A Change of Heart (20 page)

He put his hand on hers. “No.” No, he couldn't give her just that.

She blushed and tried to pull her hand out of his. He tightened his fingers around her hand, it was soft and warm. “No, that's not it. I'm making that deal with you now, for ‘sharing things.'”

Her blush flamed, all the playful teasing, all the inability to play, all of it melding. Whatever raged inside her, beneath that cool exterior, pushed to the surface. She closed her eyes.

He pushed their joined hands under her chin, and turned her face up to his again.

It took her a few moments, but she opened her eyes and everything was back in place. Her shields locked and loaded and in place.

“I'll go first,” he said, wanting to tear those shields away again. Needing to tear them away. “Jen owned a condo in the city. Vic moved some of the boxes there.”

She held her silence, but obviously she knew about the condo.

“We'll drive to the city tomorrow and look through the stuff.” Amazing how he was still sitting up after saying those words. “Your turn.”

She yanked her hand out of his. “We should go back inside.” She stood and turned to the house.

“Why are Ria and Vic here?”

“Why don't you ask them?”

He had to smile. “Okay,” he said, standing up to follow her. She looked suspicious. Throwing her was fun.

“Okay, let's go inside now?” she asked hopefully.

He had to laugh. “No. Okay, I'm going to have to figure this out on my own. But let the record indicate that I kept my end of the bargain and you didn't.”

“It's not really a bargain. You made it. I never agreed to it.”

“So I tell you everything and you do what?”

“Listen without judgment?”

He laughed some more, and her eyes hitched on his laughing face before she looked away. “Okay, I'll just have to figure it out myself then.” He studied her. The unexpected playfulness inside her was a rush of relief and he filled his lungs with it.

She kept her face noncommittal, or tried to, and started toward the house.

“But they are here for a reason?” he pushed, running past her and turning to keep on looking.

She gave him nothing. Just looked bored and kept walking.

Okay, so he did have to figure this out on his own. “It has to do with the pregnancy if they haven't told me what it is,” he said.

She stared out at the house and looked like she was going to start humming.

“It's not her health,” he went on, “because Vic wouldn't lie to me about that.”

She started humming. It was quite nice actually.

“That's lovely. I had no idea you could sing.”

She blushed. “Thank you.” She didn't go back to humming.

“Oh.” He'd heard Ria tell Aie that they wanted to cancel something. Bingo. “They're here for her baby shower, aren't they?”

She looked so surprised he laughed. “My mother did tell you how smart I was.”

She narrowed her eyes at him again, but she looked so impressed it made the strangest thing happen inside him. He was pretty sure the thing was called smugness.

“I'm fine about it,” he said, holding her gaze. “Look at me. I'm not breaking down. Of course Ria should have a baby shower.”

Her eyes got serious. He shrugged. She had dragged him back home. If not for her, he might have missed this. Him becoming an uncle.

“Thank you,” he said again and the gratitude felt good inside him.

27

 

—Dr. Jen Joshi

 

 

“B
astard, you never told me what
maal
your daughter was. Totally fuckable, like.” Asif rarely needed to make an effort to be a bigger
chutiya
than he was, but this bastard was definitely deserving of the effort.

Instead of losing it the man laughed. By God, was there a greater
chutiya
in the world than an Indian politician?

“You think this is funny?”

He didn't stop chuckling. “What's funny is how yellow your pants are getting right now, Asif Khan. You know you've lost. Pack up your bags and go hide in Dubai or something. Your brothers there can deal with you. We're trying to get the garbage off our streets here in this country.”

Asif squeezed the
ghoda
he was holding—the real stuff, Smith & Wesson, not the local handmade garbage the rest of the gangs had come down to—and watched the bitch through the darkened windows of his car. She looked just like her
chutiya
father. She was thrusting a mike at the drunk-looking TV star, who was trying to get away from her and the rest of the mob of journalists. Apparently, he was fucking someone other than his wife. That was news, why?

