by Alisha Rai
“Then fuck him.” Rana jerked her head up to look at Devi, who wore a grim expression. “You deserve way more than being someone’s stopping point.”
Fresh tears stung Rana’s eyes. She had always been an easy crier. She’d spent her life hiding her tears, fearful everyone would think she was even more high-maintenance than they already considered her to be. “Do I though? What do I bring to the table?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
She turned to Leena. “You’re smart and ambitious and educated. Devi’s sweet and nice and accomplished. What am I?”
“You’re not seriously asking this.” Devi raised her eyebrows.
“I’m pretty. I have a nice face and was lucky enough to be born with long legs and firm breasts. And that’s it. All I bring to a relationship is myself.”
“That’s enough,” Leena said sharply. For a second Rana thought she was telling her to shut up, but then Leena continued. “Who you are is more than enough.”
“And when it fades?” Rana was aware her voice was rising in desperation, and she couldn’t stop herself. “When I’m not pretty anymore? What’s going to be left then?”
“Did Mama say this to you?” Leena’s words were deadly quiet, sharpened with menace.
You can find someone good. A man who knows nothing about your past, one who would be happy to have such a pretty, lively girl as his wife. “I’ve slept with too many men, but at least I’m pretty, so I better trick someone into marriage now,” she whispered. “That’s the gist of our fight.”
“Jesus,” Devi muttered. “You have not slept with too many men.”
“What the hell does too many even mean? More than one, less than a hundred?” Leena’s face was hard, her eyes blazing. “If any man getting between your legs cares what number he is, he’s probably a dickwad.”
Rana looked at Leena’s empty shot glass. It wasn’t that her sisters never swore…it was just that Rana usually swore the most. “That’s what I used to think.”
“It’s the truth. As for the other stuff…God, Mama’s really done a number on you, hasn’t she?” Devi leaned forward in her chair. “Tell me something, when you call Leena the smart one, is that all she is? Is she lacking in kindness?”
Rana swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “Of course not.”
“And me? If I’m the nice one, does that mean I’m a dog?”
“You know you’re gorgeous.” Rana frowned at Devi. “It’s not the same. You guys have everything. I have…”
“Your pretty face and body, I know. And nothing else.” Devi’s lips tightened. “Do you remember what things were like when Daddy died?”
Rana locked her hands together. “I try not to remember.”
“Let me remind you. You had barely graduated. I was in middle school, upset over zits and boys. Leena was a junior, stressing about SATs and where to go to college.” Devi’s mouth curled down. “We had the funeral on Friday. You were in the restaurant on Monday.”
Rana made her hands into fists. “I needed the distraction.”
Leena’s voice was clear and firm. “And you kept that restaurant not only functioning but turning a profit until I graduated from college. Until Devi graduated from culinary school.”
“Mama was there—”
“The fact that you did it while Mama was working there is a miracle in its own right,” Leena said dryly. “She should have driven you to drink. But you held it together for years. You managed her for years, until Devi and I could come. And all we did was take over Mama’s job. None of us can interact with customers the way you can.”
“The way Daddy could,” Devi added softly. “You’re so like him. He wasn’t just a pretty face, and neither are you.” She glanced at Leena. “And personally, I, for one, am really sorry if I ever gave you that impression.”
“Me too.” Leena arched a brow. “I don’t want to hear about this again, weirdo. You’re terrible at brooding.”
Rana’s smile was wobbly. “I do hate being depressed,” she confessed.
“Your emotions are too big for you to bottle them up,” Devi said. “That’s one of the things we love about you.”
A tiny ray of light pierced her heart. “That I’m a drama queen?”
“You are a drama queen, but in a good way. You’re not volatile. You’re exciting. It’s wonderful.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.” But Rana wanted to. Every fiber of her being yearned for her to believe them.
“You should.” Devi leaned forward. “The Rana I know, she’s confident.”
“I am confident. About some things,” she confessed.
