Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

by Sonali Dev

  For anything that made her feel stronger.

  What was wrong with her? The news she had to deliver was good news, dammit!

  Emma had to have seen something in Trisha’s face because the amusement in her dual-colored gaze fizzled. “The results for the scans came in, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.” Trisha pulled up a chair and sat down next to Emma’s bed. For the first time in her life she envied her siblings their ability to tiptoe around feelings, to understand the darned things.

  “Spit it out, Dr. Raje. I want to know.” Emma’s voice was adamant, her gaze steady.

  Trisha did as she was told. “We knew there was a good chance that the tumor would be too close to the optic nerves. It isn’t just close, it’s wrapped around the nerves. Around both of them where they cross over.”

  Emma looked away. Her eyes sought out Trisha’s hand, the one that was gripping her painting too tightly.

  She said nothing.

  Maybe Trisha should have waited for her to not be alone. Where the hell was this noble brother? “It’s still operable and the prognosis is encouraging. But there’s just no way to save the optic nerves.” She almost apologized, but it was ridiculous to say sorry for keeping Emma alive. “The surgery is our best chance to save your life.” All because Trisha had done nothing for years but work to make the impossible possible. “The robotic technology we’ll be using is spectacular. It can remove tumor tissue with minimal damage to brain tissue. It’s . . .” She trailed off when Emma bit down on her lip and squeezed her eyes shut.

  A knock sounded on the half-open door, and the level of relief that flooded through Trisha bordered on pathetic. Her boss strode in, bringing with him his signature air of warmth and understanding.

  “How are we this afternoon, Ms. Caine?” Dr. Entoff slid his hands under the sanitizer dispenser, then rubbed them together like one ready to fell demons on Emma’s behalf.

  The poor man had tried hard over the years to teach Trisha some of that charming bedside manner. But if all her mother’s training had been wasted on her, there wasn’t much hope that anyone else might succeed. Trisha had never understood the big brouhaha over doctors’ bedside manners. She understood tumors. Those she knew exactly how to navigate, and destroy. Shouldn’t that be enough?

  “Oh, I’m just peachy, ain’t I?” Emma snapped, her British accent sharpening to a bite. “Dr. Raje here just told me that I’m going to go blind.”

  Dr. Entoff patted Emma’s hand, making the exact right amount of eye contact. “I’m truly sorry, Emma. We can’t control the location of the tumor, but we sure can remove it so it stops being a threat to your life.”

  Trisha felt another rush of relief. She had spent all morning convincing her boss that the procedure was the right way to go. The new technique was still experimental, and convincing Entoff to use it on this case hadn’t been easy. A failed surgery would lead to bad press and bad press could kill the funding for further development of a technology that was going to save thousands of lives. But Trisha believed in this surgery enough to risk her career on it.

  Emma’s only response was a belligerent thrust of the jaw.

  Entoff made his way to the workstation and calmly started clicking through Emma’s records. “I know it’s a lot to take in. I would urge you to take some time to process this news. Discuss it with your family. We don’t need to make any decisions today. There are a few other experimental treatments that can slow down tumor growth and possibly impact life expectancy.”

  Wait, what? Bedside manner was all well and dandy, but what fresh rubbish was this? Even if Entoff was only trying to keep the patient from going into full-blown panic, none of these experimental treatments were real options. Even if they did slow growth, without the surgery, the tumor would eventually get large enough to kill Emma, and the larger it grew, the smaller the chance of success with surgery would become. Giving her false hope just to make her feel like she had options made no sense to Trisha.

  Before she could say anything, Emma turned a suddenly furious gaze on her. “Dr. Raje seems to think the surgery is my only option. Are you two not in agreement then?” Her tone had all the raw force of a bottle-cap-popping vagina.

  Dr. Entoff channeled all the cool counterpressure of a beer bottle, and Trisha suddenly felt very much like a bent-up bottle cap. “We are in agreement that the surgery is the best option. But the technology is seminal—and if you feel like you want to explore other options, I want you to know that we will help you do that.” He threw Trisha a placating look and she forced herself to swallow her objection. “Having said that, I want to be clear that Dr. Raje has been working on the technology for years, and if she believes it’s ready, I would put my faith in her.”