The bastard was playing up his shame for the cameras like the TV-serial star he was. You had to love actors. Asif would bet both his balls that he was taking that ashamed face straight to his girlfriend (or boyfriend, if the rumors were true) to have her (or him) blow off the stress of all those mikes shoved in his face.

“As long as big-shit garbage like you is sitting in parliament, minister
saab,
small garbage like me isn't going anywhere.”

“Fun as it is to chat politics with you, I have better things to do with my life. So unless you have anything more—”

“I have an order for seven kidneys going to Sharjah. Make sure your police dogs stay off it.”

“Seven! Are you out of your mind? Saving your pea-sized dick with one or two was difficult enough. Even if I were still playing this game with you, I could never cover up that many. I've already told you, it's over. I'm not risking my job for you anymore. I'm finished.”

Sure, and Shah Rukh Khan was Asif's bitch. “You should have thought about that before you paid me five crores to kill that doctor bitch and get your daughter her heart.” It had been a sign from God, finding out that the nosy doctor bitch was a match for the minister's daughter. And he'd found that out from her own donor registry. It was hilarious, really. He had been meaning to get rid of her anyway because of all her digging around. But getting to use her to trap the home minister and blackmail him for the rest of his life could only be divine intervention. Good thing he had fed a thousand starving beggars outside the Haji Ali mosque for it.

“I did not pay you to kill anyone. You told me you knew how to get the heart. You tricked me. My daughter was dying, you bastard. You used my desperation to trap me.” Oh, now the
chutiya
was breaking down?

“So, you thought what? That I went to the heavenly concubines and requested a heart for your daughter from their freezer in heaven? You knew exactly where the heart was coming from. Or was it okay to kill some undocumented refugee for it, but not some fancy, noisy doctor?” Seriously, rich people were the sewage of the earth. Even he felt like a saint compared to them. “You better make this happen or your voting public and adoring fans are going to find out exactly what kind of dog you really are on top of your precious daughter dying.” And wouldn't that be poetic justice?

“Asif, are you deaf? I said it's over. I have everything I need to get you the death sentence. If I were you, I'd listen and disappear while there's still time.”

Why did these guys continue to think Asif Khan was stupid? If the bastard had anything incriminating, Asif would already be inside the slammer. “Listen,
chutiye,
if I get the death sentence, I'm taking you down with me. You can be my bitch in prison while your government feeds me biryani for twenty years before they gather the balls to execute me.”

“Or we could both back away from this and stay out of prison.”

Asif lifted his
ghoda
and pointed it straight at the man's daughter across the street. She looked even more fuckable through the crosshairs. “So you color some bitch's hair and send her after that doctor bitch's husband and you think I'm going to chop off my dick and hand it to you?”

That earned him a stunned pause, and he knew his boot had found the bastard's balls. He lowered the gun. No, when the time came, he had plans for the daughter. She was going to swallow his load once for each time her father had fucked with him.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” But the bastard knew exactly what he was talking about. Asif hadn't become the Bhai he was without knowing how to read these entitled
chutiyas
like those books they kept waving around and mistaking for brains.

“Seven kidneys,” he said.

“Or I hand over what I have, you hand over what you have, and we walk away from this like intelligent men.”

Not a bad idea. “Sure. Where's the bitch with the colored hair? In America with the doctor's husband? What do you have on her?”

The politician laughed, but Asif had watched enough of his movies to know when he was acting. “You have a very good imagination, Asif Khan, maybe you should join Bollywood. I can put in a good word.”

“Is that where you found her? Is she an actress?”

“Whoever she is, she's already made sure your days of stealing lives are over.”

“Now, now, minister
saab,
I know you want that to be true, so you'd better get her to hurry. Because seven kidneys are moving next month.” And with that he tired of the game and hung up.

