Incense and Sensibility
Page 16
“What is that?” he said, pointing at the goop in her hands.
“Mango chia overnight oats.”
He tried not to, but he blanched.
“What?” His reaction made an amused smile push at her lips, and that made the sense of lightness that had wrapped around him when he came up those stairs return.
“That’s a lot of pressure on the mango,” he said seriously, making her amusement lean into delight.
She waited for an explanation, as though she didn’t already know exactly what he meant.
“Well, mangoes are delicious. But can they really help those other things go down?”
She mock-frowned, trying hard to keep the amusement from dancing in her eyes. “I’ll have you know that this is my signature dish. No one who’s eaten it doesn’t love it.” She pulled out another bowl and spooned some into it and pushed it toward him.
No way! He jumped back. “Um, that’s terribly generous of you, but I’m not here to impose.”
Naturally she didn’t buy that and stood there, arms crossed. “No imposition. Try it.”
Over my dead body. “I had a big lunch. Really big. I’m full.” He touched his belly in that way a bad actor would if he were trying to convince someone that he was full.
When she narrowed her eyes, her cheeks had a way of pressing up and crinkling them. “Seriously? You won’t even take a bite?” What are you, two? She didn’t say that last bit, but her tone did.
“I . . . um . . . oats make me gag.” Frankly, he didn’t understand people who ate them voluntarily. Even the word made him gag.
“When was the last time you ate them? Have you ever had them soaked in yogurt and not cooked?”
A horrified tremor went down his spine. And, damn it, she saw that too.
“Who would’ve thought?” she mumbled, reminding him of J-Auntie when she had to clean his room, a tone that could only be described as abject disappointment, if not horror. Then she took the bowl to the stairs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he called to her back.
“You had donuts for breakfast, didn’t you?” she threw over her shoulder.
“No!” he said with all the indignation of a liar. And hell if he didn’t make it worse by trying to sound imperious, like HRH when their mother caught him bypassing the salad and he denied it. India was wrong. He hadn’t eaten a donut. He’d eaten a croissant. So what if it was chocolate-filled?
“But it was some sort of sugary pastry.”
Without his permission his spine lengthened, giving off more of that imperiousness. “I was shot. Cut me some slack.”
“Ah.” Balancing the bowl in one hand, she scooped Chutney up with the other, making the entire thing look like a ballet move. Then she ran up the stairs to her mother.
What on earth was “Ah” supposed to mean? He didn’t like that “Ah” one bit. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Hardworking people deserved their treats.
“Ah,” he imitated, and turned back to the kitchen island.
The bowl of orange goop taunted him from the tiled countertop. He ignored it and moved his attention to the ceramic jar filled with incense sticks. Pulling one out he smelled it. The strong sandalwood scent reminded him of the Sripore palace and the childhood summers he’d spent there. Before his mind drifted to the week of Nisha’s wedding when Naina had fought with her father and come to Yash for help, he turned back to the mango chia overnight oats.
It was still taunting him. He glared right back at it. Then he checked over his shoulder and leaned over and smelled it. It smelled like . . . like, what was the word he was looking for?
“It won’t bite,” India said behind him, and he pulled away and straightened up. An action that was impossible to execute with any sort of dignity.
“I was just trying to figure out what that smells like,” he said, giving up on dignity.
She had a particular smile she smiled when he was honest. Her reward smile. She raised a brow. “And what did you come up with?”
“It smells, well, it smells”—he made a face that couldn’t quite capture the undesirability of the smell—“fruity, but not in a good way . . .” Like Skittles, he wanted to add, but he wasn’t an idiot. “It’s a little too, um . . .” Cloyingly healthy?
“Perhaps the word you’re looking for is fresh? Wholesome? Unprocessed?” But her eyes were dancing, so he’d take the disappointment writ large in the way she was shaking her head. “You sure you won’t even try it?”
More sure than I’ve been of anything in my life. “Maybe later.”
The way she smiled at that made him want to press a hand into his heart, it made him want to step closer, it made him want to . . .
She stepped back, going straight from playful and unguarded to scared. Scared of what she’d just seen in his face. Her withdrawal felt like pulling a patch of skin off with the tape on a wound.
Maybe he’d just offended her. Some people were sensitive about people not eating things they’d made. Nisha would’ve shoved it down his throat. Fortunately, Nisha stuck to baking cookies and brownies.
Was not offending India important enough to try orange-colored sludge with . . . with . . . oats? All he knew was that he wanted that easy teasing smile back.
Her fingers fiddled with the spoon in the bowl she’d filled for him. Without thinking about it, he touched the spoon with a finger. Her fingers lingered on the cool metal for a moment and something tingled all the way up his arm. Then she pulled back, that fear back in her eyes.
He drew back too, stepping away from the island. The sugary tart smell of mangoes and yogurt was suddenly overwhelming. “How’s your mother?”
“She’s upstairs working.” That wasn’t an answer to his question. Which meant her mother was not doing great. India never outright lied. Not even in the small, seemingly harmless ways people naturally did.