  The look Emma threw Trisha was a punch to the gut. “And you think losing my sight is my only option, Dr. Raje?”

  Trisha met her gaze. “Yes. Removing the tumor is the only way to save your life. And we can’t remove the tumor and also salvage your optic nerves.”

  Emma looked at her painting again, and Trisha tried to ignore the desperate pain in her eyes. Skirting the truth was not her job.

  “I need to think about it,” Emma said finally.

  Trisha stood, hugging the painting to her chest. But before she could get out the arguments that rushed up her throat Dr. Entoff cut her off.

  “Of course,” he said. “We have more tests to run before we can schedule anything. Dr. Raje will go over the details of the procedure tomorrow and answer any questions you have.”

  Again, Trisha almost objected, but then she thought about the noble brother. Maybe if he were present it would be easier to make Emma see sense.

  Instead of responding, Emma stared off into the distance, no longer willing to meet Trisha’s eyes. For the first time since they’d met, instead of hope, despair wrapped itself around Emma, and it caught at something inside Trisha like a sharp hook piercing skin.

  “TAKE HEART, TRISHA. We’re saving her life.” Her boss patted her shoulder kindly as they took the elevator to their offices. “Sometimes you need a soft touch.”

  Trisha forced a smile. A soft touch hadn’t gotten her where she was.

  They stepped out of the elevator. “That’s better. Now let’s turn that smile real, shall we?” He pointed to the surgeon’s lounge. “Care for a cup of coffee and some good news?” His grin was so wide, Trisha stopped midstep and turned to him. She knew what he was going to say even before he opened his mouth. “I just talked to the foundation director. He’s been trying to reach you. Your funding was approved.”

  Trisha slapped her hand across her mouth but a squeak still escaped her. And then another one. A ten-million-dollar grant, for shit’s sake! She had just won her department its largest grant in history. They were going to fund the most ambitious multicenter clinical research for robotic brain surgery ever conceived.

  “This proves that the rumors are true,” Entoff said. “We have a genius in our midst!” He had never made her work for his proud smile, but the one he was flashing at her now—the one that made him look like a man who was blessing the day he hired her—it made her want to pump her fist in vindication and shout Yes! Take that, Dad!

  Instead, she took the hand he held out and thanked him for being such a great boss and mentor.

  “No, Dr. Raje,” he said through that proud smile, “what I am is a very lucky boss.”

  Damn straight! she wanted to yell. But she thanked him instead with all the poise she could muster.

  Coffee was probably a bad idea given the adrenaline racing through her, but she took the cup her boss handed her, thanked the two colleagues who congratulated her with somewhat less enthusiasm, and carried the cup back to her office along with Emma’s painting. The first thing she did there was push the door shut and let out one woot . . . okay, two! But her heart wouldn’t stop racing. She’d done it. She’d done something no one else had ever done before her.

  Without thinking about it, she dialed Nisha’s number. Her
big sister was the only person who really understood how hard Trisha had worked on her grant and on this case. Her call went straight to voice mail. Right. Today was the big day.

  Or more accurately, today was yet another big day. Tonight was yet another preannouncement shindig for her brother. Possibly the tenth “small celebration” Ma and Nisha had organized in the four weeks since Yash had decided to finally announce his candidacy for governor of California.

  Within the last five years the venerable U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, Yash Raje, had foiled a terrorist attack on Alcatraz, hunted down a fifty-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme a bunch of venture capitalists were running out of Cupertino, and been instrumental in convincing the largest airplane manufacturer in the world to move to California. So really, who were they kidding with all this hush-hush around announcing his gubernatorial plans? If the people of the great state of California hadn’t guessed his intent by now, they were too idiotic to be worth governing.

