Chapter Seven
Seven
I nearly canceled my weekly Friday dinner with Khala. Even if Nina and I somehow get along beautifully tonight, I’m a coiled-up ball of stress. But on hearing Khala’s voice when I called to postpone, all my excuses evaporated. I thought of my birthday. Those six or seven seconds when she looked at me but didn’t see me. The memory still lands like a gut punch. I need to be with her as much as possible while she’s still the woman I know. While she still knows me.
But now that I’m here, sitting in my car in her driveway, taking in the cream shutters, the bright-blue front door, the scent of basil filling my car, I debate dropping off the Thai food takeout and heading home to Gertie.
It’s been exactly one week since Avani and Dev’s wedding fell apart. A week of using every method we know to figure out how the fake documents reached the bride and, just as important, why. If I can find out who did this and for what reason, maybe there could be a way to help Avani and Dev find their way back to each other. So far, nothing’s turned up. Even Logan proved to be a dead end. Footage showed him entering the hotel lobby. Interviewing Avani. Swinging by the bar for a drink. It even captured our conversation in silent-movie fashion, after which the grainy footage confirmed that he really did grab a rideshare and leave the premises. I’d have loved an easy answer—an ambitious reporter out to make the story he wanted to see in the world. Too bad nothing is ever quite so simple.
There’s an incoming text.
Genevieve: Finally heard back from my contact at the Four Seasons. No security cameras in the back walkways.
Nura: What about the interior hallways? I saw cameras there.
Genevieve: They’re broken.
I slump back against the seat. Through the windshield I see a ceiling of gray clouds sliding overhead. Snap out of it, I chide myself. No amount of beating my head against a wall will make this situation untangle itself. There’s nothing I can do about this right now.
Balancing the two bags of food, I make my way up the pathway to Khala’s house. I note with a small feeling of satisfaction that the lawn service I hired has spruced the place back up. The scent of freshly mowed grass still hangs in the air. The dried-up shrubs against the windows were pulled, new ones planted in their stead.
Nina’s in the family room scrolling on her phone when I enter.
“Auntie!” Lilah hops up and gives me a hug.
“I come bearing Thai food,” I tell them.
“Mom’s sleeping.” Nina doesn’t look up.
I set the food on the kitchen table and glance at Khala’s bedroom door, which, sure enough, is closed. So why am I here? I could claim an emergency and bow out—but seeing Nina hunched on the sofa, pecking away at her phone, I steel my resolve. I won’t let her run me out. I’ll park myself on the screened-in porch off the kitchen to catch up on my emails until Khala wakes up.
There’s a tug on my pant leg. Lilah. Her light-brown curls bounce against her shoulders. “I’m making a puzzle. Want to help?”
I hesitate. It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with Lilah. More that I don’t want to be in the vicinity of Lilah’s very grumpy mother. “What about kicking the ball around in the backyard?” I offer.
“No way.” She wrinkles her nose. “It’s too hot. Puzzles! I can teach you.”
How do you say no to those sweet brown eyes?
I join her at the coffee table.
“Do you like Bulbasaur and Pikachu?” She holds up a 100-piece puzzle box.
“I love anything Pokémon,” I tell her. “Charmander’s my favorite.”
“He’s my favorite too!”
As I pick up a piece of yellow Pikachu tail, I hear a sharp exhale. What now? Am I wrong to like Pokémon? But when I look at Nina, the phone is pressed to her ear. Her jaw set in a firm line.
“No. I can’t hold. I need to speak to someone right now. I was already put on hold and hung up on twice.” Nina rises. She paces the length of the room.
Whatever the person says in response makes her eyes water. Her voice becomes softer, a little kinder, but still assertive.
“I ordered these transcripts weeks ago. I have a confirmation number and—” Her voice breaks. “Okay. Thank you. What’s that number?” She scribbles something on a yellow legal pad.
“Transcripts?” I ask when she hangs up. “Is there an issue with Lilah’s school?”
“Lilah’s four, Nura. She doesn’t have transcripts yet.”
Serves me right for trying to have a conversation. I turn back to the puzzle.
“I’m sorry,” Nina says. “That was rude.”
