Incense and Sensibility

by Sonali Dev

  Wiping every trace of softness from her voice, she looked at him with all the unyielding purpose she needed him to see. “There is nothing you can do to help except get better so we can both go back to our lives.”

  Something about that reached him.

  What darkened his eyes this time was too much like shame.

  “When is the next time you need to speak in public? Your next campaign event?” she asked, because he was still here, at her door, unable to leave.

  “The debate next week.”

  It was clear from his face that he didn’t think he could do it.

  For all her bravado just now, her heart did a terrible squeeze at how unsure he looked. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached out and took his phone and held it up to his face to unlock it. She called herself from it and then saved their numbers on both phones.

  “Text me and we’ll set up a time to talk.” With that, she dropped the phone in his hand, fingers coming millimeters from his but not touching. Then she turned back to the stairs, wanting nothing more than to go back and let their fingers touch. Just once. “Shut the door behind you when you leave,” she said as she walked away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As India left him standing in the lobby of her studio, Yash felt aware of himself in a way he hadn’t been for a very long time. Awareness had wrapped around his nerves as he followed her through the breathing exercises, and it lingered on. Which had made him linger as well, too afraid to leave and return to the coldness he’d been feeling.

  He checked his phone to see if Brandy had responded and saw a bunch of texts from Rico, all of which said some form of “Where the hell are you?”

  Shit. He’d completely forgotten about his meeting with Rico.

  “Hey, man, sorry. I lost track of time,” he said as soon as Rico answered his call.

  “Where are you? We were supposed to meet an hour ago,” Rico said with more relief than anger, and Yash felt a jab of guilt.

  “I got caught up in something. Where are you?”

  “Still at home. That’s where we were supposed to meet, remember?”

  Ashna’s house was around the corner and Yash left the studio and started walking toward it.

  “Is everything okay?” Rico asked.

  “Of course everything is okay.” Nothing was okay. Especially now that he was walking away from India’s studio. “I’m right outside, actually. I’ll be there in a minute. And, umm, hey, did you call anyone to ask where I was?” The last thing Yash needed was to set off the Raje panic dominoes.

  “I’m not a fool, mate. Everyone thinks we are in our meeting. You’d actually better be right outside, because Ashna’s on her way home and if she gets here before you, wherever you were that you don’t want to talk about is not going to stay secret.”

  “It’s not a secret,” Yash said, but that didn’t mean he was going to talk about it. “I’ll see you in a moment.”

  Curried Dreams, Ashna’s restaurant stood at the corner between the studio and Ashna’s house. It used to be his uncle’s, and Yash had avoided it growing up, because his uncle had always made him uncomfortable. It was closed for renovations. Ashna was finally making it her own. About damn time, if you asked him.

  Construction trucks and a giant dumpster were parked outside. Yash turned around and looked at India’s studio and imagined what that must have been like during the renovation. Then he rounded the corner and made his way up Ashna’s driveway. His sisters had hung out at the restaurant and the house much more than he had. So much of his life had been spent in a whirlwind of fighting for one thing or another. His famous laser focus had always been aimed at something. And like a laser it had eaten through every other aspect of this life.

  When he’d walked away from India all those years ago, it had been far too easy for him to make up a million excuses to let what he had felt go. Naina needed him, he had to stay focused on his goals, trusting a stranger wasn’t a chance he could afford to take again. India had dug up too much of his baggage. He’d worked too hard to bury it.

  Evidently he’d been right. Because his level of distraction right now was taking over everything else. The election was looming over him like a test he’d blanked out on and all he wanted was to turn around and go back through that turquoise door. He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to feel how he felt when he was around her. Alive in a way he had been chasing all his life. In all the wrong places.

  He knocked on Ashna’s door. It was Rico and Ashna’s now, since Rico had moved in just a month after coming back into her life. Until a couple days ago Yash had wondered if it was too soon.