Across the street the bastard's daughter got in her fancy Mercedes-Benz. The black Pajero that had been tailing her followed faithfully. His man put the car in gear and joined the caravan. It was only a matter of time before he found the bitch the minister had sent to screw over the doctor's husband.

28

 

—Dr. Jen Joshi

 

 

M
aybe Jess shouldn't have agreed when Nikhil's mother asked her to join Ria Parkar and her in making sweets for the cravings feast. But Nikhil had embraced the idea of the feast with such courage, she couldn't shove him back into hell by forcing him to Jen's home in the city so soon after all that joy and lightness had emanated from him. The stronger he was, the faster they would get through the nightmare. She had been right; the baby shower preparations were exactly what he needed.

She finished wiping her hands in the powder room and hung the towel back on its shiny chrome ring. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text from Naag. Yet another reminder of why she was here. As if she could forget.

What if she did forget? What if they didn't find the evidence? What if they did? Was there even a way out of this?

Another text.
I met an old friend of yours from Calcutta. She doesn't remember you having a husband.

Before she knew it, she was dialing Sweetie.

“I want you to take Joy and run away to somewhere safe.”

“Hello? Babes, are you okay?”

“Just for a little while. Just until I know what to do. Your sister lives in London. It should be pretty safe there, right?”

“You know I'll do whatever it takes to keep Joy safe,” he said in his most calming voice. She had heard him use it on his hothead Armaan a million times. He'd never had to use it on her. “Just let me know what you need and I'll call Didi and arrange things.”

But what if Naag found out what she was planning?

What had she done? Why had she called Sweetie? When she knew escape wasn't possible. His men were watching Joy every day. Even if he disappeared, they still knew where to find her. Leaving Joy without a mother was only a little bit better than leaving her without Joy.

“No. Don't do anything yet. I'm sorry. I just lost my mind for a bit.” She took a breath. “Just tell Joy not to be afraid.”

“Your baby boy is a superhero, babes. We should all learn how not to be afraid from him.”

This was true. She thanked Sweetie for reminding her and ended the call. Something told her she'd just made a huge mistake by calling Sweetie. But for those few minutes when she had imagined him disappearing with Joy to safety, the massive weight on her shoulders had eased. It had been a self-indulgent escape to act without thinking like that.

That text had shoved her off her feet. The one thing she knew for sure was that she would die, she would kill, to keep Joy from ever finding out where he came from. She deleted the text and shoved the phone into her pocket. She needed to get Nikhil to the city. But first she needed to regain control before going back into that kitchen. Because all she would find there was more self-indulgent escape standing in her way.

* * *

“She seems really nice,” Vic said, taking another sip of his beer. It was all kinds of weird, and still somehow nice, to be standing in his parents' kitchen with Vic, drinking beer and watching Ria and Aie bicker over cooking. Except Jess was there with them, looking so uncomfortable he had a good mind to pull her away.

“And she's definitely easy on the eyes.” Vic studied him as though they were teenagers again and he was trying to figure out if Nic had a crush on someone.

Nikhil gripped his chest and gave him a shocked look. “Since when did you think any woman was beautiful? I thought that never happened on Planet Ria.”

“Don't be ridiculous—no one's as beautiful as Ria.” As soon as Vic had said it he looked so guilty Nic wanted to punch him in the face.

At least Ria, Aie, and Baba were out there with their damned worry. He could almost see the reel of his life with Jen run in their heads when they talked to him.

But Vic tried to act like everything was cool, except he couldn't touch Ria, or talk about the baby he had so badly wanted. Now he studied his beer to keep from looking at his wife, lest it make Nikhil break down.

Vic was also completely wrong about Jess. She wasn't merely easy on the eyes, she was beautiful. Or maybe
beautiful
was too insipid a word for her.