An apology? From Nina?
“I’m trying to get my credits transferred to Oglethorpe,” she explains. “They’re making me run around in circles. I check one thing off the list and something else gets unchecked. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
“I didn’t know you were back in school.”
“I’m just a few credits short of finishing my master’s in communication, but apparently, I can’t manage to communicate with anyone. Portland State promised to send the transcripts three times, and now I’m about to miss the deadline.”
I try to keep my expression neutral, but this brief stop while Khala recovers is starting to look like a permanent move.
“Thank God for different time zones. Their offices are still open,” Nina says, scrolling her phone. “I’ll see if the fourth time’s the charm.” The phone vibrates in her hands. Nina’s expression darkens.
She doesn’t need to say who it is. I can tell it’s her soon-to-be ex.
Nina’s face scrunches. Like she might cry. Khala’s confided in me that she worries Nina is struggling, but all I’ve ever seen is her stoic demeanor. Watching her in this moment, I feel a pang of sympathy. Sure, Nina acts like a martyr about being here to help out when I could have handled matters fine by myself, but it doesn’t mean this hasn’t been difficult for her.
“Nina, if you want to get the call, take it. Or toss it to voicemail and follow up with the transcripts office. I have an eye on Lilah,” I tell her.
“I can deal with it later.”
“Do what you need to do. We’re having fun, right, Lilah?”
Lilah beams and nods.
Nina looks at the phone, which is buzzing again, then at me. “You sure?”
“Yes, Nina.” I try not to sound exasperated. “I can handle putting together a puzzle with your child. We’ll be here when you get back.”
Her voice is a whisper. “Thanks.”
Her footsteps pad up the carpeted stairs.
Lilah and I finish the puzzle and move on to her pile of library books. She settles next to me on the oversized couch, her little body curled up next to mine. We read The Ugly Vegetables. Pluto Gets the Call. The Pig on the Hill. And then we read them again. She squeals when I imitate the pig.
Snuggling, I realize this is the closest to normal I’ve felt all week.
When I reach out to grab another book, I see Khala. She leans against the wall, watching us.
“Well, isn’t this a pretty picture?” she says.
“I got takeout from the Thai place you love.”
“Did you bring mango chicken?” Lilah asks. “I’m getting hungry!”
“Of course I brought mango chicken. I’ll warm everything up closer to dinner.”
“It seems a good nap gave me a good appetite as well, Lilah.” She eyes the wall clock. “Looks to be a bit early for dinner, but I’ll go ahead and set the table. We can eat in an hour.” I move to get up, but she puts out a hand to stop me. “Stay with her. This is good for both of you.” Khala heads to the kitchen. “By the way, dear, I checked your steps this morning. I’m afraid you are falling behind.”
“It’s been a sedentary few days.” I check the step counter on my watch.
“You can’t forget about your health; work is not the only important thing. And”—she wags a finger toward me—“I could use some real competition.”
“Ouch!” I grin. “Message received.” She’s right, it’s been a while since I’ve run. I could go for a jog later tonight.
I hear cabinets creak open and shut. Porcelain serving trays clink as they’re set on the granite counter. I’ve told Khala countless times that one of the benefits of takeout is fewer dishes to clean up, but she insists things be done properly. And properly means nice plates and bowls and silverware.
I glance at my watch, then wistfully at the hallway. Once upon a time, we shared more than our step counts. Once upon a time, I’d have walked over, settled onto one of the kitchen stools, and parsed out every detail of Avani and Dev’s disastrous mehndi. I miss those days. When fixing things was someone else’s issue. Or at least a burden to be shared. But this is my agency now. It’s my problem.
My phone and wrist buzz simultaneously as Lilah and I finish up the last book. It’s Darcy. I decline the call as Nina rejoins us in the family room. I’ll call her on my way home.
“Well, that went longer than expected,” Nina says. “But I had a chat with the right person, and new transcripts are finally, hopefully on their way. And the other thing…” She glances at Lilah. “That’ll sort itself out.”
