Incense and Sensibility

by Sonali Dev

  Crap. Usually his brain worked faster than this. “The boxes, thanks for helping me move them. I think we need to move them again.”

  She raised one eyebrow. God, she was totally on to him. “Sure. Where are we taking them?”

  His back groaned. “If we leave them here and someone comes in before I can get them to Nisha and Neel’s home, then the surprise will be ruined.”

  “Where did you want to move them?”

  That’s how they spent the next half hour, moving boxes that weighed as much as an overfed horse back and forth across the pool house, just so he could learn more about her. She’d just finished grad school, but she only ever wanted to work in her family’s yoga studio. There was a clarity to her thoughts, an almost economic focus to her words that exposed an infinite wealth of understanding. He felt like he’d stumbled into a new universe that was waiting to unravel before him.

  “Yash?” she said finally, once again putting down a box much more gently than he had.

  “India?”

  “I’m really having fun, but I don’t think anyone is going to find these boxes if we throw a blanket over them.”

  “A blanket.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s actually brilliant.”

  “Thanks. Also, we can still talk even if we stop moving the boxes. I’m strong, but I think I might need to rest my arms now.”

  “Sorry.” He was such an ass.

  “Don’t be.” She smiled and touched his hand, then pulled away when something zinged between their bodies. Something bright and electric that made his entire existence matter and burned away the usual discomfort that surfaced when women flirted with him. His entire being was seized with urgency. Not being able to speak to her again felt like too big of a risk.

  “I have to go and get henna on my hands, otherwise someone’s going to come looking for me.”

  He picked up her hand, another zing, and studied how wondrously beautiful it was.

  You’re twenty-eight years old, he reminded himself. Get a grip. This does not happen to grown-ass adults. Doubt nudged inside him, but with the way her hand felt in his, as though he were holding it with his entire being, he didn’t let any other thought form. “How long does henna take?”

  “I’ll ask for very little.”

  God, how was she so perfect?

  “I’ll wait for you in the gazebo.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll come, right?”

  She nodded. “I’ll try my best.” Then she left.

  He sat in the gazebo, the ball of anticipation in his gut fighting for space with the fear that she might not return.

  She did.

  They talked all night. Gazes clinging, fingers tangled, studying each other’s lips as words they’d never said to anyone else formed on them. Childhood dreams and misadventures. Adult insecurities and missteps. All that they hoped to accomplish with their lives.

  He had never wanted to kiss someone so badly. There was such an inevitability to it, and yet when he imagined it, the hunger and wonder of it terrified him. He didn’t let the terror take form. Fear had controlled him for too long. It had locked him up. What he was feeling now was too precious to stay locked away from. So he pushed down every memory that had torn up the connection between his mind and his body.

  He let himself imagine kissing her. Somehow he knew how kissing her would feel. It could erase everything ugly inside him. Hope was a magnet. It tugged him forward, then pulled him back to slow down, to not mess things up.

  As they talked, their gazes returned again and again to skim lips, desire glowing in the air around them. He took her to all his favorite places on the estate, exposing parts of him he’d let no one else see. But he couldn’t bring his lips to hers.

  When she left him the next morning just as the sun peeked over the house because they had to get dressed for the wedding, he told her he’d wait for her near the pool house after the wedding ceremony.

  “You’ll come, right?”

  She dropped a shy kiss on his cheek, sending heat coursing through his body. “I’ll try my best.” Then she left.

  A mix of fear and anticipation churned inside him all morning as he got dressed, all afternoon as he smiled at the guests, struggling to remember their names.

  Seeing her again was a burden slipping off his shoulders, but also a breath caught in his lungs. The silk that wrapped her body was neither pink nor blue. A color he could swear had never existed before this moment. The brown of her eyes brightened when she caught the way he drank her in.

  They snuck around catching moments, exchanging whispered words, stealing glances across the crush of wedding guests. Just the two of them in a celebrating crowd. It wasn’t until much later, after the rituals were performed, the meals eaten, that they found each other in an isolated spot behind the pool house where the music from the reception wafted over. They found their way into each other’s arms and danced, holding each other and swaying under the brightly lit night. That’s when it happened.

  After twenty-four hours of yearning, India went up on her toes and kissed him. It was soft at first, slow, then they fell into it body and soul. Reaching for each other with their lips, hungry for what lay beyond the heat of their skin, beyond the wet melding of their mouths.

  Everything Yash was made of turned into that kiss. Weightless and searing and wide-open. His existence turned new and untouched. For a moment he thought he could hold on to it. Then the sound of faraway guests yanked him back to earth, the disorientation of it, yanking other things inside him out of place. For one ugly second, it wasn’t India’s hair gripped in his fingers, it wasn’t her lips saying his name. He squeezed his eyes shut and brought himself back to this moment, but inside his belly was the nauseated swirling of whipping across time.

  She stroked his hair, his jaw, he could tell that she sensed the confusion inside him but she couldn’t articulate it into a question. As they walked back to where the guests were dispersing he wanted to do something to put her at ease, to put everything back. Taking her phone from her, he’d called himself from it and then saved the numbers on both phones. She told him where she lived but he’d always known. Her family’s yoga studio was next door to his uncle’s restaurant.

