by Sonali Dev
Emma placed a comforting hand on Betsy’s shoulder and threw Julia a look that said it was time to leave the room. With impressive agility, Julia picked up her camera and slipped away.
DJ stepped aside to let her through the door.
Deftly maneuvering the camera and the tripod she was carrying, she stuck out her hand. “Hi again, DJ.” The woman had the widest, warmest smile and for a moment the ease with which she shared it made all the turmoil of the day still inside him. “Or should I say Darcy.”
DJ’s surprise had to have shown on his face because her smile transformed into a giggle. The startling blue of her eyes combined with the silver stud pierced through one of her eyebrows made her seem somehow wild and in control all at once and DJ found himself smiling back.
“Your sister can’t stop talking about you.”
He groaned imagining his sister telling this perfect—rather attractive—stranger mortifying stories about him.
“All good things. Don’t worry,” she said while he continued to stare like a tongue-tied idiot. “She was telling me how your mother was an Austen fan and that’s where your names come from.”
He was definitely going to have to have a conversation with Emma. It had been years since they’d lived on the same continent and she still seemed to think it was all right to use his name to amuse herself. Mum had unfailingly called him Darcy, but Emma only did it when she was mad or when she thought it was funny. He thanked Ms. Austen yet again for having done that to him. Oh, the torture he had suffered because of his name. Grade-schoolers didn’t care that Darcy was your mother’s favorite literary character’s last name. To them, Darcy was a girl’s name and if you were named a girl’s name, then that, naturally, made you a girl.
He had come home upset from school one day because his classmates had been relentless with their teasing. Ammaji had patted his head as he chopped onions with far too much force. “My brother’s name was Daljeet but when he came to England he became DJ. Just like an Englishman. You can also become DJ, no, Darcy James?” It had been that simple. Pretty much like Ammaji’s approach to all of life’s problems.
Mum, naturally, had not been pleased with his decision to be called DJ. The only reason she’d let it go was that she had no idea that Ammaji had suggested it. He had learned early to mention Ammaji as little as possible to Mum. It had been the only way to keep her struggle between not being there for him and not being needed from flashing in her eyes. Or to keep her from going off on one of her rants. You’re smelling of onions again. When are you supposed to do your homework? You’re supposed to watch over her not work for her. DJ had never figured out if Mum’s dislike of Ammaji had to do purely with the fact that she spent so much time mothering her children, or if it had been because she had inculcated the love for cooking in DJ and derailed the dreams his mum had for him.
He finally took the hand Julia was holding out. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. And I prefer DJ if you don’t mind.”
She grinned again as though she wasn’t used to his brand of formality. Shockingly, he wasn’t embarrassed by her amusement; there was something wonderfully friendly about it.
“I imagine having a name like Darcy wasn’t fun growing up,” she said, as though reading his mind. “But it is kind of hot.”
DJ felt his face warm. “So did Emma and you have a chance to talk about anything other than my name?” He looked at the tripod and camera she had set down next to her.
“Barely. I was telling her how you and I met and she told me a little bit about what the past few months have been like. Then she had to work with a patient and I asked if I could take some test footage of her working, just to show her how unobtrusive the camera can be.”
“Hey there, bruh’.” Emma strode out of the room pushing Betsy in a wheelchair, bringing with her the loamy smell of pigments and turpentine.
He gave her a quick hug. “All well?” He threw a look at Betsy in the wheelchair, with her head leaning back and her eyes closed.
“She just needs some rest. Nothing to worry about.” Emma smiled fondly at her mentor.
Betsy wasn’t the only one DJ was worried about. Emma’s eyes had sunk deep into her face, to say nothing of how sunken her cheeks were. She turned to Julia. “Hullo again.”
“So, what did you think?” Julia asked.
“Felt a bit like being a reality star!” Emma said, smiling her irreverent smile. “We could totally have some fun with it. Have any of your shows been about someone who had fun with dying?”