Nina doesn’t talk about her separation much with me, but I know part of the reason for the move was to get as geographically far from her husband as possible. Apparently, she stumbled upon his suspicious text message exchanges with a co-worker when they were buzzing on a stray iPad on the counter. Which led to checking his credit card bills and discovering the charges to hotel rooms that lined up with overtime hours, followed by her “surprise” run-in with him at said hotel’s lobby one fine evening. Nina may not approve of the agency, but she’d grown up with Khala as her mother, so she learned how to investigate from the best of them. No one’s filed for divorce, but if she’s transferring her credits, things can’t be going well.
She leans against the wall and squeezes her eyes shut. I feel a wave of sympathy toward her. If this is barreling toward divorce, her headaches are only beginning. Soon there will be court filings. Custody battles. Property division. I can offer my team’s assistance in cutting her ex down to size. But looking at the circles under her eyes, I can help in the way she actually needs right at this very moment.
“Nina, go on and get some rest. We have an hour until dinner. I’ve got Lilah.”
She bites her lip, considering. “You sure?”
“She’s sure!” Lilah sings.
I give her an encouraging nod.
“I’ll be in my room,” Nina says. “Get me if anything comes up. And…thanks, Nura.”
The stairs creak. A door closes upstairs. Lilah turns to me and claps.
“Guess what? We painted a mural in school today! I did the trees!”
“Did you make the redwoods we read about last week?”
“No. I made skinny trees. I can show you?”
“I’d love that.”
“I’ll get paint!” She races to her room, and I grab the butcher paper. Unrolling it, I tape it to cover the coffee table as I hear her rattling her paint box for the right palette.
Settling onto the couch, I reply to a few messages and text Darcy that I’ll ring her once I’m in the car. Then I glance around the empty room. I shouldn’t do this. This is the exact sort of thing I tell my own clients not to do. But I can’t help it. I click Azar’s inactive social media profile. It’s still gathering dust, as it has for years. When I go to Zayna’s profile, there are loads of photos. She’s at a cooking class with girlfriends. Posing in a forest with hiking poles. Raising a medal in the air—the New York City Marathon banner billowing behind her. Suddenly, my heart feels like it’s stopped beating.
There’s a photo of them. Azar and Zayna.
She has well-executed winged liner and a pretty red dress. Brown layered hair falls past her shoulders. Azar’s arm is around her. She’s gorgeous. They are gorgeous. My chest constricts at the tagged location: Hayakawa.
That’s our favorite sushi place. He’d spotted an article about it our last year of college and had saved up for months so we could go. Even though the bill amounted to more than two weeks of tutoring gigs, we’d pretended money was nothing but a number that last night.
Was it the afterglow of that dinner that had emboldened me as we unwound later that evening in his dorm room, sitting on his bed, watching television? Was that the reason I’d nearly kissed him?
I laughed when he jerked away. “Oh my God, the look on your face.”
“What look?”
“You thought I was going to kiss you, didn’t you?” There, I said it.
“Nur,” he began. “We should talk about it.”
“But maybe we don’t have to.” My cover of cool cracking.
“Nur,” he began.
“Please, Azar?” Tears formed in my eyes. “You’re…you’re like a brother to me. Can we pretend this never happened?”
He looked at me for a moment. Blinking. Thinking. My heart felt like it was seizing in my chest. The terror I felt in that moment—that I might lose him, that our friendship could be over—that free-falling feeling can still grip me now.
He slowly nodded. “Consider it forgotten.”
All these years, it had been one thing to accept that Azar was simply not one for relationships—but it turns out I had it all wrong, didn’t I? Azar wasn’t a commitment-phobe. He’d just been waiting for the right person.
“I got the paints!” Lilah sings as she heads down the stairs.
I exhale, grateful for the distraction.
“I can’t wait to see your masterpiece,” I tell her as my phone buzzes. A text reply from Darcy.
We really need to talk.
I frown. This must be serious.
“Lilah, I have to take a quick call,” I tell her. “I’ll be back in a second.”
“Can I start painting?”
“Make sure you wear your apron. We don’t want to make a mess.”
“No mess!”
I sit down on a wicker chair on the back patio. Darcy answers on the first ring and cuts straight to the chase.
“I was checking our messages. Logan called.”
