Kavita Daswani - Salaam Paris

“Oh, and don’t worry about it,” she went on, watching a look of dismay cross my face. “You won’t have to stop being a good Muslim girl. The boy is gay.”

As fate would have it, Kai’s people told my people that he could drop in on my magazine shoot in Jamaica. He was, I was told, currently casting for his next few music videos and was aiming to have one of them nominated for the MTV Music Awards, so he was going all out to find the best director, best choreographer, and sexiest story line. I was no stranger to him, apparently. He had seen a ten-second clip of me on the red carpet at a movie premiere in New York I had attended recently, and told his people who told my people that I had looked “intriguing.” So he was flattered, if not a little surprised, because, as his manager told mine, Kai didn’t think I would be interested in “that kind of thing.”

Once it had been decided that Kai would meet me in Jamaica the day after I got there, Felicia and Stavros booked themselves on flights as well.

“We gotta huddle,” Felicia said as we waited at the check-in counter at JFK. “This needs to be planned perfectly. Can’t let you negotiate this on your own.”

Stavros, clutching his passport and the ticket that I knew was coming out of my paycheck, looked at me sympathetically.

Jamaica was unbearably hot. There was no way anyone could walk on the sand without sneakers on; even rubber flip-flops looked like they might melt under the strength of the sun. The water was sparkling and clear, and palm trees swayed at one end of the long beach.

In India, they would have had a sedan chair for me, a seat on two long wooden poles to carry me from the hair-and-makeup cabana to the water’s edge, where the photography was happening. But instead, two men, employees of the hotel where we were staying that owned this particular stretch of beach, hoisted me up and carried me along, setting me down where the cool, salty water softened the sand and tempered the blazing heat.

I was wearing a gold bathing suit, my hair tight and uncomfortable in cornrows. The theme of the magazine spread was “the sexiest swimsuits in movie history,” so I was being made to look like Bo Derek in 10, right before she meets Dudley Moore. Next up was Raquel Welch’s fur bikini.

The men who had carried me picked me up again, about to plop me down a few feet farther into the water, listening carefully to the instructions of the photographer, when I heard Felicia, who was wearing a hat the size of an umbrella, yelling to me from beside the cabana.

“He’s here!” she screamed out excitedly. “I see the posse approaching!”

I looked up and saw the man who was number twenty-eight on People’s list of gorgeous people, and decided that Kai should have been closer to the top. He emerged from a walkway that led from the hotel down to the beach, clad in a loud red shirt emblazoned with Gothic crosses, his hands plunged into the pockets of his denim jeans, large sunglasses covering the top half of his face. Even with all the cameras and equipment and chaos on this mild beach, he stood out like a boil. His “posse” was actually only three people, one of whom, based on sheer size alone, had to have been his bodyguard. Kai looked over in my direction and I realized to my utter horror that I still had two uniformed hotel employees holding me up, a leg each, with me squatting between them. I could only imagine how ridiculous I looked.

Kai grinned in my direction, waved, and continued to saunter my way, Felicia now affixing herself to his capsule entourage. The photographer rolled his eyes and told everyone to “take five.” We were all officially on a break.

“Good to meet you,” Kai said, extending his hand, which was soft and white in mine. His dark hair was nonchalantly swept back, revealing immaculate eyebrows, of which I was suddenly jealous.

“Do you want to go somewhere to talk?” he asked, smirking at the sight of me being held aloft by two men. “Not now, whenever you’re done. Don’t want to interrupt the work you’re doing here.”

I blushed, embarrassed, and Felicia led him away, whispering in his ear.

Before Kai and his group were set to join us, Felicia, Stavros, and I did our “huddle” in the restaurant, which was essentially one huge, open veranda overlooking the beach and the shimmering sea beyond it. Now, just after sunset, the air had cooled and a fresh breeze blew in from over the ocean. Diners reclined on daybeds overflowing with cushions, low tables in front of them holding large platters of freshly caught fish grilled with lemon and crisp salads drizzled with aged balsamic.

“You like, no?” Felicia asked, lighting up a cigarette. “He’s a hottie. What’d I tell ya?”

That night, after dinner, during which our respective camps would discuss a nonexistent project between us, I should suggest that Kai take me for a walk on the grounds, Felicia said.

“That’ll give me and his people a chance to talk,” she said, eyeing a tray of rum-laced cocktails as it went by. “We may as well come out with it.”

Nana, had he still been a witness to my life, would have been impressed by this. This was, after all, exactly how things would have been done had I remained in India and agreed to wed. He would have summoned some prospects, his friend’s grandson Tariq being on the top of the list, and then casually suggested after dinner that the boy and I take a walk around the building. By the time the boy and I would have returned from the walk, we would be engaged.

To me, sitting there in a gauzy poncho and sequined sarong at a five-star resort hotel on the Jamaican bay, that all seemed like a lifetime ago.

We flew back to New York together on Kai’s private plane.

He sat across from me in a caramel-colored seat, his slender frame almost dwarfed by its depth and plushness. He had one leg crossed over the other, and his left hand cupped his chin. He had been staring at me for at least five minutes, all the way through our take-off, as I nervously tried to drink a glass of iced tea. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was in love with me.

“Want to try one of these?” he asked, holding up a can of Red Bull, something he said he drank several times a day.

“Thank you, no,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m happy with what I have.”

“So, you know what all this is about, right?” he asked. “You know what we’re doing here?”

I nodded.

“I know why I’m doing it,” I said. “But what do you get out of it?”

“Please, don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “I’m supposedly the hottest thing in music since the Beatles, and I’ve never had a proper girl-friend. My agent had to remind me that rock and sex go pretty much hand-in-hand, and that without gossip about groupies, I may as well throw it all in and become a book-keeper. I’ve had a few beards over the past couple of years-you know, female friends I call on to hit the clubs with, get my picture taken. It keeps my gayness at bay, as far as my fans are concerned. But my team thought it was time for something a bit more established. Or at least they thought it once your people proposed it after dinner last night. You know, it’s not a bad idea. I have a record coming out soon, and if I want to continue living like this,” he said, indicating the plane, “then I’m going to need all the help I can get. You’re a great wagon to hitch my ride to.”

I suddenly felt soiled, as if I had allowed Felicia to talk me into something that was, fundamentally, unethical. Felicia’s words about this whole business being built on image still smoldered in my ears. But now, agreeing to this sham of a relationship, I was giving in to it. Now I really was going to be lost in the celebrity shuffle.