“You should be confident about all the things. If you want to have a serious relationship, great. If you don’t, sleep with as many men as you want.”
“It’s not…”
“It is,” Leena interjected, her voice hard. “It is exactly that simple, Rana. This is the rest of your life we’re talking about. Fuck whatever you’ve been told. Fuck Mama and her plans for you. Fuck whatever it is in your head that’s keeping you from doing whatever you want. Fuck this asshole who told you you’re just a step. You’re no one’s step. You’re an amazing person who deserves to have whatever you want.”
Rana and Devi were both silent when Leena finished her impassioned speech. It was, without a doubt, the first time Rana had heard her middle sister say such violently critical things about their mother.
Leena grabbed the whiskey and swigged it straight from the bottle, placing it down with a determined thud. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and hit a number. “Preeti? It’s Leena. Devi and Rana and I will be otherwise busy tonight. You can close up.” She muttered a few more things and then hung up. She looked back at both of them belligerently when they stared at her, still astounded. “What? We can’t all have a night off?”
“We’ve had nights off before,” Rana said slowly. “We usually plan them better, is all.”
“We’re going to have two places before long. We need to learn to delegate.”
Devi raised an eyebrow, but her eyes were sparkling. She nudged the whiskey subtly closer to Leena. “Did you say the D word?”
Leena accepted the bottle and took another swig. “Damn right. Let’s have a girls’ night.”
They had never had a girls’ night, not that Rana could remember. Devi had always been so much younger, and Leena had always been far too uptight to party the way Rana used to like.
The way Rana currently liked. She hadn’t gotten drunk, properly drunk, in a year. She eyed the whiskey and calculated how long it would take her to catch up to her sister. She didn’t know if it was the alcohol or their pep talk, but she felt better about herself than she had in months. Even with the heartache of ending things with Micah.
She could handle her too-big, inconvenient feelings for Micah if someone else could help her handle her too-big, inconvenient feelings about herself. She looked down at the table, where the three of them rested their hands; her own longer and bonier with nibbled-away green polish; Leena’s, darker with a perfect French manicure; Devi’s, a shade in between with short, unpainted nails.
Her smile was small but unforced. “Girls’ night sounds perfect.”
* * *
“How drunk,” Rana said, with great seriousness, “is too drunk?”
“No such thing,” Devi promptly responded.
Rana stuck her hand into the bag of chips on the sofa next to her. Devi had tried to make dip a while ago but had ended up dropping sour cream on the kitchen floor. Leena had staggered over to clean it up but had slipped and fallen, swearing over the sour cream on her shirt. Rana had been giggling too hard to help much at all.
So it was plain old greasy potato chips for them. Rana stuffed another handful into her mouth. They would do. “Why have we never done this before?” she asked her sisters from where she lay sprawled on her couch. They were sisters. Sisters should drink together.
Leena licked the salt off her wrist, took the shot of
tequila, and sucked a lemon wedge. “’Cause we’re responsible pillars of the community. That’s fucking why.” Something new Rana had discovered: get a bit of alcohol in Leena, and her potty mouth rivaled Rana’s.
“Your turn.” Leena nudged the shot glass over to Rana. The sequins on the tank top she had stolen from Rana’s closet to replace her ruined shirt glinted in the dim light of the candles they’d lit, the overhead light far too bright for their eyes now.
Rana obediently completed the ritual and groaned in pleasure as the fiery liquid raced down her system. “Christ that’s good. Go, Dev.”
Devi sat up, drank her shot, and collapsed back in her seat, her legs sprawled wide. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
Rana smirked. “Why? It’s not like you’re pregnant or anything.”
Leena shrieked, and they both looked over to find her fisting her hands in her hair, her eyes closed. She looked like a demented harpy. “Please don’t say that. You’ll jinx her! Who would go to the PTA meetings, all of them?”
Devi’s expression took on a disgruntled cast. “I’m not planning on having babies right now, thank you very much. Marcus and Jace and I are still feeling each other out.”
