by Sonali Dev
The gray in Yash’s eyes glowed with interest, with the unfiltered curiosity that made people feel completely seen when he talked to them. India reminded herself that it wasn’t just her. This was how he was with everyone. A politician.
He looked around the living room as though seeing it for the first time. “That’s the most fascinating history.”
India followed his gaze and tried to see what he saw. Her home was such a part of her that even though so much of it was new now, to her it had made the transformation without losing itself. It looked modern, the recent update obvious, but there was so much time frozen behind it. His gaze picked it all out. One detail at a time. He seemed to fall into its history body and soul.
The fact that saving it had cost them their ability to get Mom treatment without fear of financial ruin made India sick to her stomach.
“So this place has been in your family for four generations?” he said, with the sincerity that had made her forget herself the first time he’d spoken to her. As though the sheer amount of interest he had in her split him in half and threw him wide open in front of her. It had split her wide open too, seized her body with awareness. Now the memory warmed every sensitive inch of her. Her womb, her breasts, her skin, everything buzzed with the life force inside her.
She pulled in a breath, pulling her awareness back to this moment. “The Dashwoods came here from England in the 1930s and never moved.”
“Then a young man from India came into their lives and lived here in the 1940s. Can you imagine what his life here might have been like? My mother tells stories of when she moved here forty years ago, and even that seems wildly brave to me sometimes. The fact that my parents chose to leave their home and come to a place where they were so different from everyone. I can’t imagine leaving California ever.” She couldn’t either. “You said he left. What happened to him?”
“At first Grandmona believed he’d gone back to India. He wrote a few letters, but then the letters stopped and he never responded to her letters telling him about Tara. It turned out that the return address that she used to reply to his letters wasn’t a real address.”
“How did she find that out?”
“My mom went to India looking for him when she was eighteen and never found him.”
For a few seconds they both just sat there, the shock of having shared something so personal hanging in the air between them. This was how it had been the first time they’d met. Breathless. Armorless. She needed to stop thinking about that night, that day. He had made his choice. His being here had to do with a bullet and the fact that someone had tried to end his life. His being here was about processing that and moving on with the life he’d chosen. Over her.
Listening to stories about her family was certainly not why he was here, but every time she thought about her grandparents’ story, her foolish heart got too heavy.
He reached over and touched her hand. Then pulled away almost immediately.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The awareness of his touch stayed long after. That darned full-bodied reaction burning through her, making her mind and body yearn as one, for just another brush of his skin against hers.
She hated hearing him apologize, and she didn’t know why she hated it so much.
“Let’s do some pranayama,” she snapped, when those were words no one should ever snap.
Without another word, he put his focus on following along as she started the practice.
For the next twenty minutes they focused on breathing patterns. One nostril at a time, anulom vilom; then hard diaphragm breaths, kapalbhati; then rolling the breath into all the various parts of the body to all the bandhas, bringing awareness to them, tightening them, opening them up. By the time they were done she felt almost entirely insulated from everything outside herself. All she could do was hope that he did too.
He looked deeply relaxed, much less wound up than he’d seemed in all the time they’d spent together this week.
For another few minutes she sat there letting him soak in what he was feeling. How he was feeling had obviously taken him completely by surprise. Then she made her way to the kitchen, ignoring the way his eyes followed her, as though in walking away she was taking whatever he was feeling with her.
He joined her, eyes studying the room again. She wondered if he would leave now. She wondered if she wanted him to.
“You’ve done a great job keeping the place updated. It’s beautiful,” he said.
“Thanks. Last year we basically gutted it and rebuilt. Without the renovation, we risked it collapsing under us. The structural integrity was damaged. It was a huge . . . well . . .” Suddenly she was weary of not being able to hold her thoughts with him. “It was a huge undertaking.”
“I’ll bet.” He was one of those people who picked up on things far too fast. It had probably taken him seconds to calculate how much the remodel had cost and he was now trying to figure out if a yoga studio had enough business to be able to pay for it and still be financially viable.
“The alternative was to be shut down by the health department.”
“Come on, India, it was never that bad.” Mom came down the stairs a bit too fast, and India suppressed the urge to ask her to slow down.
“Mom! Did you need something? Why didn’t you call me if you needed something?” She tried to keep her voice casual, but Yash’s focus on her intensified. He seemed to register every single bit of the worry she was hiding.
Tara looked at India in that way she had of looking at her children when she was trying to figure out what was going on with them. “I’m fine,” she said before turning to Yash. “I’m Tara.” She folded her hands in a namaste and Yash returned it. Easily. No mocking in sight.
“Yash Raje.”
“No way!” Tara smiled one of her thrilled-with-herself smiles, which, heaven help her, seemed to thrill Yash. “I know who you are. I’m so sorry about the shooting.”
Instead of looking like someone had gouged out his skin the way he had every time someone mentioned the shooting, Yash nodded. “Thank you.”
“India tells me there’s still hope for your bodyguard.”
