A Change of Heart (14 page)

Ria's room and his were interconnected through that bathroom he'd just been hiding in. He would bet his arm every single person in this room had processed that thought just now. Except for Jess, who looked like she always did, pristine and unruffled. Except there were cracks and he hated seeing them.

Nikhil took the cup from Jess's hands. The familiar aroma of his ma's ginger chai wafted up his nose. He put the still full cup of tea down on the coffee table and held out his hand. “Let me show you to your room.”

She stood without taking his hand, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, and threw a tentative look at his mother. The look would usually have broken Aie's heart, but Aie's face remained a detached mask.

“Aie, I'm going to show Jess to Ria's room.” He knew his tone had to kill his mother.

“Of course.” There was no detachment in Aie's eyes when she looked at him. “When was the last time you ate?” she asked him, her aie-voice so raw, he wanted to go to her, but he couldn't make himself.

They hadn't eaten anything all day. Yet again, he had forgotten all about food, and about the fact that there was another person with him who needed to eat. The only thing she'd had since breakfast was that ginger tea that she hated so much.

“We need to shower,” he said and another wave of discomfort washed across the room.

Jess's cheeks colored, and he swallowed his retort about the two of them not showering together.

“But we are starving,” he said instead.

As expected, the mention of anyone starving in her home swung Aie into action. She pushed them out of the room. “We were about to sit down to dinner. Go get showered quickly before the food goes cold.”

19

One of my earliest memories is of my mom picking
me up from the orphanage. I was five, but I can still
taste the desperation with which I wanted to be liked.
The only other time I've ever felt that is when I met
Nikhil's
aie.

 

—Dr. Jen Joshi

 

 

J
ess felt like she was stealing when she touched the soap, the shampoo. She felt like a downright thief when she turned on the water. Nikhil had handed her a towel, shown her where everything was and how it worked. As usual he seemed far too focused on her discomfort. It seemed like the only thing that made his own discomfort bearable.

And she had it to offer up in droves.

There were many ways of being a whore. Being paid to use your body was just one form of it. Sometimes you provided a place for someone to shove their sexual hunger into and then took money for it, and sometimes you provided your own pain for them to shove their pain into, and you took your payment for that.

Basically, you fed one need to feed another. She should've been more comfortable with the barter. If she understood anything she understood the transactional nature of life.

But Nikhil's discomfort at coming home had unhinged something inside her. It didn't sit right no matter how she tried to rationalize it.

It was obvious how close this family had always been. But no one seemed to know what to do with one another right now. It was so painful to witness that she almost wished she hadn't been the one to force Nikhil back into what he obviously was not ready for. Almost.

There was also the other half of that truth. Someone had to bring him back here, where there were people who would heal him, and being that person alleviated some of the unforgivable evil in her actions. She chose that option. It was the only option that made it bearable and she chose it.

Already, Nikhil wasn't the same man she'd found trying to drink himself to death on
The Oasis
. The signs of him edging back toward life were obvious, and now that she had brought him back to the care of his family, she refused to feel guilty about making him help her get back to her own.

She was here. The evidence was here. This nightmare had to have an end.

Once she handed the evidence over to Naag, the deal was that she would get out of the picture. He had promised he would never contact her again. Not that she had any leverage to make sure he kept his promise. People with power were the ones with all the leverage. They were the ones who always won. The only chance at survival someone like her had was to give them what they wanted and disappear, just like she had before.

There was the little problem of her having told Nikhil what she did and Joy's real name. Huge mistakes. But there were thousands of dancers in Bollywood. Without her real name he had no chance of finding her before she disappeared. Then there was that little detail: Why on earth would he ever want to look for her? Especially if she did her job right.

She toweled herself dry with the ridiculously lush towel and got dressed. Despite the thick sweatshirt she pulled over her tank top she felt utterly naked. One of these days that horrible exposed feeling was going to go away. It would just lift off her shoulders the way it did when she danced and stay off.

She checked her phone. No call from Naag, who was surprisingly giving her enough time to do her job as she'd requested. There was a missed call from Sweetie. She quickly called back.

“Is everything all right?”

“Of course it is.” She could tell from Sweetie's voice that she had woken him up.

