Chapter 31
JAHNVI
“I haven’t touched this thing in years,” Everett said with a grunt as he jumped back down from the chair. “So, it’s gonna be dusty.”
He was right. There was a healthy cover of gray dust on top of the cardboard box that flew around the room as Everett walked it over to me.
I stood up and grabbed a pair of scissors that I had been using to open boxes.
The box had been taped together with about two rolls of duct tape.
I would’ve made the joke that this looked like it had been taped up by a four-year-old, but I refrained.
This was important to Everett, I could tell.
The tube light on the wall behind him illuminated his hair and cast a shadow on most of his face. As we kneeled down on the ground and worked slowly on getting rid of the tape, I couldn’t see most of his face. I just saw the downturn of his lips and a bit of the line on his forehead.
He looked...so tired.
Tired didn’t accurately describe it—he looked absolutely exhausted. He was always running around and doing things, but he always looked energetic enough. There were always bags around his eyes, but he was always smiling, even if it was because he had just made a mean joke about me.
But now, there wasn’t even a little bit of energy in his face. It was full of lines and worry. I’d never seen him like this, and it hurt a little. I hated that I never knew about this side of him, that I’d never offered to help with the restaurant before.
With a final tear of the last piece of the duct tape, the two flaps of the box popped open. Everett looked up at me.
If I thought his face looked tired, his eyes were something else entirely.
They were usually always sparkling and full of excitement.
Even if it was six in the morning and we were going to go find flowers for a wreath, his eyes were always wide awake and looking around everywhere.
Now, they were only looking at one thing: me.
He motioned with his head for me to open the box.
With him watching me and not the box, I slowly peeled the dusty flaps away. It looked like an assortment of things.
Something looked familiar.
I picked up a photo frame by the edge and wiped off the dust with the corner of my shirt. “Oh! The Tiruvarur temple. I know this one.”
“You’ve been?”
“Yeah.” I looked up. “It’s so pretty. Have you?”
He pointed to the corner of the photo, where a couple was standing.
The dad was holding a baby that was looking away.
“I was born nearby, but we moved here when I was two, so I don’t remember anything.
All of these things”—he motioned at the box—“used to belong to my parents. They were big on collecting things and they used to decorate the restaurant with them. It was supposed to be a truly authentic experience, eating here. You were surrounded by things from India and people who were actually from India.”
“You, um, took these things down after the car accident?”
He frowned and tilted his head. “Car accident? Who told you that?”
“Was it not a car accident? I-I’m so sorry, I always thought.
..” My heart stopped. He was finally opening up and I might have just said the wrong thing.
I quickly thought back and with horror I realized that my parents had always mentioned that they’d died in an “accident.” That was all, an “accident.”
I just assumed it was a car accident.
“Jahnvi,” Everett started, biting his lip. “My parents died in a shooting. Some murderous racist pulled a gun on them when they were coming back from a catering event.”
“Oh.” You idiot, Jahnvi, say something! “I...I’m so sorry. My parents told me that it was an accident, so I assumed that it was a car accident.”
“Which makes sense. No one would want to have that conversation with their middle schooler. Anyway”—Everett opened the box wider and pulled something out that looked like it was made of string—“I took these down after a year ’cause it just felt so claustrophobic.
I know that doesn’t make any sense, but it was like.
..everything was choking me. Every turn I took in this store, something reminded me of them and ruined my mood just as I was learning how to deal with it. But now...”
“Now?” I prompted him.
He looked up at me and smiled. “I think I figured it out. Now when I think of my parents or see them in photos, I smile and it’s a happy thing. I want these things back up on the walls, could you help me?”
“Of course,” I said, without a moment’s hesitation. I was met with a smile, not the ones I’ve described before where his eyes close and he puts his entire body into it, but one that was more a smile of relief. A smile where his eyes were a bit glazed as if he was thinking about something else.
He stood up slowly and offered a hand. I took it, and he swung me up swiftly. He chose not to let go of my hand and gave it a single squeeze.
I waited for him to say something with the way he was looking at me and gripping my hand for dear life, but he was silent. With a final exhale and a look at me, he let go of my hand and bent down to grab the box.
I ended up staying way longer at EJ’s than I expected.
It took a good two hours to get everything set up around the walls.
It would’ve been over quicker, but Everett took the time to explain every question I had about the things I was holding and placing around the restaurant.
He told me that the Jesus painting had hung in the home his mom was raised in and that her grandfather had sent it over to her when she moved here.
He explained that the ornate curtain rod was as old as he was and that his parents had bought it for his nursery when he was born.
It was all just so...intimate.
We’d touched before, sure. Hell, we’d even kissed before, which is almost as intimate as it gets.
But this? This was the most intimate thing I’d ever done.
With every question I asked about where a photo was taken or what I was holding, he dropped everything to come over and explain it to me with a patient voice and a smile when good memories came up.
I was getting to know him in the deepest way.
Every single question I had about him ever since I was younger came up and was finally answered.
And when we were done and the first family walked in, it was all worth it because of what the wife said to her husband in Hindi: “What a beautiful restaurant. Great choice!”
After I quickly translated for Everett, who didn’t know Hindi, he broke out in the biggest grin I’ve ever seen.
As people started rushing in, I stayed behind to help him with orders and cleaning.
There was a different air to the way he ran things, I could easily tell.
Every worker there was wearing normal clothes, no uniforms like we had, and the atmosphere was the total opposite.
Everything was more relaxed and had a more, how did he put it?
authentic feel. People were conversing and laughing loudly, kids were giggling, and the entire restaurant was lit up with such an amazing smell.
As I straightened my back again after wiping down a table, I made eye contact with Everett. He had just set something down at a table and was looking at me as he walked toward another table.
Had I just caught him staring at me?
Everett’s foot hit the corner of a table, and he stumbled. He would have fallen if he hadn’t reached out with his hand and steadied himself using a wall. I coughed, trying to hold my laughter as he turned red and walked into the kitchen.
Never would I have believed that I, of all people, had just made Everett James stumble. What the hell was going on?