by Sonali Dev
Rajesh shrugged. “Sure. My experience is wasted on you anyway. Come to think of it, that Ashna would be perfect for you. She’s just as uptight as you.”
Emma raised her brows at DJ as she sank into a chair.
DJ moved the bills aside, put the frittata in front of her, and dropped a kiss on her wet head. “Morning, love.” Then to Rajesh: “Thank you but I really meant I don’t need to discuss relationships with you. Ever.” Or anything else for that matter, truly.
“Fine, so let’s talk about your bills then. How are you going to afford a kitchen and pay for these bills if you don’t want to get a real job?”
Emma picked up the bills and smacked Rajesh upside the head with them. “He has a ‘real job,’ you wanker. If he didn’t, you’d be out on your arse, now wouldn’t you?” She shook the bills at him. “And he no longer has to worry about these, either. We’ve got it sorted.” She looked at DJ. “You aren’t actually taking advice from him are you? You know he’s a chocolate teapot—totally fecking useless.”
That made DJ smile. “I’m not looking for a real job, no.” He nudged the frittata he’d been experimenting with toward her. “Try this. I’m trying to see if it works as a cold appetizer.”
She took a bite and made a face. “I prefer my eggs hot.” But when he tried to take it back, she held on to the plate and kept eating. “Julia thinks she can have the video produced and online in a week.”
“You’ve made up your mind about this, yeah?” The plastic chair creaked as he sat down next to her.
Emma nodded, but she looked tired. “Are you going to go off on another rant about why I shouldn’t do it? Or did the blue-eyed Julia doll change your mind?” she said cheekily and he felt a blush rise up his neck.
“I don’t rant,” he said defensively. “And what good would it do me?”
Emma was about to respond when the doorbell rang.
Rajesh sauntered over to the door licking his fingers and opened it and did a double take so hard, he might have cracked his neck. “Oh hullo, hullo, who do we have here?” Mr. Sleazeball stepped too close to Julia and took both her hands in his as though he were some sort of posh bloke. Blech!
Julia smiled kindly. “Hello to you, too. I’m Julia. I’m here to interview Emma.” She threw DJ an amused look over Rajesh’s shoulder.
“I’m Raj. I’m a friend of the family’s and the camera loves me.” He threw a look at the camera hanging from Julia’s neck.
“Come on in,” DJ said before Rajesh embarrassed himself further.
To his surprise Julia reached up and gave him a quick hug. He returned it, albeit with all the requisite awkwardness befitting an Englishman.
“How are you, Emma dear?” she asked, setting her tripod down.
“Peachy,” Emma said flatly. “Especially the part where everyone keeps asking me that. It’s just bloody lovely.”
Julia took it on the chin and DJ had to be impressed. She was just so even-keeled and approachable. There wasn’t anything confusing about her and he found that restful.
As for his sister, dear God, let Julia be right—let getting out her feelings on camera set her head straight.
“I was just trying to convince Darcy that we’re going to make a killing with this video. I’m going to leave him a rich man.”
Julia walked to DJ and rubbed his arm. A comfort that failed to comfort him. “I’m sorry. But she’s right. This will help, won’t it? To pay the bills.”
“Thanks,” he said. “We’re going to be fine with the bills. I have some good gigs coming up. We’ll crunch the numbers somehow.”
Rajesh shouldered his way between Julia and DJ. “What’s to crunch? You need half a mil down to lease a running kitchen and then you need to pay ten grand every month to keep it going. Basically, you are going to need an investor or a loan or you’re going to have to marry rich in a hurry.”
If he had a penny for every time he wanted to tell Rajesh to shut up, this entire financial crisis might be averted.
“I’m telling you that fancy Raje chick is perfect for you, and she’s sweet on you and everything.”
“Shut up, Rajesh. Do you have to be a wanker all the bloody time!” Emma said with so much force Rajesh drew back. “Leave DJ alone.”
