You may do with this information what you will. My address is above should you like to write to me, and please know that I would be very happy to hear from you. I never remarried, have had no other children. Your name, I will say in closing, is lovely and appropriate, redolent of more than beauty. Your grandfather raised you indeed as a child of his.

Salaam Alaykum, my dear Tanaya. May peace be with you.

Yours,

Hassan Bhatt

It was all too much. Losing the love of my grandfather, gaining knowledge of my father, letting myself slip into love with the man I had once used as an exit from my life.

During the two days that Tariq was in Pakistan visiting his own nana, I barely left my hotel room. Nilu came to visit a few times, and we had lunch in the hotel café, she still enamored of my ability to sign my name on a piece of paper and have it be charged to a room for which I, and I alone, would ultimately pay.

My aunt Gaura also stopped by, bringing me chunks of goat simmered in tomatoes, coriander, and cilantro, and pliant wheat chapattis-everything kept warm in the confines of a stainless steel tiffin. She said she was concerned about me, thought I might starve, not quite realizing that I had the ability to feed myself.

“How is he?” I asked her during one of her visits.

“Actually, I think a little better. Perhaps seeing you has helped him. I hope you will come back again, now you know that he doesn’t hate you.”

“And Mamma? How is she?”

“Still angry. Still sad. But I suspect it has nothing to do with anything you’ve done. I suspect that, instead, she sees you as the woman she never was.”

I showed her the letter from my father, and the look of astonishment that appeared on her face as she read it mirrored my own.

“We never knew,” she said, putting the pages down when she had finished. “Your mother always made it sound like it was his fault, like it was he who wanted her to get out. She couldn’t tell the truth, even to us.”

Tariq’s plane was touching down close to midnight. I had taken a hotel car and was waiting for him outside the airport.

I saw his handsome head bobbing through the crowds, an overnight bag weighing down his right shoulder, his laptop computer bag in his other hand. He was gazing straight ahead, not expecting me. I buoyed myself for the great welcome, a surprise airport reception for the man I loved. I smoothed down my hair, licked my lips, and made my way to the far end of the railings, where I could almost collide with him. I couldn’t wait for him to scoop me up, a bright beaming smile on his face, maybe twirling me around in his arms like they did in all the Hindi films. I couldn’t wait to smell his aftershave, to feel the strength of his warm hands pressing into my back. I couldn’t wait to start a life with him, away from all this.

He looked at me, and the expression of surprise on his face stayed just the way it was, for a little longer than it should have. There was no bright, shining, “I’m so thrilled to see you” smile. There was no enveloping hug. Just a stony face, quiet and contained.

“Tanaya, what are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, of course. I really missed you.” I caressed his arm with my hand. He moved it away.

“Tariq, what happened? What’s the matter?” Dread was growing in me.

“This is no place to talk,” he said, glancing at the chaos around him. “Come.”

The Sun ’n’ Sand never looked more forlorn. In the dead of night, the palm trees were quiet, the food hawkers, usually parked on the street outside, now long gone.

We made our way back to the pool, attracting looks from the staff at the reception desk and the bellhop. I didn’t care who saw us, or what they thought. Tariq was still silent, as he had been on the ride over, ignoring my impassioned pleas to speak with me, glancing at our car driver as if he were from the FBI and Tariq were an internationally wanted criminal.

We sat down on the same chairs we had used a few nights before, the night we had kissed.

“OK,” Tariq said. He was wringing his hands. “Here’s the thing.”

I drew a sharp intake of breath, promising myself I wouldn’t let it out fully until Tariq had spoken his mind, until whatever lumbered in the ether between us was gone.

“You know, I really think you’re fabulous,” he said, his eyes cast downward on his hands. “You’re gorgeous and sweet and kind. The other night, after what happened between us, I was certain that I was falling in love with you.”

He was looking straight at me.

“But,” he said. The rest of the words tumbled out. I heard them, but couldn’t take them in. He talked for a full five minutes, pressing his hands together, then biting a fingernail, looking up at me and then down at his shoes again. As he talked, I felt my heart breaking. There were tiny fissures at first, deepening into cracks, finally forcing my soul open.

I didn’t move. I didn’t speak.

And when he was done, I realized that I hadn’t properly exhaled yet.

Chapter Thirty-three

This time I was in jeans, a pink cashmere sweater hugging my curves, kitten-heeled mules on my feet. I stared out the window as the plane flew over the Indian Ocean, my ears still blocked from the takeoff, but open enough to hear a baby crying several rows behind me.

Tariq’s grandfather had disapproved.

It was as simple as that. His grandfather, best friends for decades with my own nana, had told Tariq that under no circumstances was he to even consider a future with me. Any type of association, he had dictated, was now completely out of the question. I had been tagged as a “woman of poor reputation,” not just because I had left home against my grandfather’s wishes, but because I had spent the better part of the past year wearing bikinis and plunging-neck dresses in front of cameras held by strange, lustful men.

“It’s not like I don’t understand,” Tariq had said to me the previous night on the deck chair, his voice plaintive, his eyes wishful. “I get who you are, and what all that was about. I know that behind all the show and clothes and makeup, you’re this really simple girl. I’m OK with it. But my nana… he is like your own-of another time, unable to comprehend modern life. He has forbidden me from having anything to do with you. I’m sorry, Tanaya.”

And he had gotten up and walked away, leaving me sitting there, the wide plastic bands of the chair pinching into my thighs.

The first flight back to New York that I could get a seat on was the following evening. Before I left, I went to say good-bye to Nilu, stopping by her house, driving past mine on the way. I turned toward the ground-floor apartment and saw my mother sifting a tray of rice on the balcony, picking out tiny stones and pieces of gravel and tossing them onto the street, her face blank and empty.

Nilu had cried, hugging me tight, knowing that if she ever wanted to see me again she would have to fly to New York.

“I don’t think I can ever come back here,” I said. “Not after everything that’s happened. I can’t spend the rest of my life waiting for them to accept me.”

“I understand,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. “Here, for the plane.” She reached under her mattress and pulled out a copy of Teen Cosmo, the most recent issue, stashed in the same place as when we first looked at them years ago, when I was still innocent.

Felicia was thrilled to see me. She called Stavros and suggested a “get-together,” so they could come up with a “POA”-a Plan of Attack-about what I should be doing next. The next round of shows was about to start, castings soon to begin. A car maker was willing to throw a big chunk of cash my way to film a commercial. There were a few offers for paid appearances at nightclub openings. And Playboy couldn’t wait to talk to me about disrobing for a spread they wanted to call “Behind the Burka.” I blanched at the thought of it, knowing that even I would draw the line at centerfold nudity.