Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

by Sonali Dev

  “Sorry.” She straightened the glass, then grabbed the envelope and wiped it with her thumb. Her eyes darkened when she noticed that it was a bill from the hospital.

  Bugger him sideways! He should have put the damn thing away. Without another word she tore it open.

  The color drained from her face. “What the bloody hell is wrong with this country? How can tests cost thirty thousand dollars?” Emma did have health insurance, but it most certainly didn’t cover treatment at Stanford. The places where treatment was covered had already deemed her tumor inoperable.

  “I told you, I don’t want you to worry about that.”

  “How can I not worry about it?” she hissed in frustration. “You’ve already dropped your entire bloody life for me. And I love you for it. But you’re not bankrupting yourself. You’re just not.”

  Too late, baby girl. “This one bill is not going to bankrupt me.”

  Wrong thing to say, because he knew exactly the thought that went through her head at that. “Paying for the surgery isn’t going to bankrupt me either,” he added quickly.

  If it did, he had a solid enough career that he’d make it all back.

  Emma met his eyes. The difference in color was particularly noticeable in the light streaming through the window; he kicked himself again, for not forcing her to see a doctor when he’d first noticed it. “I want to sell the bug.”

  “We’re not selling your car.”

  She got up and started searching the kitchen. “It’s not like I’m going to be able to drive it ever again, and it isn’t exactly your style.”

  He opened a cabinet and handed her the box of pralines she was searching for. “We can afford the car for now and we need it. We’re okay with the bills.”

  Both were lies.

  The bug had belonged to Emma’s friend Sabah, a girl who had gone back to Dubai after finishing her master’s degree. Emma had never admitted as much, but DJ suspected there was more to that friendship than friendship. Who left a car behind for their roommate after knowing them for only two years?

  “Sabah’s family is wealthy. She didn’t really care about selling it before she left.” That was all Emma had said to him. But DJ studied people all day long and just the way Emma said Sabah’s name said much.

  He would not be letting anyone sell that car.

  Emma popped a piece of praline into her mouth and turned weary eyes on DJ. “Maybe I should write that blog after all. Sell my story to get people to buy my art. Except I’m bollocks at writing. I think I single-handedly turned Mrs. Brendish’s hair silver when I took her composition class.”

  DJ sat up.

  Julia Wickham. The journalist had called him that morning and tried to convince him again to let her meet Emma. The woman had such a gentle way about her, speaking to her had actually made him feel better.

  “What?” Emma said, studying him as she sucked on the candy in her mouth.

  “Nothing.” Emma was in a strange mood and he wasn’t sure how she’d react.

  She jabbed him in the arm. “Darcy James, that’s your trying-to-manage-me face. Tell me. I really need something to distract me right now.”

  He had turned Julia Wickham down again, but this smacked of a window opening when doors had been slamming repeatedly in their faces. And more than the money, the idea that unburdening herself on camera might help Emma move forward kept nudging at him. “Funny you say that, because . . . because I met a journalist in the waiting room when I came to see you the other day. She wanted to talk to you.”

  Emma bit into her candy, something she usually never did. The crunch was loud, satisfying. There was a gleam in her eyes, and it burned through the exhaustion. A flash of the old Emma. His warrior sister. “What are you on about?”

  “She’s doing a web series about patients with difficult diagnoses.” He refused to say the word terminal.

  “Really? So it’s one of those American air-your-laundry-in-public and sob-for-all-to-see things? Then everyone with a bleeding heart feels sorry enough for you and throws money at you on a fund-raising link?”

  “That’s not exactly how she described it, but yeah, something like that.”

  DJ had never understood the need to see the lives of others destruct on-screen. Divorce court, cops arresting drunks and batterers, all those shows where you watched people confront cheating spouses, abandoning parents, killers of loved ones felt voyeuristic to him. Even if Julia was right and it was cathartic to those involved, the pull to then view that catharsis as entertainment seemed barbaric. And if the people suffering felt forced to do it for the money, well, that just took the pathos to another level.

