by Sonali Dev
“Which shoes?” she asked.
Neel handed her a box and glanced at the stain painted across her chest. “Tough surgery?” He pointed to the cobblestone path that circled around the side of the house.
She followed him toward the pool house. “Hit the wrong artery. You wouldn’t believe the force of the blood.”
“You’ve been watching Kill Bill again, haven’t you?”
“It’s surgeon catnip. I can’t stop.” Smiling, she twisted around and pushed the door to the pool house open with her back. “Is Nisha going to come and help with my hair?” Because if she didn’t get to tell her sister about the grant in the next two minutes, she was going to burst. Plus, she had to know how Nisha had managed to break it to their father that she was going to be here.
“Your hair looks just—” Neel’s cell phone buzzed and he looked down at it. Her own phone sat dead in her pocket. She’d forgotten to charge it. “I’m not supposed to tell you your hair looks nice. Nisha’s sending someone. And you’ve got to hurry. There’s an angry emoji. She can’t believe you’re late.” He kept his face carefully neutral as he dumped the rest of the items he was carrying on the couch.
As he headed for the door, he stopped and turned around, reading off his phone again. “She says it’s okay. Don’t worry. Smiley emoji.” Neel did the most adorable subtle eye rolls he thought no one saw. “And she wants you to know you won’t be sorry you came.” He looked up from his wife’s message, the slightest flush on his cheeks. “An emoji’s winking at you, and fanning itself. And—oh, for heaven’s sake. Just hurry up and get in there. Apparently, there’s a butt in there you have to see to believe.”
TRISHA PUT HER dress on in record time. Not a small achievement given how complicated it was. Admittedly, it was a gorgeous green thing, but it was made up of innumerable stretchy silken bands that wrapped around her like a full-body postsurgical dressing, and it took almost as long to put on. Nisha insisted green went well with Trisha’s neither-too-dark-nor-too-light brown eyes, and her neither-too-dark-nor-too-light skin. It came down to just a little above her knees—a length Nisha insisted worked best for her five-foot-eight-inch frame that bordered on being too broad. And it was off-the-shoulder, a style her fashionista sister had undoubtedly chosen because it went well with Trisha’s neither-too-curly-nor-too-straight hair that was cut to hit just above her freakishly long neck.
She slipped her feet into the precariously high wedges and left the pool house feeling somewhat equipped to prodigal her way back into the fold. And ran right into J-Auntie, their housekeeper, waiting just outside the door in her usual silent-ninja style. Trisha prided herself for not jumping in fright.
“Trisha Baby, His Highness wants to see you.”
For Trisha’s entire life J-Auntie had only ever called HRH that, but it still made Trisha want to giggle like a six-year-old every time she heard it in that dead-serious tone.
J-Auntie didn’t crack a smile. No big surprise, she never smiled at anyone except Trisha’s two brothers. “He’s in his office. He wants you to use the public entrance.”
With that superominous directive she strode away in measured steps, her body as severely held as her supertight jet-black bun.
So Trisha’s plan to avoid HRH wasn’t going to work then. She couldn’t quite remember when she and her siblings had started calling their father HRH, but it fit him perfectly. All you had to do was picture a photograph of a modern monarch of an Eastern nation in a pretentious glossy magazine—thick silver hair, proud brow, patrician nose—and there you had His Royal Highness the twenty-third maharaja of the princely state of Sripore. Even though it was a title he’d unexpectedly inherited after the death of his older brother.
The title meant nothing in America, of course, and HRH worked hard to keep it out of the family’s public narrative here, where assimilation was the word. The title no longer officially meant anything in India, either. Not that the staff at the Sagar Mahal or the media put too much stock in the Indian government’s stand on the matter. They were royalty, and that was a matter of blood and destiny, and Trisha’s grandfather had proven it by reclaiming the family’s power by throwing himself into the freedom struggle and then becoming a democratically elected member of Parliament as soon as India finally overthrew the British Raj in 1947.
Three decades after that, HRH, a second son, had migrated to America hoping for a grand adventure and a little bit of his own independence from all that royal legacy and ambition. Things hadn’t turned out quite the way he had expected and now all he ever seemed to focus on was legacy and ambition.
His summoning her was entirely unexpected because there were currently at least fifty people in the house who needed to be awed and inspired, and the fact that he was spending the time on her was more than a bit disconcerting. Would he throw her out? That wasn’t quite the HRH way. Silent disapproval had so much more gravitas. They had skirted each other for fifteen years, through family gatherings and working at the same hospital. It was amazing how easy it was to shut out problematic parts of your life when your work took up the entirety of your time and attention.
She had even forgotten when exactly she gave up bemoaning the loss of her title as her father’s precious little girl.
Could Dr. Entoff have told him about the grant?
Don’t get excited. Do not.
He had to have heard about the grant. They never interacted at work—they worked in different departments and it was a big hospital. Not too big for a thriving grapevine though. The excitement that bubbled inside her made her a certified idiot. Her grant, no matter how groundbreaking, couldn’t crack the surface of her father’s disapproval. Nothing could. Not after what she had done.
