by Sonia Singh
Two tattooed thugs. How clichéd could you get?
The Latino lawbreaker shoved the carton of beer across the counter, and said in a low, intimidating growl, “Empty the cash register. Fast.” His eyes narrowed as the clerk grabbed a plastic bag and began unloading. “I know where the button is, hombre. Don’t even think of pushing it and calling the cops.”
I sat back against the shelf. I should have called the Goddess Within outside, then entered the store. I should have taken my chance with the 911 operator. I should have bought Microsoft stock back in 1986.
I could cry over my regrets on my deathbed. Time to summon the goddess.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, and—
“Well, look at this!” A rough hand closed down on the soft part of my upper arm. My eyes flew open. Dragged to my feet, I found myself face-to-face with the white, hairless hooligan.
I definitely preferred the view from the back.
His eyes were the color of thick phlegm, his face a blotchy red. He also happened to have the wispiest goatee I’d ever seen. My grandmother had more hairs on her chin when she went a day without plucking.
I struggled to free my arm. “Let go of me!”
Instead of obliging, he tightened his already bruising grip and pulled me to the front of the store. “Check out this bitch.” He raked his eyes over my body from head to toe. “What do I do with her?”
The braided brute’s eyes never left the clerk. “Make sure she don’t call the cops.”
Mr. Waste of Anatomy—seriously, where were organ thieves when you needed them—grabbed my other arm and pulled both roughly behind my back. If only I’d worn my new steel-heeled stilettos, I could’ve stepped back and sliced off his toe.
Oh right, the goddess thing.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and—
BOOM!
A massive gunshot ricocheted through the store. My eyes flew open to see the Hispanic heavy glaring at the clerk, smoking gun pointed at the ceiling. “Faster!”
The gunshot momentarily surprised the Big Nasty breathing down my neck, and he loosened his grip. Quickly, I kicked back and caught him squarely in the knee. Cursing, he let go of one of my arms, and I hefted my bag and swung it at his face.
One of the sharp silver buckles caught him in the eye. He howled.
I pulled away and ran, trying to summon the goddess, but it was slightly difficult to visualize anything under the circumstances. All I could think about was getting away and calling the police.
I was almost to the door when my pursuer tackled me and we went flying into a rack of Twinkies and Ding Dongs. The baked goods were stale and did nothing to cushion my fall.
He whipped me around so we were again face-to-face. His hot fetid breath nearly made me black out. Talk about a serious Altoid moment.
I had just the one self-defense move, and it only worked when the person I wanted to flip was polite enough to stand across from me.
There was only one thing to do.
Fight like a girl.
I screamed like a maniac and went for his eyes, lashing out with my sharp, manicured nails.
Shaved head’s thug-in-crime turned, brandishing his gun at me. “What the fuck’s going on?”
I didn’t know if I was impervious to bullets, and I didn’t want to find out.
The thick-necked troglodyte rose to his feet, pulling me up painfully by my roots. My follicles screamed for José Eber.
I cried out, but not loud enough to miss the grate of metal against metal.
Click. Click.
The convenience store clerk stood there, legs spread, a rifle in each hand. “Let her go, or I’ll blow both your bastard brains to Karachi.”
Both men froze, gaping.
Wordlessly I was released, my ass making contact with a heap of Hostess cakes.
“In the corner, bastards,” the clerk ordered. The legally challenged losers moved and stood, glaring.
I stared up at my hero. “Thanks.”
The clerk nodded, putting one rifle on the counter and keeping the other trained on the robbers. “I’ve pushed the button to activate the alarm. The bastard cops will be here in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes?” I gasped.
He shrugged. “This happens three or four times a week.”
I scrambled to my feet. The clerk surveyed me. “Are you Indian?”
“Yeah.” I looked closely at his name tag. It read: ALI. “Are you?”
“Pakistani.”
“My mom was born in Pakistan, before India was split up.”
“Do you know where?”