  “Did you walk here?” Rico asked, opening the door. “What’s wrong with you? Where is Brandy? Where were you?”

  “You’re sounding scarily like Ashna. Could you please not?” But he’d clean forgotten that Brandy was on her way. He texted her and told her where he was and that she didn’t have to come back. He still didn’t think he needed security outside public events, especially not inside people’s homes. Fortunately, Nisha had agreed that Brandy didn’t have to wait at the yoga studio with him after getting him there safely.

  “I knew working for family was going to be tricky,” Rico said.

  Yeah, especially their family. “Good thing you’ve trained for the challenge in cutthroat competitive sports.”

  They were now fifteen points ahead in the polls even though Yash had made no appearances since the shooting. Rico had kept the media flooded with the tragedy strategically interspersed with ads and recordings of Yash’s earlier speeches.

  “Listen, man, I’m sorry,” Yash said. “Everything you’re doing is totally saving my ass and I can’t thank you enough. You want to get me up to speed?”

  For the next hour they popped open a couple of Anchor Steams and settled around Rico’s laptop on the kitchen island and went over every detail of all the campaigning Cruz was doing. All his press coverage, his endorsements, where his funds were coming from. Cruz had been forced to pull some of his negative ads because slinging mud at someone who had just been shot had not turned out to be good strategy. Every negative ad had bumped up the donations flowing into Yash’s campaign.

  Then Cruz had tried the vote-with-your-brains-not-with-your-sympathy tack and fallen even lower in the polls so fast that he’d reconsidered that too. He was going to have to face off with Yash on policy. Something he had been avoiding throughout the race. This was a huge win. Or it would be, if Yash could get himself behind a podium without passing out.

  “What we’re seeing right now is the unstoppable momentum of an accidental occurrence. Your assassination attempt has taken over the conscience of California, and the only thing that can stop us now is either a miracle or you dropping out of the race,” Rico said, with all the satisfaction of someone who loved to win.

  Yash knew Rico was right. It just felt like all this was happening to someone else. Yash had knocked on a hundred and ten doors in Orange County the day before the shooting. He’d been in TV studios a total of five hundred hours over the past year. He had been so inside his campaign that being blasted outside it now and not knowing how to get back in should’ve been the most terrifying thing he’d ever experienced. It wasn’t.

  “What would make you think I might drop out of the race?” He understood his family and his team being stuck somewhere between excitement over this unexpected gift and sadness over the tragedy. He just couldn’t relate to the gift half.

  “Your face right now, mate.” Rico pointed his beer at Yash’s face as though Yash didn’t know where his own face was—which was fitting, because Yash didn’t know where most of him was. “That is not the face of a man who wants to win. It’s the face of a man who’s questioning his path.”

  “Why would I be doing that?” That was it. That was all Yash could say. Winning was something he’d always wanted. Wasn’t it?

  He walked to the French doors that overlooked the backyard lined with trees. On the other side of the trees
was India’s yoga studio. From between the trees Yash could see the red-brick facade.

  “You haven’t been to campaign HQ since the shooting.”

  He knew. He was aware of everything he wasn’t doing. In great detail. “I’ll go soon. I’ve been responding to texts and emails. They’re holding up great.”

  Rico’s face said he wanted to tell Yash that his staff were not holding up great. That they shouldn’t have to hold up without him. But he said nothing and they moved to brainstorming their strategy for the upcoming debate. The two candidates had agreed to two debates, one next week and one four weeks after that. Debates were Yash’s strength and Cruz had obviously wanted to get them over with a good month and a half before the election, so he could recover if he messed up, which Yash had planned on and now didn’t know how to execute.

  By the time they had covered all the debate topics, the front door sounded and Rico went to the door with the excitement of a boy expecting a visit from Superman or whatever superhero was cool these days. Yash’s favorite superhero would always be Clark Kent, the perpetual outsider.

  Instead of just Ashna’s voice, a collection of voices wafted into the kitchen.

