by Farah Heron
“What’s this? Home Cooking Showdown? Did you enter this?”
Nadim had that damn piece of paper from Marley’s apartment in his hand. Why had she let Shayne force it on her?
“No, ignore that.”
“This looks fun! You should do it. Says here the deadline is tomorrow. A five-minute cooking video is no big deal.”
“I’m not doing it.” Reena snatched the paper from his hand and tossed it back on the coffee table.
Nadim shrugged and stood up. He headed to the cabinet that held Reena’s liquor bottles. “May I?” he asked, his hand on a bottle of gin.
She nodded. “There’s soda in the fridge. Make me one, too, please.” Another gin was as good as sleeping.
He pressed a glass into her hand a few moments later. When she took it, she noticed he had the paper again. “I don’t get why you won’t do this, Reena. I just googled the Asler Institute—they’re a big deal.”
“Yeah, I know, but…” She then realized that she couldn’t tell him the reasons why she had no intention of entering Shayne’s contest. Like the fact that her focus right now should be on getting a job. Or, that the contest was for couples and families, and she was much too alone to have someone to enter with. She sipped the gin.
“Not really into cooking contests?”
“I used to be.” She hiccupped. “I actually won a bunch of blogger ones. In fifth grade I was a finalist on Mini-Chef. And I was in a Muslim competition barbecue team once. We won first place.”
He laughed. “Reena Manji, you might just be the most fascinating person I have ever met. You should enter this.”
She took another sip, then stood. Deflect and distract. “C’mon. I’ll show you where my bread knife is. Let’s see how your toast-making skills measure up.”
But when they were in Reena’s small kitchen, the box of samosas on the counter distracted him. “Are these the samosas you forgot to eat? Samosas might be better than bread.”
“Hold your tongue.” Nothing was better than bread. “I needed comfort food. Help yourself.”
He took a large bite out of a samosa. “Nylon bhajias are my favorite comfort food.”
Nylon bhajias was another name for the potato bhajias Reena had planned to make later. She laughed. “Me too. I literally bought potatoes and gram flour to make bhajias.”
His eyes rolled back in his head with pleasure. “You make them yourself? Like, homemade? Not from a shop?”
“Yeah, I’ll probably make them tomorrow.”
“Make them for me now.”
She raised a brow. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry. Can you please make me bhajias? I’ll help…actually, teach me how, and I’ll make you nylon bhajias every day for the rest of your life.” He solemnly put his hand on his chest. “Swear to god.”
“You’re drunk.”
He nodded happily. “And hungry.” He opened the fridge. “And I would kill someone for fresh bhajias right now. Where are the potatoes? Yay! You have cilantro!”
“You really want me to give you a cooking lesson at”—she checked the time on the microwave—“twelve thirty a.m.?”
“Yes! This will be fun.”
He pulled out random other things from her fridge. None of them were ingredients needed for bhajias.
Reena cringed. “Ketchup?”
“No ketchup?”
She put the ketchup back in the fridge and took out some tomatoes and onions. “Fine. But we’ll make a tomato chutney, too. And I’m only doing this because I’m drunk and want to eat bhajias.” She giggled. God bless gin.
“First, you need to peel and slice your potatoes,” she said, pulling one out from the bin in her pantry. He grinned and held up his phone in front of her.
“Are you recording me?” she asked.
He nodded. “Since you’re doing it anyway, you can enter that contest!”
“Nadim! I thought I told you I’m not doing that video! Besides…” She frowned.
“Besides what?”
She should keep her mouth shut. “It’s not supposed to be one person. The video is supposed to be…pairs.”
He beamed. “I have a tripod! C’mon, grab everything you need.” He started filling his arms with the stuff on the counter: the potatoes, bag of gram flour, cilantro, tomatoes, and garlic/ginger paste. Also, the box of samosas and the bottle of gin, of course.
Reena had no idea why she was going along with this, but his infectious enthusiasm was irresistible. She grabbed some onions and chilis, her cutting board and knife, a jug of oil and some spices, and followed him to his apartment.