He slid a quick look at India, and she wished there was a way to telepathically stop her mom from talking to him about that.
Impotent pain was back in his eyes. “I am very hopeful,” he said, with so much conviction that India’s hands itched with the urge to touch him. “The doctors were able to perform surgery in good time and he’s young and healthy.”
“You should take India to see him. Her Reiki is very strong.”
India tried that telepathy thing again, but it washed right over Mom.
“I read that they removed the bullet from you. Good thing. You know doctors often leave bullets inside if they didn’t puncture organs?” The floaty expression that said Mom was about to launch into one of her macabre stories animated her features.
“Yes, it’s usually less risky than surgery,” Yash said, just as India was about to stop Tara.
Tara rubbed her hands together. “Our bodies being as magical as they are, the tissue wraps up the bullet and protects the body from it. I once had a student who fainted during a session. Turns out he’d been shot ten years ago and the bullet they’d left in his elbow had mushroomed into a lead-leaking bomb.” She poked a finger into Yash’s elbow and made an explosion with her hand. “Boom! It was flooding lead into his blood like a pump.”
Yash’s eyes shone. “Wow!” The smile he threw India lit a spark inside her. “What happened?”
Tara grinned, relishing the gore as much as her captivated audience. “They dug the bullet out of him. It was five times its original size. Then they pumped him full of drugs to absorb the lead. No permanent damage. Simen ended up going to nursing school.”
Yash looked like he was going to choke, but he held his laughter in and the spark inside India’s chest threatened to burst into flames.
Her mother put her empty bowl in the sink and rinsed it of
f. “Maybe I’ll have some more oats. Did you have Mr. Raje try some?”
“Call me Yash, please. And India was kind enough to offer—”
“Yash didn’t find them appetizing enough to try,” India said.
Tara looked horrified. Yash looked cornered.
“No one who’s tried India’s oats hasn’t loved them,” Tara said, with the kind of determination that usually went with words like, You’re getting out of this over my dead body. She pushed the bowl India had filled toward Yash.
To his credit, he did not step back. In this moment it was clear the man had warrior ancestors.
Something ominously close to a giggle escaped India. She turned it into a cough. The look he gave her nudged awake parts of her she hadn’t used in a very long time. A look hungry for her laugh. The one he had once extracted from her over and over. With far too much ease. How easy she’d been. How careless with her self. She reached for the bowl—time to stop this idiocy.
He scooped it up before she got to it. Then took a spoonful and pushed it into his mouth.
Against her better judgment, she waited, jaw thrust out, refusing to show the anticipation burning her throat. She was a terrible cook in most instances, but she loved her overnight oats, she was proud of them, and if he didn’t like them, well, people had a right to their opinion.
A whole array of emotions flitted across his face. All of which boiled down to disbelief. “It’s . . . umm . . . very fruity,” he said, as though “fruity” were the rarest of tastes. “What’s that crunch I’m tasting?”
Holding her amusement in was a losing battle. Clearing her throat, she answered, “That’s chia seed.”
“Ah.” The future governor of California obviously had no idea what chia seeds were.
“It’s surprisingly . . .” He struggled to find the exact right word.
“Delicious?” Tara was smiling too now.
“Ingestible?” India said.
“It’s certainly that. But also, different from anything I’ve ever ingested before.”
She pressed a hand to her heart. “Easy with the praise. You’ll turn a girl’s head.”
Tara started laughing and he joined her. Something bright and shiny lit the room.
“Please tell me the future governor of California has tasted overnight oats before,” Tara said. “Next you’ll say you don’t drink wine. California has standards, son!”
“Well, fortunately what I lack in oats I make up for with wine. And now India has fixed me for the oats-based voters. So, thank you.” He took another bite, looking like the action took him completely by surprise.
India felt her cheeks warm. “Please, we’re teasing you. Don’t feel like you have to.”
“No, you’re right. This is surprisingly ingestible.”
Her mother let out another laugh. “Speaking of ingestible, have you heard of Agastya Rishi? He ran a gurukul, a school that only the most brilliant scholars were admitted into.”
Yash took another bite and nodded encouragingly. India gave up on trying to stop her mother.
“Once, he developed an abscess in his leg. It filled up with pus and swelled up to twice its size.” She patted her calf, and India fought to hold in her groan. “It was declared that he would die unless someone sucked the pus out of his leg.”
“Mom, please,” India said, but Yash looked fascinated and horrified and so utterly baffled that no more words came out.
“What?” Tara said. “They didn’t have medical instruments back then, so sucking on abscesses was the only way to save his life.”
That couldn’t possibly be true, but it was one of Mom’s stories and India bit her tongue.
“Did someone?” Yash asked, throwing a wary glance at the spoon of yogurt he’d been about to put in his mouth.
“Agastya asked all his disciples if they would do it. They all refused. But there was one boy, a servant boy who had served Agastya day and night. He was devoted to the sage but was too poor to be his student. Without a moment’s hesitation he offered to do it.”
India groaned. Yash gasped.