  “I hope it’s okay if we join you. It’s like there’s no privacy left at my place anymore.”

  “Hi, China,” Yash said, joining them in the entrance foyer.

  He’d never seen the uber-confident China Dashwood look embarrassed. But there it was.

  “Hi, Yash,” she said sheepishly, as a somewhat familiar, very beautiful woman who’d been hanging on her arm hurriedly pulled away from her.

  “I’m so glad you’re still here.” Ashna threw her arms around him, taking care to avoid his hurt shoulder, which barely qualified as hurt any longer. Then she examined his face like a mother hen. “You’re looking good. Better than the last time I saw you.” She locked her arms around him and held on as though she weren’t planning on letting go anytime soon.

  He patted her hair. “I’m fine, Ashi.” But he was glad to be held.

  “You know Song?” China said, still a little embarrassed about her opening line when she didn’t need to be. Yash should be the one embarrassed. He was the one who’d invaded China’s home.

  Song bounced on her heels in that way of those who were exceptionally excited about everything and grabbed both his hands. “We met on China’s set last month.” Right, she had been on a Food Network cooking show China produced that Ashna and Rico had been on.

  “Of course I remember you, Song,” Yash said. “Great to see you again.”

  She bounced on her heels some more and turned to Rico. “You look as handsome as ever. Love suits you.”

  “You as well. You look even more beautiful than I remember.”

  Song blushed and China grinned like she’d swallowed the sun.

  Ah.

  So Rico and Ashna weren’t the only ones who’d found each other on that set. Must’ve been something in the studio water.

  China winked at him when he smiled at her and slipped her hand back into Song’s as though she couldn’t help herself. Something ominously like fear flashed in Song’s eyes.

  “Everyone here is a friend,” China said, and Song relaxed a little. “Yash is Ashna’s family, and Ashna and Rico already know.”

  “Song is a huge television star, one of the biggest in the world,” Rico whispered to Yash as Ashna rushed to assure Song that everyone here was good at keeping secrets.

  Yash had always prided himself on being perceptive, but it didn’t take much to see that Song was not ready to go public with her relationship with China. Whether it was a celebrity thing or a being-in-the-closet thing, Yash didn’t envy her struggle. He made a zipped-lips action at Song. Putting people at ease was what he did, and she smiled.

  “Everyone’s staying for dinner,” Ashna declared, taking her shoes off and putting them in the shoe closet. China and Song followed suit. “I made some chicken makhani. China, there’s dal and vegetables for you.”

  “I love chicken makhani,” Song said, her exuberance returning to its original turned-all-the-way-up pitch. “I can have China’s share too.” She made a face at China. “My poor vegetarian darling.”

  Just as everyone turned to head to the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Yash was closest to the door and pulled it open.

  “You weren’t supposed to leave the studio without me.” Brandy stood on Ashna’s front porch, her tone icy. Not that she had another tone.

  “I’m sorry. I messed up. Won’t happen again,” Yash said. “But you didn’t have to come all the way back here to scold me.”

  Brandy glared at him and held out his car keys. He’d given them to her to move his car to a longer term spot before she left.

  Before he could apologize again he noticed a young girl in an oversized sweatshirt standing behind Brandy. She had a nose ring and hair tightly pulled into a curly ponytail, and that expression teens wore around their parents when they thought they were being embarrassed.

  “This must be Ellie.” Yash waved to the girl and she waved back excitedly.

  “Ellie’s been wanting to meet you,” Brandy said in a tone that suggested she couldn’t quite fathom Yash’s popularity. “Since I had to drop the keys off, I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Absolutely. I’ve been wanting to meet Ellie too,” Yash said just as Ashna came to stand next to him.

  “Hi, Ellie,” she said. “And you must be the new bodyguard.” Only Ashna could say that in a tone that didn’t make Brandy uncomfortable, but also didn’t dismiss what had happened to Abdul. The sick sensation permanently lodged deep inside Yash rolled over.

