by Farah Heron
Reena froze, staring at the camera. This had been easier with gin. Nadim poked her hip.
“Hello! I’m Reena! And this is my…” She looked up at Nadim, unsure if she could say the word.
“…fiancé, Nadim.” He smiled that charming camera-ready smile “Today we’re making—”
“Maani. Also called Chapatti,” Reena interrupted. “And aloo gobi matar.”
“Cut!” Shayne said, shaking his head. “Stop with the finishing each other’s sentences. You sound like Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”
Why had she agreed to this? Reena wanted to rub her face, but Marley had contoured her within an inch of humanity. Her feet hurt. The lights were in her eyes. Laughing and making a drunken midnight snack was one thing, but this felt so much more real.
Nadim rubbed her upper arm. “We’re doing fine, Reena. Don’t be nervous. Pretend no one else is here. It’s just you and me.”
She looked into his dark eyes. Warm and so kind. She nodded.
“All right, take it from the top,” Shayne said.
They got through the intro sounding less like cartoon characters this time. And Reena managed to get the flour, salt, and oil in the bowl without freezing again.
“What’s the point of this step?” Nadim asked as he rubbed the oil into the flour.
“We’re coating each grain of flour in oil. It helps with tenderness.”
He wagged his eyebrows. “I agree. Lubrication always helps with…tenderness.”
Reena’s head fell forward in laughter. “I can’t believe you said that. Here, I’ll add water. Keep squishing it with your fingers.”
She poured warm water into the flour mixture as he mixed with his hands.
He hummed with pleasure. “This is surprisingly sensual. I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch you knead bread again without blushing like a schoolgirl.”
She giggled. It appeared Nadim didn’t need to be drunk to be comfortable and flirty on camera.
While the dough rested, she showed him the simple curry. First they lightly fried mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and curry leaves before adding onions, crushed garlic and ginger, and tomatoes. Finally, the diced potatoes, cauliflower, and peas.
“Cauliflower is a weird vegetable, isn’t it?” Nadim said as he stirred the pan. “Did you know that it comes in four colors, but similar to people, white is considered standard.”
Reena tried hard not to snort with laughter again while his bubbly morning show host-type banter continued. “It’s a flower, isn’t it? You should totally carry a head of cauliflower as your bouquet at the wedding. Purple, green, and orange, though. No boring white.”
Shayne had been spot-on—Nadim was like a brown Jamie Oliver, with a genuine enthusiasm that felt downright infectious. And he was affectionate—he repeatedly touched her arm or put his hand on the small of her back. His playfulness helped her fight through the stage fright. Their final sequence, as they rehearsed, had Reena tearing off a piece of the round flatbread, scooping up some curry with it, and feeding it to Nadim with her fingers.
“Mmm…Tastes like home. But also tastes like new beginnings,” he said.
“Beginnings?” she asked. He hadn’t said that in their rehearsal.
He grinned widely and turned to the camera. “As you can tell from my accent, I’m new here. I was worried about being comfortable in this country, but I quickly learned that our common food can make any beginning can feel like home.” He planted a quick kiss on Reena’s lips before Shayne yelled “cut.”
CHAPTER TEN
Good lord. If their drunken potato bhajias video managed to beat hundreds to get a spot in the contest, the maani/aloo gobi matar video was going to win it.
With Nadim’s heartfelt enthusiasm, his affectionate gazes, and that off-script speech about food and home, getting through round one seemed inevitable. Reena didn’t have to see the footage to know that her fake fiancé had the ability to turn the insides of anyone watching into mush.
She wanted to win, but…ugh. Her emotions were tied up in knots she couldn’t come close to untangling. Gratitude. Euphoria.
Fear.
She’d been pushing down her growing attraction pretty well so far, but faking an engagement added a new layer of complication to their already bizarre relationship. She couldn’t let herself forget he was acting. He didn’t mean those loving gazes, and subtle brushes on the hand. The firm, warm weight on the small of her back.