“And?” they both asked together.
Tara smiled. “And he did it. But instead of pus, the sage’s abscess was filled with the sweetest nectar. Not even the sweetest mango on earth had ever tasted that good. It had been a test to see which of the disciples was devoted enough to the guru to deserve to be taught his most closely held knowledge.”
“Oh God,” Yash said, staring at his spoon of yogurt like he was going to explode.
“True devotion is unconditional,” Tara declared, “and its results are always sweet.”
Yash put the spoon of yogurt in his mouth and India’s shoulders started shaking with laughter. Yash and Tara joined her. Laughter filled the room. Yash spooned more into his mouth with the care and curiosity of a sommelier tasting a note of wine he’d never before encountered, and it was so ludicrous that India couldn’t stop laughing.
He was watching India’s face when she heard her mother’s laughter change, and her own laughter dried up. A breathless coughing fit gripped Tara. India pushed her onto a barstool, trying to keep the worry that gripped her heart from her face, trying to ignore Yash’s immediate alert focus on what she was trying to hide.
Grabbing a glass from a shelf, he filled it with water and brought it to Tara.
“I’m fine. Stop fussing,” Tara said to no one in particular. Her pallor had turned distinctly gray, her breath more labored.
With all the gentle firmness that would set him apart in a crowd of millions, he made Tara drink, and her breathing eased.
“I’m going to get her into bed,” India said, suddenly wanting him gone.
She couldn’t let him get involved in her life. Already, she’d let him in more than she should have. Letting him come up here like this wasn’t just reckless it was irresponsible toward her own well-being.
“Shouldn’t you be taking her to a doctor instead?”
“Oh! Why didn’t we think of that?” India snapped. He could take his imperiousness elsewhere, she didn’t need it. “Thank you, but we got this.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. Is there anything I can do?” He continued to study Tara.
India should have told him to help by leaving. Instead she said, “You can start by fixing the damn health care system, by not making compromises on the policy you’ve drawn up.” It came out exactly as bitterly as she meant it to.
“India!” Her mother sounded horrified. “Thanks for offering to help, Yash. I just need to rest for a moment. I think I might have inhaled too much incense up there.” Mom turned to her. “Walk Yash out. I’ll go lie down.” It was a tone that brokered no argument.
So India didn’t argue, but she followed her mother and threw Yash a look. “Let me get her situated and then I’ll walk you out. Is Brandy waiting downstairs?”
“I’ll text her.”
They were both quiet as he followed her down the long, narrow staircase. He kept his distance, but the sense that he was too close, that she could feel him with her entire body, it made her want to tell him she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this.
How could she tell him that without admitting things she had no business feeling? The man had a girlfriend. He’d probably had said girlfriend when he’d spent an entire night emptying his heart out to India. Letting her empty hers out to him.
So many times she’d almost picked up the phone and called him. Why? That’s all she’d wanted to know. Why did you do it? The moment when Ashna and Trisha had returned from Sripore and told her that Yash had a girlfriend was a moment she would always remember.
Isn’t it romantic that he and Naina got together at the wedding reception in Sripore?
Isn’t it romantic that they’ve been best friends since they were little?
Why?
Why?
She could not possibly be that foolish again.
No. She wasn’t being foolish. He needed her help, and she would help a stranger if
a stranger needed her. Maybe if she repeated that often enough, she’d remember it.
“Is she going to be okay?” he asked as they reached the front door. His body said he wanted to hold her, comfort her.
Her body wanted that with a force that almost brought her to her knees.
She wrapped her arms around herself and gave him an I-don’t-know-but-I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it shrug.
“My father is a physician. He knows some of the best doctors in the country.”
Congratulations, she wanted to say, but he was trying to help, so she said, “We’re taking care of it.”
“At least let him or Trisha refer you to the right specialist. A second opinion is never a bad thing.”
“Thank you.”
“India?” he said with some impatience.
“Yash?” she snapped back.
“You’re helping me. Why can’t I help you?” Suddenly he was close. Too close.
“Because you came to me for help. I did not come to you.”
He stepped back as though she’d shoved him, and for a moment she felt awful. It was the truth, though, and it was important for her to remember that it was the truth. And the truth was important.
“Do you ever?” he asked, his voice soft. “Do you ever ask for help?”
Only you could help yourself. When she helped people, that’s what she tried to show them. She pushed the door open and waited for him to leave.
He was smart enough to know she wouldn’t answer. “What you said before about the broken health care system. Does your mom not have insurance?” He always recovered too fast. Always saw too much.
He was too used to pushing until he had his way, but he couldn’t have his way in this. He needed to get what he needed from her and leave. She couldn’t need anything from him.
“I told you, we’re okay.”
“You don’t look like you’re okay.”
That made her want to shove him, and she balled her fists, which made her even angrier at herself than at him. She was no one’s charity case. “This studio is prime real estate.”
Her own words shocked her as they came out and seemed to shake him more than they should have. “This is your home. You can’t be serious.”