Rana snorted. “Feeling each other out. Heh.”
“Ew. I don’t even want to hear about…”
“Lay off,” Rana interjected, noticing the storm cloud come over Devi’s face.
“I will not.”
“God, you’re cynical,” Devi said.
“And you’re a romantic,” Leena shot back. “But this isn’t romance, it’s lust.”
“Leena, stop being such a jerk!” Devi’s raised voice caught them all by surprise. “I get that you don’t accept my decision about Jace and Marcus, but I am getting damn sick of listening to your jabs. I don’t like Rahul, neither does Rana, but do you see us making fun of him constantly?”
Rana wanted to applaud. Devi was so damn easygoing, it wasn’t natural. A little annoyance and anger cleared the air, and Leena had it coming for her constant needling of Devi’s boyfriends. However, she did need to clarify something.
Rana cleared her throat and raised her hand. “Actually, Devi? I totally make fun of Rahul constantly.” Leena’s long-time boyfriend was a stick-in-the-mud and a blowhard. The fact that their mother loved him to pieces made it harder to accept him.
Leena stared at Devi and ignored Rana. “I thought you liked Rahul.”
“Why should I? He takes my vibrant sister and turns her into a shadow of herself.” Devi grimaced. “I can’t stand him.”
“Well.” Leena blinked. “Then it’s a very good thing that we broke up a couple weeks ago, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You did what?”
Leena reached for the tequila bottle, as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb in their gathering. “Yes, did I forget to mention it?”
“You know very well you did.” Anger gone, Devi collapsed back into the overstuffed chairs. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You guys know how I hate to make a fuss.”
“Um, actually, Leena, breaking up with your boyfriend of many years isn’t making a little fuss. Are you…okay?”
Leena took another shot and closed her eyes as she sucked on the lemon wedge. When Rana was ready to get up and rip it out of her mouth, she opened her eyes. “Yes. I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.” Her tone was filled with certainty. “After all, I was starting to feel like I was only with him to please Mama.” Her laugh was humorless. “Isn’t that silly? Oh, God. I still have to tell her. I’ve been dreading it.”
“That’s not silly.” Rana’s lips compressed. “I’m thirty-two years old, and the first time Mama told me she was proud of me was when I said I wanted to settle down. Once I had that approval, I couldn’t lose it. I want her to look at me…”
“The way she looks at me,” Leena finished. Leena’s skin was darker than hers and Devi’s, but Rana could have sworn she lost some color in her cheeks. “I’m well aware of what I’ve had to do to get that look.”
Rana’s hands trembled. She curled them into fists. Relief. That was what she was feeling. “You are?”
Leena nodded, her face grim. “It was always in the back of my head when I dated a man. Could I bring him home some day? What kind of a son-in-law would he be?”
“That look is the reason I know I’ll never be able to tell Mama about Jace and Marcus,” Devi interjected. “I mean, I can’t tell her the whole story. If she knew I was involved with two men…” Devi’s jaw tightened. “I get it too.”
Rana swallowed. Of course they got it. Why would she think they wouldn’t? They were probably the only two people who would get it.
Micah had seemed to understand too.
Well, he wasn’t here, was he?
“Is Rahul moving out?” Devi asked quietly.
“He left on Sunday, with his necessary possessions. I’ll box up whatever else is left this week, and he’ll come next weekend to pick it up.”
Despite her best efforts, Rana shivered. So cold. Slice, slice, cut your significant other out of your life. She didn’t know what else she’d expected from a couple whose relationship had always struck her as sterile, but still.
“Okay. Do you want to, um, talk about what happened?” Rana couldn’t remember the last time Leena had spoken with her about her boyfriend, any boyfriend. She’d always been so private about such matters.
Sure enough, Leena declined. “Not yet. I’d rather not. Really, guys, I’m okay. Devi, I’m sorry I was sharp about…you know.”
