by Sonali Dev
Trisha understood Nisha’s hurt. All her life, Nisha had believed that Neel was hers, until Barbara. She and Neel had been best friends. Even as kids they had been perfect together. He hadn’t seen it. Or he had seen it and he’d rejected it and wanted something else.
Almost a year after coming back, when Nisha didn’t show up for the Diwali party at the Anchorage, Neel drove to her apartment. She was in her pajamas drinking wine, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream, and watching reruns of Full House. She’d pretended not to be home and refused to let him in. He climbed the tree outside her second-floor apartment and jumped onto her balcony. Before going up, he’d shouted out to Nisha and told her he was going to do it if she didn’t tell him to go away. If that very upstanding-Neel-like gesture wasn’t the most romantic thing Trisha had ever heard, the fact that he had hurt his knee while doing it was.
Then he’d asked a sobbing Nisha why she was avoiding him. Why she hadn’t seen him in the year he’d been back.
Nisha had said quite simply, “Because I can’t bear to see you in pain.”
There was a wedding six months later, and Trisha, for one, had never doubted Neel’s devotion to her sister.
Nisha sat up and scooted back to lean on the stack of white eyelet and cutwork pillows resting against the leather tufted headboard. “He meant it when he said he was done with us trying to have more children. I know I had pushed him as far as he could go, would go.” She swiped her red, swollen nose. There was a veritable blanket of scrunched-up tissues on the bed. “No matter how we started out, after our babies, after what he went through with me for every one of our babies, we’ve been everything to each other. I can’t live without him.”
That Trisha knew. She took the wadded-up tissue from her sister and tossed it clean across the room and straight into the trash can near the desk. “Did you plan this?”
Her sister glared at her. “It wasn’t just that I knew he was done, it was that I knew why he was done. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t see me go through that one more time. It was him. I saw what it did to him, how much it took out of him to go from hope to loss without being able to show either because he had to be strong for me. It tore him up. Each time. The real reason I stopped was that I couldn’t put him through that one more time.” She plucked the last tissue from the box and pressed it into her nose. “You have to help me, Shasha.”
Trisha picked up the wadded-up tissues one by one and started tossing them into the trash can. “You have a plan, I assume.”
“The plan is to have you find a way to get me two weeks of staying in bed without Neel knowing. Without anyone knowing.” She handed Trisha the tissue in her hand and Trisha tossed it into the trash with the others.
“Did Sarita say you had to stay in bed?” How had that not been the first question Trisha asked?
“No. She wants me to come in so she can run all the tests and do a referral to Vinay.” Vinay was Sarita’s husband and he specialized in high-risk pregnancies. “But no matter what Sarita and Vinay say, I’m not moving off a bed. Not until the first trimester is over. So put all that genius gray matter to use and come up with a way to help me do that without the Farm catching on.”
Trisha slumped next to her sister. How? And what if something happened to Nisha—how would she explain that to Neel? The problem with her gray matter was that it didn’t work in situations like this. Everyone knew she had absolutely no emotional intelligence. She had to think of this the way she would think about one of her cases, logically.
“What about Sarita and Vinay? Sarita has probably already called Neel.” Sarita was Neel’s cousin a few times removed. Theirs was a crazy incestuous world.
“I’ve told her not to tell anyone, and she won’t. Anyway she’s bound by doctor-patient confidentiality.” Nisha settled her head on Trisha’s lap.
Doctor-patient confidentiality meant nothing around here. Sarita and Vinay were close family friends. Their parents, Sarita’s parents, Vinay’s parents, and Neel’s parents had belonged to the same tight circle when they had first moved to America from India and all the kids had grown up together as one large extended family. Sarita had gone to school with Yash and all of them had spent more weekend nights than Trisha could count holed up in the attic, playing video games and Ping-Pong while their parents socialized and tried to re-create the old country with food, movies, music, and raucous political debate.
