23. Aarti
AARTI
“Beta, you know Dr. Agarwal and Baba play pickleball together and I’ve been up all night!”
My eyes are barely open and it’s still dark outside when I answer the emergency call on my cell.
“Maa, slow down,” I say, trying to wrap my head around the words she just said.
“ Diti , beta. Dr. Agarwal said she is missing school. What’s going on over there? Are you not feeding her?”
I roll over onto my back and pinch between my brows. Of course five in the morning is the correct time for my mother to address her concerns over my younger sister, and of course I’m the one she calls about it.
Over the years, I’ve had ample practice for these sorts of calls from Maa.
I remember the first one–I was out of the house for the first time, living on my own (with several roommates, of course) in a dingy Hollywood apartment.
I stumbled home with my fellow comedy nerds after a rager of a house party.
The sun was cresting the horizon and I was gonna vom at literally any moment.
My phone rang, a call from my mom, and I was immediately snapped from my boozy stupor.
I was poised to hear the worst of it: my mom was in a car accident, Uncle Arjun had an oil fryer mishap, my dad was locked in Astavakrasana pose and couldn’t be unwound.
But no. No.
“I can’t find Diti! She is missing!” my mom cried.
Because I’m the coolest, most trustworthy older sister in the world, Diti had texted me the night before that she was sneaking out of the house to sleep over with a friend.
She had been grounded for a less-than-stellar report card, but couldn’t miss her best friend’s sister’s cousin’s birthday party for the world .
I distinctly remember rolling my eyes and telling her to be back before our parents would notice. Obviously, Aarti, she had texted back.
Yet there I was, far outside of my normal cognitive capabilities, trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I remember looking down at my Chucks as I shuffled away from my pack of friends.
“She must be on a walk?” I told my mom, squinting into the sunrise.
“A walk?! At five a.m.? Come now, beta, don’t be absurd ,” she said, as if, on the other hand, me being awake at this hour was totally reasonable.
I forced some lie about how Diti told me she was trying out for cross country in the fall and was practicing with early morning runs, immediately texting her to a) get her ass back home and b) corroborate my story.
She was thrilled–this lie would provide her with an endless excuse to sneak out of the house, and she could simply “not make the team” come fall.
Little did I know, this one lie would spiral into a lifetime of covering for my little sister, call after call, from high school through college, and now on into med school.
“She had a cold, Maa,” I say, pulling yet another lie out of my barely conscious ass. “She’s good as new and heading back today.”
After a few minutes of reassuring my mother, I hang up and close my eyes, only to be assaulted with the blaring sound of my alarm clock.
I trill my lips, attempting to rid myself of the negative energy already injecting itself into my day, and heave myself from bed to Diti’s room.
I gently knock and push open the door, only to find her gone.
Shocker. I check my messages to find a misspelled text from the wee hours of the morning.
She’d obviously been out partying. I send her an irritated response that she better be back in class today or else, then pop in an espresso pod, searching for a sweet, sweet bean release.
Turns out, there aren’t enough espresso shots in the world to lift the dark cloud hanging over my head this morning.
It’s not just covering for my sister–lord knows I’d be in a bad mood most days if that was enough to set the tone for my life.
No, it’s the way my groggy wake-up call and ensuing lies send me spiraling straight into thoughts of the last few days.
The cat café. The way Noa sat there sneezing through her allergies just to keep me company. The food truck shoot. How I grabbed her pinky without thinking, that tiny touch sending electricity through my whole body.
I need to stop this. Stop wanting Noa Hart like she’s oxygen and I’m drowning.
I convince myself I should be relieved the crew is visiting the Jen & Mary’s flavor lab for a behind-the-scenes shoot today.
I won’t be the center of attention for once–I just have to be quippy and ask a few questions to drive the segment along.
Right now, any respite from having to divulge my deepest sense memories is highly welcome.
I walk into the main entrance of Jen & Mary’s and am greeted with the delicious scents of half-baked brownies and freshly pressed waffle cones, exactly what you would expect from the ice cream mecca.
