The Marrying Kind

The Oxford Dictionary definition of the word, “marry” most applicable to my life is “to cause to meet or fit together; to combine” Based on those parameters, I would definitely consider myself the marrying kind.

I like things to fit together. It’s the “relationship” I have long been having with myself, fitting together the yin and yang of my very clear Gemini personality, which is evident and pronounced, assuming the reader is into that kind of astral stuff. I like to combine things like my love of storytelling with my strong penchant for adding a visual(music sometimes) to every story I tell, whether I took the shot myself on my phone or downloaded it as a song off of The Internet. And, even in the traditional sense of the word, I am a girl who marries herself in loyalty to every friendship, every romantic interlude, and, most significantly, as it has recently been tested, I was really married to my home town of Pacific Palisades as the sublime backdrop for a beautiful life I worked hard to curate, right, write, or wrong. But, marriage? In the traditional sense of the word as institution? White meringue dress, tiered confections, and the somewhat elusive happily ever after? I have yet to commit to that institution “successfully” and sometimes I wonder why. I’m too rigid? Too much of a dreamer? Not found the right and write man as I approach the geriatric years? That’s something to consider, especially as I am approximately a month away from my next birthday and I’d really like to be informed more on that front. There is still real love in my future. They say it isn’t over until the fat lady sings and I’ve been inexplicably struggling with my weight of late. If I am blessed to take another journey around the sun, wouldn’t it be nice to have a loving partner to help with the luggage?

When I was little, and embarked upon the first of the only two trips I ever took to India, I was six and en route to attend the nuptials of my mother’s younger sister. I was quite overwhelmed with the pomp and circumstance of an Indian wedding. The sights and sounds were dizzying and enticing, and the colorful presentation was like nothing I had ever witnessed before in flowers alone. Instantly, I wanted to sign up for my forever after. I approached my beloved grandmother and in the most earnest way, I asked her if she could talk to Mom about letting me stay and then could she too “arrange” something as vibrant as she had just done for her daughter? She laughed and said I was too young at 6 for that and I protested while willing to compromise when I inquired, “How about when I turn 9?”

My parents didn’t have a wedding like that. It was arranged in the sense that my newly sober father confidently purchased tickets from London for Dr. and Mrs. Wharton-Ali for a weekend trip back to Hyderabad to find his “lucky” bride. She, in contrast, thought he was old, fat, and completely uninteresting and only agreed to meet him because my grandmother said she could go to the movies with her friends if she indulged the dinner party. She was 18, he was 30. She said she decided to take a flyer on this guy because he lived in London and promised her an apartment somewhere near where John and Ringo recorded. By the time my older brother was born, she was actually and madly in love with her husband and received congratulatory telegrams on her first baby at 20 Abbey Road, Flat 150, St. John’s Wood, London.

After the last trip to India, I matured into a very rebellious albeit romantic teenager. I wanted to marry everybody from my classmate, Mike Adams, to Tom Cruise (TC in the 1983 movie, Cocktail, and coconut Christmas cake iteration; ultimately and religiously, we wouldn’t have meshed, even though I’ve known his agent, Maha Dakhil, since my teen years) to John Taylor of Duran Duran, my New Romantics dream boy. My mother discouraged me from the fantasy of the traditional Indian wedding that had left me gobsmacked a decade before. Those, she warned, would also come partnered with a traditional Indian groom and we were too culturally divergent and not Indian enough for me to be a cookie cutter spouse who doesn’t know how to fold the pleats of a sari. My parents’ marriage was written in the stars as neither one of them was actually Indian. But, their customs, language, and comfort level were often inspired by the subcontinent and their Indian friends also had children my age. Strangely, my parents’ friends’ son, Timur, found my militant teen self attractive when I was 17 to his 21, so he started writing letters when he was at USD. He was a little square and dull for my tastes and I wasn’t interested, but I was intrigued and questioned had I been the fool when I was in my 40s. Running into each other after both of our marriages had collapsed, he under the guise of an old family friend moved me into his extra condo in Irvine (to live on my own people, this was a very G rated proposal, take your mind out of the stench filled gutters of Mumbai). He wanted to approach my father about marrying me. I politely reminded him that I was, for all intents and purposes, still married, albeit separated. Wasn’t there something in Islam about not proposing to another man’s wife? At the very least, there was something Old Testament (Islam recognizes OT, not NT) about not coveting another man’s wife, even if she hadn’t seen the spouse for five years after an abusive union?