They dropped it all in his much cleaner kitchen, and he connected his phone to a large tripod.
“Okay,” he said, eyes twinkling with excitement. And probably a healthy dose of gin. “Just need a second to set this up.”
While he fiddled with camera placement and turned on a bunch of lights in his apartment, Reena poured oil in a pot and started heating it. She then peeled and sliced the potatoes, and diced the onion and tomatoes for the chutney.
“All set up. I can start recording using this remote.”
Reena laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “This is preposterous.”
“Don’t say that in front of the camera!” He rushed to stand next to her. “You’ll never win without confidence. Okay…action!”
She looked up at him, struggling not to laugh, and having no idea what to say.
“What are you showing me how to make, oh brilliant one?” he asked.
“Brilliant one?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “You and I both know you’re a culinary genius. So, tell me what we’re making.”
“Potato bhajias.” She turned and looked at the camera instead of at him. “These are similar to pakoras and are also called nylon bhajias in East Africa. This recipe is my mother’s—she grew up in Dar es Salaam.”
Nadim grinned. “Which is where I grew up. I used to get these at food stalls late at night. My favorite shop back home would make a fresh batch every five minutes. They put chopped green chilis in the batter.”
Reena raised a brow. “Can you take that kind of heat?”
He narrowed his eyes seductively. “Oh, I think you know I like it hot. Scorching hot.”
Reena laughed so hard at his corny line that her forehead fell on his chest. Mmm…firm. Warm. Smelled good.
“Uh, Reena…the potatoes?”
“Right.” She lifted her head. While describing what she was doing, she made a batter with gram flour, onion/garlic paste, turmeric, cilantro, red chili powder, and, just to see how much heat he could take, a whole, finely diced green chili.
Nadim helped her dip the potato slices in the batter and deep fry them. She made the chutney next—sautéing onions and tomatoes with dried chilis and spices before pureeing.
“Utterly brilliant,” Nadim said, picking up a crisp bhajia.
“Wait!” She took the bhajia out of his hand and coated it with the chutney. A lot of chutney. She gave him back the slice, but instead of eating it himself, he held it up to Reena’s mouth. “Let’s see how hot you can take it.”
Reena could take the heat. She opened her mouth and let him feed her the bhajia.
It was delicious. Spicy, perfectly crispy, and with the acidic chutney cutting right through the richness of the deep-fried potato. She dipped another one into the chutney and held it up for him.
He wasn’t as graceful with his bite, immediately hopping up and down and waving his mouth. Maybe she’d put in too much chili? She erupted in laughter as he fell into her arms. He finally said “cut,” and turned off the phone camera. She’d forgotten they were filming this.
That was the last thing Reena remembered that night. The next thing she knew she was waking up in Nadim’s bed with terrible heartburn. Thankfully, alone.
CHAPTER SIX
Waking after passing out in a drunken stupor should include at least a moment of blissful ignorance of all the events of the night before. An i
nnocence before the wave of humiliation crashed in. But despite rousing in her familiar childhood bed, Reena experienced no such luxury. She remembered everything that had happened yesterday—losing her job, her asinine mixing of gin gimlets and sinus meds, letting Nadim film her making bhajias…and…
They’d made the contest video. Together. Shit.
She quickly looked through the videos on the phone. Yup. It looked like he’d sent her the five-minute clip. She had no intention of actually entering it on the FoodTV site. She wasn’t even going to watch the thing.
Head pounding and muscles aching, she sat up in bed. To add insult to an already abysmal situation, her cold had intensified. She sneezed, covering her nose to muffle the sound.
Quietly padding out of his bedroom, she found Nadim out cold on his purple sofa, a thin bedsheet covering his lower half and a yellow T-shirt covering his upper half. Thank the lord. She didn’t need an eyeful of toned chest and shapely biceps now. She crept closer. He looked younger asleep, with his expressive brows relaxed and that world-weary yet amused expression missing. How old was this man, anyway? She’d assumed about her age, but from what he told her yesterday, he’d achieved so much more in his life than she had. An undergraduate and graduate degree from the London School of Economics. Lived in Dar es Salaam and London, before moving here to Toronto. He was miles ahead of Reena, with her community college diploma and no job. She sighed. Nadim Remtulla was an ambitious match for her. She didn’t know if she should be pissed at her parents for setting her up to fail, or happy they thought her worthy of this man.
