Accidentally Engaged

by Farah Heron

  What would have happened if she’d told Saira about her own cookbook deal? And a bigger question, what would have happened if she’d included her sister back when Reena was blogging? Saira was a registered dietician—she could have been helpful to Reena’s blog. Maybe really supporting her sister should have meant more than just offering her the sofa bed.

  She pulled out a mustard seed cracker from the bag and took a bite. Chewing, she analyzed the flavor. “Did you fry the seeds at all?”

  Saira frowned. “No.”

  Reena smiled as she moved around the breakfast bar and pulled her apron from its hook. “Come, Saira. Let’s see if we can bump up the intensity of these flavors. And while we’re at it, I think it’s time we talked…for real.”

  * * *

  Reena couldn’t remember cooking with her sister, not since they were knee-high arguing about who got to stick her thumb in food coloring to decorate nan khatai cookies with Mum. But inexplicably, they spent the rest of the afternoon tweaking Saira’s recipes for crackers. Toasting the spices in oil jacked up the flavor in both cracker recipes, and Reena’s suggestion of adding fresh curry leaves to the mustard seeds while they fried in the grape-seed oil brought a new aroma that made the crackers sing.

  Reena had ideas for the dips, too. Adding mint to barely blanched frozen peas before pureeing them in the food processor resulted in a fresher dip, both in color and in complexity. And adding pomegranate molasses to the hummus created the perfect balance of sweet, savory, and acidic. She left the lemongrass white bean dip alone—it tasted so good she found herself in the unlikely position of asking her sister for a recipe.

  “This is good. I’m impressed,” Reena said, dipping a spelt cracker into the creamy white dip again.

  Saira smiled widely, taking a hot cracker off the tray. “See! Healthy food is tasty!” She crunched loudly on the cracker. “Mum says I have to stop with this diet food or Ashraf is never going to propose. But he loves my bird food, as Mum calls it.”

  “You think Ashraf will propose?”

  Saira shrugged. “Don’t know. Probably. Neither of us are getting any younger. It’s about time to settle down if we want a family.”

  Reena cringed. Saira was two years younger than her, and if she recalled correctly, Ashraf was a year younger than that. Any other day, Reena would have immediately chalked that comment up to another dose of passive aggression—an offhand quip about being thirty-one with no husband on the horizon? Textbook Saira. But Saira looked so focused on cutting out crackers with a pizza wheel, Reena doubted insults were anywhere near the front of her mind. Reena bit her lip. Had she misinterpreted her sister?

  Maybe Saira was just selfishly clueless and not actually evil?

  “Is that what you want?” Reena asked. “After everything that happened with Joran, is it wise to dive in again?” Despite everything, Reena’s big-sister protectiveness was still on high alert.

  Saira sighed as put the cut crackers on the tray. “Yeah, it is what I want. At first it was about proving to myself that I could get a man who would treat me better.” She laughed sadly. “Janeya, my therapist, helped me figure that out. She’s like you and thinks I should stay single for a while. But Ashraf is not Joran. Joran and I…we were never good for each other. He brought out the worst in me. My relationship with Ashraf is not the same. He would never do what Joran did.”

  This conversation felt so strange. Reena couldn’t remember talking to her sister before. Really talking, without Mum or Dad butting in with their own two hundred cents.

  Twilight zone was getting creepy.

  “Anyway,” Saira continued, “let’s talk about you messing around with Dad’s mentee on the down-low.”

  What? “How the hell did you know that?”

  Saira laughed, slapping Reena on the arm. “Reena, c’mon! I’m your sister! You have a tell…I always know when you have a new man. Your eyes glazed over when Dad was talking about him yesterday at brunch. Don’t worry, they didn’t seem to notice.”

  Jesus, was she really that transparent?

  It had been a weird brunch yesterday. Nadim hadn’t been there in person, but apparently his echo lived in the secrets they all kept. Dad didn’t mention he’d been to see Reena only a day earlier to gather information about him. Saira didn’t mention she had been tasked with digging up dirt on him. And, of course, Reena didn’t mention she’d left him naked in her bed. “Are you going to tell Mum and Dad I’m seeing him?”