If Neel or anyone else decided to question Sarita, she was not going to be able to keep the secret.
“Neel leaves tomorrow. So first you have to help me find a way to stay in bed until then without him canceling his trip.”
“You could pretend to have the stomach flu. He already thinks you might have it.”
“Yes, but if I’m sick, he might not leave.”
“It’s his ten-year reunion, and you know how important that whole Rhodes scholar thing is to him. No way would he miss it. Especially if I stay with you and promise to use vacation days and not leave your side.”
“No. Too much. You know the lawyer brain. You have to sell it subtly, otherwise he’ll get suspicious.”
Great. And as if lying to Neel wasn’t hard enough. What were they going to do about the rest of the Animal Farm? “Do we have to not tell the Farm? What about Esha?” Crap! Esha probably already knew.
“Especially not Esha. I don’t want visions. No matter what happens, this baby is not going anywhere. I don’t want anyone telling me otherwise,” she said fiercely.
Message received.
“It would be so much easier if you could just tell Neel that you were going to DC or LA for campaign work. But then you’d have to take Yash, Ma, and HRH into confidence.”
Nisha grabbed Trisha’s arm, with surprising strength. “Can you not hear me? I cannot. Can. Not. Do this in public view again. I cannot watch everyone get invested, I can’t manage everyone’s pain. Can’t manage Ma’s overprotectiveness. Please. I need to focus on this on my own. I can’t be brave for anyone else right now. My baby needs me. Please.”
Trisha’s eyes stung. She stroked the hand that was cutting off her circulation and swallowed the painful tightness in her throat. “Okay. No one finds out. That’s not an option. Got it.”
“And,” Nisha said, “there’s another problem.”
“Of course there is.” The look on Nisha’s face did not bode well for whatever this next problem was.
“Yash’s fund-raiser,” Nisha said with all the gravitas of a person who believed that their brother’s campaign was her life’s work. “The dinner is in San Francisco in a month. For the most part it’s all planned—so do not freak out”—which was the last thing to say to someone when you did not want them to freak out—“but I need you to take care of things.”
Trisha jumped off the bed. Take care of things? What things? Fund-raiser things? What? How? Oh, freaking out was building inside Trisha with the force of a pressurized hose.
She could find a way to lie to their family—although every one of them had a lie meter like a stealth missile detector. She could deceive her utterly brilliant brother-in-law—who was a blasted judge! But to expect her to take care of an event like this? An event. An Event. With food and guests and food-and-guests together. Was Nisha crazy? Did her sister not know her at all?
Trisha could barely plan her own meals. She lied about cooking to get men to date her. Which reminded her, she needed to cancel her dinner with Harry again tonight. The food she’d mooched off Ashna was sitting in her freezer mocking her inability to do anything with food except scarf it down. She was the last person to take care of something like a f . . . f . . . fund-raising d . . . d . . . dinner. She didn’t even know what something like that involved! Oh my God, what did something like that even involve?
“I said don’t freak out, Shasha.” Her sister glared at her as though the full blast of panic in her chest was something she could control by how much she widened her eyes.
“Too late. I’m freaking out. And I’m not doing it.
I can’t!” She started pacing.
Her sister intensified that glare. “I thought you wanted to be included in Yash’s campaign? Or is HRH right, that you don’t really care if Yash gets elected.”
Did Dad actually say that? It was her turn to glare. What the hell was it with all this emotional blackmail? Nisha had always been Ma’s little mini-me. But this was going too far. “Of course I want to be included. That doesn’t mean throwing me straight into the snake pit. I meant start with involving me in . . . things and stuff—small things!” And stop treating me like the Evil Witch of the East whose very presence will destroy Yash’s dreams. “Actually, I was wrong. Forget everything I’ve said until now. The banishment is A-okay. Really.” She plopped down on the bed.
Her sister sighed. “Trisha, you realize you don’t actually have to cook for this event, right?” Her sister switched strategies and, instead of glaring, tried a calm, amused look. “You work with a caterer and with an event coordinator at the ballroom.”
