Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(56)

Ammaji’s love for sharing her gift, for teaching and instructing, found its perfect match in DJ’s enthusiasm. She tested him, quizzed him, inculcated in him the thing that even Europe’s finest culinary school could not teach: how to harness the spirit of food to beguile those who ate it.

His best memories from those years were of Mum coming home, exhausted, to his food. Her happy sighs as she ate. Being able to erase even her nastiest day. Knowing how to blend what Ammaji taught him about spices with maize Ugali porridge and steamed plantains. Coaxing the milder African flavors of Mum’s own cooking into his food so he could take her back home with it, and loosen those smiles out of her weary face. Emma, for her part, had devoured everything he cooked with equal fervor. Her palate never judged him, and the ease of that gave him courage to fly.

DJ LOOKED UP from his mother’s book to see his sister watching him. She was showered and ready to go. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she wore white jeans and a bright red ruffled blouse, with huge hoops dangling from her ears.

“It’s mood dressing,” she said and sniffed the air. “Are those brownies?” She headed into his kitchen and was about to start searching for goodies, but he pulled her back and pushed her into a chair.

“Would I make you just brownies? What am I, a teenager?”

The mood dressing was certainly working on him. For all his worry, not seeing her lying in a hospital bed in that awful gown was nice. Now that he had decided what he needed to do—remind her how very precious her life was—he didn’t feel quite as pushed into a corner himself.

Getting to see her like this, living under the same roof as him, made him feel oddly young. As though he should be tugging at her pigtails while Mum grumbled at him to stop bothering his sister without pausing in her housework. It was a memory from when dad had been around, before they had been forced into all the other shapes their lives had taken, but it was still a stronger memory than all the ones that had followed.

“Aw, I love when you go all Skinner from Ratatouille on me!” Emma teased, but she sank into the chair and waited, her eagerness shining in her eyes, her wet ponytail a riot of curls framing her too-drawn face.

It was a good thing she had slept in. It had given him time to finish up his trip to the farmers’ market and of course to whip up her favorite dessert.

DJ placed the sundae on the plastic folding picnic table in front of her. It had taken him an hour to get the flavors exactly right. But instead of digging into it, she leaned back, the plastic chair creaking at the movement. Plastic Chic, that was his current style profile. Big Lots clearance aided by Craigslist beanbags. Good thing she wasn’t the only artist in the family, because it was perfect ethos for a starving artist. He definitely preferred the ethos of a healthy bank account, but what good was money if you couldn’t use it when your family needed it?

Bankruptcy was a temporary condition; family was the only permanent thing in this life. Nonetheless, right about now he wanted Emma to have even the modest comfort of his Paris flat so badly it was an actual physical ache. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He hated when she looked sad. It was a knife twisting in his chest.

When he didn’t respond, she looked at the boxes and at all her stuff piled high against the walls. “I’ve totally disrupted everything for you.” She’d given notice at her art therapist’s job. But they were going to let her continue to work there for two weeks, or until they found someone new, or until she could no longer do the job. It all depended on which came first.

He grinned. “Story of my life, baby girl. Totally used to it.” He slid into the chair across from her and she punched his arm. Then he watched as she dunked the tall spoon into the ice cream.

The anticipation in her eyes was all the reasons why he cooked. It turned her right back into his baby sister, no sickness, no unforgivable mistakes. She’d been such a happy child, his Emma. Joy hadn’t fit inside her. It was what made her art magic. Amid all the relentless dark dinginess of their Southall attic, her art had exploded with light.

Back before adulthood wrapped her art in things like conscious exploration of identity, it had been just her diving into herself and, despite the world around her, finding brightness there. Her art had almost been enough to make the gray moroseness of their childhood bearable.

“Dear Lord in heaven, Darcy James Caine!” she managed around a mouthful, her eyes sparkling, her head tipping back, her entire body sinking into itself as it absorbed the taste in her mouth.

He grinned like an idiot.

He’d made the double chocolate brownies with a hint of cherry liqueur just the way she liked them, and almond praline. Of course almond praline.

Almond praline was their thing. In all the years they had spent apart, every time they met he had found a new way to surprise her with it. It was one of the ways he had compensated for the distance, a way to keep her from feeling abandoned. He reached across the table and clasped the tall glass in both hands. They no longer hurt from the burn, but the chill of the glass felt good against his peeling skin.

He pulled the glass to himself. Or tried, because she grabbed it and scooped up a gigantic bite before she let him steal it.

He took a bite. Oh yeah, that look on Emma’s face: it was the Truth.

He gave it back to her and watched the joy explode on her face again and again, soaking it up.

How could she even think about not getting the surgery? How could she not see that she was all he had?