Chapter 15
15
We spend the rest of the afternoon in the living room.
After all the up-and-down emotions of this morning, it’s rather anticlimactic. I get some work done on Nikhil’s laptop, and he sits on the opposite side of the room studying. His classes have been canceled this week and next due to the storm, but he says he wants to use this time to catch up.
We don’t talk to each other much over the next couple hours, but it’s not as uncomfortable as I would have expected it to be. It’s quiet, but in a good way. Almost peaceful.
Every now and then, I go upstairs to peek out the broken guest bedroom window. The water level is lower each time. It really seems like it might all clear up by morning. I’d never thought I’d feel so conflicted about that.
At some point, Nikhil falls asleep on the couch, his accounting textbook open on his lap, his lips slightly parted. He looks younger like this. The lines on his face softer. Smoother. A lock of hair falls over his forehead, and I resist the urge to push it back. He’s not mine to touch. He’s not mine to care for. He hasn’t been for a long time, and now, he never will be again.
Pain pierces through me at the thought, and I escape to the pantry, needing space away from him, but also needing to figure out what I’m going to put together for dinner. I’m still not sure why I volunteered to make it in the first place, but I can’t back out now.
After searching for a while, I find a can of garbanzo beans and a bag of spinach in the freezer. I dump both into a pot and whip up the saddest chana saag the world has ever seen. I made the fatal mistake of trying it, thinking it was tasteless, and then adding too much masala. Now it’s not just thin and watery, but also so laden with spices I can feel the grit of them between my teeth.
Fortunately, I made rice to go with it, so there’ll be at least one thing edible on the table.
To his credit, Nikhil doesn’t say anything when he takes his first bite of the meal, though he follows it with a long sip of water.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, deciding to put him out of his misery. “I know it’s bad. You don’t have to eat it.”
“No,” he says. “It’s not…it’s not that bad.” He swallows another forkful. “At least, it’s not any worse than that time I accidentally made chili with cinnamon instead of cumin.” He grins. “Any chance that’s what happened here?”
I laugh. “It’s definitely possible.”
We stick to mostly eating the rice, and plucking a few pieces of chana out of the bowl. The gravy and the spinach seem to have soaked up my poor attempts at seasoning, but the chana itself isn’t too bad, the flavor somewhat diluted when it’s drowned by rice.
“I can take you to the airport tomorrow,” Nikhil says.
“Oh. You don’t have to—”
“I’m going to be driving that direction tomorrow anyway.” His foot taps absently underneath the table. “I want to check on the property. I’ve been looking up reports from the area, but it seems mixed. Some houses got hit badly, while others scraped by. Not unlike our street, I guess.”
Our street. Nikhil said that so easily. He doesn’t even seem to notice it slipped. But that “our” causes a sharp pinch beneath my sternum. I rub the spot, trying to erase the sensation.
“If you’re sure you don’t mind, that would be great then. Thank you,” I say.
“Yeah, of course.”
We continue eating in silence for a couple minutes, and then Nikhil casually says, “Actually, we could stop by the property first if you want. On the way to the airport? I mean, I know we’d talked about you maybe seeing it, but that was when you were going to help with the grant stuff—”
“I’ll still help with the grant applications, Nikhil. I’d be happy to do that.”
“Okay. No pressure, though. I know you’re busy. And I’m not sure if we even should go there. We’d have to leave a little early so we’d have time and the place is nowhere close to being done so I can just see it after I drop you off if you prefer that.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell him. “I want to see it.”
He smiles then, his teeth flashing. It’s beautiful, and wonderful, and horrible, all at the same time.
“Have you decided on a name for the inn?” I ask. “What did they call the one in the show? It was, umm, the…”
“The Dragonfly Inn.”
“Right. Hmm. Kind of generic, wasn’t it? I think you can do better than that.”
Humor shines in his eyes. “Sounds like you’ve got lots of opinions about this.”
“I’ve got opinions about everything. You know me.”
“Yeah,” he says softly, “I do.” He shakes his head. “So, let’s hear it then. What names do you think would work better?”