It’s what had struck him that first time he met her, when she’d picked up a box that was obviously too heavy for him with ease. It hadn’t struck her that some men might see it as emasculating or threatening. She wanted to help him and she had. For the rest of the time they’d spent together, she had been more honestly herself than anyone he’d ever met.
It was what he’d always strived for. How easily it came to her had been yet another thing that dazzled him. Her core of truth, of goodness. Back then it had been raw, unformed. Now she’d turned it into a practice. A lifestyle.
“Do you know who Yudishtir is?” he asked.
That threw her. Her lips quirked again in curious amusement. How much he loved that reaction wasn’t something he had the luxury to analyze.
“Isn’t he one of the Pandava princes?”
It was his turn to be thrown. Self-satisfaction glittered in her eyes at getting that reaction out of him.
“Yes,” he said. “He was the oldest of the five princes in the Mahabharata.”
“The rightful heir to the throne.”
“Yes. He was also the most virtuous of all men. He followed Dharma—the righteous way of living—to the letter. Never told a lie in his life, never stole or coveted what wasn’t his, never reneged on a moral duty or shirked a responsibility. So strong was his virtue that his chariot floated a few inches above the earth when he rode.”
She smiled. It was dangerous how much he loved that smile. “An inbuilt air-suspension from the fuel of his virtue.”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t he lose that inch of air-suspension when he lied during the war?”
“Well, technically he never lied.” The Mahabharata was the Hindu epic that ended, as all epics do, with a war of good against evil. With the Pandavas on the side of good and Kauravas, their cousins, on the side of evil. “The commander of the Kaurava army, Drona, was unbeatable on the battlefield, his will as strong as his incomparable skill. The only weak spot in his otherwise indestructible emotional strength was his son Ashwathama.
“The Pandavas knew that the only way to defeat Drona in battle was to break hi
m emotionally. If Yudishtir lied and told him that his son was dead, Drona would believe him, given that the prince never lied. But Yudishtir refused to lie.
“So the Pandavas named an elephant Ashwathama and killed him. Yudishtir repeated this news on the battlefield. ‘Ashwathama—the elephant—is dead,’ he told Drona, whispering the words ‘the elephant’ under his breath so Drona didn’t hear them. As a battle strategy, it worked. Drona, broken by the news, let down his guard and was defeated and killed. Yudishtir never technically lied,” Yash said, watching her watch him tell the story, utterly absorbed. They were standing almost toe-to-toe, he could feel the warmth radiating from her body, but he didn’t remember moving closer.
“Nonetheless, his chariot no longer floated above the ground after that,” India said, jet-black strands falling across her forehead. “Because you can’t win a moral argument with the universe on a technicality. Truth is truth.” She was staring up at him, absolute clarity in her eyes.
“You would get that. I’ve never seen you lie.”
That made her swallow and step away. “You barely know me, Yash.”
That might be the first lie he’d heard her tell. At least it felt like a lie. From the first moment he’d met her it had felt like he’d always known her.
There was this way she had of shaking her head, as though dusting off one conversation and resetting herself before moving on to the next.
He complied. “What is your mother working on?”
A shadow passed in her eyes. “She’s working on her incense sticks.”
“Words one doesn’t hear every day.”
She smiled again, with more patience than humor. People being amused by the woo-woo-ness of her life had to be something she was used to. “So, did you want to do some breathing?”
“Also not words one hears every day. And yes, please.”
She rolled out a yoga mat. Following her lead, he did the same. One orange and one turquoise, stark against the dark gray wood of the floor.
He was struck by how little he had noticed details the last time he was here. Now he couldn’t stop noticing everything. Storing it away.
“Let’s stretch first today. That okay?” India said.
“Sure.” The idea of following along relaxed the knots he’d been tied up in. Then again, they’d started to relax the moment he’d walked through her door.
India crossed her legs, spine stretched tall, legs almost poetically contained in that compact fold. The way all her lines came together was effortless. On her it was no wonder why they called it a lotus pose. Yash followed, working hard to mirror her. His legs were stiffer than he’d like them to be. Definitely more cactus than lotus.
He always stretched before his runs, but these past few years he’d stretched in a hurry, too strapped for time to take away from the run itself. Since the shooting, he hadn’t stretched or run at all.
A groan escaped as he pulled his knees toward himself. With her usual grace she ignored it. “Let’s pull our knees apart and bring our feet together.”
He did as he was told, and somehow it released the tightness in his hips.
As he relaxed and focused, the strong earthy-sweet smell of incense caught his senses. “So your mother makes incense sticks? Like agarbatti?” That was a little much even for a place this comfortable with woo-woo-ness.
“Yes, we have a workshop upstairs, with all the equipment and supplies you need.” Unlike his, her feet met flush together and her knees fell outward and touched the floor. She folded her hands around her feet and stretched forward, bringing her jaw to her toes, her eyes signaling him to follow. “My grandmother learned how to make them from Ram—he was, well, he was my grandfather. My mom’s father. She taught my mother, and Mom taught us.”
