Chapter Eight
There’s something especially annoying about a person who clearly wants something from you but acts like you’re the one who needs their help.
It’s obvious Krish Hale is the kind of person who thinks he’s doing the world a favor simply by existing. He’s sitting there with his legs stretched out, leaning into all those gorgeous embroidered silk cushions as though they’ve been laid out just for him.
His comfort in his place in the world is vaguely familiar. I’ve seen it before, I just can’t remember where. And I have no idea why it’s annoying me this much.
“Why do you think you can help me find the ring’s owner?” I ask as Rumi, Saket, and I settle into the sectional across from him. He seems unmoved by the breathtaking beauty of their home, and that takes even more points off. At least the skunky weed smell hasn’t followed him into the house.
“Because I’ve been a reporter in New York City for several years. And I know how to follow a trail.”
“Fine, then tell me where you would go first with this trail.”
He laughs. Laughs! “Sure. I can’t wait to. But as I said, I have conditions.”
“He did say he had conditions,” Saket says.
Rumi is still glowering like he’s the hero of a gothic novel. Although honestly, I’ve never understood why gothic heroes brood quite so much. At least with Rumi, I know why he glowers. He hasn’t said a word, and I want him to keep it that way.
He doesn’t. “I can’t believe you’re encouraging Mira in this nonsense. How much do you even know this guy?” he says to Saket as though the guy in question isn’t sitting right there.
I’m not sure I like the idea of Saket bringing a stranger into this without asking me. But I like what Rumi just said even less. “I’m not a child who gets carried away with a little encouragement.”
“To be fair, how much does anyone really know anyone?” Saket says.
“He’s literally a total stranger!” Rumi says.
“Sak and I have met,” the stranger says even though no one asked him. “At least I’m pretty sure it was Sak. You were at Mini Patel’s daughter’s wedding, correct?”
“Yes! Beautiful wedding!” Saket says. “Great lehenga.”
“Sure,” the guy says. “Purple with yellow peacocks.”
Saket sits up, clearly impressed. “My God, you’re right! Although that purple was a bit dark for a morning wedding, now that it’s coming back to me. How on earth do you remember? It was five years ago.”
“Photographic memory,” Krish says the way someone else might say diabetes while turning down chocolate cake. When they aren’t particularly fond of chocolate, or cake.
“Do you remember what the groom was wearing?” Saket asks excitedly.
“A yellow sherwani with purple palm trees,” the guy says without missing a beat and without any visible signs of humor or irony. He looks South Asian, but he says the word sherwani with a heavy East Coast drawl, and again it bothers me more than it should. There’s nothing more annoying than an Indian person who thinks they’re not. That’s when it strikes me: the thing that’s been off about this guy is that he looks South Asian but something about his demeanor, the way he talks, the way he holds himself, doesn’t match that.
Saket practically bounces in his seat. “Yes! Oh my gosh, I remember now. It was that whole birds-on-the-bride, trees-on-the-groom theme. A little obvious, even for a nature motif, if you ask me. But you’d love it, Rooh, with your obsession with symbolism.”
Rumi is about to burst the vein popping ominously in his forehead. He glares at Saket like he can’t believe they’re having this conversation. For the first time in a very long time, I agree with my brother.
“What are your conditions?” I say quickly before Saket causes my brother’s head to explode with more talk of wedding dress themes.
Krish turns to me. Again, without a whit of gratitude or humor. “I want to be part of the search. That’s my condition.”
I’m confused. Obviously if he’s going to help me find the owner of the ring, he’s going to be part of the search.
He picks up on my confusion and leans forward and places his elbows on his knees. I have the urge to ask him to remove his sunglasses. I hadn’t realized how much I hate not being able to study eyes. How much I count on them to get a read on people so I know what to do with them.
“That’s it. We track down the owner together.” There’s the subtlest pause. “And I get to do a story about it.”
Ah. Now it makes sense. He wants to write about it. He wants to use the story to further his career.
“No, thank you,” I say. I know for sure that I don’t want this to turn into something to squeeze mileage out of. It feels personal, getting this ring back in the hands of the person who wore it on a chain, possibly for years, based on how old Saket says the ring is. I feel oddly protective. Not that anyone would understand that. Plus, the Salvis shun the media.
Back when my parents first started to work at Bombay Masala, the local newspaper did a story about the “awful curry smell” in the store. It was the nineties, so saying ugly things about ethnic communities was perfectly acceptable and pretty ubiquitous. The store owner threatened to fire my parents, but then Naperville’s Indian community got livid and fought back and thronged the store and made the paper apologize. But my family embraced the fear of the media like second nature. They also embraced an industrial exhaust system and every form of deodorizing spray, candle, and incense. Bombay Masala now smells like a Bath & Body Works with a hint of cumin.
Putting my video on social media isn’t the same thing. That was me trying to reach as many people as possible to maximize the chances of reuniting the ring with its owner. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let some journalist turn it into a piece of entertainment.
“May I ask why?” Krish says without much feeling.
I shrug, mirroring his nonchalance. I never, ever dislike people on sight. I’m almost embarrassed by how much this guy rubs me the wrong way.
He keeps looking at me from behind those aviators, and the rudeness of someone who wears sunglasses indoors is taking everything else over. “I have no reason to believe you can actually help me.”
He pauses, thoughtfully weighing my accusation. “I found you, didn’t I? No one else has found you after that post, correct? Although I’m guessing there’s hundreds of responses with people wanting to meet you to see, or steal, the ring.”