I offer up some suggestions, but it turns out naming an inn is a lot harder than I’d thought.
“It’s overlooking the water, right?” I say. “Maybe something about that?”
“And that doesn’t sound too generic to you?”
I roll my eyes, and he lets out a snort of amusement.
We keep throwing out names, and our suggestions only grow more and more ridiculous as each of us tries to make the other person laugh. When I fall asleep later that night, I swear I can still hear his laughter echoing in my mind, and I’m struck by a strange thought.
I wish I’d recorded it. I wish I’d recorded that sound. Because I’m not sure if I’ll ever hear it again.
The next morning, we leave several hours earlier than necessary. One, because I want to see the inn before I leave, but two, because the airport is going to be much wilder than usual. Every flight out of here is packed. A lot of people got stranded here due to the storm, and I’m sure they’re just as desperate as I am to get back.
Or, as desperate as I was .
I don’t let myself think too much about that though. I climb into the front seat of Nikhil’s car and deliberately ignore the rearview mirror. I don’t want to look back at the house. There’s no point remembering it. There’s no point reminiscing about the past, or what could have been. The papers stuffed at the bottom of my bag put an end to all of that. Put an end to us.
Nikhil drums his fingers against the steering wheel. After we’re on the road for fifteen minutes, he says, “It’s not too far from here.”
I nod. “Great.”
There’s really nothing for the two of us to talk about, so I spend most of the drive looking out the window. It’s safe to do so now that the house is miles and miles behind us.
It’s amazing, really. How quickly things can seem back to normal after a storm. The streets are completely clear of water, but there are still telltale signs of what happened. Large, lakelike puddles in some of the grassy fields. Felled trees and giant branches. Every now and then, Nikhil has to change lanes or drive on the wrong side of the road to get past them.
He’s turning now, down a muddy, uneven gravel road. We’re on it for a few minutes, and then the house comes into view.
All the air rushes out of my lungs.
“Nikhil—” I say, but he’s already out of the car, his door left open.
I unbuckle my seat belt and scramble after him. It doesn’t take me long to catch up. He’s frozen in place, his eyes fixed on this ramshackle building in front of us, framed by sea and sky.
I know the brackish blue-gray water in the background meets the ocean at some point, but it looks like it goes on forever. The overcast sky only makes it all feel even moodier and more atmospheric, and I can see the vision. I can see this being a perfect place to run from the city. To retreat. To sit on the porch with a book and a large cup of tea. Or on the dock looking over the water, with a fishing pole in hand. In the winter, there’ll be a firepit in the front where guests can roast marshmallows and trade ghost stories, and find a sense of community even though they’re far from home. I can see all of it.
Only that porch has fully collapsed, pieces of wood railing tossed to the ground. Like a giant ripped into it and scattered the pieces. The windows are boarded up, so those seem to be intact, but that hardly seems to matter. There’s a difference in paint color on the house, a line that clearly demarcates how high the water got during the storm. And from what I’m seeing, the first floor definitely took on some water. There’s going to be damage inside. The bottom of the walls, at least a foot of Sheetrock, will need to be taken out and replaced.
I glance at Nikhil, and suddenly, there’s a viselike grip around my heart.
I don’t know what shape the property was in when Nikhil bought it, but from the shock written across his face, I know it wasn’t as bad as this.
He takes a couple steps forward and slowly runs his hand over a wood beam. A low, dark laugh escapes him.
“Guess you don’t need to worry about that grant stuff anymore,” he says.
“Nikhil—”
“There’s no point now. There’s no—” He stops, shaking his head. Then, he takes off, walking around to the back, making a full circle of the property. I follow after him.
The back looks slightly better than the front, but then Nikhil lets out a loud groan. He’s tipped his head back, so I do the same. And the roof…My god. It looks like a slice of Swiss cheese. Several large holes punched through, shingles completely missing.
“I can’t fix this,” Nikhil mutters. “This is too…” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m going to have to sell.”
“What?”