Trisha’s hands turned cold. She rubbed them on her shorts. “You are not helping. The only thing I know how to do with a c . . . caterer or an e . . . event coordinator is to remove tumors from their brains.” Panic was rising again, hard and fast.
Her sister smacked her arm. “Stop it. If you put your mind to it, you can do this better than me and you know it. This is for me and for Yash. What is wrong with you?”
Trisha felt her cheeks warm with shame. “Make me walk through fire, I’ll do that. Please can I do that instead?”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “No. So, the chef who’s catering the dinner—”
Trisha groaned. It made her sound like an ill animal.
“Shut up and listen to me. The chef”—she paused dramatically—“will be here any moment and he’s pretty good at what he does, so this will take minimum effort on your part.”
Trisha jumped off the bed again and gawked at her sister. If she had been drinking something, she would have choked on it and died. Why hadn’t she gotten herself something to drink? “What do you mean he’ll be here any moment?”
The doorbell rang. Horseshit! Nisha had timed her assault perfectly. “What the hell, Nisha?” The shrillness of her shriek possibly cracked some of Nisha’s windows.
“Give yourself some credit. You’ll be fine.”
“Credit? There’s no credit to give. I have no credit in this. None. Why can’t Ashi do this? Ashi does this for a living!”
The doorbell rang again.
Nisha glared at her again.
Trisha stomped to the front door. “I’m coming,” she snapped and opened it to find DJ Caine standing there.
Of course it was him. Gah!
She leaned back her head and stared up at the surprised scowl on his face. How tall was this man?
He was carrying a huge padded box. One that needed both hands to be carried, which made Trisha wonder how he had managed to press the bell. Because she had the kind of brain that started analyzing random things when it was imploding.
Every single time she’d met this man, it had been a disaster. But this one was a disaster of epic proportions.
“Before you snap at me again, I’d like to mention that this weighs a ton.” It really wasn’t fair how a British accent made everything sound ridiculously hot. That shrug thing he did with one shoulder didn’t help matters, either, because that shoulder . . .
She was sweating. Sweat trickled down between her breasts, where her heart had decided to start up a percussion band.
Channeling Nisha, she glared at him. “Literally or figuratively?”
He matched her glare with an impressive counterglare and she stepped back to let him in.
One would think all those huge muscles weren’t purely for show. She followed him to the kitchen. He seemed to know exactly where it was.
“They’re sewn into my shirt, actually. Like a superhero costume.”
Holy crappers, had she said that out loud? What the hell was wrong with her? Brain, work. You’re a genius. I have paperwork to prove it.
She was about to apologize, but when he put the box down and turned to her, she found herself frowning at him again unable to actually form words. How pathetic was she? So he was an attractive man. That’s all. There was no reason to turn into a complete bumbling idiot.
He craned his neck and searched the room. “I think you’re the wrong sister. I’m supposed to meet Nisha here?” He came out from behind the island and turned around, still searching.
As if on cue Nisha walked in and caught her ogling his butt.
“Why are you up?” she said to Nisha more angrily than she’d meant to. Because really, the whole point of this was for Nisha to not get up. And also because she hated to be caught staring at men’s butts.
“I’m being an ass, am I not?” Nisha said, and then grinned at her own joke as though she’d suddenly turned into Jerry Seinfeld.
The guy went completely still like a possum sensing danger, and Trisha learned that intense mortification feels exactly like motion sickness in the pit of your stomach.
“Hi, DJ! I believe you’ve met my sister, Trisha.” Nisha went up on her toes to air-kiss his cheek and he very obligingly bent in half to let her.
“Yes, we’ve been introduced several times,” he said in a tone that suggested being introduced to her even once was one too many times.
“Actually, we’ve been introduced just the once by Ashna,” she snapped. “We were never actually introduced at Yash’s dinner.”