As instructed, she used the outside entrance to his office and took the half flight of stairs that led up to the heavy leaded-glass doors. The night was unusually warm for March but not warm enough to justify the sweat that gathered under her arms. With a cursory knock she let herself into the small mahogany-paneled waiting area. It was empty, as expected. She made her way through the open door of his office.
There he stood, across the pristinely ordered room infused with the smell of the leather-bound books lining the walls: HRH, in all his HRH glory. Perfectly groomed and tailored to highlight his tall, proud bearing. She sent a silent thank-you to her sister for making her look halfway civilized and for these heels that suddenly gave her a modicum of power.
He was staring out the window at the elegantly lit patio with a breathtaking view of the mountains. It was sprinkled with guests, who were no doubt contemplating the beauty of the estate and California’s good fortune that Yash Raje was about to deliver them from all their woes.
“I had told you this wasn’t over.” He opened with that, and without bothering to turn and look at Trisha.
Whatever was in his voice, it certainly wasn’t pride. Strike off Option One. This wasn’t about the grant. Something told her it wasn’t about the fact that she had decided to show up today either.
“What—” she began to ask, but he cut her off.
“That friend of yours is back in town.” The words reached her in slow motion, one clipped syllable at a time.
The sheen of perspiration she’d acquired from the stress of seeing him picked up the chill of his office and froze against her skin.
There was only one person he could be talking about, only one person who would dredge up all his anger at Trisha and trap it in his voice. Julia.
Julia was back in town?
Trisha hadn’t heard from her college roommate since their disastrous friendship ended in their sophomore year at Berkeley. Trisha’s family hadn’t even let her talk to Julia before they ran her out of town. She tried to breathe around the shame. All those years, and yet the kick of betrayal landed hard and swift between her ribs.
“Has she been in touch?” He still didn’t turn around and look at her.
Everything inside Trisha singed at the edges and burned inward. The pride for
her grant, the anticipation of trying to make amends. All of it gone as though it had never existed in the first place. All her words were gone too. She shouldn’t have been surprised. There was nothing new about words failing her, especially when it came to her father. At least not since she had allowed Julia Wickham into their lives.
“Now is not the time to withdraw into your shell,” her father snapped impatiently.
“Thanks, Dad, now that you’ve issued the order, I’ll just stop with the withdrawing.” That’s what she wanted to say. But no one spoke to him that way. “Does Yash know?” she whispered instead, working to unlock her jaw.
Finally he turned around, his face flushed with rage. “No one is to tell Yash! Is that clear? He does not need the added stress of this. Steele is considering running against him in the primaries. Steele is a worthy adversary. A viable option for the party who could ruin everything. Our focus has to be making sure that does not happen.”
Trisha had no doubt that between Dad, Yash, and their considerable armaments, they would come up with something.
“You need to make sure she stays away from him.”
And how exactly was she supposed to do that? She hadn’t had any contact with the woman in fifteen years. She had only found out that she was in town three seconds ago. But sure, Dad, whatever you say.
The disappointment in his eyes would have hurt. If she weren’t so used to it. “He had a spotless record, Trisha. Spotless.”
Didn’t she know that? No one had stopped bludgeoning her with that little fact. She hadn’t stopped bludgeoning herself with it. She had done this, created a weak link in the chain of her brother’s otherwise flawless candidacy. She could apologize again, but how many times could you apologize for the same transgression? Not that all her apologies had ever meant anything to the family.
“If she makes any contact with you, you will report it to me immediately and you will not engage.”
Trisha suppressed the urge to laugh. As if she needed those orders. The last thing on earth she wanted was to have anything to do with Julia ever again. And if Julia was stupid enough to try and contact Trisha, her father’s spies would make reporting anything to him redundant.
“Yash makes the official announcement next month. There’s no margin for error anymore,” he said, enunciating each word as though speaking to an imbecile. “Does you being here today have anything to do with her being back in town?”
“Excuse me? What exactly are you accusing me of?” That’s what she wanted to say. “Of course not. I had no idea she was back.” That’s what she said instead, but at least she let her anger leak into her voice.
He had the gall to look taken aback at her tone.
Suddenly she wanted him to tell her to leave. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to face Yash.
“This dinner is important to your brother.”
Really? A dinner to gather support for his campaign for governor is important to Yash? Gee, Dad, thanks for filling me in!
A deep frown folded between his brows. “Was it too much to expect that you be on time?”
She almost blinked. From her father’s lips that sounded practically like an invitation to rejoin the Force. But she knew better. All this meant was that he wanted her where he could keep an eye on her.
That was it. They were done. He walked past her and left the office.
She may not be as infallible and brilliant as her oldest sibling, but she was pretty sure that meant she had been dismissed.
“Bye, Dad,” she whispered to the empty room and followed him out.
Chapter Three
There you are, finally!” Her mother’s greeting made Trisha look up from adjusting the straps on the miraculously comfortable wedges Nisha had selected knowing full well Trisha’s talent for wobbling gracelessly in any other type of heels.
