Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(58)
Emma bit into her candy, something she usually never did. The crunch was loud, satisfying. There was a gleam in her eyes, and it burned through the exhaustion. A flash of the old Emma. His warrior sister. “What are you on about?”
“She’s doing a web series about patients with difficult diagnoses.” He refused to say the word terminal.
“Really? So it’s one of those American air-your-laundry-in-public and sob-for-all-to-see things? Then everyone with a bleeding heart feels sorry enough for you and throws money at you on a fund-raising link?”
“That’s not exactly how she described it, but yeah, something like that.”
DJ had never understood the need to see the lives of others destruct on-screen. Divorce court, cops arresting drunks and batterers, all those shows where you watched people confront cheating spouses, abandoning parents, killers of loved ones felt voyeuristic to him. Even if Julia was right and it was cathartic to those involved, the pull to then view that catharsis as entertainment seemed barbaric. And if the people suffering felt forced to do it for the money, well, that just took the pathos to another level.
Emma put another piece of praline in her mouth, crunched this one, too. “Last month a woman who cut off her husband’s knob because he was thrashing the shit out of her got two mil for her lawyer fees.”
“You’re joking.”
Her eyes were flat-out glittering now. She put out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Let’s have her number then. This could be a blast, innit?” she said with a laugh. Maybe this catharsis thing was worth a shot.
“You’re a crazy old cow, Emma Caine.” But he laughed, too, and retrieved Julia’s card from his wallet.
Chapter Seventeen
Trisha had to admit it was nice to have Nisha in her condo. For years now, Nisha, Ashna, and Trisha had met every few weeks for dinner and wine. But thanks to the demands of their work, by the time they got together, they were often wiped out. This morning Nisha and she had woken up and chatted in bed the way they had done as girls on their visits to Sripore, as though time was not snapping at their heels.
They discussed Dorna, wiping each other’s tears as they laughed and cried about a woman they had both loved.
“Did anyone call Rita?” Nisha asked, sniffling.
Rita was Dorna’s partner of thirty years. Dorna had watched her slowly lose her poet’s mind to Alzheimer’s over the last decade. Finally, last year when her own cancer had made it impossible to be a caregiver, she had moved Rita into a nursing home.
“The hospital called Green Acres, but I’ll go see her this week.” Trisha placed a blueberry chocolate muffin and a glass of milk on a tray across Nisha’s lap.
Her sister squeezed her shoulder. “You’re a good person, Shasha.” She took a bite. “These are great!”
Trisha tried not to snarl at that. It wasn’t Nisha’s fault that the muffins tasted like mud to her. Gee, I wonder whose fault it is.
She pulled the blinds open with a little more force than was necessary and sat down next to her sister with her cup of coffee, watching her eat in silence.
Nisha’s phone chirped, and she looked down at it and smiled. “Neel and Mishka just landed. Making up that story about you having a meltdown was genius, wasn’t it?”
Trisha took a sip of the coffee, which also annoyingly tasted like bitter dishwater this morning, and put her cup down on the tray. “I’m surprised he bought it, actually. When was the last time I had a meltdown?” she asked, adjusting the pillows under Nisha’s head. “Because really, I’m like the least meltdowny person I know.”
“Trisha,” Nisha said with all the patience of a saint—and by the way, saints only had so much patience because they really had nowhere to go and nothing to do, it was untested patience and not worth all the credit it got them—“the point was to let Neel know that the person to worry about was you, not me.”
“Gee, thank you!”
More patience was lobbed at her. “Marriages are complicated creatures. He doesn’t want the details. All he wants is to know that this has nothing to do with him and me. If this is about you, his mind, preoccupied as it is, doesn’t go on high alert. That’s what I didn’t want, high alert, okay?”
Well then, mission accomplished. Keeping a secret in the Raje family could scare anyone. It was akin to burning superstrong incense and then hoping everyone’s overactive sense of smell quit functioning. They were all curious and suspicious by nature and that was a deadly combination when placed in the vicinity of a secret. No wonder Neel had raised his hands and quickly backed away.
Nisha looked down at her phone again. “Ma and HRH also made it to LA.” Trisha checked her own phone. Of course, Ma had only texted Nisha about her whereabouts. Typical.
After Ma’s wheelchair-cleaning episode, HRH and she had both said nothing more to Trisha about Julia’s baffling return. Trisha had found herself searching the waiting areas and hallways of the hospital every time she was there. But naturally, she had not caught Julia lurking around. No matter what nefarious purpose Julia had come back for, the woman was too smart to be obvious about it.
As for Ma and HRH, it was a stroke of luck that they had left for LA this morning to hobnob with Hollywood’s Most Influential and raise money for Yash’s campaign. At least they didn’t need to deal with the overactive Ma-dar.