A wave of nausea overcame her. She needed to get out of here before he woke.
It truly was a walk of shame as Reena snuck out of Nadim’s apartment with her cutting board and chef’s knife in one hand and flip-flops in the other. She’d buy new spices and vegetables. It wasn’t worth the embarrassment.
She needed to put that whole night out of her mind.
* * *
The first two days of Reena’s newest stint of unemployment were spent baking bread or curled up on the sofa watching Jane Austen movies while her aroma diffuser shot eucalyptus and lavender essential oils at her congested face. Saira texted a few times to set up an eggplant dip lesson, but Reena finally managed to brush her off with the convenient truth that she was feeling too sick to cook. Thankfully, Nadim didn’t call, text, or knock on her door. The more time that passed after that gin night, the less mortifying it would be when she inevitably saw her neighbor again.
By Friday evening, her cold had eased somewhat. Her misery? Not so much. Running out of Austen movies without Gwyneth Paltrow in them meant she had no escape from the mind-numbing self-loathing that inched into her consciousness whenever her mind stilled. She needed distraction. And thankfully, distraction came in the form of a dainty knock on her door at dinnertime. Marley stood on the threshold, oblivious to Reena’s troubles, with a glimmer in her eye and a bottle of sangria in her hand.
“Hey, Reena. I just got home, but Shayne’s upstairs with a ton of his grandmother’s jerk chicken and that pumpkin rice you like. Apparently, he needs to talk to you. Can you come for dinner?”
She took a deep breath. Being around people sounded good. Being around people meant not being inside her own head anymore. “You’re my savior, Marley.”
She followed Marley up to her apartment to find Shayne carefully transferring Jamaican rice and chicken from the microwave to the dining table. It smelled amazing. Shayne’s grandmother came from Jamaica and always sent Shayne home with a freezerful of food whenever he visited. Reena greeted Shayne before plopping herself at the table, watching Marley pour their drinks into tall glasses.
“They had this new sangria at the liquor store,” Marley said. “No aspartame. I will never understand why every food or drink company assumes anything girly has to be sugar free or low fat. Fake sugar tastes like—”
“Despair,” Reena interrupted. Even without Marley’s stellar metabolism, Reena wouldn’t let “substitutes” touch her lips. No fake sugar, no fake butter, or, shudder, fake meat.
She lifted the glass and took a sip. The fruity wine tasted surprisingly rich and complex. Full-bodied and almost voluptuous in flavor. The taste a perfect antidote to her mood. She sighed with pleasure.
What would it be like to share something like this wine with someone every day? To feel this warm comfort of companionship instead of having to wait for a friend to invite her out?
“You okay, Reena?” Marley eyed her as she scooped rice onto her own plate.
“Yeah, fine. Getting over a cold and a little stuffy.” Forcing a smile, she took another sip. She hadn’t told them about losing her job. She didn’t want to be the one who brought a dark cloud to their carefree get-togethers. Plus, Marley was family—and she couldn’t let her unemployment get back to her parents.
“Great. Now, Shayne, tell us what’s going on,” Marley said. “He’s been practically vibrating with this secret news.”
“Give me a minute, Grams forgot the pepper sauce.” Shayne stood. “You have any more of that habanero hot sauce, Marley?”
“Yeah, in the cupboard over the stove,” she said as Shayne walked away.
Reena took a bite of her chicken, the smoky, spicy flavor clearing her lingering sinus congestion in one bite. “Oh, man, your grams makes the best jerk chicken.” She made a happy moan as she kept eating.
“This news has something to do with Anderson, right?” Marley called out.
Anderson, Anderson. Reena wracked her brain. She grinned when she remembered. “Tic Tac ears!”