“I'm sorry I lost track of time. I saw a missed call. They didn't take Joy again, did they?” She had tried to get Naag to promise to leave Joy alone, but he'd laughed. He'd been amused that she thought she could make any demands.

“No, they haven't. I've been with him every time he leaves the house. I've even been visiting his school as much as I can.”

“And they've been there?”

“Every moment. Baby, I'm sorry. I'm doing all I can.”

“I know you are. Thank you. Is he awake?”

“At six-thirty in the morning, on a Saturday?” She heard the smile in his voice and reminded herself that he wouldn't be smiling if things weren't under control.

“Was he the one who called me?”

“Must've been, because it wasn't me.” Sweetie's love for her baby was clear in Sweetie's voice, and she focused on it. It was the only way she could leave Joy with him for so very long.

“You know him, he didn't want to let me know he was missing you, so he must've called. He's doing fine. You have to trust me.”

She waited until she could speak without choking up. “Of course I trust you.”

Joy would never throw a tantrum or ask about her, because he wouldn't want to upset Sweetie. That he felt the need to be so careful was a stain on her heart, her greatest failure.

“I'll have your baby call you as soon as he wakes up, okay?”

“Thanks, Sweetie. I can never repay you. You know that, right?” There was so much she could never repay him for. This was just a drop in the ocean. If he hadn't offered to rent her a room in his flat when she had first come to Mumbai, she didn't know what would have happened to her.

“
Oy,
what's this? I'm getting emotion out of you? Next thing I know, you're going to be sobbing on the phone.”

No joking. She was this close to just that.

“How have you been? How's Armaan?”

“Don't mention that jerk to me. I don't want to talk about him, or talk to him ever again.” This didn't surprise her at all. Sweetie and his boyfriend were perpetually on the off-again-on-again roller coaster. They'd been together for ten years, but Armaan, who fancied himself TV's biggest star, was still firmly inside the closet. Given that he had a wife and three kids who were the very poster of the wholesome Indian family, he was never, ever coming out of it. That was never going to change.

Sweetie didn't expect it to either. Mumbai could handle an openly transsexual person who mocked himself on screen to give them a good laugh, but bringing a public homosexual relationship with a married man into the mix was asking for far too much. To Armaan's credit, when he wasn't being a jerk, he made Sweetie happy. For that alone, Jess would forgive him all his obnoxiousness.

“This has to do with you needing all this time for Joy, doesn't it?”

“See, baby, you should go out with him, you get him so well.”

“I'm sorry, Sweetie. It won't be much longer, I promise.”

“Shut up. I really don't need you getting all senti with me. I would do anything for Joy, and it hurts me when you act like I'm doing you some big favor. I love Joy. So don't insult me, please. I get enough of that shit from that man. He has been driving me half insane with his bull. I mean, excuse me, but if I'm okay with sharing him with his family then why can't he be okay with me taking care of my family? I mean, the man is fifty years old, he needs to grow up, for God's sake.”

She let him vent for a while longer before letting him go. Focusing on Sweetie's problems was relaxing and she indulged for a bit, not missing the irony she was living. All the distraction in the world wasn't going to save her from going down and facing the frosty awkwardness of Nikhil's family. In the end, your demons were more loyal than any friend. They were always there waiting with open arms.

She made her way down the stairs, the carpet sinking like pillows beneath her feet, the polished banister sliding smooth beneath her fingers. The house was so large she wouldn't have known where to go if it weren't for Nikhil's voice echoing from the kitchen. His tone was like dry tarp around wet pain, jarringly detached.

That tone made her grind to a halt outside the room.

“I met her on the ship, Aie. What more do you want to know?”

“
Arrey,
what kind of question is that? You just bring someone home—no call, no nothing, and I'm not even supposed to ask who she is? How are we supposed to behave with her?”

“The way you behave with all my friends.”

“So she's a friend?” This was from Ria Parkar.

“Of course she's a friend. Ria, why don't you start, I'm sure Jess won't mind.” This had to be Vikram, given the worshipful note in his voice.

“Yes, Ria,
beta,
I think it's time you ate and got some rest.” Nikhil's mother sounded nothing like she had a minute ago. Ms. Film Star seemed to be everyone's pet around here.

“I ate an hour ago. I swear if you two don't get off my back, I'm not eating at all.” A spoiled pet, apparently.