  That question prompted another slap from her darling sister. Enough of these playful whacks, and Reena was sure Saira would leave a mark. “Of course not! What kind of sister do you think I am?”

  She shrugged.

  “Well,” Saira said, “you going to ask me about the dirt I dug up on that picture?” She held up the yacht picture on her phone.

  “Fine. What did you learn?”

  “Well, first of all, the cousin is apparently—”

  “Wait, Saira, back up. What cousin?”

  Saira rolled her eyes again. “Rish and Ashraf’s. We talked about this, didn’t we? Their cousin is the one in the picture with Nadim. Anyway, I asked Rish to ask her cousin if Nadim had a shady past. But Rish couldn’t give me an answer because apparently she and her cousin had this huge fight.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Rish called her cousin out on their family WhatsApp for being obsessed with this socialite wannabe and her thirst traps. Rish is a bit dramatic sometimes. God, I’m glad Mum hasn’t learned how to use WhatsApp yet. Can you imagine—”

  “Wait,” Reena interrupted. “Whose thirst traps? The cousin’s?”

  “No, someone else’s. Rish says her cousin is obsessed with her.”

  This was why Reena usually avoided gossip. She had no clue what the hell was going on. “Does any of this mean you found out something about Nadim?”

  “No, I got nothing at all about him. But I did learn that Rish is even pettier than I thought she was. I don’t know how Ashraf lives with her.”

  Fuck. All that, and nothing?

  She looked at the picture again. Nadim, with that terrible beard, artfully disheveled hair, and popped-collar lavender shirt. It was so incongruous with the man she had spent most of the weekend with. The man who loved Monty Python and kissed her neck while she kneaded bread. How could it be the same person?

  But if he really wanted to put that lifestyle behind him, she was happy to play a part in this transformation. She was doing the world a service and ridding it of one more bro-flake.

  “You haven’t told Dad about all this, have you?”

  “Of course not, Reena. No one needs Dad’s lectures about the face you show the world.”

  Hallelujah for that.

  “So,” Saira said, putting her phone down, “I’m only doing the appetizer section now to pitch to the publishing people, but if they bite, can you help with my mains? I don’t want to go completely meat-free, but primarily plant-based—”

  Reena put her hand up. “Saira, wait.” They’d been pretty honest with each other today, probably more than they ever had. Maybe now while Saira’s lips were loose, it was time to ask the question that Reena had been avoiding for months.

  “One question. Is this wise? I mean with your problems, with you know, your—”

  Saira cut her off before she could finish the sentence. “My mental health?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry? I’m not hiding anything. I’m not ashamed of my diagnosis.”

  Reena tilted her head. “I don’t actually know what your diagnosis was.” How weird was it that they’d never talked about it?

  Saira shrugged. “When I was in the outpatient program I was diagnosed with depression and an unspecified eating disorder. I was obsessed with the healthiness of what I was eating, not depriving myself for weight loss. Did you know mental illness runs in our family?”

  “No. I didn’t know that.” She took a breath. “Did you know I used to take antidepressants?” Re
ena couldn’t believe she’d told her sister that. No one in her family knew.

  Saira tilted her head sympathetically. “No. You should have told me.”

  “It’s been a while.” Reena shrugged. “Are you okay now? I mean, you’re still kinda food obsessed.”

  “I’m a lot better. Reena, you don’t know how bad it was in my head. All food felt evil to me then. But now it’s about a healthy balance. And finding the joy in food again. Doing this cookbook and developing recipes is helping me with that. I have a good relationship with food and wellness, instead of an obsession.” Maybe to prove her point, she took a cracker from the baking tray and popped it in her mouth. And, true, old Saira would never eat crackers. Even homemade ones.

  It was interesting to learn that Saira also looked for joy in food when her mood was bad. Reena had always baked bread when her mood was low. She even started her old blog when her life was in the shits.