A teeny woman hobbles toward us on a cane and I put the pieces together that this is Noa’s boss, Stella. She greets me with her free hand.
“So nice to have you and the team, Aarti,” Stella says. “I take it Noa has been…?” She trails off and I realize I’m supposed to fill in the blank with some sort of impromptu performance assessment.
“Excellent. Decisive. Creamy?”
Jesus.
Stella nods as if that was an acceptable response, then leads us back to the labs.
She scans her badge and pushes the door open, leading me down a long flight of stairs.
I see Noa, standing behind a work bench in her lab coat and safety glasses, making a hairnet look like the cutest fashion accessory I’ve ever seen.
Noa walks over to distribute the safety glasses to me and the crew, her fingers grazing mine as she hands them over. The shy smile she gives me is so genuine, so warm, that I have to look away.
“Thank you,” I say, voice clipped and professional once again.
Her smile drops.
“I’m thrilled to have you all on my stage for today,” she addresses the group, trying to recover her composure.
“Please keep your protective gear on at all times and defer to our Commander-ess in Chief, Stella Wexler.” Her dry-humored boss doesn’t even blink at the moniker as she takes Noa’s place in front of everyone.
Admittedly, Stella is a scene stealer. From the industrial-sized mixers to the indoor herb garden, she Vanna Whites our crew on a tour of every piece of equipment in the lab.
I focus every ounce of my energy on channeling the most engaged, peppy, inquisitive version of myself–the exact opposite of how I feel inside–and everyone but Noa seems to be buying it.
Eventually, Madge calls cut, and Stella grasps her cane with both hands like she’s about to do a vaudeville shuffle.
“Who’d like to raid the flavor testing room during our lunch break?” she pitches.
My crew of beefy, gluttonous dudes can hardly contain their excitement as they skip toward the door behind her.
As they file out, I feel fingers wrap around my elbow.
“Come with me,” Noa says firmly, steering me toward a side door.
“Noa, I don’t think–”
But resisting will cause a scene, so I let her pull me into what appears to be a walk-in freezer, the door closing behind us with a click.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” I say, the cold air hitting my face. “I just can’t.”
I reach for the handle to escape confrontation. It doesn’t budge.
“Oh, come on.” I yank harder. “Open this, please.” I point to her badge, assuming she can wield her power to let me free.
“That’s… not supposed to happen,” Noa says, genuine alarm in her voice. “They fixed the door a month ago.”
“You mean we’re… stuck?”
“I–I mean–this wasn’t my intention, I swear.”
The accusation flies out before I can stop it. “This is all your fault.”
“ My fault? How was I supposed to know the door would break?”
I bang on the thick steel. The sound barely travels.
“They’ll realize we’re missing soon. They have to.”
I pull out my phone and, miracle of miracles, I have one bar of service. I fire off a text to Madge:
911 locked in freezer send help!!
The message sits there, the progress bar barely moving.
“Great. We’re going to die in here.” I move as far from Noa as the small space allows.
After a moment of silence, Noa straightens, crossing her arms.
“You’re being weird ,” she says.
“Duh.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Noa.”
“Yeah, you do,” she presses.
“I don’t–”
“You do–”
“I don’t know how to act around you!” The words explode out. “You make me want to do crazy things like grab your pinky for comfort without even thinking about the cameras, which, thankfully, were off!”
“Sorry for having comforting pinkies?” She throws her hands up, exasperated.
“That’s not–you know that’s not what I mean.”
“Do I? Because you’ve been treating me like I have the plague all morning. Professional to the point of robotic. ‘Thank you,’” she mimics my cold tone from earlier. “Like we’re strangers.”
“We are strangers!” I snap. “We’ve known each other for what, a week?”
“A week and a half –”
“Big difference.”
“–where you almost kissed me!”
“That was a mistake!”
The hurt that flashes across her face makes me want to take it back, but I barrel on, desperate to create distance.
