Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(60)

DJ remembered waiting for the boys to get off the train before quickly handing her the packet of tissues Mum always tucked into his bag. Instead of saying thank you she had let out a terrified shriek and looked like she was about to have a stroke right there as though he’d handed her a bomb not tissue paper.

When he got off the train, his new friends had been doubling over laughing at him.

They had been quite the motley crew. All these Punjabi, Sikh, and Muslim boys in their ganji shirts and baggy jeans. None of them were black like he was. But they let him tag along. You’re one of us, mate. You got enough Desi blood for us. Them aunties-uncles don’t know shit. Racist buggers. Gulshan’s large-hearted acceptance had made DJ feel like he’d somehow finally found a place where he belonged.

But no amount of wanting to belong had meant anything when Gulshan had thrown that match on the newsstand in Chelsea. The flames had come so fast. The owner, an old man in an even older tweed jacket, had gone down on his knees and broken into tears. His begging for mercy had looked an awful lot like praying.

Gulshan’s words had a way of flashing back to DJ every now and again. We’re fucking aliens to them. Like now, with this lovely lady looking at him as though he were here to set fire to things. He was wearing a baby-pink button-down, for shit’s sake. He looked like he was off to church.

He pulled all of himself inward, curving his shoulders, softening his brow. It was second nature to make himself smaller so he could pass by unnoticed and get on with things, not easy given that he was six feet four inches tall. He reminded himself that the woman was only doing her job. With his most nonthreatening smile in place he leaned against the granite counter. “If you can’t find my sister, maybe you could call security and have them verify that my London license is legitimate?” He clipped his words in a way that would have made his elocution teachers proud, and usually made Americans lose their loaves.

It worked. She half smiled and did as he asked. Then apologized sheepishly when Dan, the security guard, gave him a hug on a “’Sup brother! You must be Emma’s DJ,” before proceeding to quiz him on the way to win Emma’s heart. Not exactly in those words, but DJ recognized a goner when he saw one.

“She okay?” Dan asked.

“Yeah.” She had seemed more okay today than she had in a very long time. She’d bounced out of the car when he’d dropped her off a few hours ago and gone to Curried Dreams to work on some recipes with Ashna. Now he was back to pick her up and Julia Wickham was supposed to meet them here.

Naturally, Dan knew exactly where Emma was. In the large studio that had been Emma’s office for the past five years, working with Betsy Reyes, who used to be her boss and was now her patient.

Betsy had developed the art therapy program at Green Acres, and everything Emma knew about using art to help people with emotional challenges, she had learned from Betsy. Then dementia had come knocking two years ago and taken over fast. Ever since then Emma had worked tirelessly to develop her therapies to also treat dementia.

Emma had told DJ that even though Betsy didn’t remember anyone around her most of the time, she did always remember how to paint, and so Emma painted with her every day. Or she had until she herself became sick.

DJ waved to her through the studio door. She was sitting next to Betsy at an artist’s bench and painting. He watched them from outside, not wanting to intrude. Betsy looked entirely at peace with herself, entirely absorbed in the work she was doing. Then suddenly she looked up and her face crumpled in fear. DJ followed her gaze. He hadn’t noticed Julia Wickham standing in an obscure corner of the room with a camera on a tripod shooting his sister and Betsy as they painted.

That was fast. Emma and he were supposed to speak with Julia together. But, of course, he was crazy to believe that his sister was going to let him make any decisions for her.

Emma placed a comforting hand on Betsy’s shoulder and threw Julia a look that said it was time to leave the room. With impressive agility, Julia picked up her camera and slipped away.

DJ stepped aside to let her through the door.

Deftly maneuvering the camera and the tripod she was carrying, she stuck out her hand. “Hi again, DJ.” The woman had the widest, warmest smile and for a moment the ease with which she shared it made all the turmoil of the day still inside him. “Or should I say Darcy.”

DJ’s surprise had to have shown on his face because her smile transformed into a giggle. The startling blue of her eyes combined with the silver stud pierced through one of her eyebrows made her seem somehow wild and in control all at once and DJ found himself smiling back.

“Your sister can’t stop talking about you.”

He groaned imagining his sister telling this perfect—rather attractive—stranger mortifying stories about him.

“All good things. Don’t worry,” she said while he continued to stare like a tongue-tied idiot. “She was telling me how your mother was an Austen fan and that’s where your names come from.”

He was definitely going to have to have a conversation with Emma. It had been years since they’d lived on the same continent and she still seemed to think it was all right to use his name to amuse herself. Mum had unfailingly called him Darcy, but Emma only did it when she was mad or when she thought it was funny. He thanked Ms. Austen yet again for having done that to him. Oh, the torture he had suffered because of his name. Grade-schoolers didn’t care that Darcy was your mother’s favorite literary character’s last name. To them, Darcy was a girl’s name and if you were named a girl’s name, then that, naturally, made you a girl.