Rajesh raised his hands, grinning like the thick-skinned idiot he was. “Keep your knickers on. No one likes to hear the truth. I get it.” He winked at Julia, who gave DJ a curious look.
“I have to go.” DJ looked at his watch. “The farmers’ market closes in a half hour.” He handed Rajesh a list of suppliers to call and kissed Emma’s cheek. “I’ll be back in time to drive you to work.”
“Do you mind if I walk out with you? I need to grab some coffee,” Julia said, giving him another one of those bright smiles he was getting used to, and followed him out the door when he nodded.
“I didn’t realize you knew Trisha Raje outside of her being Emma’s doctor,” she said, falling in step next to him. “Your friend in there seemed to indicate that you were . . . close?” she added when he looked confused.
“Oh, that. No, he was talking about her cousin Ashna. We’re friends. We worked together in Paris for a while.”
“Ah. She’s the one with the restaurant, right? That’s a relief.” She stopped outside Philz Coffee. Mixed in with the rich coffee aroma was the smell of blueberry and chocolate chips baking together. It wasn’t the most common combination, but you could do some good things with it.
“A relief, huh?” He gave her a curious smile.
She seemed a million miles away, and his lame attempts at being flirtatious totally nose-dived into the pavement. “Oh. You meant it was a relief that it wasn’t Trisha Raje I was friends with. Not a relief that Ashna and I weren’t involved.” Great. “Now I feel like a prized arse.”
This time her smile was shy, but when her eyes met his, there was a flirtatious spark there. “I have a feeling you could never be an . . .” She cleared her throat. “. . . arse?”
They both laughed. Then she looked worried again.
“Did I say something wrong?” The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable with his ungainly flirting.
“No, not at all. I’m just . . . I hope you don’t think I’m being too nosy, but . . .”
“Tell me,” he urged.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt, DJ.”
She didn’t have to tell him that whatever this was, it had to do with Trisha Raje. He could see it on her face. The utter disgust on Trisha’s face when she’d seen Julia had been downright cruel.
“She’s Emma’s doctor. That’s all.” The idea of there being anything more between him and Dr. Raje was preposterous. It made him want to laugh, but not in a good way.
She touched his arm and looked so anxious he put his hand over hers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered. But these memories. I got triggered, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
She turned her hand in his and clasped his fingers. “Just be careful. I know how easy it is to trust her. I am painfully aware.” She slipped into a chair on the sidewalk and he sat down next to her, his hand still in hers. “I grew up in a trailer park. Can you imagine what it was like to have Trisha Raje as a roommate? All that working my ass off to get accepted into Berkeley had felt like it had been worth it. I have no idea how we got matched up as roommates. It was probably because we’d both graduated early and made it to college at sixteen. But it felt like I had won the lottery. She came back to the dorm every weekend with boxes full of food. She had tickets to every concert on campus. She had everything . . . a mother who called her every day. A family who called her all the damn time. One would think I’d be jealous. But I lapped it up. It changed me. I knew what I wanted. I knew life could be beautiful if I worked hard, if I tried to be just like her. And then I met her brother. Have you ever met . . .” She cleared her throat. “Have you ever met Yash Raje?”
DJ nodded. He had met him just once on the day of the party a
t his parents’ house, for all of five minutes. In those five minutes, Yash Raje had gotten him to talk about Emma, his love for cooking, basically everything that mattered to DJ. The young candidate had this way of reaching out and making you feel like he saw you. Even though the meeting had lasted just minutes, DJ would remember it for the rest of his life.
“Then you know what I’m talking about. The world moved beneath my feet when he took a second look at me. Have you ever fallen in love, DJ? Everything they say in books, all the feelings and swooning and yearning—all of it happened at once. I never expected that he’d notice me. I never expected to know what it felt like when he returned my feelings, but he did.”
She had tears running down her face now. DJ didn’t know quite what to say, so he stroked his thumb across her hand. They weren’t long fingered and sure, but calloused from work and weary, like his.