“How’s it going with Ashna?” Nisha widened her eyes only the slightest bit at Trisha in what was Nisha’s signature Glare of Elegance that you would only know was a glare if you shared genes with her. She saved it especially for public glarings. Then she led Bicep-chef to a barstool by his biceps.
“So you are with Ashna?” Trisha said. When she really, really should not have. What was it about this guy that was making every word out of her mouth stupider than stupid? She had been admitted into the nation’s most prestigious schools for all that was sacred. She could operate machinery that delivered microscopic ammunition to tiny little cell clusters and saved people’s lives.
He started to answer Nisha. “Things are going . . . actually . . .”—then realized what Trisha had said and turned to her. “I beg your pardon?”
Who actually said, “I beg your pardon”? Especially in a British accent. It just made you seem like a show-off.
“When Nisha asked how things were going with Ashna, I thought she meant you two were together,” she babbled, her explanation only proving why she shouldn’t have said what she’d said in the first place.
Nisha cleared her throat and decided to finally act like a big sister and step up to save Trisha from herself. “I was actually asking about how Ashi’s new menu is coming along.” Another Glare of Elegance was lobbed in Trisha’s direction. What the hell is wrong with you?
Trisha shrugged. Hell if she knew.
“DJ is helping Ashi with her menu. His specialty is creating dishes that fuse traditional north Indian flavors with classical French technique. Right, DJ?” Nisha said kindly.
The guy smiled. A smile so grateful, so bright, Trisha blinked. His chin had a deep dimple, not one of those Ken doll chin-divide clefts, but an indentation that pierced the center of his chin, and it did a thing to his face when he smiled that caused a buzzing sensation behind Trisha’s knees. She took a step away from him.
“I think we’ve come up with some pretty decent options for Curried Dreams.” He was ignoring her entirely now and talking directly to Nisha, who was beaming at him as though he were her best friend. That job was already taken, thank you very much! How was everyone buddy-buddies with this guy anyway?
“You ready to sample what I have for you?” He strode back to the island and unzipped the hot box and all at once the most insanely delicious aroma suffused the kitchen.
Nisha’s face went ashen. “I’m sorry,” she sputtered before dashing to the powder room.
DJ followed her and hovered at the open door for a second as Nisha doubled over and emptied her guts into the commode. Before Trisha could push him out of the way and go to Nisha, he went in and sank down on his knees next to her, carefully gathering her hair and holding it out of the way as she brought up her insides in heaves. When she was done, he helped her up, his palm supporting her elbow with a mix of such gentleness, steadiness, and plain old-fashioned decency that the instinct to push him out of the way and go to her sister fizzled inside Trisha.
She leaned against the door and watched as he filled a glass of water from the faucet and handed it over. “Are you all right, love?”
Nisha nodded. Trisha caught herself nodding too. Fortunately, neither one of them was paying any attention to her, or the annoying reactions her body was having to his gallantry.
“Let’s get you to a doctor.”
Excuse him? Could those thickly lashed, hazel-flecked eyes not see her standing right here? That snapped her out of her swooning.
“Let’s get her to her room. She’ll be fine.” This time she didn’t care how harsh she sounded.
“Why don’t we let a doctor decide that?” he said, so coolly he couldn’t possibly be messing with her . . . could he?
“A doctor is deciding that. So if you don’t mind.” She pushed him out of the way and grabbed her sister’s arm. The action made her feel like she was six and playing at being doctor instead of actually being one, and that shot her rioting emotions right into intense annoyance.
“I’m sorry,” he said utterly unapologetically. “How could I forget?” And then she could swear he muttered, “The worth of your hands and all that,” under his breath.
She couldn’t remember the last time her ears had heated with embarrassment. What was it with him getting so hung up on that? Her hands were worth too much to burn on saving a pot of caramel. Why was that so hard to understand? He should be glad—she was going to save his sister’s life, for shit’s sake.