There was something otherworldly about her. Especially standing under those pendant lights over the kitchen island, her hair all shiny around her luminous face, she looked like one of those watercolors his mother loved so much, translucent, ethereal, all that lightness of color and stroke essential to capture the tentative pout of her mouth, the exact crystalline caramel of her eyes. How had he missed those pinprick dimples that dipped at the corners of her mouth and made her look like she wasn't quite ready to face the world? Except there was no innocence there. Only a fractured awareness of a world that destroyed innocence.

She turned and looked at him, possibly sensing his study. Red collected in the high curve of her cheeks as though an invisible artist brushed it across her face as he watched. Her eyes, however, remained as controlled as ever. What would it take for those eyes to flood with emotion, with joy, with anger, with anything at all that didn't flash by in a second?

Her chin went up and he realized he was frowning at her.

“You have a child?” Aie said, giving Jess a rare look of openmouthed incomprehension.

Ria's hands stilled on the dough she was shaping into balls. She turned to Jess as though seeing her for the first time.

He knew Jess was eager to head to Jen's condo, but she had said yes when Aie had asked if she wanted to help her make
karanjis
. It was his favorite food on earth, and now he loved it even more, because, well, because there was that coward thing.

Apparently, along with teaching Ria and Jess how to make
karanjis,
Aie was carrying out a stealth information-gathering mission on the side.

“Yes,” Jess said, and smiled at Aie, her eagerness to please naked on her face. The pinprick dimples that dug into her cheeks at the two edges of her mouth danced in and out of sight.

Aie's eyes warmed. “But you look like a child yourself.”

“I was eighteen when I had him.”

That information was met with silence. But it didn't disturb her. As usual, talking about Joy seemed to make her ready to take on the world.

“And his dad?”

“Aie!” he said, glaring at his mother. “Please!”

Naturally, Jess looked calm as ever. But all the warmth was gone from her eyes.

“No, that's okay. Really.” She gave him a small smile and turned back to the dough she was rolling into small round sheets the way Aie had just shown her. “I don't have a husband,” she said in a voice as serene as her face. “He died before Joy was born.”

Shock and guilt cartwheeled across Aie's face.

Ria placed a hand on Jess's shoulder; she looked shaken, all her usual self-possession gone. “Was it hard?” she asked. “Having him by yourself?”

Jess examined the dough circle in front of her, but it was the question she was studying with care.

“Not at all,” she said, finally looking up at Ria. “Joy made it easy. Actually, he made it possible for me to go on. The last thing I ever expected to be was a mother. The last thing I ever imagined knowing how to do was raise a child. Especially when I didn't have a single thing to give him. But he needed nothing but me. And I . . . I had everything I needed when I had him.” Suddenly, she looked embarrassed, her signature look that said she had given away too much.

Ria looked like someone had kicked her. Her hand was wrapped around her belly and she wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. Vic went to her and rubbed her shoulders and she leaned into him, both of them forgetting that Nikhil was in the room.

Emotions bubbled up in Jess's eyes too, but she blanketed them before he could name them.

“Am I doing it right?” she asked Aie.

“Oh
beta,
you're doing it perfectly.” Aie put a spoonful of sweetened coconut filling into the pastry Jess had rolled out and folded it over. “I'm so sorry. And you were just eighteen?”

“That filling looks delicious. I managed. He is a very easy baby.”

“It's coconuts, jaggery, and cashew nuts, what's not to be delicious? Here.” Aie held up a spoonful to Jess's mouth and Jess took a bite. “Do you at least have help back in Mumbai? Your parents?”

Jess's eyes fluttered shut as though flavors were exploding in her mouth. No surprise there: Aie's
karanjis
were the most delicious things in the world. Pleasure warred against the pain Aie was unintentionally inflicting.

“This is amazing. No, my parents passed away when I was younger. I'm an orphan,” she said through a mouthful.

“Not too sweet?” Aie asked.

Jess shook her head fervently. “It's not too anything.” The sincerity in her eyes made it hard for him to breathe.