  The blog that Reena folded indirectly because of Saira.

  But it was fine. Saira had been sick. And Reena was proud of how far her sister had come. Proud of how open and unashamed she was, and proud of her finding healthy ways to change her life for the better.

  What happened to Reena was no big deal.

  No.

  It was a big deal. A big deal that no one in this family ever actually talked about what was going on. Saira never telling Reena about her relationship problems with Joran or about her diagnoses. And Reena never telling any of them about her own struggles. Or her dreams and how hurt she was when she lost them. She was tired of everyone hiding their feelings under the rugs, hoping no one noticed they were far from smooth on the floor.

  “I need to tell you something.” She took a deep breath. “I used to want to write a cookbook. It was a dream I had for a long time. And I almost did, at one point. But I lost that dream because of you.”

  Saira looked at her, dark eyes wide. “What?”

  So, Reena told her the whole story.

  And Saira said nothing. Nothing except sorry.

  “You knew I had the blog,” Reena said, “and you wrote almost a thousand words about how amateur food writers and their decadent creations were contributing to the downfall of society. It was grossly hyperbolic, and it directly attacked something I cared about,” Reena said, strangely annoyed that Saira wasn’t more defensive.

  “I know.” Her sister looked down, fussing with the hummus, swirling a deep groove into it with the back of a spoon. “And it wasn’t completely…unintentional.” She sighed, looking at Reena through glassy eyes. “I didn’t think you would lose your blog or anything, I just…became weirdly obsessed with your popularity…and I guess I wanted to take you down a peg. Living with little Miss Perfect messed me up.”

  “What? I’m hardly perfect!”

  Saira still didn’t look at her, and still spoke quietly. “Seriously, Reena? I have a degree in nutrition and food, and all anyone ever talks about is what a great cook you are. Even in your personal life, you’ve had this best friend for years who is always there when you need her. You and Khizar have a better relationship with each other than you’ve ever had with me. You had a blog with thousands of readers. Not to mention men…I’ve had a grand total of three relationships, and you’ve had, what, eleven boyfriends?”

  “Twelve,” Reena corrected. Technically, thirteen, but Reena’s mind still reeled from what Saira had said. Reena? Perfect?

  “I was a mess. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” She paused and looked at Reena. “My therapist is helping me learn to stop automatically comparing my life to others and enjoy where I’m at now. It’s so hard because I hated myself so much…”

  Saira hated herself? Well, join the club. At least Reena didn’t resort to ruining family members’ dreams when she went through a bout of self-loathing.

  “I’m sorry, Reena,” Saira said again, finally meeting Reena’s eyes. “I didn’t know about your cookbook. Maybe you can try for it again? I can ask—”

  “No. It’s not something I have time for right now. Job search and all.”

  They were silent for a while before Reena crossed the kitchen and put the lids on the dips. She honestly didn’t know how to feel—she’d had some vague idea that if one day she confronted Saira about how much her actions had hurt her, she would gain closure and get over it. It was supposed to feel cathartic. But it turned out this wasn’t a Lifetime movie, and it wasn’t so simple. Years of sibling rivalry encouraged by their parents and months of resentment couldn’t be tied up in a neat bow and put behind them. Maybe with work, the relationship could be saved, and Reena could learn to appreciate how much Saira had grown. But trusting her now was hard—Reena had been burned too many times.

  “I should go,” Saira said, seeming to understand Reena wasn’t ready to move on from this. “You keep the food. I’ll try and re-create it all later. Thanks for your help, Reena. I really do appreciate it.”

  And with that, Saira walked out the door. And Reena was left with a kitchenful of dips, crackers, and a bitter taste in her mouth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Saira left Reena with plenty of leftovers from their attempt to perfect homemade crackers and dips, a bonus, because probably for the first time in her life, Reena didn’t feel like cooking. She did defrost some lentil soup that she’d stashed last month when she thought some upcoming work projects might mean she’d be too tired to cook in the coming weeks (ha!).