  Nonetheless, Nisha—the only one in the family who still discussed Yash’s career with Trisha—had assured her that there was a method to these things and currently that method involved their family systematically courting California’s elite to shore up Yash’s path so it held steady beneath his feet as he marched toward Sacramento and the destiny he had been groomed for since the day of his birth. Nisha managed Yash’s political campaigns, so she would know.

  “Crazy busy right now. Need something?” Her sister’s text buzzed through. Trisha imagined Nisha, her hair elegantly twisted on top of her head, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand as she wrestled down the million moving parts that seemed to make up these events. Even the word “event” gave Trisha heart palpitations. Nisha, on the other hand, was a badass deftly putting out fires as they exploded in tiny mushroom clouds around her. For their brother.

  Trisha realized with a start that she was still holding Emma’s painting—a painting about strength that she had inspired. The feeling of getting her skin caught in a hook tugged at her again, bringing with it a restlessness she couldn’t quite contain. She thought about Emma being by herself when Trisha had broken the news. She thought about the brother who had dropped his life and moved across continents to help her through it. Setting the canvas carefully on the desk she stared at her sister’s message on her phone. Then before she could stop herself, she tapped out her response. “Were you serious when you said I should come to tonight’s dinner?” She hit send before she could delete the words. Then instantly regretted doing it.

  Within seconds her phone rang.

  “Seriously?” Her sister sounded exactly like someone charting a war from a control tower.

  Trisha couldn’t get herself to bring up the grant. She’d do it at the dinner. Because maybe it was time to go to one. “You’ve been saying I should come,” she said tentatively. “I’m free tonight.” The high of winning the grant had to have shrunk her brain.

  The awkward beat of silence was swallowed up by a voice asking Nisha something about flowers. Nisha let off a string of instructions that sounded to Trisha like dolphins clicking, entirely indecipherable.

  “Okay. That’s great,” Nisha said distractedly, when she came back on the line. “I’ll see you at six then.” That was it? Nothing about the years of campaign events Trisha had missed. Nothing about how HRH would react when he found out she was going to be there. “Do you have something to wear?”

  Of course she didn’t. Thankfully, it was a rhetorical question. One her sister always asked before she decided exactly what Trisha should wear.

  “Okay, I’ll take care of it.” Something clattered ominously in the background. “Gotta go. And do not be late. I mean it.”

  Just that easily Nisha was done. A two-minute conversation to condense all those years of Nisha trying to mend the fences Trisha had burned down. And by “mend” Trisha meant “ignore.” Nisha subscribed to the ostrich philosophy for conflict resolution—if you acted like a problem didn’t exist, well, then it didn’t. In that respect Nisha was every inch their mother’s daughter.

  HRH and Yash, on the other hand, were incapable of ever letting anything go.

  It was too late to have second thoughts now. Trisha walked around her desk and sank into her chair.

  Crap, who was she kidding? Second thoughts stampeded through her like a herd of wildebeests sensing a ravenous lion. She pressed her forehead into her desk, then banged it against the cool wood. She was a genius, dammit! Surely that meant she could handle a family dinner. Even one she wasn’t welcome at.

  Chapter Two

  It had been fifteen years. Fifteen years since Trisha had been shut out of her brother’s political career, the family’s most precious dream. Finding excuses to avoid Yash’s rallies, and speeches, and celebrations for so long hadn’t been easy but she’d managed it, and the family had long since heaved a sigh of relief and stopped involving her. For fifteen years she had existed on the fringes of her family—where all was seemingly normal, because they were the Rajes, after all, but where the fact that she had almost destroyed her brother’s life hung in the air at all times, like a truth bubble ready to pop.

  But Yash was finally running for governor—surely that meant things had turned out fine in the end. Maybe it was time to let the past go.

  She maneuvered her Tesla up the curving, deeply forested drive that led to her parents’ Woodside home. The mechanical gates recognized her car and slid open under the wrought-iron arch that spelled out the name of the house she had grown up in: The Anchorage.