“This whole thing is a mistake. I should have never agreed to these segments.”
“Oh, so now I’m ruining your show?” Her voice rises. “I’m just trying to do my job, which you make impossible when you run hot and cold like some broken thermostat!”
“Maybe if you weren’t so–” I gesture wildly at her.
“So what? Myself? So unwilling to pretend there’s nothing between us?”
“So PRESENT!” The word tears out of me. “You’re everywhere. In my head. Making me think about things I can’t think about. Making me want things I can’t have.”
We’re both shivering now, the message to Madge still crawling through the singular bar of service.
“That’s not my fault,” Noa says, quieter now but still defensive. “I didn’t ask for this either.”
“You grabbed my elbow. You pulled me in here.”
“Because I wanted to clear the air! How was I supposed to know we’d get trapped?”
“Everything with you is a trap,” I mutter, moving to the farthest corner of the freezer.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“No, say it. Say whatever cruel thing you need to say to make yourself feel better about being a coward.”
“ Coward? ”
“What else do you call someone who hides beneath some silly characters instead of being themselves? Who’s so scared of their own feelings they’d rather freeze to death in the corner than admit they’re human?”
The fight drains out of me all at once. I slide down the wall, bury my face in my hands. I’m so tired. Tired of fighting this. Tired of hurting her. Tired of pretending I don’t wake up thinking about her laugh.
The floor beside me creaks as she sits. Then warmth–not much in this freezer, but more than nothing–as she leans her body against mine.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have called you a coward.”
“No,” I lift my head, turn to look at her. “I am. I’m sorry. For being hot and cold. For being mean. For being too scared to–”
We’re looking at each other now, really looking. Her face is so close I can see ice crystals forming on her lashes. Without thinking, I reach up to brush them away. She catches my hand, holds it against her cheek.
“Your hands are freezing,” she whispers.
“Everything’s freezing.”
“Not everything,” she says, and then she’s cupping my face with both hands, and I’m leaning in, and the cold disappears entirely as our lips finally meet.
This kiss is nothing like our almost-kiss at Aiden’s.
That was tentative, careful. This is desperate, tension breaking like a dam.
I pull her closer, needing her warmth, needing her, just needing.
She makes a small sound against my mouth that sends heat through my whole body despite the freezing temperature.
“We should–” she starts.
“Don’t,” I say against her lips. “Please don’t become the logical one right now.”
Then we’re kissing again, deeper this time, my hands tangling in her hair, her body pressing against mine like she’s trying to share every degree of warmth she has.
Despite the glacial temperature, her lips are hot against mine.
Her warm tongue slips into my mouth and I bring her closer, ripping off her hairnet so I can dive my fingers into her perfect curls.
I pull away for only a moment to make sure this is real, this is really happening, and then allow our lips to crash back together.
I can taste her smile, her longing for me like I’ve been longing for her.
My hands make their way inside her lab coat and up her sumptuous curves.
I feel her shiver at my touch, but not because she’s cold.
Her head tips back and a small moan escapes her lips as I bring mine to her neck and pull her closer toward me, wrapping her legs around my core.
She tilts her head back up and looks into my eyes as I massage her scalp with a deep lusty grasp.
“We might freeze to death in here,” she breathes into my forearm.
“At least we’ll die happy.”
I dive back into her, first kissing her rosy cheeks, then her tender neck, down to her chest. I pick her up and lay her back on the icy floor.
She arches her back and I place my hands around her head, hair spilling out around her face.
I stare into her eyes with a newfound desire, but instead of going in for the kiss, I catch her off guard and slip a chilly hand beneath her shirt, twisting her nipple between my cold fingers.
She gasps and I watch, a devilish grin curling onto my face.
Nothing is better than catching your audience off guard, and, boy, do I have her now.
Even in the cold, I feel the warmth for her between my legs grow. I grab her hips and pull her into me, as close as I can get us between our layers of clothing. I let a growl slip from between my lips and just as I’m about to live out my dreams on Noa Hart…
The door clicks open.