  In that moment it felt as though they’d always been aware of each other, homing devices in search.

  His family was leaving for Sripore the next day to celebrate Nisha’s wedding at the Sagar Mahal, their ancestral palace.

  “I’ll see you after we get back,” he said, looking into her hope-soaked eyes, her fingers tangled in his, hating that suddenly the coming week felt like a lifeline. Too long. Too short.

  Letting her hand go felt like a premonition. The weight of things he’d let out into the light started to wrap around his throat again, heavier and tighter.

  “You’ll come, right?” She borrowed his words from last night, confusion at the sudden storm she sensed inside him too clear in her voice.

  As much as he’d wanted that kiss, the struggle to hold on to the beauty of it took up too much energy. “I’ll try my best,” he said, borrowing back the words she’d said to him in return.

  He’d never gone. Never called her.

  What happened in Sripore the following week changed everything, brought back the things he’d let himself forget when he met her. After returning he’d allowed himself to wonder fleetingly if she would call. But of course he knew she wouldn’t, not after she heard from his sisters about his being with Naina. Then he’d put it away and never let himself think about it.

  It had felt like a dream. He told himself that was all it had been.

  THINKING ABOUT NISHA’S wedding all these years later was a mistake. Yash knew the shooting had weakened him. Keeping his thoughts well leashed and where they needed to be was his superpower. Even the enormity of what had happened in this gazebo with India had been no match for his focus, because twenty-four hours did not define you.

  An hour with her just redefine
d you.

  He had to stop this. He had to get out of the gazebo. He needed to feel things again.

  Feeling things gave him something to control. But the emotions had stopped again the moment he’d stepped out of that glass-paneled turquoise door.

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Nisha made her way into the gazebo and sank down next to him.

  “Why do people say that?”

  “For obvious reasons. Everyone wants to get rich, and people zoning out on you seems a plentiful enough resource.” She smiled her worried smile. “It could be a profitable enterprise.”

  He grunted in response, and she elbowed him in the ribs. “Yash! You know the best thing about you is that you focus on people. You’ve always made even us, your annoying younger siblings, feel like we mattered, even when we pestered you.”

  Turning to her, he made eye contact, hoping it was his usual. “What makes you think I’m not focusing on people?”

  She widened her eyes in a very Nisha way, infusing the action with more censure than most could withstand. “Trisha and Ashna were saying you’re not returning their calls either. Rico said you’ve basically been hmmm-ing through your briefing calls. And you’re sitting here in the gazebo when everyone is gathered upstairs.”

  “So I can’t take a moment to myself? Every waking moment I need to be this robot everyone wants me to be. All the damn time.” His tone was so sharp she flinched, and he should have felt terrible, but there was the little problem of his feelings being lost.

  “You can totally take a moment to yourself. Is that what you want me to tell Ma and Aji? Our mother and grandmother have been worried and waiting with everyone for the past half hour.” Nisha held up her phone.

  He squeezed his temples. “Why the hell is everyone in this family so manipulative?”

  That made her squeeze her temples too. “Okay, Yash, come on. I was not being manipulative. I understand that this isn’t easy for you, but listen . . . Never mind. Do you want us to cancel?”

  “Now you’re just babying me. That’s not what I need from you right now.”

  She took his hand, and if she hadn’t done it so gingerly, he might have pulled away. “Then tell us what you need. We already canceled the last two weeks of appearances.”

  He stood, leaned on a column, and stared at the mountain beyond the house. Anchorage point, where he’d loved to hike as a boy. Where he’d taken his younger siblings when they needed a place to make them feel rooted, because you got a perfect view of the Anchorage from there. Where he used to go when he needed to think. Where he’d taken India that night, because he’d had to show her how the sun rose from behind the home he’d grown up in. Where he’d waited all night to kiss her but hadn’t been able to.

  “Yash?” Nisha said behind him.

  “I need time. Someone hated me enough to shoot me. I’m not broken but I am wounded, and I need time to heal until I can stand back up again.” Saying those words, her words, felt like being in her presence again, and the warm prick of emotion bloomed inside him. “Put out a statement that I need another few days to recover. Ask people to pray for Abdul, not me. We have a big enough lead in the polls that I can take a little more time.” With that, he made his way out of the gazebo.

  “Okay,” she said behind him. “At least tell me where you’re going.”

  “To get help.”

  As Yash approached his car, he found Brandy waiting by it. He still wasn’t used to seeing her, or rather he wasn’t used to not seeing Abdul. He checked his phone to make sure there was nothing new from Arzu. A new trauma surgeon had seen Abdul today.

  Brandy straightened up when she saw Yash. Actually, that was a lie. The woman had a way of being incredibly erect and alert at all times, but she did look up from her phone and there was something suspiciously like a smile in her eyes. Naturally, as soon as she saw him she put it away and looked at him in that icy assassin way again.