  A rare nod to the old country. Houses in India all had names. Not just the mansions and the estates but every little bungalow and building had a name. Looking for the often grandly ill-fitting names displayed on the houses had been one of Trisha’s favorite pastimes as a child. Crumbling four-floor apartment blocks called “Royal Towers.” Tiny stone cottages called “Raj Mahal.” Metal placards and stenciled signs that proclaimed self-worth and told you that they were something more than just brick and concrete.

  When Trisha’s parents had built this house, nestled into five acres of gorgeous redwood forests, her grandmother had called it “the Anchorage.” The name had been a tribute to her oldest son who had been a naval officer and the twenty-second maharaja before he died in the plane crash that had altered the family’s destiny. Only the family ever called their home by the name Aji had given it. To everyone else it was just a number on a private street. The way the rest of California did it.

  Trisha pulled to a stop under the white-columned porte cochere. A caravan of parked cars signaled that the dinner was in full swing inside, underscoring the fact that she was late.

  Because, yes, she was late. She hadn’t meant to be. Not on the day when she had recklessly decided to unfreeze herself out of banishment. Not when Nisha had probably taken the time out of her crazy day to prep their parents and Yash so this would be as easy as possible on Trisha.

  Trisha hated not knowing how to handle things. Why couldn’t everything be like surgery? She had just excised an adenoma on a thirteen-year-old’s pituitary gland and known exactly what to do. Sure, the surgery had taken two hours longer than expected, and made her late, but a thirteen-year-old girl was going to get her life back. And sure, Trisha could have let another attending surgeon pick up the emergency surgery, but it had been the exact kind of procedure she loved. Complicated. The tumor had gone rogue and grown talons into brain tissue. Trisha had needed the sweet satisfaction of snuffing out every bit of that baby after her unexpected bout of bravado with her sister.

  As if facing HRH and Yash weren’t scary enough, the idea of socializing with people she barely knew made Trisha want to gnaw her limbs off. Maybe she should turn around and go back to her condo.

  She groaned the kind of groan one can only groan in the privacy of one’s car, loud and pathetic, and looked up at the bright white stucco facade, the marble columns, the black plantation shutters with Japanese roses and jasmine spilling from window boxes, and f
ocused on the click of belonging that only ever happened here, in this place that mapped her life, this place where the memories of her at every age would always live.

  Stepping out of the car, she handed her keys to the parking valet, a preening teen dressed like he was off to prom. One of Ma’s friends’ kids looking to impress her, no doubt. Ma was, after all, the Go-To Goddess for summer-internships-that-look-good-on-college-applications with her direct line to:

  The managing director and head of general surgery at everyone’s favorite hospital, HRH, Dr. Shree Raje.

  The United States Attorney for the Northern District of California, the most illustrious Yash Raje, and . . .

  The youngest judge on the San Francisco county court, Trisha’s half-angel, half-saint brother-in-law, Neel Graff.

  Speaking of said sainted brother-in-law, there was Neel now, smiling his sainted smile at Trisha, all dapper in what had to be an Armani jacket because her sister didn’t understand why anyone would want to wear suits that weren’t Armani. Although how Nisha could tell the difference between one suit and another Trisha would never understand. He tried to wave from under the assortment of garment bags and shoeboxes spilling from his hands. Only Neel could look just as comfortable buried under Nisha’s fashion emergency stash as with a gavel in hand doing his best by juvenile offenders.

  Trisha thanked the prom-boy valet, who seemed a little too eager to get into her Tesla, and slid a few of the garment bags off Neel’s arm while dropping a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks, Neel. I’m so sorry to put you through this again.”

  “Of course. It makes these things kinda fun.” He grinned and straightened his rimless glasses. If he was surprised that she was here, he hid it well and she loved him for it. “Nisha wants you to wear the green one.” He nodded at the green garment bag Trisha had taken from him. “But she thought you should have choices.”

  They smiled knowingly at each other. If Nisha had decided on the green one, the green one it would be. Trisha was currently wearing standard-issue blue scrubs with a coffee stain that spanned her entire torso, which pretty much summed up her fashion expertise.