That kiss.
“Wow,” Shayne said, turning off the bright lights. “You were fantastic. Both of you. But seriously, Nadim, you were born to be in front of a camera. You two are going to rock this.”
Reena forced a smile in gratitude and quietly started cleaning up, hoping to hide how off-kilter she felt. The sun had set, and with the powerful LED lights off, the dim room seemed to revert back to the real world. The loving fiancé was just her neighbor, pretending. The skinny designer jeans were cutting off circulation and giving her an epic muffin top under a borrowed silk blouse. She bit the inside of her lip. She shouldn’t be doing this. This creative and fun project to distract her from her problems was only amplifying them. She hadn’t anticipated the crushing low after coming down from the dazzling high.
Marley rushed out to meet her date while Shayne finished packing his equipment.
“So, I’ll cut and edit as fast as I can,” Shayne said as he opened the door, “and upload the video to the cloud for you to look at on the weekend.”
“Take your time. We’re not submitting until Sunday night after I get back from Amira’s,” Reena said, following him into the hallway. She held open the exterior door for him.
Shayne smiled at her before climbing down the stairs. “You okay, Reena?”
“Yeah. These shoes are just killing me. Can’t wait to get out of them. Thanks again, Shayne.”
He nodded, taking his equipment to his car. Reena headed back into the hallway, where Nadim was unlocking his door.
“Hey, thanks again for doing that,” she said.
He smiled. “I had fun. And thanks for letting me have the leftover food.”
“No problem.” She leaned her head back against the wall next to her door.
“Why don’t you come inside for a bit,” he said. “You look beat. I think you need a cup of tea or something.”
Smart man. Reena smiled and followed him into the apartment. She fell on the old green armchair immediately and removed the too-tight boots. She wanted to remove the too-tight jeans, too, but decided it best to save that for her own apartment.
Nadim went straight to the kitchen, put the leftover food away, then filled his kettle. “So,” he said, once he’d joined her in the living room. “You think that went okay?”
She sighed. “Yeah. Really well, actually. You were a natural. And I know Shayne will do an amazing job editing it.”
“Yeah. I’m excited to see it. The production value will at least be better than what we did alone.” He sat on the sofa across from her, watching her face intently. “Reena, why do you seem, I don’t know, sad? We have it in the bag, right?”
She bit her lower lip. She couldn’t explain her moodiness, at least not to him. She couldn’t explain how things going well in one part of her life had always coincided with things going spectacularly wrong in others.
The other shoe always dropped. No good came without a crushing bad to chase it away.
“No, I’m fine.” She smiled. “Just sore feet.”
He raised a brow. “I’d offer to massage them for you, but, well, I’m not sure you’d want that. What with my…you know.”
She sat up straight. “Your what?”
“You know. My thing.”
Their arranged marriage? Their fake engagement? Why would any of those mean he couldn’t give her a foot massage?
“What thing?” she asked again.
He ran his hand through his cropped hair. “I told you, remember? This is awkward.”
Yes, awkward was the right word to descr
ibe this conversation. Was there another big-bad thing Nadim hadn’t told her? Worse than when he told her their parents had arranged their marriage, or that he had slept with the kindie teacher? Worse than telling her he might have given her lice? At this point she didn’t just expect the other shoe to drop, she expected the whole blasted shoe museum downtown to fall on her head. What the hell was he trying to tell her?
Her shoulders fell, resigned to the pain that would no doubt come. “Nadim, just tell me.”
He sighed. “I told you this. I…I have a thing for, you know, a thing for, er…feet.”
She blinked. “Feet.”
“Yes.”
Reena’s eyes widened. Feet? Really? “Is that why you’re always looking down at your feet?”
“It’s not my feet I’m looking at—it’s yours. You have lovely arches,” he said.
Reena stared at him for several long seconds before bursting out into full-body laughter. “You have a foot fetish?”