“Lahore.”
“I was born there, too.”
The bald bandit curled his lip. “Damn immigrants.”
Ali leveled his rifle. “Shut up, bastard. If not for immigrants like me, you bastards would have no one to rob.”
The dark-skinned robber nudged his friend. “Hey, asshole, my family’s from Mexico.”
“They are?”
Well my work there was done.
I removed a piece of Twinkie from my hair. “Do you want me to stick around, Ali? Talk to the cops?”
“No.” He waved me away. “I know how to handle their bastard questions.”
“Thanks again.” I headed for the door, giving the two men in the corner a well-deserved finger.
“Is that your Hummer outside?” Ali said.
“Yeah,” I said proudly.
“You owe me forty dollars.”
Oh, right, the gas. I smiled sheepishly and whipped out my wallet.
The white thug snorted. “What’s a little girl like you doin’ in a big car like that?”
I opened my mouth.
Forget it.
Chapter 17
I HAD TO CLEAR my throat several times before anyone noticed I was in the room.
My mom was the first to react. “Maya, you’re back. We just finished eating.” The table was scattered with remnants of dinner: a half-empty tureen of lentil soup or dal, a plate of chapattis, a nearly devoured vegetable dish of cauliflower and potatoes, heavily seasoned with black pepper, cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. A bottle of wine rested in the center.
Wine?
My parents never drank wine. Occasionally my dad indulged in a scotch and soda before dinner, and my mom would nurse a rum and Coke (only at parties mind you), but wine?
Tahir poured a glass and set it down across from him. “Here, have a taste, Maya. It’s an Australian wine, Shiraz. The selection at the shop was excellent.”
“I like it,” my mom said with a fond smile at Tahir. Her cheeks were tinged pink.
My dad was shoveling food into his mouth and barely nodded at me as I took a seat. He was wearing his favorite T-shirt with the logo: Urologists do it in a cup.
What I really wanted was a shower. I smelled like skinhead.
But I was never one to turn down wine.
I took a sip, and I couldn’t keep a sound of pleasure from escaping my lips. Shiraz, huh? Merlot had just gone down a notch in my opinion.
Then Tahir smiled, and the wine nearly shot out of my mouth. The man should be prohibited from smiling. The effect was indecently attractive.
“You know your wines,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
I suppose if “knowing” wines meant consuming them to great extent, then I did. “I know what I like.”
Tahir was staring at me. I found this disconcerting. I preferred him rude. He moved to top off my glass, which had somehow emptied itself. I took a sip and chanced another look over.
Tahir’s eyes were still fixed on my face.
“Pass the dal,” my dad said. I nearly jumped, forgetting he was there. Tahir really had me unsettled, or maybe it was the fact that, hours earlier, I had turned the sky black with my divine power? I passed the bowl, and my dad poured a few spoonfuls over his rice. “Did anyone notice the strange weather today?”
I nearly spit out my wine again. “No,” I sa
id a little too loudly.
My mom shook her head. “I was in the office all day.”
Tahir scratched the side of his mouth. “Oh, you mean the momentary darkness and wind. Is that unusual for Southern California?”
My dad’s attention was back on the food, and he didn’t answer.
My mom dabbed gently at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “We’re going to Gayatri’s tomorrow night. She’s throwing a dinner party in honor of Tahir. Actually,” she amended, “the party’s in honor of both of you.”
I took another sip, then realized she was looking at me. For the third time, I nearly spewed wine. This was too much. I downed the glass. “What? Me? Both of us?” I looked at Tahir. He was sitting back in his chair, facing me with a challenging expression. He hadn’t told my parents! He was obviously waiting for me to do it, so I would look like the bad guy.
Asshole.
I lifted my chin, determined. “How nice of her. I’m sure the party will be fun.”
Tahir’s expression didn’t change.
My mom smiled happily, completely unaware of the complex interplay of emotions across the table.
