKU.”
Shanaya kept her mouth shut, though her mother raised her eyebrows. For the life of her, she couldn’t explain why Allison had chosen to hitch her wagon to a man who had dropped out of college halfway through his sophomore year, and was now working in his father’s restaurant. Brad’s official title was manager, but from what Shanaya could see, he spent most of his free time cadging free drinks and hitting on the waitresses, despite the fact that he was engaged.
Or maybe, she thought bleakly, as her best friend chatted amiably with her mother, she did. Personally, she found Brad about as sexually appealing as a billy goat. But she had seen more than one woman sighing over his impressive physique. Brad was nearly six feet tall, with dark blond hair and eyes that could switch between green and blue, depending on the light and his mood. Three years older than Allison and herself, he had been a football star in high school, and had actually made the football team at WKU as a walk-on, but some undisclosed conflict with the coaching staff had made him leave the team before his freshman season was half-done.
The coaches probably wanted him to cut down on the booze and the dope, she thought spitefully, poking at her salad. Just the thought of Brad pawing at Allison’s exquisite body made her feel low and mean-spirited. I wonder if he’s going to stop chasing everything in a skirt, just because he’s married.
Their children will be pretty, though. She sighed. And I will be ‘Aunt Shannie,’ the old maid who never married, so sad, you would think a girl as smart as her would be able to find a man. “Huh?”
“Don’t grunt, Shanaya,” her mother smiled. “That’s a privilege of adults.”
“I’m twenty-one,” she said. “And in less than a year I’ll be out of college and out of your hair.”
“Glory be,” her mother said, winking at Allison while her friend giggled and Shanaya bristled. “Relax, Porcupine,” she added, patting her hand. “I was asking what you two were doing upstairs all afternoon.”
“We were looking at some jewelry that used to belong to Grandma for the wedding,” she answered. “Is it okay if Allison wears the old necklace? You know. The big gold one with the disks?” Her hands traced the shape in the air.
“That one?” Maryam shrugged. “Sure. As long as you don’t mind the curse that’s on it.”
“Curse?” Allison sat straight up in her chair. “What curse?”
“Oh.” Her mother waved a dismissive hand. “It’s probably nothing to worry about. But it’s a bridal piece, you know.”
“Is it?”
Maryam nodded solemnly. Shanaya sat back, seeing the evil gleam in her mother’s eyes. “Yes. It’s very old. Goes back to before the British took over most of India.” Her voice lowered. “And there’s a curse on it. But I’m sure, good sweet Christian girl that you are, that you won’t need to worry about it. On the back of each disk, there is a letter stamped into the very gold itself, written in ancient script. If a woman should wear it on her wedding day, and not be pure, in body as well in spirit…” Her voice lowered further, until Allison was leaning forward, her eyes wide. “Kali herself will appear to drag her down to hell!”
By this time, Shanaya was biting her hand to hold in the muffled snorts of laughter. Allison looked back and forth between them, finally getting the joke. “You big liar! I’m…I’m going to tell Mr. Singh on you!”
“Tell me what?” her father asked, appearing in the doorway as if by magic.
“She…her…” Allison spluttered, while Shanaya and her mother collapsed into hysterical giggles. “They’re telling me the most awful lies about how her mother’s jewelry has a curse on it!”
“Well,” her father said, loosening his collar with a sigh of relief, “knowing my mother-in-law, that’s not completely out of the question.” He kissed Allison’s cheek, then Shanaya’s, pausing for a more thorough kiss from his wife.
She slapped his arm. “Stop it! She was always very nice to you! It was my father who thought that you were a useless dilletante. ‘What sort of man,'” she intoned in a deep, forbidding voice, “‘only has one college degree? Maryam, I forbid you to wed that wastrel!'”