His brow furrowed. “It’s not a fetish. I just think women’s feet are…sexy.”
“Dude, that’s the definition of a fetish!” She valiantly tried to stop laughing, but another wave overcame her, and she slid right off her parents’ armchair onto the floor.
“Are you seriously laughing at my preferences?”
She waved her hand. “No, no. I’ve known enough people with unique tastes, I don’t kink-shame…it’s just that it’s so totally not what I expected you to say! I thought you were going to reveal some deep, dark secret you’ve hidden that would ruin everything. I literally at that moment thought the next shoe was going to drop and—”
He smiled. “I dropped a foot on you.” He chuckled. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“I don’t know. Last time you had that look you told me you had li—”
“Don’t say it,” he warned.
“Sorry.” She got back onto her seat. “I thought you were going to say you had a secret girlfriend or an incurable disease or something. Not that you enjoy the odd foot job.”
His nose wrinkled. “I didn’t say I—”
“Shh…” She waved her hands again. “Don’t even worry about it. I don’t care what floats your boat.” Especially since she had no intention of floating that boat in any manner herself, she didn’t judge an adult’s sexual predilections, so long as they were legal and consensual. Still, this was too funny. She burst out laughing again. “Now I get why you said nail polish when you were telling my mum why you came over. You were staring at my pedicure!” She nearly fell off the chair again.
“I said nail varnish, and glad I’m so amusing,” he muttered.
“No one has ever complimented my feet before. So much makes sense now—a foot fetish!”
“You can stop laughing anytime now…”
His brown skin tinged with pink, and his body seemed to have folded in on itself. Big, confident Nadim was embarrassed. She stopped laughing. Smiling at him, she got up from the green armchair and joined him on the sofa. “If I give you my foot to massage, you’re not going to like, rub up against it or anything, are you?’
He laughed, but he still looked embarrassed. “No, it’s not like that. And I’m not into fishnets or stilettos or anything. I just like bare feet. They are soft and vulnerable but strong enough to carry your weight all day. They are private and hidden most of the time, but then women adorn them with colorful nails and sometimes jewelry. They’re sensitive and ticklish…and I’m going to shut up now.” He lifted his eyebrows and squeezed his lips shut.
Well. When he put it that way, Reena could see the appeal of the humble foot. She slowly leaned down and removed the thin cotton sock on her right foot. Her toes inside were red, still angry after being squeezed in Marley’s boots for so long. She placed her foot on his lap.
“As long as we stay G-rated, this can be a symbiotic exchange for us. I get a foot rub, while you get to admire my lovely arches.”
He laughed as he picked up her foot in his hands. “I can handle that.”
She shouldn’t have been surprised that he was rather spectacular at foot rubs. Those hands, which had been so firm yet gentle on her scalp, would of course be amazing on her feet. She hummed with appreciation as his thumbs kneaded her arch. “You’re good at that.”
He chuckled but continued rubbing.
“One thing I don’t get,” she said. “Why’d you think you told me about this foot thing? You didn’t.”
“I did tell you. The second time we met. You were sitting outside my door barefoot with a bag of bread and I said that you managed to hit all my fantasies. I like feet, and I like bread.”
She giggled. “Well, I bake bread. And I have feet.” Match made in heaven. Except…no. “You also accused me of hating you that night.”
He laughed as those talented fingers moved on to gently squeezing and pulling on her toes. Ahhh…it felt amazing. “Considering you have gifted me with this remarkable foot,” he said, “I’m pretty sure you don’t hate me anymore. We’re friends, right?”
“Yes. Even though you gave me lice. But you also brought my drunk ass home safely, even if you demanded I make you bhajias in the middle of the night. So, friends.” Jesus, they’d been through a lot in the two weeks they’d lived across from each other.
“True.” He laughed. “That reminds me, I’m sure you’re fine, but you have to do the final lice treatment Sunday. I’ll comb out your hair again.”