  “Everything all right?” Yash asked, looking pointedly at her phone, and there it was again: the softening of her eyes.

  With nothing more than a curt nod, she asked where they were going.

  “I’m not sure. Hey, is it okay to ditch this today? Take the day off? We need to renegotiate our hours. I’d like to engage you only for rallies and events.” If he could ever do those again.

  “Nisha’s orders are that I accompany you to all public places,” she said, emphasizing Nisha’s name like the leverage it was.

  The urge to dig his fingers through his hair was strong. “I’m not really going to go out in public.”

  “The yoga studio is a public place.”

  “Wow. Umm. Is that where I said . . .” Never mind. If being surrounded by sisters had taught Yash anything, it was that Brandy totally had his number and arguing with her would gain him exactly nada.

  He got behind the wheel and Brandy settled into the passenger seat.

  He must have looked as defeated as he felt, because her tone gentled several notches. “Nisha said I only have to accompany you to places that don’t qualify as your family’s homes. She also said that we’d revisit that once you start doing events again.”

  He let out a sigh. What Nisha meant was that he could have his independence back when he got his head out of his ass. “I really need space right now.” He tried sincerity, because if anything was going to work with Brandy, something told him honesty would.

  “You can ignore me. Pretend I’m not here.” There was something about the way she said it, as though that were her dearest wish.

  Being the center of attention was something Yash had always been comfortable with. Attention whore, Trisha very politely called it. This need for isolation was entirely new to him. Apparently his new bodyguard had the skill by the balls.

  For a few minutes they drove in silence, then her phone buzzed and the ice in her eyes did a little tremble.

  “We’re in a car. Unless someone is going to drive up alongside like a gangster movie, you can take that.”

  She looked at her phone. Yup, the eyes warmed over again. With her usual quick efficiency, she typed something on her phone and put it away.

  “Everything all right?” he asked for the second time that day, and she threw him a look that said, Which part of “ignore me” involves being all up in my business?

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” He merged onto I-280 and was met with an ocean of cars. Traffic was a sign of a vibrant economy, he didn’t begrudge it.

  “It’s my daughter. She’s—” She cleared her throat. “She’s getting ready to ask a boy to a dance. And she’s . . . um . . . she’s never nervous about anything.”

  “Wow, things must’ve changed since I was in high school.”

  “She’s in middle school. Sixth grade.”

  “That’s somehow even more impressive. Do the girls ask now? Or is it one of those turnabout dances?”

  “No, she just likes this guy, so she’s going to ask him.”

  He had never asked anyone to a dance his whole life, so this child had his respect. “It’s pretty impressive to have that kind of self-confidence so young.”

  Her smile completely transformed her face. “She’s a special kid. Actually, I lied earlier. She isn’t nervous at all. I . . . I kinda was the one who was nervous, so . . .”

  “So you asked her to keep you posted.” Yash found himself smiling. “And she’s keeping you posted? That’s a great kid.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have only one?”

  “Yeah.”

  So they were back to the monosyllables. Her phone beeped again and she looked at it.

  “Did she do it?” he asked.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  “Yes!” they said together, with the same kind of excitement he felt when the Niners scored a touchdown.

  “Details?”

  That got him a smile. “Apparently I was being extra with my concern. She asked, he said yes, and that’s that.”

  Without doubt she was th
e least extra person Yash had ever met.

  “Your daughter should meet my mom if she thinks you’re extra. Not that my mom ever had to worry about me asking a girl out.”

  “Come on. With the famous Yash Raje charisma, you probably had to fight them off.”

  “Quite the contrary.” The Raje kids were most certainly not allowed to date in middle school. The only one who’d possibly even considered breaking that rule was Vansh. There wasn’t a rule the brat had met that he believed was meant for him.

  Through most of high school, Yash had been preoccupied with trying to get out of a wheelchair, and through college he’d been just too driven to care about anything but proving everyone wrong about everything. “What about you?”

  She made a snorting sound that he would never have associated with her. “When I was in high school you couldn’t exactly show up at a school dance with a girl if you were a girl. Or at least not in Chattanooga, Tennessee.”

  “It couldn’t have been easy,” he said.

  She made a grunting sound.

  “Did you meet your . . . girlfriend? wife? . . . here in California, then?”

  She went impossibly still and Yash knew he had crossed a line. “Sorry. I’ll ignore you now.”

  A long silence. Then, “That’s fine. I’m surprised you don’t already know everything about me. It’s all in the background report.”

  “Nisha takes care of all that.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife.” A jaw clench. “She died two years before we could have married in the state of California. Ellie is her daughter. Well, she’s mine now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  India had been poring over their accounts for two hours. They were already over leveraged on the studio and the incense orders were low. At least the classes were filled to capacity and India’s client list was full, but it wasn’t enough. A bubble of anger sprang to life in her chest and started to fill. She traced its growth and squeezed it inward until it popped.

  What would anger accomplish? Nothing. She’d forced Mom to the doctor. He’d confirmed that Tara had Hep C and advanced fibrosis. The treatment was going to cost a few hundred thousand dollars at the outset.