“Logan? I thought it was something serious. I’m at my aunt’s.”
“This is serious.” Her voice is strained. “He wants a comment on Avani and Dev’s wedding implosion.”
My stomach turns. This was inevitable, wasn’t it? “Do you know if Avani’s talking to him?” I ask her. “I know she posted a few days ago about the wedding getting canceled.”
“I just went online, and it looks like she’s deleted all her social media accounts. She must feel horrible. I doubt she’ll be eager to talk to the press.”
With or without her comment, though, Logan’s got a certifiably juicy story now. A Piyar agency match implodes on the eve of the wedding. That’ll blow my reputation to smithereens.
“We should keep the PR agency in the loop. Sounds like we might need them,” I say.
“Good idea. I’ll give Sherri a call,” she says. “I’m so glad you’re not panicking. It’s making me feel a little less manic.”
I am panicking. It’s bubbling inside of me like water in a boiling pot. But I’m the boss. I’m in charge. I must stay calm.
I put my phone away as a flash of lightning slices through the sky, followed by the distant rumble of thunder.
It’s terrible how things went down for Avani and Dev, but it’s like Genevieve and Borzu said: Our agency did nothing wrong. Still, just to be sure we didn’t miss anything, I’ll swing by the agency after dinner. I’ll grab the paper files for Avani and Dev from my desk. Maybe there’s a stray thought or note in there that I wrote down. Maybe it’ll jog my memory. Help me figure out who could have had the motive to destroy their wedding. This is too important to leave any stone unturned.
The scent of mango and garlic greet me when I get back into the house. My shoulders relax a little. I’m glad I stuck around this evening, despite my misgivings. I made progress with Nina. Got some much-needed downtime with my niece.
“How’s the painting coming?” I hurry back to Lilah. “I can’t—”
Stepping into the family room, I freeze. Lilah is painting. Not on the white paper I’d set out on the coffee table. A brown tree trunk drips down the gray living room wall. Green streaks swirl off branches. She turns to me and grins.
“We painted the mural like this!”
A mural. How did I miss that key word? She’d created a wall painting at school, and now she’s re-creating it. Here. On Khala’s wall. Inches from a framed Jamali worth over five thousand dollars.
Before I can respond, I hear footsteps. Nina emerges from the hallway, her hair wrapped in a towel.
“A shower was exactly what I needed.” She walks into the family room. “Lilah, can you…”
Her words die on her tongue. She takes in the scene before her. Speechless, she turns to me. I want to sink into the floor. I want to vaporize.
“I had a quick call I needed to take, and…”
“Right. A call.” Her expression shifts.
“I’ll get a sponge.” My chest stings. “The paint’s water-based, isn’t it?”
“I’ve got it, Nura. Thanks for your help .”
The words land like a punch. I deserve it. I screwed up. Instead of helping my cousin get some downtime, I added more to her plate.
I’ve never felt so relieved to leave Khala’s home after dinner. The wind has picked up, and the thunder that was rumbling in the distance earlier is growing louder. My hair whips against my face. As I turn on the car, thick raindrops splash against the windshield.
I can’t stop kicking myself. I’d extended a fragile olive branch toward Nina, and then I’d carelessly stepped on it and snapped it in two. Why hadn’t I waited and called Darcy back later? Sure, she said it was important, but watching Lilah was important too. Now the peace I barely glimpsed is gone.
I turn out of Khala’s neighborhood and head toward the agency. The rain is coming down heavier. I press my wipers to their highest setting.
After parking the car, I jump out, shielding my face with my arm against the onslaught of rain, and dash toward the front door. In and out, I promise myself as the sky thunders. I do not want to be stuck in this storm.
I’m so preoccupied, I almost don’t notice it.
Not as I duck under the awning and pull out my keys. Not as I stick them into the lock.
The note.
It’s wedged into the door. I pull it out. It’s a flyer. Advertising a new eco-friendly dry cleaner. Opening next to the overpriced taco fusion restaurant, adjacent to the barre studio.
I’m about to crumple it when I see the message scrawled on the back side in marker. Ink trailing down like mascara. The words barely legible, yet unmistakable:
Nura Khan, I See You.