  She couldn’t stop replaying that conversation with her sister. Should she have let it all go? Just…not brought up the blog and the cookbook? Maybe they could have forged a decent relationship without working through the bitterness.

  But she knew it wouldn’t be right. Like a perfect loaf of bread without any salt—nice on the surface but tastes off.

  For now, all she could do was push past the uneasy feeling and prepare for an evening with her boyfriend and friends.

  Boyfriend.

  Her heart skipped a bit every time that word passed through her mind. He wanted her to call him that. Already. She wanted it, too. After learning nothing useful from Saira’s fact-finding expedition, she was confident that this just-for-fun, only-in-the-present, supportive relationship was worth any fallout that might happen in the future. She’d survived plenty of family implosions, and Nadim was definitely worth risking another.

  He came over straight after work, still wearing his suit, a box in one hand and a wrapped plate in the other. He left them on the breakfast bar, then pulled Reena in for a long and leisurely kiss.

  “I’ve been thinking about doing that all day,” he whispered into her neck after he had released her lips. Reena hummed with appreciation.

  “What did you bring?” she asked as he sucked the soft spot below her ear. She shivered.

  He stepped back and grinned, still holding her waist. “We’re still trying to finalize the café for the Diamond building. Met with a guy who owns a few franchises of a lunch counter–type place. He may be interested in opening one in the building. He wants us to put up some capital and be silent partners, but his terms seem far from fair to us. Anyway, he gave me some baked goods to sample. I’m sure they’re nowhere near as good as yours, but…” He kissed her again, long and deep, tongues tangling and hands clutching. Nadim was an aggressive, all-or-nothing kisser. Reena’s favorite kind.

  “What was I saying?” he said when they finally broke free.

  She giggled. “You were extolling the virtues of my baking.”

  “Yes. And I’ll extol it more when I eat it later. Oh, and this.” He pointed to the plastic-bag-wrapped plate he had placed on the counter. “This is proof that your mother likes me. Maybe not as much as you like me, but it’s a start.”

  Well, at least she liked someone. “What is it?

  “Keema maani. She gave it to your dad to give me.”

  Keema maani, or keema paratha, was one of Reena’s favorite dishes, and she had never quite mastered the art of making them as well as Mum. Fragrantly spiced
ground beef enveloped between layers of flaky flatbread. When Reena attempted it, the paratha dough always broke while she rolled it, or the beef and the paratha melded to a gummy mess.

  Mum knew her keema maani was Reena’s favorite. She always made extras and put them aside for her before anyone else could eat them. At least, she used to. Reena frowned.

  “She didn’t make me any?”

  “Well”—he put his arms back around her—“I have every intention of sharing them with you.”

  He kissed her again, and she forgot all about this newest parental slight and settled into the kiss. He was smiling when he pulled away. “What smells so good?”

  “Just lentil soup. Plus, I have crackers and dips for when Marley and Shayne come over.”

  He grinned as he walked toward her front door. “Let me change outta this suit. I’ll be back. Gotta say, having a girlfriend who lives across the hall is ridiculously convenient.”

  Reena smiled as she heated up the keema maani in a pan. They’d go great with the lentil soup. He was right. It was amazing to have someone to share her meal with, someone who brought her baked goods and lived right across the hall.

  One more tick in the pro column with her new boyfriend. Soon the con column would be a distant memory.

  * * *

  After dinner, Reena found herself herded to the sofa for a short make-out session. But a door knock forced her and Nadim apart. Answering it, she found Marley, Shayne, and an enormous bottle of pink champagne.

  “This,” Shayne said, holding it up, “is celebratory bubbly because I saw the other videos in the contest. You are so making it to the next round.” He grinned before quickly frowning. “Jesus, what have you two been up to? Making out or something? I thought this was a fake relationship?”

  Totally transparent. Reena clearly needed acting lessons.

  “How did you know?” Reena asked as Nadim took the bottle from Shayne.