Rumi gives me a pointed look, and the reason for his worry descends on me in one fell swoop. Maybe putting that video out wasn’t the safest thing to do.
Saket reaches over and squeezes my hand. He’s looking curious, but he remains silent, so I bite. “How did you find me?”
Krish considers that for a long moment, as though pondering whether or not to share his investigative tricks with me. The urge to kick his shins returns.
“I simply dug through your social media until I found someone you’re friends with who I could trace a connection to. Saket and you follow each other on all platforms, and you comment on each other’s stuff a lot. And Saket and I happened to have a few common friends. It’s New York.”
“Plus we’re both desis. All desis know each other, am I right?” Saket says. “Over a billion people and usually, like, what, four degrees of separation? Six at the most.”
Krish gives a tight smile that reinforces my sense of his discomfort with his heritage.
“Do you see how creepy this is?” I say. “You stalked me instead of just reaching out and offering to help.”
“I’m here in your friend’s home. Even with a personal connection, you’re still saying no. Why would you have picked me as the one to believe from the hundreds of trolling messages?”
“So, you didn’t even try.”
“I believe in working smart. I don’t waste my time on dead ends. Which is why you need me. I’m guessing you’re only here for a few days and you need to get back to Naperville and your wedding preparations.”
He probably throws that in to make some sort of point about social media and how easy it is for people to know everything about you. Well, duh. That’s hardly news.
But I do need to get back. It’s my third day in New York. Thus far all I’ve seen is Times Square and the pavement outside the Empire State Building, which my butt got to become intimately acquainted with. I can’t bring myself to care. All I want is to find the ring’s owner before going back home. That gives me two and a half days, but this guy doesn’t need to know any of that.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I do have another question. Why would you go through all this trouble to seek me out? Why is the ring important to you?”
His jaw tightens. Without access to his eyes, I have no way of knowing what that means.
“I already told you. It’s not the ring. It’s the story.” He points his phone in my general direction. “It’s you. Well-meaning midwesterner becomes obsessed with a lost ring she finds in the big city. This seems to matter to you. And that’s irresistible to the audience these days. Everyone wants everything to matter, and yet nothing matters to anyone for more than moments. At least not in any meaningful way. Then there’s the fact that you’re brown. So the diversity checkbox checks.” He smiles in that way where a smile isn’t a smile but a raised middle finger.
“I’m from Chicago,” I say, and it’s infuriating how indignant that comes out. “Not quite the country mouse in the big city.”
His expression doesn’t change. Apparently Chicago is the country to him.
“Well, it was nice meeting you,” I say with a smile. I am a midwesterner, after all, and I will be nice, damn it. “I’d rather do this without turning it into clickbait. Or ticking any checkboxes.” Or having my parents kill me. I’m already starting to dread their reaction when they find out about the social media post.
This time when his jaw tightens, I know it’s frustration. But he doesn’t push. “May I at least look at the ring?” he asks after a long pause. His voice is soft, and for the first time I feel like I glimpse the human being behind all that swagger.
I want to say no, but that entirely unexpected flash of nervousness stops me. Even with the rude sunglasses I recognize the pursing of his lips. It’s the face of someone who’s being stoic in the presence of pain. Until a second ago, this person seemed untouchable, unreachable. Now I sense a blast of emotion like a shark senses blood in the water. It’s only a drop, barely even there. I’ve never ignored it, this inner gauge I have for suffering. I pull the ring from my pocket and put it in front of him on the lacquered mahogany coffee table.
He doesn’t pick it up immediately. There’s the barest tremor in his fingers when he reaches for it. I’m trained to pick up the nuances of discomfort from a person’s body, and his is screaming discomfort right now. At least a six on the pain scale.
It’s like I just jumped from not being able to read him at all to learning a new language. The language of the jaw and mouth instead of the eyes.
Finally he touches it. Not tentatively but like someone who refuses to be intimidated by something. He picks it up and runs his finger along the sharper edge. The interesting thing about the ring is that the two rims are different. One is sharp and flat, and the other is rounded. It’s subtle yet unique. Once Saket pointed it out, it was obvious that another ring is meant to fit against the flat part and snap into the curved notch like a jigsaw puzzle. He turns it around and finds the inscription, which looks like a scribble of three vertical lines and one diagonal line. Even with Saket’s help I haven’t been able to decipher what it might mean.
“Thanks,” Krish says and puts it back on the table. Quickly, like suddenly it’s too hot to hold.
Then with nothing more than a bye, he gets up, slips his shoes back on, and leaves.
“That wasn’t weird at all,” Rumi says, and Saket makes a sound of agreement.
I’m barely listening. Because from my perch on the couch I can see him through the window as he jogs down the steps. I slip behind the half-open curtains. He doesn’t turn around and look at the house. He seems too lost inside his head to check if he’s being watched. As soon as he leaves the front yard and crosses the street, his entire demeanor changes.
He squeezes his forehead with his fingers. For almost an entire minute he stands there like that, head squeezed. If I hadn’t just met him, I’d think he was a man who’d lost something precious. When he finally drops his hand, his body goes limp, his limbs letting whatever he’s just felt go. For a moment I think he’s going to come back to the house, to persuade me, to push harder. He doesn’t.
He walks away, just like that, leaving me wondering if I was wrong in my judgment. The search for the ring obviously does mean something to him. Then why act like it doesn’t? I guess I’ll never know, because there is no way I’m chasing him down to call him back.