The Vibrant Years(58)
“Goa was a Portuguese colony until 1961.” Bindu had been born in Portuguese Goa. By the time she was five, Goa had become one of India’s union territories. Not that it had changed much about the way Goan people lived. The grand families in their mansions nestled in coconut and cashew groves on cliffs overlooking the ocean. The working fishermen huddled tightly in their hutment communities on the sandy beaches. And families like hers, wedged into the middle, dotted the winding lanes that snaked through the lush green countryside.
Talking about her hometown with this stranger was oddly relaxing. It was also disconcerting how the universe threw things at you once you unlocked thoughts. Ever since Oscar’s grandson had invoked his grandfather and shattered Bindu’s hard-won armor, Goa had moved to the front of her mind, and now here was someone who’d, quite unexpectedly, been there.
They meandered along the sparkly sand, climbing rocks that broke up the beach like scabs on skin. The urge to hum as she walked pushed inside Bindu, but she smiled at how ridiculous it would seem to him to hear her break into an old Bollywood ballad. Not a first-date thing, she heard Alisha say in her sensible voice.
They talked easily, skimming topics until they landed on two things they both seemed to like talking about: food and nature. He, like many native Floridians who loved the planet, seemed seized with the worry of disappearing beaches. He’d traveled across the world in search of sustainable food resources. Apparently the earth’s population was on the verge of an unsurmountable food shortage.
“Ready for lunch?” he said when they’d walked for a good hour and Bindu had internalized some of his panic about how close they were to destroying the planet.
His skin was ruddy with the sun (no ozone layer!), highlighting the lines on his face. When they’d talked on the phone before they met, he’d asked if she had a food preference or if she was okay with being surprised. Being surprised had sounded perfect. But how could the man talk about food when they were all going to starve to death soon?
How had she gone from nostalgic yearning and peace to apocalyptic panic in under an hour? Well, maybe because he’d walked her through some pretty vivid end-of-days scenarios. And those glacial blues were not for the faint of heart when they predicted doom.
Bindu was shivering when they entered the restaurant. The smell of soy and ginger caramelizing on cast iron hit her, and she felt instantly better.
The inside of the restaurant was overcooled, as restaurants in Florida tended to be, and tiny. Not surprising, because the ocean crashed beside them, and even this much space had to cost enough to feed Florida for a day.
There was one occupied table, and now that she was inside the restaurant, there was something earthy threaded into the caramelized-soy smell. Bindu couldn’t tell if she liked it or not.
“I love that you care,” Ray the Chef said, fixing her with his blue gaze. “Not many people are this affected by what humans have done. We’re all walking around, shoving our feelings down because we believe we can’t do anything about them. But what kind of life is that? Are we even human if we’re this desensitized?”
At this point she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be human. All the times she’d thrown food out because she’d rather toss it than consume the extra calories burned inside her like an accusation. Was she even deserving of forgiveness?
“Ray-man!” A skinny man rushed up to Ray, and the two men gave each other a complicated shoulder slap that turned into a half hug. They said something to each other in a language Bindu hadn’t heard before. It sounded so foreign that she wondered if they’d made it up. Then again, all languages sounded made up when they were foreign to you.
Ray introduced the man as the chef-owner of the restaurant.
“Beautiful,” the chef-owner said, taking Bindu’s hand and trying to bring it to his lips before Bindu realized what he was doing and tugged it away gently. They barely knew each other, and this wasn’t Regency England. Plus, the fear for Earth’s impending doom was still trembling in Bindu’s belly.
Ray’s friend—she’d missed his name in the kerfuffle over the Regency hand kiss—led them to a dark corner inside the restaurant, which was decorated to feel like a tunnel burrowed into the earth.
Not the most appetizing choice, but they had bigger things to worry about.
“I’m not sure I can eat after our conversation,” she said to Ray as his friend left with a promise to send out a meal that was going to change their lives.
Ray laughed with the kind of fondness she’d imagined on Rajendra’s face at Cullie’s birth. Only instead of being jointly responsible for the creation of a perfect grandchild, this was being jointly horrified at the future.
“You’re going to love this place.” With the tip of his finger, he touched her breastbone. “This pain you’re experiencing, this discomfort, that’s the love in your heart for humanity. In another half hour, you’re going to feel so much more at ease, trust me. This restaurant isn’t called Taking Earth Back for nothing.”
She hadn’t noticed the name of the restaurant. But she liked it. It made her think of vegetable patches in backyards and fish from nets dragged out of the sea mere feet from the markets where they were sold. How idyllic Goa had been, and all she’d wanted was to break free from it.
“It’s a nice name,” she said. “Is it seafood?” Even though a surprise cuisine had sounded exciting, she wasn’t comfortable with people ordering for her. It reminded her of her childhood, when her aie put the leftover fish and vegetables on her plate after feeding her father.