Shayne laughed, returning to the table. “I’ve seen him three times this week. And not just booty calls either. We had lunch today. Lunch. A brightly lit, fully clothed date at one of those corporate grain-bowl situations downtown.” Shayne sighed happily. “He is the absolute sweetest man I have ever met. He’s like saltwater taffy, all sweet and innocent, and…squishy. I hate corrupting him, but he is starved for a little corruption.” Shayne smiled wistfully. “Anyway, at lunch he told me something very interesting, Reena.”
Crap. About the contest, no doubt. Maybe the deadline was extended. Reena had no intention of telling them that she and Nadim had made a video while drunk. She had done a great job of putting that whole episode out of her mind. “Yes, about that contest, it’s just not something I’m interested in doing.”
“No interest at all?”
“None.”
Shayne smiled. “Okay, then maybe you can explain to me how your name ended up on the list of finalists?”
Holy shit. Reena’s hand shot to her mouth.
Marley grabbed her arm. “You entered? Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t enter!” Reena said.
“Then how are you a finalist?” Shayne asked. “Cooking videos don’t just make themselves.”
Reena winced. “I’m not a finalist! Tic Tac Ears is mistaken.”
Shayne shook his head. “Nope. At lunch Anderson told me he saw the name Reena on the list of finalists. He remembered your first name from when I asked him about it. I got him to double-check the last name when he was back at work, and yup. Reena Manji. Of course, I swore to him I wouldn’t tell you, but here we are.”
Reena cringed. “There’s no way…We didn’t enter the video…”
Shayne looked at her with a wide grin. “So, you did make a video then? We need details. Who was your husband?”
The sound of bagpipes filled the room. Reena had a text. She put down her chicken and wiped her hands before checking it.
Nadim: I’ve been sneezing all week. Thank you.
Crap. He did remember she existed. She ignored the message and put her phone facedown near her plate.
“Honestly, Shayne,” Reena said, “it was silly. I was drunk when we made the video. But I can’t be a finalist. I didn’t actually enter it…” Then again, she didn’t remember much from the end of the evening.
Another text. She flipped the phone over to look.
<
br /> Nadim: And I have a newfound love of gin gimlets. You are rubbing off on me.
Reena couldn’t let this go. “One minute, guys, I need to answer this.”
Reena: World consumption of gin has risen steadily for the last couple of years. It is predicted it will surpass bourbon as the hipster’s drink of choice. So, not my fault.
Nadim: And the cold? You going to take responsibility for that?
Reena: It’s cold and flu season in Canada, and your African/British immunity is not prepared for hard-ass germs. Also not my fault.
“Excuse me…” Shayne said, voice clipped. “I assume, based on you looking all doe-eyed at those texts, that you’re talking to this British boy toy of yours. Is that who you made the video with?”
“I do not have a boy toy.”
“I saw you leaving his room at six a.m. with your shoes in your hands. Don’t tell me you were there to borrow a cup of sugar.”
Bagpipes sounded again.
Nadim: You calling me a hipster?
Reena: With that tall hipster hair and precision beard, yeah, I am. You, sir, are a hipster.
She heard a snort behind her. She looked up to see Shayne standing there reading her texts over her shoulder. “She is texting that British dude. About his hair.”
She put her phone facedown again and glared until Shayne went back to his seat. “Okay, fine. Yes, I made the video with Nadim. But it was a middle-of-the-night, drunken mistake, and it won’t be repeated.”
Shayne had his hand out and was about to say something when Reena shot him down. “And if anyone points out that sounds like most of my relationships, then no more rye bread for either of you.”
Marley tilted her head sympathetically. “So, you did enter then?”
Reena sighed. “We may have. I don’t remember much from the end of the night.”
“Did you hook up with him?”
“No! Nothing happened! I’d remember that. I bumped into him at the Sparrow and we started drinking. And then drank more at home. And recorded a video of us making potato bhajias together. Perfectly innocent, calorie count notwithstanding. I had no intention of entering the thing.”