  Ashna introduced herself, then pulled the door wide open. “Come on in. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

  Brandy blinked, something she tended to do when someone did something she found touching. “Thank you. But I’m not supposed to watch Yash in his family’s homes.”

  Ashna smiled. “Good, then you can focus on the rest of us.”

  Brandy looked at Ellie and the child grinned, said “thank you,” and came inside.

  Two things happened simultaneously as soon as they walked into the living room: China and Song sprang apart, and Ellie gasped.

  “Are you Song Ji Woo?” Veritable stars exploded in the teenager’s eyes as she gaped at Song, who fought to suppress that terrified look again. “My mom didn’t tell me you’d be here.” Ellie seemed to forget all about her excitement at meeting Yash. “Love in the Spring is my favorite K-Drama ever!”

  Song regained her composure at that. “You know that show?”

  “Is there anyone who doesn’t know that show? Well, maybe my mom doesn’t, but she might be the only one in the world. You’re my favorite actress ever, Ms. Song.”

  Song walked up to Ellie and took her hands in the warmest gesture. “Call me Ji Woo, and it is very good to meet you. Actually, forget that. Just call me Song. That’s what everyone here calls me.”

  “Isn’t that offensive?” Ellie asked, and Song laughed. Yash loved this generation. They gave him such hope for the world.

  “It is, but only if I weren’t the one asking you to. It started as a mistake, but I like the sound of Song now. But thank you for making sure.”

  Brandy gazed at Ellie like she might explode with pride.

  China gazed at Song as though her heart might melt and trickle to her toes. “I’m China,” she said. “You’re Brandy’s daughter?” she added with some surprise.

  Ellie turned to China with something of a fierce look. “Yes, can’t you see the resemblance?”

  China burst out laughing. Ellie was clearly Black and Brandy was clearly not. “I love it.”

  Ellie groaned. “Please tell me you aren’t one of those Black people who judges interracial adoption.”

  China looked taken aback at that.

  “Ellie, I don’t think Ms. Dashwood meant to be rude, and you shouldn’t be either,” Brandy said in the gentlest tone Yash had ever heard her use.

/>   “No, Ellie, Ms. Dashwood most certainly did not mean to be rude,” China said, grinning widely. “And I don’t think you were rude at all. I was adopted from Kenya. My mother is not Kenyan.”

  Understanding dawned on Ellie’s face. “I’m sorry I was rude.” She gave the tiniest sad smile. “My mother was Brandy’s girlfriend. She died.”

  Awkwardness swept through the room.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.” China stepped closer to the girl. “How long has it been?”

  “Five years. I was nine.”

  Brandy threw a bunch of keys at Ellie. “All right, sport, go start the car. Time to leave.”

  Ellie caught them and threw a look from the keys to Song, clearly not excited about leaving her favorite star.

  “Why don’t you two join us for dinner?” Ashna said.

  “Yes, please join us, Ashna’s butter chicken is the best in the world,” Rico said, making Ashna blush. Which was funny because everything he said about her sounded smitten. How was she not used to it?

  Amid all the chaotic bonhomie, Yash found his eyes straying to the windows that looked out on the thicket of trees that cut off India’s studio from view. A wave of restlessness swept through him.

  China and Song exchanged secret glances. They were making an effort to keep their hands off each other with Ellie and Brandy here, but between them and Rico and Ashna, the pheromones in the air were thicker than Yash had the stomach for right now. He hated this strange and new bitterness all this eye-fucking was causing.

  “Please stay,” Yash said, because Ellie looked ready to explode with excitement at the prospect of dinner with Song.

  If Brandy could resist the look Ellie threw her, Yash was going to believe she had superpowers. “Please, Mom, can we stay?”

  Nope, no superpowers, the woman crumbled like so much dust. “Are you sure it’s okay?” she asked Ashna.

  “Come on, ninja warrior,” China said to her. “The child deserves to taste Ashna’s cooking. With you for a Mom she needs a break.”