Devi and Rana exchanged a look. If Leena was even half-heartedly apologizing, she was more upset than she let on. “Leena…”
She looked up from her empty glass. “Seriously. Enough. You’re a person who thrives on getting all of your emotions out there. I’m not.”
In Rana’s opinion, it wasn’t healthy to be as tightly contained as Leena was, but there wasn’t too much she could do about it. She shook her head slightly at Devi, who was opening her mouth. “Okay. Hey, maybe you should find some hot young stud to console yourself with.”
“There’s a gardener at Jace and Marcus’s condo who’s really something,” Devi teased, her good humor resurfacing.
As intended, Leena smiled faintly, and some of her previous alcoholic glow returned. “Maybe I will. In any case, this whole night has gotten off track. It’s not about me tonight.” Leena poured all of them another shot and nudged them to her and Devi.
Leena raised her glass, and Devi followed suit, looking blurry around the edges. “To the best big sister in the world.”
“Here, here,” Devi said. “But I’ve got two, so I’ll say one of the best.”
Tears swam in Rana’s eyes. Damn, she’d done enough crying to flood the place tonight. “Aww, thanks, guys.”
They all drank and subsided back into their pillows, silent. Five minutes later, Devi’s soft snore filled the room.
“We’re a little messed up, Rana.” Leena’s whisper came from next to her.
Rana rolled her head, the better to see her sister. “Yeah.”
Leena contemplated her glass and then placed it back on the side table. “But Mama loves us.”
“I know.”
“It would be easier if she didn’t.”
Rana wanted to repeat her I know, but it seemed redundant. She settled for nodding.
“When I told you that you wouldn’t lose us…that’s true for me too? No matter what I do, no matter how much Mama disapproves, I won’t lose you guys?”
Rana opened her eyes in surprise at the tortured whisper. Leena sat in the chair, staring at her, with the most honest emotion she’d seen from her unflappable sister.
Suddenly stone-cold sober, she struggled to sit up and make room on the couch. When she extended her arm, Leena wasted no time in coming over to sit next to her. Rana wrapped her arms around her sister’s slender body and pulled her closer, uncaring about the crushed potato chips between them
. Leena rested her head on Rana’s breast, and Rana stroked the soft strands.
Christ, she hadn’t held Leena like this in…forever. Once upon a time, when they’d been children and shared a room, Leena had often crawled into her bed to escape from the Florida thunderstorms that terrified her.
Their father’s funeral, Rana recalled. That was the last time they’d embraced. The next morning, Leena had seemingly morphed from a normal teenager into a rigid and controlled young woman.
Rana mourned for that smiling young teenager. The transformation was partially her fault. She’d showered Devi with all her maternal love and care. She should have insisted on taking better care of this baby sister instead of assuming Leena was invulnerable.
Leena’s tears dampened her shirt, driving the stake of guilt deeper.
“Yes. That’s what it means,” Rana said softly, and realized that if she wanted her sister to believe it, she had to believe it too. Rana tilted her head at sleeping Devi. “On that point, you need to make sure Devi understands she won’t lose either of us too.”
Leena hesitated. “If Mama finds out about those men…”
“What are you doing, showing her what life is going to be like for her?” When Leena looked away, Rana had her answer. Ah. Rana should have known Leena’s harshness toward Devi’s lifestyle was born out of misguided helpfulness. “Mama’s going to think what she wants to think.” As she said the words, the truth of them hit home. Rana had no control over her mother’s brain. None of them did.
Christ, was that a freeing thought or what?
“I only want the best for her,” Leena said quietly. “You and I aren’t immune to needing approval, and she’s not as strong as either of us.”
Rana was abruptly glad Devi was asleep. “Bullshit. None of us are weak.” She straightened. “None of us.” She hadn’t believed it until that moment, but she suddenly saw what her sisters had been saying.
She had kept her family together after their father died. She may not have a string of degrees after her name, but she played an important role in their business and her family’s life.
She’d slept with men and lived her life how she’d wanted to, and she’d enjoyed herself. Surely that took a certain amount of courage.