Jess forced herself into the kitchen “Sorry, I didn't mean to keep everyone waiting.”

The family turned to her as one, assessing her across the table piled with food that smelled so good she prayed her starving belly didn't decide to make itself heard.

Nikhil pulled out the chair next to him. All those gazes switched their focus to him. She wished he'd stop doing things like that, wished she didn't know why he was doing it.

“Thanks.” The quickest way to get everyone to look away was to sit down.

Nikhil picked up her plate and started spooning rice onto it, watching her for a “when.” She nodded before the mound grew embarrassingly high. Now that she could smell food, her stomach was all but crawling up her gullet for it.

Nikhil's mother fussed over Ria Parkar's plate, eliciting a long-suffering sigh. The star caught Jess staring and a detached mask descended across her face. No wonder they called her The Ice Princess in Bollywood. Not even a flicker of recognition crossed her eyes. Jess had nothing to worry about. Since when did stars like Ria Parkar start noticing chorus dancers like her, no matter how many films they'd danced in together?

“Please start, Jess,” Nikhil's father said kindly. No marks for guessing whose personality Nikhil had inherited.

Nikhil's hand hovered over his plate like an airplane struggling to land in turbulent weather. He stared at the food, seeing neither the roti, nor the dal, nor the red-gravied chicken that was making Jess dizzy with wanting.

This was exactly how he had been with the muffins. He hadn't been able to touch them until she had thrust them into his hand.

“Nikhil, could you pass me a roti, please?” she said before anyone noticed.

He looked up at her, lost. It took him a second to process what she had said and reach for the rotis.

“I need only half, if that's okay.”

He tore one round roti in half and handed it to her.

Now that he was holding one half of it, he broke off a piece, dipped it in the dal, and put it in his mouth.

She exhaled the breath she'd been holding and mirrored his actions.

They ate in silence. Their silence intertwining with the silence at the table, but not merging with it. He kept it apart, his eyes straying to her every now and again and avoiding everyone else he should've been looking at. After the welcome they'd given him earlier, the quiet felt malignant.

“I hope the food is all right.” His mother's voice was such a relief, Jess almost choked in her hurry to answer.

“It's delicious.” It really was. Even if this hadn't been their first real meal in two days, it would have been some of the best food she'd ever tasted.

A hint of a smile lifted his mother's lips, transforming her face, transforming the room, even as her brows drew together. “Really? It's not too bland?”

It's exactly what Aama would've asked. “Not at all, it's perfect.”

She slid a quick glance at her son. “Thanks. Nikhil likes his food spicy. But I had no idea . . . I wasn't . . . Nikhil,
beta,
do you want some chutney?”

“No, Aie. Really. It's great.”

“Actually, spicy food bothers Ria these days, so . . .” She blinked as if she'd made another wrong turn down another forbidden path.

It was so heartbreaking, Jess turned to Ria Parkar. “How far along are you?”

The silence in the room turned positively explosive. How had she forgotten that Ms. Parkar's pregnancy was the live bomb not to be touched?

Everyone shifted. Then froze. No one seemed able to breathe. Each individual awkwardness mixed in the air like a discordant orchestra.

Instead of an answer she got a look of utter loathing from the star.

“Yes, Ria, how far along are you? Or can't you tell me because I won't be able to handle it?” Nic said.

His mother groaned.

“Nic, come on,” Vikram said.

Nikhil narrowed his eyes at Jess in response to the look she threw him.

All those gazes loaded with anger and hurt ricocheted around the room like little torpedoes. If she'd known her question would tip the dominos of all the things Nikhil was feeling, naturally, she wouldn't have asked it. Entitled princesses like Ria Parkar could take their guilt trips somewhere else. Her quota was full, thank you very much.

“When was I supposed to tell you, Nikhil?” Ria said, turning to Nikhil, her voice quiet and hurt and entirely devoid of the anger she had just flashed at Jess. “It's not like you answered my calls. I haven't had a real conversation with you in two years.”

“Is there any yogurt in the fridge?” Vikram asked. “This okra is a little spicy.”

“I'll get it.” Nikhil stood. “I think I'm done.”

“Sit down, Nic, and finish the food your mother cooked.” Nikhil's father didn't raise his voice, but Jess would have been shocked if anyone had dared to argue with him.