I shouldn’t have married my husband. To be honest, I did it to appease my darling grandfather. He was 93 years old and felt desperately scared to die if I wasn’t happily ensconced. Prior to my marriage, he even made the trek from Trinidad where he wintered to Las Vegas when I called to say the most beautiful man I ever ever seen close up asked me out to a black tie affair. When I shared that said architect had hosted one of my fundraisers for free in an eight million home he built in Sin City and was texting daily about how excited he was for our night out, my grandfather decided there could be something real and not only reel here. He booked a flight to the high desert, so he could wait up for me when I came home hoping my chariot didn’t turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight. It was Valentine’s Day 2010, he was the only man in the room wearing a tuxedo, and he only informed me in the car at valet that he had purchased a table and that we would be sitting with his parents, his business partner and wife, and various other members of his family. To be honest, during that entire relationship, I felt as though I was being Punk’ed or on Candid Camera when some people still understood that reference. He was just too good for me: too handsome, too accomplished, too kind, too talented…He turned heads everywhere we went I don’t think there is actually a word in the English language for how otherworldly this man is and was…My husband felt more my speed: emotionally abusive, withholding, insulting.

Not that this is how I was acculturated. My grandfather was my best friend, the person I went to in order to discuss every crush I ever had. My father didn’t cheat on my mother, respected women, and had a rule not to spank me my entire life as he didn’t believe in corporal punishment for his daughter, even though I certainly deserved it for the shenanigans I got up to. My experiences with men had always been positive before the marriage. My college boyfriend was 19 to my 21 and asked me to give him five years to get it together. He proposed when I was 26 and only married somebody else when I was 31 because he waited long enough when I was fascinated by a coke addict just because we were both in the film business and from The Palisades. He made and makes horror movies for a living, inheriting a successful franchise. He strung me so long that I said I have to stop this, it feels like HEROIN (not that I would know personally) and he countered no, Firdosi, you’re the heroine of my love story. Me: I meant the kind that leaves you toothless in a ditch, buddy. I had a romantic proposal at the top of Le Centre Pompidou when I was at UCLA and there have always been lovely boys/guys/men who have been dear friends. I think when it came to the architect, my last meaningful relationship, I was too grief stricken, vulnerable, and insecure to accept his respect and kindness after my mother’s death left me reeling. I was almost as broken as I am now from The Palisades fires…Almost…

Two years ago, my father fell down and became incapacitated almost the same time a handsome man child of a Dane reached out on NEXTDOOR to compliment a picture of me throwing my script pages in the wind. He asked me to coffee, I’ve never spent time around a man with whom I have no point of reference or friends in common, but I took a chance, thinking we are both from The Palisades, that’s enough. I asked point blank “are you married?” as I am not one to google and I didn’t have time for lies or really for myself now that I was navigating this unusual role as primary caregiver, so my darling father could avoid assisted living. Hamlet swore up and down he was divorced and had only the one daughter who was 12 at the time. And then one fine day, when my girlfriend, Gia, her dog and my pal, Mookie, and I were strolling down Sunset we ran into him. Strangely, she had such a visceral reaction to him that innately she thought he was lying and I should investigate more. If the fires hadn’t happened, I would have been devastated and shocked beyond recognition when I discovered the Dane was married to a very successful Palisades realtor who, when we connected blamed me, asking how I could be dumb enough for two YEARS not to realize he’s married. Actually, Jackie, I’m not that dumb at all, I asked the right and write questions and as a professional screenwriter, I look to character motivation. I still don’t comprehend what he gained from his deceit? Why did she not realize her idiot husband was stepping out on her? I try to reserve judgment, their marriage is none of my business, I had a fire to fight as it burnt my life into ash…In the best of times, I tend to channel my challenges as previously mentioned into my work, so…

The working title is To Be Or Not To Be (a nod to his only allegiance to all things Copenhagen, he’d never deign to lie in Danish) It’s a little like a Tinder Swindler, part Dear John, with a splash of Baby Reindeer all at once and it’s already got an uber famous producer with a lot of other Netflix titles, so… Hell hath no fury like a scorched screenwriter scorned…

Happy Birthday to me. This year, my birthday wish is for either my forever after or more great material…And, as always, for my most faithful friend, The Palisades, who would never deceive me with his beauty. Ah that he was here to hold me through….