“Pass the chapattis,” my dad grunted.
Okay, maybe not all the emotions were that complex.
I passed the chapattis. I wanted a hot shower, then bed. It wasn’t that late, especially since I’d woken up at noon, but I was exhausted. I pushed back my chair. “Well it’s good night for me.”
No response.
My dad was still involved with his food, and my mom sat in her chair, a dreamy smile on her face. Looking at her I knew the state was partly due to the wine, but mostly due to images of the grandchildren she mistakenly believed Tahir and I would dutifully produce.
I glanced over at the man who’d supposedly supply the genetic half of our progeny. Tahir was quiet with his own thoughts, his thumb slowly tracing the rim of his wineglass. There was something so sensuous about the movement. His thumb made contact with a droplet of wine, embedding the juice deep into his skin. If I were to taste—
“What time will you wake?” Tahir said.
I snapped out of it, praying my expression was bland as a schoolmarm’s. “I don’t know, early. Maybe eight?” Everyone at the table looked at me. “Well that’s early for me,” I said defensively.
“What time do the shops open?” he asked.
“Nine.”
“There are a few things I need to buy.”
My mom jumped in. “What a wonderful idea! Maya can take you shopping, then the two of you can stop somewhere and have lunch? How about Las Brisas? Maya always goes there. Lunch will be on me.”
“Excellent,” Tahir said.
“Fine,” I said flatly.
“Don’t oversleep,” Tahir called out, as I exited the room.
It was a good thing none of them heard my reply.
I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. I’d been in the hot steamy shower for an hour, scrubbing my skin with a loofah, using the strongest scented bath gel I had. Afterward I’d rubbed my favorite Victoria’s Secret body oil into my skin until I felt fresh and sweet.
Now I was lying in bed, blow-dried and bathed, and I still didn’t feel clean. I knew what the problem was.
Tonight, I had failed.
Finally, for the first time in my life, there was something I was supposedly good at, something I was born to do, and I had failed. Without the rifle-wielding Ali, I don’t know what would have happened to either one of us. I didn’t want to think about it. My cheeks were crisscrossed with warm rivulets of tears before I even realized I was crying.
My mind drifted back to another time when I had cried in the dark, feeling like a failure.
When I was twelve, my parents dragged me along to a dinner party at Asha Patel’s house. My brother was at a sleepover. I had begged for a babysitter so I could stay home, preferably sixteen-year-old Lonnie Marshall from next door, who was so totally gorgeous, but my parents had not acquiesced. Asha and I were the same age. So Asha and I would hang out in one room while the adults hung out in another. Great. Asha was the most boring girl alive.
The night didn’t start out so bad because I discovered Asha’s parents had rented The Exorcist to view over the weekend. Ignoring Asha’s protests that it wasn’t a proper movie for kids, I turned off the lights and began watching.
Halfway through I had to hit pause because Asha was practically hyperventilating with fright and swearing that the Devil had made the olives in her pizza turn into cockroaches. I decided to take a break anyway and go downstairs for a Coke.
The adults were all sitting around the fire, talking and having drinks. Grabbing a can I went unnoticed and prepared to leave when I heard my name mentioned.
“Maya?” my dad laughed. “Not likely.”
“No really,” Mr. Patel said. “Asha just wrote an essay and submitted her grades. There are still a few openings left at the school.”
“Maya isn’t interested in math and science,” my mom replied. “She likes movies and those Sweet Valley High books.”
My dad shook his head. “Complete waste of time. Useless. Now Samir is showing quite a bit of potential. In a few years, maybe he can apply there?”
Mr. Patel took a sip of his drink. “Asha’s looking forward to it.”
“Asha is a special girl.” My mom smiled.
My dad sighed. “I only wish Maya were more like her.”
Standing in the dark, the moisture from the Coke can wetting my hand, I felt a tremendous ache in my chest, like I couldn’t breathe. Finally, I turned, ran into the bathroom, shut the door, and began crying.
