Chapter Ten
You can stop staring out that window now.” Rumi growls me out of my trance.
I’ve been standing here for heaven knows how long doing exactly what he just accused me of doing. The sun was on its way down when Krish left, and now it’s dark and the streetlamps are casting eddies of light onto the sidewalks.
“You’re not going to conjure him out of thin air by sheer force of will. If you’ve changed your mind about wanting his help, just call him back.” Rumi is holding two steaming cups of chai in his hands, and of course the aroma is like a drug and the cups themselves look like an artist glazed them with the essence of their soul.
“I thought you wanted me to give up the search.”
“I do. But I know you’re not going to.” Obviously he knows this. “You might as well have someone who knows what they’re doing helping you.” He does it grudgingly, but for the barest moment he lets me have my Rumi back, the one I’ve lost somewhere inside this angry one.
“I agree with Rooh.” Saket joins us, bringing a plate of Parle-G biscuits to the party. Which makes me smile because the four-packets-for-a-dollar cookies that Rumi loves more than life itself are such a sweet misfit in the ethos of all this decadent luxury. “I think you should call Krish back and take his help. He was right. It was brilliant how he found you.”
“It’s hardly brilliant to stalk someone on social media.” Especially if that someone took no steps to protect herself. I’m going to have to go through everything that’s out there and clean it up.
“And yet he’s right, no one else thought of it,” Saket says.
“Shouldn’t we be relieved that more people don’t think of stalking as their first course of action?”
Saket looks at me like I’m being obtuse on purpose. He has gray-green eyes set against dark skin and dramatically chiseled features that magnify all his expressions. “Going through your social media to look for common friends might be borderline creepy, but it isn’t the same as being a stalker. He reached out to me—someone he knows, not you—then showed up at the door and laid out his cards. And when you said no, he left. No stalker behaves that way. I should know.”
When I raise a curious brow, he shrugs and says simply, “Three restraining orders. Trust me, I know stalkers.”
Rumi hands me a cup of chai, and I take a sip. It’s pure unfiltered heaven. “You did not make this, brother of mine.”
“Guilty as charged. Sak makes the world’s best chai. His aunt makes the blend of spices from scratch and sends it to us.”
“What does she put in it? The tears of angels?” Because this is like having a spiritual experience.
“Or good old marijuana,” Saket says, and I have no idea if he’s being ironic. “Because seriously, no one who takes a sip is ever unhappy.” All three of us take a happy sip and sigh. “Plus every time I’ve met Veena Maasi, she’s seemed high.”
A laugh spurts out of me.
“Sak calls it Happy Tea.” Rumi hands me a napkin, allowing his first smile of the day to escape. My relief at that is so huge, I don’t even care what brought on the change, although I suspect Saket had a hand in it. I imagine a whispered lecture on my behalf happening when they were in the kitchen making the chai.
I take a shamelessly slurping sip and drop into the couch. There’s definitely something different about this chai. It could just be the perfect balance between cardamom and ginger, but it’s magical. I’m definitely happier than I was before I drank it.
“Speaking of marijuana, did your friend actually smoke weed on your porch before ringing the doorbell?”
“Did he?” Saket says as though I’ve just accused Krish of still using Axe deodorant as a grown man.
“There was a distinct whiff when I opened the door.”
“Really? I smelled nothing. Maybe it was an actual skunk,” Saket says. “Or the kid from next door.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m Rumi’s twin. I know what weed smells like.” In high school and college I had to secretly buy Costco-size bottles of laundry fragrance beads for his clothes to make sure our parents never found out.
“Ah, yes. The smell of weed is a trigger for some happy memories for Mira.” Rumi picks up my cup and takes a sip now that he’s drained his own. “Is that why you didn’t like this Krish guy?”
I snatch the cup back. “Who said I didn’t like him?”
Rumi’s eyes practically roll out of his head. “Come on, Miru, seriously? The disdain was coming off you in tidal waves.”
“Not true.” I look at Saket for support.
He shrugs guiltily. “You basically glowered at him the entire time. It was like he’d walked in off the street to tell you he’d run over your pet hamster. Honestly, I couldn’t have imagined you throwing shade at anyone. But you’re kinda a Division One shade thrower.”
Rumi sits up straight, something our aie would have paid him good money to do when we were younger. “Hah! You have the hots for him!”
“Excuse me?” I squeeze the cup hard. If the white linen of the couch weren’t so beautiful, I’d dump the chai on Rumi’s head.
“Oh, gosh, this is exactly how you were with that nemesis of yours. That jock you had a crush on in middle school. What was his name? Jack, John, Josh, something. You walked around looking like you wanted to kick his locker. Didn’t you kick his locker once?” He’s grinning like an oaf now. Obviously harassing me with embarrassing memories was what he needed to get to his happy place. “It’s actually a thing. Some people use anger as an outlet when they don’t know how to process feelings of horniness.”
“Rumi!” I throw a pillow at him. “I’m getting married in less than four months.”
“Which might be exactly why you’re so pissed off. Being reminded of how it feels to actually be hot for someone has got to suck when that someone isn’t your fiancé.” He makes a serious face, but his eyes are twinkling with humor instead of his recently more commonplace meanness. “Anger in place of the inability to process attraction is pretty classic in children. And repressed people.”
Saket laughs and then turns it into a cough and apologizes.
“I’m not repressed.” But even I can’t infuse any honesty into that declaration. I’m at least self-aware enough to know exactly how repressed I am. “He wasn’t even that attractive,” I say with more feeling.
“Whoa!” Saket says, raising both arms. “Come now. Let’s not resort to lies. That was a ten-on-ten ass if I’ve ever seen one, and a twelve-on-ten jaw. And that whole rumpled vibe like he just rolled out of bed and couldn’t care less? Holy hell!” He fans himself.
I look at Rumi, expecting him to be glowering, but he takes a calm sip of my chai, the last sip. And smiles! “Facts are facts. I’d say twelve-on-ten ass and twelve-on-ten jaw. And that mouth?”
“Fifteen on ten,” Saket says, and they both nod.
“You’re both weird. Maybe the smell of weed was coming from inside the house,” I snap. “And you know who’s a fifteen on ten?”
“Let me guess. Dr. Druv-His-Girlfriend-into-Another-Man’s-Arms-Because-He’s-Surgerying?” Rumi looks far too thrilled with himself.
Saket looks at my face, then back at Rumi. “Okay, too far, Rooh.”
Rumi sighs dramatically. “Fine. Druv’s a solid seven, and if he stopped trying so hard, he’d be an eight. Maybe.”
“You’ve never even met him after we grew up.” Rumi had already moved to New York when Druv and I got together. And they haven’t spoken since then because Druv thinks we’re estranged.
“God knows you’ve sent us enough pictures. And I know his type. A demigod of the overachieving model minority worshipped by the aunties and the uncles alike. Seven is generous.” I guess my respite with my brother is over. The angry spark in his eyes is back. Is it Druv? Is that what brought his anger back?
“Who rates human beings? It’s such a problematic thing to do,” I say, standing up and going back to the window. My hand finds the ring in my pocket, and I play with the smooth, cool weight of it. Maybe I should call Krish, because I have no idea where to start other than that.
“You know a sure sign that someone has lost their sense of humor?” my brother says. “When they misuse the word problematic because a truth hurt their feelings.” I don’t respond because I’m angry and tired and I’m on vacation and until an hour ago I felt like something magical had happened to me.
Rumi makes a frustrated sound when I don’t give him the fight he’s looking for. “Just call the guy,” he says. “You don’t have to sleep with him. Just let him tell you what to do. That should be easy enough for you.”