The Vibrant Years(22)
“I can’t believe you’re laughing,” Mom said, her own voice shaking with that thing that masqueraded as mirth when unbelievably bizarre things happened, even tragic ones.
“It’s really just my horror manifesting,” Cullie said, even though there was an element of the absurd here that was pretty funny. Every person who knew Binji had made some version of a joke about her looks being killer. “Is Binji in trouble? Where is she? Are you with her?”
“I’m in her condo. We just got home from the hospital. The cops and EMT came, and we went with them when they took the body—”
Cullie gasped. “A b . . . body?”
“Cullie, honey, usually when someone dies, there’s a body.”
Things suddenly felt too real. “Okay, I’m leaving for the airport and getting on the next flight. Get Binji out of there, please.” Binji loved that condo. This just wasn’t fair. Well, even less fair to the man who’d died, obviously.
“She’s refusing to go anywhere else. I tried to take her to my place, but she insisted on coming back here.” Cullie tried to ask why, but Mom cut her off. “I’ll explain everything later. The HOA is not going to make this easy. They’re already trying to use this to drive her out, and . . . well, she’s not going anywhere. I’m staying with her tonight.” Her voice trembled, but she got it under control. “Are you sure you can get away? What about work?”
Shit, this was going to mess things up with what Cullie had promised CJ.
“Cullie?” her mother nudged. “You don’t have to come. Ma seems fine. She hasn’t said much.”
“Binji hasn’t said much?” Binji’s constant state was saying too much. “Of course I’m coming. Will she talk to me now?”
“I think she’s shaking her head.” Mom sounded unsure.
“You can’t tell if Binji is shaking her head or not?” When you didn’t know if Binji was shaking her head, that was bad. Everything Binji did was dialed up. Her gestures and expressions weren’t loud, exactly, because there was an elegance to them, but they were visible, in your face, in this inescapable way. Cullie had always thought of them as Bollywood mannerisms.
“She hasn’t said much to me yet. She tried to talk to the cops, but they realized she was in shock because she kept opening her mouth, and nothing came out. The doctor gave her something to calm her down, and the cops said they’d be back tomorrow.”
Before Mom had even disconnected the phone, Cullie had bought tickets to Fort Myers and was checked in. The flight left in two hours. She could be at the airport in half an hour if she hurried.
Crawling to the back of her closet, she retrieved her overnight bag and stuffed it with a few black tights, tanks, and tees.
Have Binji get on Shloka, Cullie texted her mother. Have her use the Tranquil++ track. That should help her relax.
Knowing that she’d created something that could do this, help someone in crisis, relaxed Cullie. The stress she’d been feeling about the deal she’d proposed to CJ had disappeared when Mom called. Now it was back full force and clamoring for attention. Needing to protect Shloka was a flood inside her. Binji in crisis only made the flood swell.
All through Cullie’s life, Binji had been her shelter from every storm. Be it her first upper-lip wax to shut down the bullies at school, or the spontaneous meltdowns in her head that she’d never been able to share with her parents, or the time Steve had gone back to his wife and Binji had flown out to see her. Cullie hadn’t been able to talk about it, but she’d put her head in Binji’s lap while she stroked her hair and told her stories from old Bollywood films the way she’d done when Cullie was little.
Which wasn’t to say Binji was not the one to blame for putting all sorts of ideas in Cullie’s head that kept complicating her life. The idea for Shloka had come from Binji chanting with her to help her sleep when she was a child, a practice Cullie had then started to use to deal with her racing thoughts. And now, thanks to Binji, she’d told CJ she’d been working on a compatibility app.
A dating app? CJ had looked bored. There are fifteen hundred of those on the market, at last count.
What we find attractive about love interests says more about us than about them. Cullie had repeated Binji’s words, desperate to keep Shloka free for the millions of people who needed it. Cullie would be the first to admit that she didn’t know much; most things people got passionate about bored her into blanking out of conversations. But the fact that Shloka had to stay subscription-free, that she knew with the kind of certainty she could not explain. What we call dating is really a journey of self-discovery. Or at least it only turns into something meaningful if it is also that.
The words had sounded like hooey even as Cullie said them, but CJ’s dark eyes had sharpened with focus beneath her lash extensions. And Cullie had known that her grandmother had saved her ass yet again. I have a plan for an app that identifies matches based on self-discovery. Not only did she not have a plan—she had no idea what that even meant—but CJ’s favorite buzzword had veritably exploded around her head like fireworks. It works with the Neuroband. So our Neuroband sales should skyrocket too. Cullie had shot the last arrow right into the heart of her argument.
I’ll talk to the board. We’ll need to see a mock-up soon. That’s all Cullie wanted. A chance to change the board’s mind.