“Seriously?” He forgot about the pose and sprang upright. “Your grandfather was called Ram?” This was so bizarre, he laughed.
Her body stayed languid, but something inside her stiffened. Something too much like anger pursed her lips as she too straightened up. “Why? Because if I have an Indian ancestor, it makes it harder for you to mock my family’s lifestyle?”
“What? No. Do you really think I mock you?” Did he?
She closed her eyes, obviously wishing she hadn’t reacted the way she had.
“India?”
Her eyes opened again, but she focused on her feet. “No, I don’t think you mock me. But . . .” On a deep breath, she threw a glance around the apartment. “You find the way we live amusing. I understand. Most people do. Our lives are nothing like each other’s. I get that.” Was that a reference to what had, rather hadn’t, happened between them? She looked at him again. The anger was gone, but something defensive lingered. “You also think of a lot of this as something you own, culturally. Indians do have a chip on their shoulder about other races and yoga. I get that too. It’s their chip to have. But . . .”
“But what?”
“But, when you do it, it feels more . . . more judgmental.”
“Because I know you and I should know that everything about you is authentic.”
Color rose up her face. She fought to keep herself composed. “No, you don’t know me at all,” she said again. “But this is the only life I’ve ever known and I feel blessed to have it. I’m proud of it. I can understand that for a man like you this feels too out there, but you’re running for governor and you should be everyone’s governor, and being judgmental doesn’t support that.” It was the most she’d said to him about herself since they’d met again.
At Nisha’s wedding, she’d chattered on unencumbered. Unafraid to share herself. She’d shown him her hand, all of it.
Ever since they’d met after the shooting, she’d been the opposite of that. Shuttered. Focused on playing a stranger. Focused on helping him. The way she was looking right now told him she wasn’t happy that she’d said so much. Her fear of making the same mistake again, of not holding back, it was obvious.
She was not wrong.
“I’m sorry. I have sounded mocking before and I shouldn’t have.” Their gazes ended up locked together again. “But I wasn’t mocking or judging you just now.”
The skeptical twitch of her brow said she didn’t believe him.
“Ram was my grandfather’s name too.” That got her attention. “Well, it was one of his names. Shree Ram Chandra Haridas Raje. I might be missing a few more in there, but he was called Ram by his family.”
She looked embarrassed, and that made him feel as small as a rice grain, because it wasn’t like he hadn’t found all this woo-woo a little bit entertaining, and what she said about running for public office with a closed mind was absolutely right.
“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions. That’s an incredible coincidence, though, isn’t it?” The tiniest spark of the wonder that had captivated him all those years ago lit up her face, then was gone just as quickly.
It was wrong how much he wanted it, wanted her openness, her innermost feelings, her wonder, her trust, considering how he’d thrown it away with so little regard. “It is an incredible coincidence. So, no apology needed.”
With nothing more than a nod, she placed her right hand on her left knee and twisted into it.
Again, he followed along, his stretches as tight as hers were fluid. “I never knew him. He died just before I was born. My aji—my grandmother—says I look like him. She loves telling stories about him. He was quite the revolutionary in the fight against the British. He specialized in”—Yash lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, the way his siblings did when discussing this, an inside joke he’d never shared with anyone else—“making bombs. He dug tunnels and built secret chambers all over our family home in India to hide the rebels. My aji was terrified of him being found out, because he never lied and he wouldn’t have if the British had caught him. He would have hung for his crimes.”
Her eyes shone. “You must be so proud!”
God, how was she so perfect?
Chapter Fourteen
Over the years she’d set up a pattern where her relationships never lasted more than six months, then a few years ago she’d given up because this full-bodied immersion in her feelings just never happened, and without it she’d felt like she was cheating herself. Her body and mind didn’t function as separate entities, she’d never known how to make them.
The last man she’d been with had changed everything about himself for her. Become vegetarian, started meditating and practicing yoga. Being with him should have been filled with peace, but you couldn’t have peace without truth and she’d felt like a liar. In one night, Yash had ruined her forever.
These were absolutely not things she should be thinking right now.
Yash followed her twist, his body supple for a novice and more flexible than he thought it was. He was an overachiever, and yoga was always an adjustment for the overachievers.
Something about the pride in his eyes when he’d talked about his grandfather wrapped around her heart. She imagined a man exactly like Yash. The same finely boned, slightly long face, the stubborn jaw, the most stunning eyes with a million gradations of gray radiating from jet-black pupils.
“I didn’t know my grandfather either,” she said, because she had to keep from focusing on the way he watched her. “Our mom didn’t either. Somehow he’d made his way here from India. He worked for my great-grandparents and basically became part of their family. He was the one who brought the yogic practice into our lives. My grandma Ramona always said she was in love with him before she knew what love was. But it was illegal for them to marry, and them being together caused quite a scandal. When someone threw a burning torch into the studio, he left, to protect her and her family. He didn’t know she was pregnant when he left. Mom never knew him. But in a way Grandmona—that’s what we called our grandmother—made sure we all knew him.”