  Emma put another piece of praline in her mouth, crunched this one, too. “Last month a woman who cut off her husband’s knob because he was thrashing the shit out of her got two mil for her lawyer fees.”

  “You’re joking.”

  Her eyes were flat-out glittering now. She put out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Let’s have her number then. This could be a blast, innit?” she said with a laugh. Maybe this catharsis thing was worth a shot.

  “You’re a crazy old cow, Emma Caine.” But he laughed, too, and retrieved Julia’s card from his wallet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Trisha had to admit it was nice to have Nisha in her condo. For years now, Nisha, Ashna, and Trisha had met every few weeks for dinner and wine. But thanks to the demands of their work, by the time they got together, they were often wiped out. This morning Nisha and she had woken up and chatted in bed the way they had done as girls on their visits to Sripore, as though time was not snapping at their heels.

  They discussed Dorna, wiping each other’s tears as they laughed and cried about a woman they had both loved.

  “Did anyone call Rita?” Nisha asked, sniffling.

  Rita was Dorna’s partner of thirty years. Dorna had watched her slowly lose her poet’s mind to Alzheimer’s over the last decade. Finally, last year when her own cancer had made it impossible to be a caregiver, she had moved Rita into a nursing home.

  “The hospital called Green Acres, but I’ll go see her this week.” Trisha placed a blueberry chocolate muffin and a glass of milk on a tray across Nisha’s lap.

  Her sister squeezed her shoulder. “You’re a good person, Shasha.” She took a bite. “These are great!”

  Trisha tried not to snarl at that. It wasn’t Nisha’s fault that the muffins tasted like mud to her. Gee, I wonder whose fault it is.

  She pulled the blinds open with a little more force than was necessary and sat down next to her sister with her cup of coffee, watching her eat in silence.

  Nisha’s phone chirped, and she looked down at it and smiled. “Neel and Mishka just landed. Making up that story about you having a meltdown was genius, wasn’t it?”

  Trisha took a sip of the coffee, which also annoyingly tasted like bitter dishwater this morning, and put her cup down on the tray. “I’m surprised he bought it, actually. When was the last time I had a meltdown?” she asked, adjusting the pillows under Nisha’s head. “Because really, I’m like the least meltdowny person I know.”

  “Trisha,” Nisha said with all the patience of a saint—and by the way, saints only had so much patience because they really had nowhere to go and nothing to do, it was untested patience and not worth all the credit it got them—“the point was to let Neel know that the person to worry about was you, not me.”

  “Gee, thank you!”

  More patience was lobbed at her. “Marriages are complicated creatures. He doesn’t want the details. All he wants is to know that this has nothing to do with him and me. If this is about you, his mind, preoccupied as it is, doesn’t go on high alert. That’s what I didn’t want, high alert, okay?”

  Well then, mission accomplished. Keeping a secret in the Raje family could scare anyone. It was akin to burning superstrong incense and then hoping everyone’s overactive sense of smell quit functioning. They were all curious and suspicious by nature and that was a dead
ly combination when placed in the vicinity of a secret. No wonder Neel had raised his hands and quickly backed away.

  Nisha looked down at her phone again. “Ma and HRH also made it to LA.” Trisha checked her own phone. Of course, Ma had only texted Nisha about her whereabouts. Typical.

  After Ma’s wheelchair-cleaning episode, HRH and she had both said nothing more to Trisha about Julia’s baffling return. Trisha had found herself searching the waiting areas and hallways of the hospital every time she was there. But naturally, she had not caught Julia lurking around. No matter what nefarious purpose Julia had come back for, the woman was too smart to be obvious about it.

  As for Ma and HRH, it was a stroke of luck that they had left for LA this morning to hobnob with Hollywood’s Most Influential and raise money for Yash’s campaign. At least they didn’t need to deal with the overactive Ma-dar.

  “Ew,” Nisha said, grinning at her phone. “Ma says she’s excited about their repeat honeymoon.”