Julia didn’t react except to give Emma an expression that mingled just the right amount of understanding with amusement. DJ wished he could mirror that expression. His own face probably looked like someone had slashed him with a meat cleaver. Julia reached out and gave his arm a gentle pat. So pathetic was he that the comfort of the contact made him want to take her hand and cling to it.
“Each subject I work with is a little different. But it’s your story and you can make it anything you want.”
A laugh spurted out of Emma. Her rude and angry laugh.
“You want me to make the story about how I can no longer make my life anything I want, whatever I want to make it! That’s pretty bloody ironic.” More of that ugly laugh. “My brother here loves some good irony, innit, Darcy?”
She seemed to have decided against going through with the interview. Which was a relief, he decided, since he really wasn’t a fan of this public-airing-of-laundry thing.
Julia’s demeanor remained entirely empathetic. She looked at Betsy and threw a glance at the studio door. “You’ve done some pretty good work here, Emma. How many people have you had go through the art residency program in the past five years? More than a hundred, based on my research. That’s important work. Your art is also so unique. You have a lot to share and talk about. When I said you could make what you want of it, I meant you can use it to call attention to all the good you’ve done.”
“So I have to be dying for people to be interested in my work? Where were you until now?”
“That’s hardly fair, Emma. I’m sure Ms. Wickham will understand that you’re not interested in doing the interview, but—”
“Why would I not want to do the interview?”
Because I can’t bear to let the world see you like this.
“It’s perfect. It might be shitty for people to be interested in me and my work only because it’s such a delicious fecking tragedy. But I’m not a total knobhead. I’ll tell my story for them to weep their sodding arses off at. So long as they pay me for it. What’s the most you’ve received from the online fund-raising?”
Julia looked as embarrassed as he felt, but she stayed determinedly nonjudgmental. “My highest was close to half a million.”
“See, I’ve got no life insurance and shit, but I can leave you a rich man, Darcy James!”
He was about to respond, but Julia met his eyes and shook her head. “We can’t predict what we’ll raise. But telling your story can be empowering,” she said with impressive calm, while his own heart was a restless mess.
Emma offered up another scoffing, awful laugh. “Right. Fine then, let’s try and beat your half-mil record.”
Again, Julia smiled kindly, as though she understood fully why his sister was being so provocative. “There’s somewhere I have to be, so I’ll leave you two alone to discuss this. DJ, it was a pleasure. Please know that this story means everything to me and I will do everything in my power to tell it the way it deserves to be told. Emma, I’ll text you about schedules. It will take a few days of shadowing you to get enough footage. We can talk more as we go.”
As soon as she had left, Emma held up a hand in DJ’s face. “Save it. I’m doing this. Trying to talk me out of it is a waste of your breath.”
“How refreshingly different!” he said, making her grin.
But for all her bluster she looked so bloody weary, so frustrated, his chest hurt. It struck him suddenly, that at least her placid phase seemed to have passed. An
d this was a good thing. Maybe Julia was right, maybe venting on camera, talking about the work she loved so much, would help her work through this.
He uncrossed his arms. “Why don’t we get going? We can discuss it in the car. It’s been a long day, love.”
She looked grateful. “I have one more student to look in on. I promised her, so don’t argue.”
“What are you arguing about?” Betsy woke up and looked between Emma and DJ.
“Hullo there.” Emma squatted down in front of Betsy. “Your head still hurting?”
Betsy looked at her as though she had no idea what Emma was talking about, then she turned to DJ. “Charles! So lovely of you to come.”
DJ met Emma’s worried eyes and squatted down next to her in front of the wheelchair. “Of course, love,” he said to Betsy. “Where else would I be?”
His sister grinned—her little girl grin from a different lifetime—and suddenly nothing else mattered but what she wanted. DJ stood back up and gave Emma a hand. “Is doing the interview really what you want?” It seemed like the exact kind of thing she would hate to do.