“I don’t think I can explain to you how cold Trisha can be. And you have to see her when she gets mean and ruthless to know what that feels like. Before I knew what was happening to me, they had framed me for dealing drugs. They tied me to my mother’s boyfriends. Men who were dealers. All the things I had shared with her as a friend, she used against me. I was expelled from school, my record ruined. A record I had worked hard to keep clean despite where I came from. It was gone in a day. The man I loved never looked at me again. But you know what hurt the most? Being dropped by the only friend I’d ever had.
“I ended up on the street. I was homeless for a year. Homeless. Do you know what it feels like to be homeless, DJ? Just when you thought you were done with it?”
Oh, he knew only too well.
As he plucked out some napkins from the holder on the table, he saw his hands were shaking. He dabbed her tears. Mascara ran in black lines down her cheeks. He set her to rights.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump this on you. I’ve never talked about this to anyone.” She looked mortified.
He dragged his chair closer and pulled her against his shoulder. Sobs shuddered through her, all those awful memories making her breath stutter as she tried to calm herself. She pressed her face into his shoulder and he rubbed her back. All the things Trisha had said and done flashed in his mind.
Hired help.
Her words mixed with the slurs his father’s sister had shouted at his mother as they sat on the curb outside the home she had thrown them out of, all their possessions next to them in three meager suitcases. Ammaji opening the door to take them in. Walking up the steep stairway to the attic where one single bulb hung from the ceiling. Curry sweep. Filthy. Little. Curry. Sweep.
He ran his hand up and down Julia’s back, soothing his twelve-year-old self, soothing Mum, soothing Emma, soothing everyone who didn’t have the good fortune to be born into the right circumstances. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. But look at you now.” He attempted a smile. “A fancy journalist. Look at how you wield that camera. Look at all the people you help.”
“I’m pretty badass, ha?”
“Totally hundred-proof badass.”
She smiled through her tears. “All I want is for you to not get hurt. We—people like you and me—we’re playthings to the Rajes. We’re nothing to them.”
He knew.
“Thank you for trusting me with that,” he said, but it felt insufficient, because how did you thank someone who shared their darkest hurt with you, especially when they barely knew you?
“You’re welcome,” she said softly, smiling. Then even more softly she placed a kiss on his cheek.
Chapter Twenty-One
Trisha really should not have decided to stop over at the Anchorage. Not when she was late to meet DJ. But Aji had called complaining about a stomachache and Trisha couldn’t ignore that. She hadn’t told Nisha, because Nisha would kill her for going anywhere near Esha right now. As for DJ, they were going to San Francisco, so he could just hop off 280 and pick her up. It was barely a ten-minute detour. Plus, she’d been at the hospital most of last night and she hadn’t had a chance to charge her car. At least she’d stopped breaking into a panicky sweat every time she thought about the fund-raiser, thanks to DJ. Between being grateful to him for his competence and livid that she was going to have to confront him about Julia, she was dreading their meeting today.
“It’s been four days!” her grandmother said as soon as Trisha entered her room.
Trisha hugged her, rubbing her cheek on her soft Chanderi sari. “See, first you don’t see me for four days and then you act like this, how can I be upset with you?”
“How can you be upset with me no matter what? I thought ajis weren’t allowed to be upset with their granddaughters.”
“There is that,” Aji said. “Have you eaten? You know you have the kind of face that has a tendency to get all gaunt if you don’t eat.”
Esha smiled from the doorway, the sunlight behind her outlining her wispy, white-clad form. She had the slightly disoriented look that meant either she had just finished her meditation or she’d seen something. Trisha went to her but waited for Esha to hug her. Or not. They were all trained to let Esha follow her own emotional state. She always set the tone based on how she was feeling right then.
Today was not a day for hugs. But calm embraced Trisha as Esha moved her hand to the center of her chest, pressing into Trisha’s heart.
“How beautiful you look, Shasha,” she said. “My soft warrior. War is a violent thing but its purpose is often to protect your own, and to ultimately bring peace. Sometimes you have to go to war to move forward and past suffering, to get closer to our natural state as humans. That of equilibrium and well-being.”