  Ma loved to call any time she spent alone with HRH that.

  “Ew!” Trisha echoed her sister and they both wiggled their shoulders to shake off the particularly unwelcome thought of their parents being romantic.

  They both giggled.

  As for the illustrious Yash Raje, he was in Washington, DC, gathering the other half of the capital required for a political campaign: endorsements. Ashna was far too stressed out about revamping the menu and saving Curried Dreams. Plus, she was the only one who wouldn’t dig for answers someone didn’t want to give, no matter how suspicious she got.

  That left their grandmother and Esha. The good news was that those two never left the house, never used a cell phone. If the pregnancy came to Esha in one of her visions, Nisha was insistent that they didn’t need to know about it.

  Aji and Esha were used to seeing Nisha, like Trisha, stop by every few days, but they also knew that the announcement and the fund-raiser were keeping Nisha busy. They’d complain about it, but in the end Nisha could do no wrong in their eyes.

  The biggest advantage, truly, was that none of the family ever visited Trisha’s condo.

  It was a miracle Ma had even agreed to let her kids get their own places. Yash had been the first person to do it and it had broken her heart a million times over. HRH, naturally, had considered it perfectly normal because it was the American way.

  Their views on assimilation and owning their heritage were the one thing Ma and HRH always disagreed on. Ma believed their heritage was their greatest strength, and the more they stayed connected to their Indian roots, the more comfortable they’d be in their skin.

  HRH’s take on it was this advice to his children: “This is our home. This country is yours. Take everything you need. Give everything you have. From the beginning of time, humans have migrated. We’ve claimed land and let it claim us. Don’t ever fulfill anybody else’s definition of your relationship with your country. How many generations ago their forefathers got here may be how some people stake their claim, but I stake mine with how much I give. How wholly I love. This place called to me, I’m here, it’s mine. And now, it’s yours.”

  As in most things, Ma had deferred to HRH and accepted that her unmarried children would live outside of their home even though they lived in the same area. But despite her usually madly overactive protective instinct, she never could bring herself to visit their individual homes.

  Nisha was the only exception. Since it was her married home, Neel and Nisha’s house was okay. Even then, Ma’s visits were restricted to when Nisha hosted one of her family dinners every few months, and there would be none of that until this fund-raiser was done. The idyllic and impeccable Los Altos Hills house would remain locked up until Neel and Mishka came back.

  Trisha picked up the tray that Nisha had cleaned out nicely. She let out a silent sigh of relief. A good appetite meant all was well with the baby.

  Nisha lay back down on Trisha’s bed. “In all this confusion of trying to hide the pregnancy, I forgot that Neel’s ex is going to be at the reunion.” Trisha had never heard her sister utter Barbara’s name.

  “And?” Trisha asked, looking her straight in the eye.

  “And . . . nothing. It must be the hormones that I even mentioned it.”

  “Hmm,” Trisha said skeptically, keeping her lecture about trusting Neel to herself as she moved to put the tray in the sink.

  Nonetheless, she heard Nisha pick up her phone and call Neel as she began to get dressed for the day. The underpinning of desperate sweetness that laced her sister’s voice when she said, “Hi, honey, missing me yet?” Trisha hoped was just her imagination.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It had been four days since Emma had been discharged and had returned to work. Usually DJ dropped her off and picked her up outside, but today they were going to meet Julia Wickham here. The receptionist at Green Acres threw DJ a look that he tried not to interpret as suspicious. “That’s not an American license, sir,” she said in a tone that suggested that she couldn’t comprehend that people from other countries actually possessed driver’s licenses.

  “It’s a London license,” he said, giving her his most charming smile. “I’m Emma Caine’s brother. Emma has worked here for five years. I’m just here to pick her up.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to wait while I find Ms. Caine. She didn’t sign you in, so I can’t just let you in.” She fixed him with a stare that was meant to be assertive, but there was enough of a nervous undertone in it that he could plainly see all the things she thought him capable of.

