***
When they’d stayed at the lake a good long while, Nadya was feeling centered and strong. She felt better than she had in a long time. She could see now, looking back, that she spent too much time in her life worrying, without even noticing it. There was always a bill that was coming up, or a shift at her main restaurant that conflicted with her side gig. And looming over everything was her parents’ disappointment, and her conflict with her sister, and the lingering question of what she wanted to do with her life.
The dinner with Salman had calmed those thoughts, and this moment here, by the lake with him, banished them completely.
When they grew hungry again, they agreed it was time to head back to the house for lunch. Nadya hated putting her sandals back on, and Salman noticed.
“Do they hurt?” he asked her.
It should have been an easy answer, but Nadya found it hard to say. “It’s fine,” she said, forcing her feet into them.
They began the walk back. There was still no clear way through, to Nadya, and she had to laugh when she remembered thinking for a moment he’d abandoned her. She would have been lost.
Her dress was mostly dry, but it felt stiff and uncomfortable, and her feet were growing more and more unhappy in her shoes. She could feel the peace she’d gained from the swim growing further and further away.
She didn’t think Salman noticed, but about halfway through, she felt him lifting her.
“Wait!” she cried out, but he didn’t. “I’m fine,” she said again.
“If you say so.” He didn’t argue. He just kept walking, and didn’t set her down.
She could squirm. She could make it harder for him. But being carried was a godsend, and she didn’t want to go back to walking.
He set her down when they were about to emerge from the forest into view of the house, and they went back inside together.
Lunch was already laid out for them in the main dining room. It seemed different than Salman’s normal style. It was grand, sure, but it was a different kind of grand. It was more obvious. Less interesting.
“It’s not really for me,” he spoke as though reading her mind.
“There’s a smaller, family dining room. This is really just for large occasions. And if there’s going to be large occasions, it’s more for other people, isn’t it?”
Nadya looked around. There was original art on the walls. She didn’t recognize the pieces, but it was obvious enough that they weren’t reproductions.
“You must be planning some pretty big occasions,” she said, forgetting herself.
“Well,” he said, “with the way our families are…”
Nadya had to stifle the impulse to tell him that her family wouldn’t mind. They’d be happy with anything. Her sister’s wedding hadn’t originally been planned to be a particularly grand affair. Not, that was, until her husband-to-be’s family had somehow gotten a hold of the organization, and everything had changed.
The thought of it called back up into her mind her sister’s anniversary party. Her heart sank. It would be the day after tomorrow; they’d be celebrating, all together. Nadya knew, with sudden clarity, that she would have to be there.
She hadn’t been sold until that moment. She’d accepted the ticket, begrudgingly, but she hadn’t wanted to be a part of anything, really. Seeing the way that Salman cared about his family, though, she felt like it would be a shame if she didn’t. At least, she felt like she would be ashamed of herself, in his view.
They sat down to eat, and despite being not entirely comfortable in her surroundings, Nadya couldn’t help but admit that the meal was delicious.
“You must employ mind readers,” she said to him. “They always seem to know just what I want to eat.”
“Or maybe you’re just predictable.”
He winked, and she reached across the table and hit him playfully. “Oh, no. Never that.”
When they’d finished, and their plates had been seamlessly whisked away by servants who appeared from nowhere just, Salman finally took her on a tour of the house.
She had her shoes off, so they wouldn’t get blistered, and he found some clothes for her so that she could change out of the dress. It was a sweatshirt and sweatpants. It felt like she was wearing pajamas, though Salman said she looked cute. All in all, it made her feel like she was walking around her own home, even though she was seeing it all for the first time.
Comfortable. She kept coming back to that. She just felt comfortable. It felt right.
The master suite was peaceful. Nadya wanted to jump onto the bed. It was huge, and couldn’t possibly be anything but incredibly soft.
The rugs throughout the house were all gorgeous, but she especially liked the pattern of the one in the bedroom. She asked Salman where he got it, but he shrugged.
“It’s been in my family for a long time. It probably ought to be in a museum, really. But I think it looks nice here. Don’t you?”
It was the understatement of the year.
They went to the entertainment suite. The movie theater was bigger than Nadya had expected, and more comfortable. For some reason, she’d expected banks of standard movie theater chairs, all draped in appalling fabric. But it was all comfortable couches – loveseats, mostly – arranged on rising platforms so that everyone would get a good view; all of the seats faced a huge screen with subtle signs of a sophisticated sound system scattered around.
“Would you like to watch something?” he asked her.
At first she shook her head. They had to be going, didn’t they? But then, she figured, they had all the time in the world. They might as well.
Salman chose the movie, and to her surprise it was a fairly romantic one. She’d never heard of it, but there was some fighting, and some scheming, and at the climax, the heroine was somehow dangling from a cliff, with only the thin hope that the hero would save her in time keeping her alive.
“I hate it when they do that,” Nadya whispered.
They were alone, and it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t have bothered anyone if she’d spoken more loudly. But Salman sat with his arm draped around her, and she didn’t need to speak any louder than a whisper to be heard.
“What?” he asked.
“When she’d been good all movie, but now she needs him to come save her, now, at the end.”
She could feel his head turning slightly so that he could look at her, but she didn’t turn to look back at him.
“She saved him earlier, remember?”
Of course, the hero got to her in time. He pulled her up. They fought the bad guys together, and then rode off into the sunset. Or, rather, drove off into the sunset in a Lamborghini they’d stolen from the baddies in the course of their adventures that no one was now going to be alive to claim.
The lights came up automatically, and they untangled themselves from each other and the couch. They went to the music room, where Salman played a little bit on the piano.
“I’m not nearly as good as my sister,” he said apologetically, though Nadya told him honestly that he seemed pretty good to her. They looked at the “listening room” which turned out to just be a cozy little room with excellent speakers, linked up to the recording studio so that it would be easy to preview mixes, then headed through to look at the library.
“Is that everything you have to show me?” Nadya asked when she’d taken in his somewhat eclectic collection of fiction and fact.
Salman got a strange look on his face. “Not quite,” he said.
He led her back towards where the grand dining room was. They weren’t far from the master bedroom, but just far enough to have some sense of distance. There, he showed her a series of rooms. Nadya didn’t need to ask who they were for; they were for the children. The children that he thought he was going to have with her, but that she knew could never be.
“I’m sorry, Salman,” she said, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Ignoring his concerned questions, and w
aving off his hands, she walked away from him. First down the hall, then down the stairs, then back out to the courtyard.
She just needed some fresh air, she thought. She needed to breathe. But when she got outside, she was confronted with the pavilion. Chairs were being set up, all around it. A dry run for the ceremony, she supposed. She began walking across it, but it was taking too long. She broke into a run, narrowly avoiding a worker who was bending down to fix one of the chairs.
She got to the front gate, and started heading down the steps. The helicopter was there, waiting for them. But she couldn’t enter it alone. She was trapped.
She sat there on the stairs, putting her face in her hands and trying to stop the tears rolling down her cheeks. She should have gone somewhere private, she thought. She should have hidden it. Here, anyone could see her.