“There are always real estate developers who come in after storms like this. Vultures.” He’s still staring up at the sky, devastation written across his face. “They look for destroyed properties and flip them.”
“But you can flip it,” I say. I’ve seen the work he’s done before. He’s capable of doing it. He’s capable of restoring this place. It would be hard and long and cost a lot more than it would have before, but I’ve promised Nikhil that I would help with that. I can still help with that. “If it’s a funding issue, we can work it out. I’ll find a way. You were insured, right? That might cover some of this—”
“No, it’s not that,” he says. “It’s just…None of this…It doesn’t—” He kicks a small piece of debris with the tip of his shoe and continues walking.
I swallow, unsure what to say or do. I want to fix this. I want to make it all better. But I can’t wave a magic wand and erase the damage from this storm. I can’t make it so that it never happened.
We head back to the car in silence, and Nikhil drives out onto the gravel road, leaving the same way we came. Before we turn back onto the main road, our eyes catch in the rearview mirror, both of us taking one last look at the would-be inn behind us.
“You can repair this, Nikhil,” I try again. “You can. If you want to, I know you can.”
“I can’t.” He gives a wan smile as he watches me, sorrow etched in every line on his face. “Some things are beyond repair.”
We’re quiet the rest of the drive, and when he drops me off at the airport, our goodbyes are simple. Muted. Our emotions are suppressed, trapped and hidden somewhere deep below.
I get out of the car and take a few steps away, but I’m half turned, watching Nikhil through the car window.
Say something, I think, but I’m not sure whether I’m talking to myself or to him. Still, I almost think he hears me because he lowers the window, just as a loud voice shouts, “Meena!”
Only Nikhil’s lips aren’t moving. My heart lurches, and then so does the rest of my body, as a man comes behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist.
This embrace…it’s familiar, but he feels different. Lean where Nikhil is broad. Smooth cheeked where Nikhil has stubble.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Nikhil’s brows lower, and I turn to face Shake, my muscles tense and stiff.
His eyes are shining, bright with excitement. They’re brown, same as Nikhil’s, but Shake’s are a different shade. Flatter somehow.
“Shake, what are you…what are you doing here? How are you here?”
At my tone, the smile on Shake’s face shifts, some of his earlier enthusiasm waning. He licks his lips. “I know we’d planned on waiting to talk until you got back, but I needed to see you. I needed tomake sure you were okay. And since my client’s jet was still available—”
“You took the jet?”
“I couldn’t wait until tonight,” he says. “I don’t know if you saw my email, but I’ve scheduled a new meeting with the team. For both of us. To discuss you running here or there. I don’t care which it is, as long as we’re doing it together.”
I blink. “You’d be okay with it? If I tried to run for the Texas seat? You’d be supportive?”
“Yes. I…This time apart…It gave me a lot of time to think, and I realized that I don’t want to do any of this without you. We both have a better shot if we do this together, and as long as there’s nothing standing in our way anymore…” He pulls back slightly, his eyes on my face. “I mean, you have it, right? The papers? You got them signed?”
I nod. “Yeah,” I say, my voice low. “I have them.”
Shake’s smile returns. “Then let’s go home.” He lowers his face toward mine, and I freeze, stuck in place. My heart thumps wildly, and at the last second, I turn, so that his lips end up sliding against my cheek.
As I face the street, my eyes meet Nikhil’s. He looks shocked, stricken, but my view of him is quickly blocked by a security officer rounding his car, loudly telling him to move out of the drop-off lane.
“Meena?” Shake asks, and I snap back to him.
“Sorry, I’m just…It’s been a long few days.”
“I bet.” He takes my rolling bag from me and starts wheeling it. “Don’t worry, we can talk about everything in more detail once you get some rest.” He reaches for my hand, tugging me toward the airport entrance. “And at least you won’t be flying commercial. It’ll be a much more comfortable trip back on the jet.” I follow, peeking over my shoulder, trying to see past the security officer. But as I enter the automatic glass doors, I realize I’m too late.
Nikhil’s car is already gone.