  They see us as outsiders, mate, we’re fucking aliens to them. Look at their faces, Gulshan had loved to say while pointing at every white face on the Tube as they rode into Kingsgate.

  Gulshan’s anger had felt raw and freeing to seventeen-year-old DJ for those few ill-fated weeks when he’d befriended Gulshan and his gang. But even back then he had known that Gulshan’s obnoxiousness had been a pathetic attempt at asserting their right to be there, to be in London, which was the only home they knew. This is our home too, innit? But fuck if they think so. He had jabbed a thumb in the direction of an old white woman in a floral dress and she had burst into tears.

  DJ remembered waiting for the boys to get off the train before quickly handing her the packet of tissues Mum always tucked into his bag. Instead of saying thank you she had let out a terrified shriek and looked like she was about to have a stroke right there as though he’d handed her a bomb not tissue paper.

  When he got off the train, his new friends had been doubling over laughing at him.

  They had been quite the motley crew. All these Punjabi, Sikh, and Muslim boys in their ganji shirts and baggy jeans. None of them were black like he was. But they let him tag along. You’re one of us, mate. You got enough Desi blood for us. Them aunties-uncles don’t know shit. Racist buggers. Gulshan’s large-hearted acceptance had made DJ feel like he’d somehow finally found a place where he belonged.

  But no amount of wanting to belong had meant anything when Gulshan had thrown that match on the newsstand in Chelsea. The flames had come so fast. The owner, an old man in an even older tweed jacket, had gone down on his knees and broken into tears. His begging for mercy had looked an awful lot like praying.

  Gulshan’s words had a way of flashing back to DJ every now and again. We’re fucking aliens to them. Like now, with this lovely lady looking at him as though he were here to set fire to things. He was wearing a baby-pink button-down, for shit’s sake. He looked like he was off to church.

  He pulled all of himself inward, curving his shoulders, softening his brow. It was second nature to make himself smaller so he could pass by unnoticed and get on with things, not easy given that he was six feet four inches tall. He reminded himself that the woman was only doing her job. With his most nonthreatening smile in place he leaned against the granite counter. “If you can’t find my sister, maybe you could call security and have them verify that my London license is legitimate?” He clipped his wor
ds in a way that would have made his elocution teachers proud, and usually made Americans lose their loaves.

  It worked. She half smiled and did as he asked. Then apologized sheepishly when Dan, the security guard, gave him a hug on a “’Sup brother! You must be Emma’s DJ,” before proceeding to quiz him on the way to win Emma’s heart. Not exactly in those words, but DJ recognized a goner when he saw one.

  “She okay?” Dan asked.

  “Yeah.” She had seemed more okay today than she had in a very long time. She’d bounced out of the car when he’d dropped her off a few hours ago and gone to Curried Dreams to work on some recipes with Ashna. Now he was back to pick her up and Julia Wickham was supposed to meet them here.

  Naturally, Dan knew exactly where Emma was. In the large studio that had been Emma’s office for the past five years, working with Betsy Reyes, who used to be her boss and was now her patient.

  Betsy had developed the art therapy program at Green Acres, and everything Emma knew about using art to help people with emotional challenges, she had learned from Betsy. Then dementia had come knocking two years ago and taken over fast. Ever since then Emma had worked tirelessly to develop her therapies to also treat dementia.

  Emma had told DJ that even though Betsy didn’t remember anyone around her most of the time, she did always remember how to paint, and so Emma painted with her every day. Or she had until she herself became sick.

  DJ waved to her through the studio door. She was sitting next to Betsy at an artist’s bench and painting. He watched them from outside, not wanting to intrude. Betsy looked entirely at peace with herself, entirely absorbed in the work she was doing. Then suddenly she looked up and her face crumpled in fear. DJ followed her gaze. He hadn’t noticed Julia Wickham standing in an obscure corner of the room with a camera on a tripod shooting his sister and Betsy as they painted.

  That was fast. Emma and he were supposed to speak with Julia together. But, of course, he was crazy to believe that his sister was going to let him make any decisions for her.