Ma, on the other hand, at sixty-five could pull off four-inch stilettos like no one else. To say nothing of how she rocked a hot-pink pantsuit. Not that anything she ever wore looked less than spectacular on her marathoner’s body. Her ex-Bollywood-star face didn’t hurt either. It was a good thing Nisha helped Trisha with clothes, because having to take fashion advice from a mother who wore everything better than you—and two sizes smaller—was just more torture than anyone should have to endure.
“You look lovely, Ma.” Every bit of the sulky awe she always felt around her mother bubbled up in her voice, making her feel like she was groping for approval as though it were high-hanging fruit on the tree she had fallen woefully far from. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
Her mother responded by tucking a lock of hair behind Trisha’s ear, doling out understanding—for her lateness, for the mess she had made, for everything—with her characteristic graceful nonchalance before reaching into her pocket and extracting a pair of solitaires. “I don’t understand how you can stand to go bare-eared. You’re a surgeon, you need to make sure your appearance doesn’t get masculine, too.”
Trisha took the earrings—and a calming breath—and slipped them on without bothering to answer. The list of things her mother would never understand about her was endless, especially where her appearance was concerned. Trisha would do anything to never let her mother see her in scrubs, clean or perpetually coffee stained.
“There you go, now you look like my Shasha,” Ma said, using Trisha’s nickname. “Regal, just like your dad.” Ma paused reverently the way she always did when she mentioned HRH—a pause so perfectly pitched it did the work of clashing cymbals to herald his magnificence. “By the way, there are at least three men in that room any single girl would kill for.” And there it was, the perpetual mantle of Trisha’s singleness. It had taken Ma precisely three sentences to bring up her grand flaw.
Funny how Ma had suddenly developed a problem with Trisha’s singleness the day she had graduated from med school. Until then Ma’s only concern ever had been Trisha’s grades and her career path. It was like being raised as one person and then being miraculously expected to leap across a chasm to being an entire different person. It reminded her of the chalk painting in Mary Poppins that magically transferred you between realities.
Trisha tried not to slouch like a gangly teen who didn’t have a date for homecoming. She wanted to tell her mother about the three surgeries she had done today, about Emma, about the grant. But before she could get any of that out, her mother took her hand and led her through the crowded living room where Trisha hoped she wasn’t about to introduce her to these men who supposedly turned single girls murderous.
The idea of her mother playing matchmaker for her was so mortifying she briefly considered telling her about Harry, her maybe-boyfriend-but-more-likely-casual-acquaintance-with-benefits. But the only thing Ma might find worse than her daughter’s inability to form relationships in her thirties was her daughter’s inability to know if she was actually in the relationship she might be in.
Suppressing another groan, she followed Ma into the dining room where the twenty-seater cherrywood table had been moved against one mahogany-paneled wall. Some fifty-odd people were scattered in groups around the room, their elegantly pitched voices creating nothing more than a harmonious din. The sixteenth-century Belgian crystal chandelier that usually lit up the table when it was just the family gathered around had been raised and dimmed. What the guests didn’t know was that the king of Belgium had presented it to her great-great-grandfather after they had become friends at Oxford.
The chandelier had hung for over a century in the Sagar Mahal. Her oldest uncle had shipped it to California as a housewarming gift when HRH built the Anchorage. There was a story there, involving a cricket ball and three young princes, and emergency superglue repairs to keep their father from finding out. HRH never talked about his brothers anymore, but Trisha remembered him laughing about it with Ma long ago.
As Ma stopped to let someone gush over her pantsuit, Trisha did a quick sweep of the room for HRH, but she didn’t spot him, thank God. She forced herself not to t
hink about the expression on his face when he had informed her that the worst mistake of her life was back to haunt her.
Her sister wasn’t here either, which was frustrating. As soon as she told Nisha about the grant, she would feel less like pond scum. All she needed was for just one person to know and be excited for her. Telling Ma could wait until later, when she was less preoccupied.
Someone else waved Ma over and she gave Trisha’s hair another pat and tuck. “I’m glad you’re here.” The pain she let slip into her eyes proved the ostrich theory wasn’t failproof. How had Trisha never thought about how hard it had to be for Ma to deal with Trisha’s issues with Dad and Yash? “Make sure you find Yash and congratulate him before you go hide behind your sister, okay?” With that she clicked away toward a group of political wives who opened up their tight circle at her approach.
“Of course,” Trisha mumbled—because Ma was gone and couldn’t lecture her about how it was uncultured to mumble—and scanned the heads in suits to find her brother’s halo.
There he was. The soon-to-be governor of California. He looked as serene as ever, reminding her of the mythological Prince Karna from the stories Aji loved to tell. Born encased in armor and glowing from within, eternally protected by his father the Sun God himself. Yup, that would be our Yash.
Trisha watched as he did his practiced politician hug thing with the suit he was talking to. One hand on the shoulder, the other in a handshake, grip firm yet friendly. I’m here for you, that gesture said; I can fix everything.
She knew her brother meant it, believed it with every cell of his being, but the ease of the gesture made her despondent. It swallowed up the brother he had been, her Yash. And even after all these years of being shut out, she missed that brother every single day. That was the thing about Yash; even perfect strangers found it impossible to forget him after having met him once. Charisma, the media called it. Imagine being loved by him, she wanted to tell them. And then losing him.