I never said a word to my parents.
I managed to convince myself that I didn’t care, that it didn’t bother me that my parents thought I had no potential.
I might not have said a word, but I didn’t need to. I had lived up to their image of me. And I would still be living it, pretending I didn’t care, if Ram and Sanjay hadn’t jumped me at LAX.
I grabbed a tissue from the box on my bedside table and wiped my face dry.
Seriously, my emotions were in a frenetic flux. One moment I was cool, the next I was crying. I was in a state of perpetual PMS.
Breathe.
Tomorrow was another day. I would try my best. I would take all of this more seriously. I would learn to kick malignant ass. I would do a good job.
I would be the Goddess of Destruction.
As I drifted off to sleep, a little voice reminded me of another responsibility. I would have to tell my parents the truth about Tahir—that we were completely uninterested in each other and would never marry.
I shoved that voice into a deep hole.
One thing at a time.
Chapter 18
“BLOODY HELL, you drive like a whirling dervish on PCP.”
I gritted my teeth and eased up on the gas. Tahir was the absolute king of backseat drivers. Maybe on the way back we’d stop off at a secluded cliff, I’d lure him near the edge, summon up another gale-force wind, and wave good-bye as he was blown over. Sounded like a plan to me.
“I’ll drive on the way back,” he said.
“No way! Here we drive on the right. Besides, there aren’t any cows or elephants on the road, and I’m afraid you’ll be confused.” It was a low blow, but I smiled as I watched his jaw tighten.
“I’ll have you know I did my MBA at Wharton, where I drove regularly in Philadelphia traffic for two years.”
“Oh really, was that on your bio data? Somehow I missed it,” I said sweetly.
“And where exactly did you attend college? Some party school no doubt.”
“You’re such a snob!”
“You’re the one who implied elephants and cows clog the roads in India,” he pointed out.
“Don’t they?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“Well you were right about the party school,” I admitted. “UC Santa Barbara.”
“Stunning location.”
I smiled. �
�Definitely.”
Our destination now appeared before us, composed of sparkling fountains, sidewalk carts, ocean breezes, and tree-lined, Spanish-tiled walkways.
Fashion Island.
Loyal customers of the locale referred to the site as Newport Beach’s premier outdoor shopping experience. Never, ever, to be confused with anything so bourgeois as a mall.
It was still early, barely ten, but almost all the spots directly in front of the entrance were full. As it turned out there was one slot at the end, but I drove past it. Too tight a squeeze.
“You just passed a spot,” Tahir pointed out.
“It was too small.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was. Trust me.”
“I don’t. You could easily have done it.”
After three more aisles of arguing, I pulled in front of the spot, got out, and chucked Tahir the keys, hard. He caught them easily, jumped in the driver’s seat, backed up, angled the H2 to the right, and slid into the spot perfectly, with room to spare.
He hopped out, oozing with satisfaction, and tossed me back the keys. I reached out to catch them and missed. I snatched the keys from the pavement, snagging a nail in the process and stalked past Tahir.
I could control the forces of nature, but apparently I couldn’t park.
I sped up, but Tahir kept up the pace easily, and had the nerve to whistle. Dammit, he even did that well!
“I don’t know,” Tahir mused, coming out of the dressing room. “I like the gray pinstripe better.”
“They all look amazing on you,” the salesman said, rushing forward.
Like a magnet, Tahir’s ass called to me. I spent a good moment appreciating its merits. Honestly, did he spend half his day doing butt-tightening exercises or what? I managed to tear my gaze away, but the Neiman Marcus salesman to my left had no such self-control. He was openly gawking.
Tahir was unfazed by the man’s attention; he was too busy checking out his image in the mirror. I couldn’t conceal a sigh of impatience. As much as I lived and breathed shopping, Tahir was rapidly turning me off my favorite sport. He was able to detect minute differences in the exact same pieces of apparel.