“Let’s do it Monday. We have to do the contest application Sunday, and I’ll be home late from my friend’s place.”
He focused silently for a while, rubbing all the tension out of her sore foot. “It’s all pretty funny,” he said. “This is not what I expected when I moved to Toronto.”
She giggled. “Yes, yes, I know I’m not the good-girl wife you wanted me to be. No need to keep reminding me.”
He pinched the arch of her foot lightly, making her giggle. “I’m starting to think the good-girl wife concept may be overrated.”
She smiled. “I still have no intention of marrying you.”
He chuckled as he lifted her other foot onto his lap, peeled off her sock, and gently started massaging. God, he was too good at this. “I think my favorite thing about you is that you keep telling me you won’t marry me.”
She laughed softly as that boneless calm she’d last felt when he had massaged her scalp overcame her. She closed her eyes, sinking into the couch. He managed to release the tension she knew she had, and about a truckload more tension waiting in the wings. “Mmm…” she groaned. “I like your hands best.”
“So, you agree that I’m better than your other parent-approved husband prospects?”
She chuckled, nodding. “Seems so. You don’t have a comb-over or a secret after-dinner paan habit, and you know how to make chai.” She sunk lower until almost reclined on the sofa, both her feet on Nadim’s lap. Her third parental setup had been a man addicted to paan—a type of Indian chew which sometimes had psychedelic effects. The man’s teeth were permanently stained red. Nasty. “Then again, I don’t know you that well. If I wanted to know more I could ask around. The Ismaili community is small, wouldn’t take much.”
He stilled, hands clutching the arch of her foot. She opened her eyes and looked at him. His expression looked strange. Oddly frightened and vulnerable. Maybe he did have a secret addiction to legal Indian narcotics. “Don’t,” he said.
“What?”
“Don’t ask around about me.”
She smiled warmly, hoping to wipe that look of insecurity off his face. “Don’t worry, I was just kidding. I’m not much of a gossip.”
He looked back down at her feet, resuming the massage. “It’s just…I came here to start a new life. I didn’t expect to make a good friend here. I don’t want to let our pasts color this friendship, okay? That goes both ways.”
This time Reena stilled. Of course, she hadn’t expected or planned on this friendship when she met him. Back then she was thinking he would be e
ye candy in a conveniently close location. And once she found out about her parents’ intentions, she tried valiantly to avoid him. But now, they were friends. And she couldn’t deny he had a way of calming her like few could. She needed his friendship to cope with life right now.
But friendships were based on honesty and open communication. And she hid things from him, too. The loss of her job for one, but also her crippling self-doubt. And her past. What would he think if he knew about that scary time when she failed so miserably at life that she was drunk more than sober? Hell, she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to know her romantic history.
Her curiosity had piqued about what he was hiding, but unless she was willing to be open about her own past, she couldn’t expect to know everything about his.
“I like that. No past, no future. Our friendship is in the present, only,” she said, sinking back into the couch.
“Perfect,” he murmured, digging his thumbs into the ball of her foot. “I just…I’m really glad to have you as a friend.”
“Because I refuse to marry you, or because of my feet and bread?”
His hands kneaded as he winked at her.
She sighed in pleasure. “Don’t answer that,” she said. “I don’t care. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Reena woke up way too early Friday morning. She had planned to sleep in after her late-night foot rub, but her body hadn’t quite accustomed itself to unemployment yet. She got out of bed, figuring she’d get a head start on the drive north to Amira’s. But first, she needed to feed the starters.
Brian had been doing much better this week. She had reduced his feedings to one a day, and he had doubled in size like a trouper each time. But, of course, like Murphy’s Law, today he acted up again. He’d barely risen since yesterday’s feeding, in contrast to Sue, who’d tripled in size. Crap. She’d intended to feed the starters, then park them in the fridge for the weekend, where their growth would stay in stasis until Monday. But now that Brian was misbehaving again, she worried that missing a few days of feedings would mean the end of him forever.