“The trick with desserts is the sweetness. They can't be too sweet. That kills it, and then if they aren't sweet enough, that's even worse. My Nic was very easy too. He's always been an easy boy.”

“Did you just tell her I'm easy, Aie? Really?”

* * *

Jess would never get used to listening to that smile in Nikhil's voice. The one that said he was sharing an inside joke and he had no doubt you found it just as funny as he did. The sound of that smile made both Ria Parkar's and his
aie
's faces light up.

She would also never get used to him standing this close to her. He reached over her shoulder and stuck a finger in the filling.

“Nikhil!” This from Ria Parkar, who thrust her ever-ready spoon into his hand and actually smiled at Jess. Not her usual frosty smile, but an open and kind one. The type of smile Jess had seen her smile at her family but never at her.

Nikhil's mother picked up the pastry she'd just folded into a neat little
D
shape and trimmed its edge with a serrated cutter. “Ta da!” she said, holding it up, “our
karanji
is ready to be fried!”

Jess and Ria followed her lead, rolling out and stuffing the dough, and soon the large steel tray was lined with concentric half-moons ready to be fried. Jess had loved working in the kitchen with Aama. Loved all the little tricks Aama loved to teach her as they went along, like adding a pinch of sugar to anything spicy to pull out the flavor. Having Aama share the kitchen with her had made her feel all grown up, like a sister, an equal, an accomplice.

“You're a natural.” Nikhil's
aie
threw an appreciative glance at her handiwork, and it pleased her far too much. “Jen hated to cook. But she did love
karanjis
.”

“She didn't hate to cook,” Jess said, focusing so hard on getting it right that she forgot to think about what she was saying. “She was just afraid of being bad at anything.”

The kitchen went silent, as if she had hit a mute button and all the sound they had been drowning out suddenly found voice. The ticking of the clock, the buzz of the lights, the hum of the refrigerator.

“I'll get the fryer ready.” Nikhil shattered the silence before it turned toxic. But his movements trapped a restlessness as he poured oil into the deep fryer and turned it on.

“Uma, have you forgotten that we're seeing Dr. Stein in a half hour?” Vikram said, looking up from the huge bowl of coconut stuffing Nikhil's
aie
had set aside for him. He had cleaned it out while they stuffed the pastries. “There's no time to do the frying.”

Nikhil's
aie
smacked her forehead. “How did I forget?” She put the tray down on the island. “We'll fry these after we come back.”

“Mrs. Joshi, I can, I mean, if you don't mind, I can do it. It's just frying, right?” Jess said before she had thought about it. The oil was already heating, and all she wanted was to not leave everything unfinished like this.

“I'll help her, Aie,” Nikhil said.

She turned to Jess. “Okay, but on one condition. Stop calling me Mrs. Joshi. I feel like I'm in a classroom. Call me Uma, or then Auntie if you're not comfortable with Uma.”

Jess nodded and Nikhil's
aie
pulled her into a quick hug before leaving.

* * *

Nikhil checked the temperature on the fryer. Helping his mother fry things before dinner parties had been his favorite childhood chore. It had felt like a science experiment, just like being in a lab but without the pressure of doing well.

“I'm sorry about the inquisition,” he said. Jess had looked so overwhelmed when Aie had turned the Aie Treatment on her.

She didn't respond, her mood suddenly mellow as she fidgeted with the tray of
karanjis
.

“Why didn't you tell me Joy's dad is dead?”

Her fingers clenched on the
karangi
in her hand and it split open at the edges like a hapless mouth. She opened it back up and refolded it as if she had done this all her life. Her fingers so deft, so comfortable with handling food, in the strangest way she reminded him of his
aie
. “Is the oil hot enough?”

He checked the temperature gauge again. “Almost.”

“He's not dead.” She pursed her lips and gave the edges of the resurrected pastry another squeeze, making sure it was perfect again, and he knew that was all she was going to say about that.

“Why don't you want them to know about the heart?”