She rubbed the paint on her fingers, scraped it with her thumbnails until it wiped off in spots. “It would be great exposure for Green Acres and the program. And you have to admit, the money would be sweet.”
“I don’t want you to worry about the money.”
“I know. I know you’ll take care of it. But why not get help if it’s there. What do we have to lose?”
“Charles takes care of everything, don’t you, Charles?” Betsy said, looking at him as though he were some kind of god.
“Thanks,” DJ said awkwardly.
“I’ll see you around,” Betsy said to Emma. “Charles and I need to go now.”
DJ raised his brows at Emma, who shrugged rather unhelpfully.
“You promised to take me to the garden and show me the roses, remember?” Betsy said to DJ, or more accurately, to Charles.
“Do you mind taking Betsy for a spin around the park in the back?” Emma said in a softer voice. “I’ll quickly look in on Sherry and gather my things and then we can go home.”
At this point he’d do anything to get his sister off her feet. “Sure.” It seemed like the only response he was capable of giving her anymore.
BETSY TURNED AROUND and looked at DJ as he pushed her wheelchair back in through the back entrance of Green Acres after their walk through the garden, where he’d found that Betsy, for everything she did not remember, still knew a great many things about roses and their many varieties.
“Who on earth are you?” she asked. It was the slightest change, but her eyes were suddenly a little more alert.
DJ wondered if he needed to let someone know. “I’m Emma Caine’s brother. We were just walking in the garden.”
She smiled widely at the mention of Emma and turned back around. “Ah! I know, you’re Darcy. Emma’s told me all about you.”
He’d better hurry up and have that word with his sister. “Actually, I prefer to go by DJ.”
“Is that Indian food I smell?” she said, sniffing the air as they passed what looked like a large cafeteria. “It must be Indian night for dinner.” She sat up in her chair. “Emma tells me you’re a chef. Doesn’t that smell great?”
The one thing DJ had a hard time lying about was food. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “When’s dinnertime?”
Her stomach growled and she placed a hand on it. “It seems like now’s dinnertime, doesn’t it?” She pointed imperiously at the doors that led to the cafeteria and he pushed the chair into the dining hall. It was a huge room with three sets of double doors that had all been thrown open. Some fifty-odd round tables were arranged in a perfect grid and they were currently almost all occupied. He had no idea that Green Acres had such a large resident population.
What they were smelling had to be chicken makhani, with the usual hints of cardamom, clove, and bay leaf mingling with fresh cream. But it smelled like something that came off an assembly line at a manufacturing facility for makhani sauce supplied to grocery stores. He tried not to scrunch up his nose. It wasn’t easy. Chicken makhani was one of his signature dishes. His still didn’t taste quite the way Ammaji’s had, but he loved to play with it. It was going to be a main course for the Raje dinner. Apparently, it was one of Yash Raje’s favorite dishes and it had been the first thing Mina Raje had put on the menu.
The crowd here seemed happy enough with the food, because there was a virtual riot near the buffet table. It seemed like the smell had brought every single resident to the dining hall all at once.
They joined the queue waiting to get at the food.
“It’s Indian curry Thursday!” the older man standing in front of them said.
DJ cringed at the use of the word, but the man who was dressed in a crisp dress shirt and trousers and reeked of aftershave was too busy checking Betsy out to notice. “Oh, there you are, Miss Betsy! How pretty you look this afternoon!”
She smiled and, God help him, batted her eyelashes.
DJ listened as they flirted—rather deftly he might add. He could learn a thing or two. Finally, they reached the buffet table. “Let’s get you something to eat.” He plated some chicken and rice for Betsy, swirled some raita on top and placed a naan quarter at just the right angle, then scanned the room for a table and found a head of golden dreadlocks all the way across the crowded room.
What was Julia doing back here? He tried to catch her eye, but she seemed to be searching for someone. Surely she wasn’t looking for him. The tiny kick of anticipation in his gut made him feel thirteen years old.