Trisha simply nodded. The only time Esha ever lectured was when she’d seen something and she was trying to tell you what she’d seen.
“When it’s time to fight, it’s okay to fight,” Esha said. “Even if sometimes your biggest enemies may be hiding inside you. Not everyone who fights you is your enemy.”
Finally Esha nodded and Trisha touched the hand Esha had pressed into her chest.
“Thanks, Esha.” She never asked Esha for details. She never wanted to know. Every single time Esha had warned against something it had come true. Your loyalty is to blood, she’d told Trisha when the thing with Yash had happened. Trisha had ignored her and look how that had ended up.
Suddenly Esha frowned. “Where is Nisha?”
Trisha stepped away from her. Keeping Nisha’s secret around Esha was impossible.
“I have to go, Esha; I just came by to check Aji’s stomachache because Dad’s in LA.”
Esha smiled at her. They both knew Aji was perfectly fine. She just hadn’t seen Trisha in a few days and had wanted her to come over.
“Do you want me to write you a prescription for Zantac, Aji? Or will your pudin hara work?”
“Yes yes, I got it. But at least eat a ladoo before you go? I put a few aside for you. Here.” Her grandmother handed her a box full of her delicious sweet cream-of-wheat balls. “Eat one now. You know how you get when you get hungry.”
Trisha was about to open the box when her phone buzzed. A text from Bicep-chef—she’d put his name down as that in her contacts the day Nisha had stuck her with the fund-raising dinner.
“I’m almost there.” How did even his texts sound pissed off? And why was he texting while driving?
Trisha frowned at the text, then frowned even harder at the ladoos. “I’ll eat them in the car,” she said to Aji before giving her another quick hug.
Before she got away, Esha caught her hand. “Be careful,” she said, her eyes somber.
“Always am.”
“Some things require more care than you’re giving them, Shasha.”
How she hated these nebulous prophetic declarations.
“Tell Nisha to—”
“Really, Esha, I have to go!” She practically ran from the room before Esha could finish.
She remembered the horror on Esha’s face every time Nisha got pregnant. A
fter the first two miscarriages, Nisha had refused to meet Esha, but Trisha somehow was the conduit between the cousins. She’d transferred the unease between the two and she hated it.
Tell Nisha some things can’t be made through force of will.
Yeah, no. No way had Trisha been able to tell Nisha that. And when she had refused to ferry Esha’s messages to Nisha like a carrier pigeon, Esha had suffered seizure after seizure from whatever it was that built up inside her.
Remembering that made Trisha stop. Reluctantly, she turned around and went back to Esha. But Esha only smiled. “I’m fine. Go on.”
That was all Trisha needed to hear. She ran down the stairs, ladoo box in hand. Sometimes she hated Esha. Guilt blasted through her at that thought, hard and sharp. No. No, she didn’t hate Esha. She loved her more than anything, but she hated her visions, hated that she could not keep them to herself. She also hated having to keep Nisha’s secret.
As much as she loved her sister, sleeping in the same bed as her right now was nerve-racking. Every time Nisha moved, Trisha skipped a heartbeat. She’d woken up again this morning to Nisha crying in her sleep. She’d wiped her cheeks, mumbled reassurances, and fallen back to sleep feeling incredibly alone. Being the only person in the family who knew about the baby felt too heavy, a crushing weight on her chest.
The last time Esha had asked her to be careful, Trisha had learned that she couldn’t trust her own judgment and she’d lost Yash, HRH, and even Ma, a little bit. A horrible exhaustion rose inside her. Suddenly three hours of sleep and two surgeries descended on her like a crumbling ceiling.
Groaning, she pulled the heavy front door open and slammed straight into the big body of DJ Caine.
His hands gripped her upper arms as he steadied her; they were warm and gentle and reminded her of the solidity of his chest when she’d pressed her hand into it at Green Acres. She could still feel his heart beating a frantic rhythm against her palm.