He settled Betsy at a table and brought her a glass of water. “I’ll be right back,” he said but Betsy was busy beckoning her new boyfriend over. “I need to say hello to a friend.”
Betsy followed his gaze, just as Julia’s clear blue eyes met his.
“Well well well,” Betsy said. “She’s a looker, isn’t she?”
DJ shrugged in agreement. Julia waved to him and he made a gesture letting her know he was coming over.
“But what does a white girl need dreads for?”
Luckily, Mr. Casanova joined her and DJ didn’t have to respond.
He made his way across the crowded dining hall toward the corridor where Julia had headed and crashed straight into someone.
He looked down, an apology on his lips, and found himself staring right into the flashing amber eyes of Trisha Raje, of all people.
“Hey! Watch where you’re going,” she snapped with her usual sunniness, pressing a hand into his chest to push him away. His skin heated under her hand, the awareness of it spreading through him. In the moment that it took for her to recognize him, her eyes went round, her mouth rounder. It was as though she had no idea what to do with the fact that he existed at all. “Oh,” she followed up articulately.
“Dr. Raje,” he said. Her palm was still pressed against his chest.
“What are you doing here?” they both said together and the embarrassment he saw in her eyes spread all across him.
For a few seconds, neither one of them said anything.
Then she pulled her hand away and found her voice as color rampaged across her face. “I was here to see a friend.”
Something so sad flashed in her eyes that he almost wanted to ask her what was wrong. Instead what came out was, “Emma works here, so I brought her in.”
Mentioning Emma seemed to bring their last conversation to life between them, accusations and hopelessness and all. She opened and closed her mouth, and yet again he had a sense that she was so uncomfortable around him that she could barely keep things straight. Well, she wasn’t alone.
“How is Emma doing?” she asked.
He couldn’t answer. Not without thinking about how he hadn’t found a way to change Emma’s mind yet.
The long column of her throat strained as she swallowed and he had a sense that she’d seen his thoughts, his feeling of uselessness, his guilt. This time sympathy flashed i
n her eyes and it ramped up his restlessness.
“So Emma is working today?” she said when he didn’t respond, and all he could think of was how tired Emma had looked and how letting Emma work right now proved that he was failing at taking care of her.
“I thought you wanted her to experience how worth living her life is.” Even to his own ears he sounded defensive. “Well, she considers this place the best part of her life.”
Instead of biting his head off in return, she nodded. “I imagine she does.” Her hand reached out and hovered over his forearm. “Mr. Caine . . .”
Every time she called him Mr. Caine he wanted to ask her to call him DJ, but it never seemed to come out.
She pulled her hand back without touching him. “What you’re doing . . . it’s really wonderful.” Was she attempting pleasantness? Her face was all pinched, certainly not the right accompaniment to pleasantness. He couldn’t quite reconcile pleasantness on her at all. Couldn’t make it fit with what he knew of her. She pressed her hand into her belly and his own hand went to his chest where her hand had pressed into his skin.
“Should we go find Emma? I’d love to say hi.” The only time her face seemed to relax was when she mentioned Emma. And somehow that made the hope that Emma would be all right nudge at him.
“DJ?” Julia said behind Trisha and she froze.
Her entire demeanor changed. She spun around as though someone had stabbed her between the shoulder blades. Her eyes scanned Julia from head to toe, the tattered jeans, the blond dreadlocks gathered over one shoulder, the Ganesha tattooed up the side of her neck, and rested in horror on her raised, pierced brow.
Julia in turn took in the doctor in her pristine pantsuit, her expensive shoes, her glossy well-cut hair that bobbed around a perfectly boned jaw, then gave her the warmest smile.
Instead of smiling back, Trisha Raje scowled. Actually it was more a sneer, dripping with all the disgust of someone who had stepped in fresh turd. She followed it up by stepping back, as though she were physically repulsed.
“Dr. Raje, this is Julia,” he said sharply, offended on Julia’s behalf. “Julia, this is Dr. Raje.”