Accidentally Engaged(54)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



After recovering from the call with Amira, Reena finally rolled out of bed and grabbed a quick shower before setting up on her dining table with a latte and toast to look at the job boards. But the moment she logged on, a knock on her door interrupted her.

“Saira. I wasn’t expecting you,” she said as she opened the door.

Saira rolled her eyes in the most Saira-specific expression that Reena nearly laughed.

“You asked me to dig up dirt for you, and then you’re surprised when I show up?” Saira strolled past Reena and began unloading tote bags on the breakfast bar.

Had Reena asked Saira to dig up dirt? Crap. Nadim. She had asked Saira for more info about that blasted yacht picture. Reena wrinkled her nose. She shouldn’t have done that. Especially after telling Dad so empathetically that she trusted Nadim. So much for letting their pasts unfold organically.

Reena snapped out of her crisis of conscience when she noticed her sister had taken out a series of identical plastic food containers from her tote and was lining them up on the breakfast bar. “What is all that?”

Saira wrinkled her nose as she pointed. “Green pea dip, masala hummus, and lemongrass white bean dip. And these”—she pulled some large Ziploc bags from the second tote—“are spelt cumin seed crackers, and semolina mustard seed. I’m not sure about the crackers, the mustard seed flavor didn’t really come out. But I don’t know how to fix them.” She opened a bag and shoved it under Reena’s nose. The crackers smelled good, with a nice toasty fresh smell, but not much mustard seed aroma.

Saira opened the other bag and moved it toward Reena’s nose when Reena put her hand out to stop her. “Where’d all this come from?”

“Oh my God, Reena, I told you about the cookbook thing! Do you even listen?” She opened one of the plastic containers, revealing a muddy green paste.

“You made all these?”

Saira rolled her eyes again. “No, Dad did. Of course I made them! But you need to tell me what’s missing here.” She thrust the container under Reena’s nose.

Reena’s hand reflexively shot up to prevent her nose from being caked in army-green gruel. “Saira, chill! I’m trying to understand what you’re doing!”

“I’m trying to get help with these recipes! You wouldn’t give me the eggplant dip, so I had to develop other ones. You’re still the best cook I know. How can I get the mustard seed flavor stronger? I tried—”

Reena put her hand out again, stopping her sister from continuing. “Did you just compliment me?” Was this the twilight zone?

“Reena!” Saira sat heavily on the barstool. “I don’t see why we can’t be, like, normal sisters.”

This clearly was the twilight zone. Reena could write a novel of all the reasons why she and Saira couldn’t be normal sisters.

Reena looked carefully at her sister’s dejected face. Maybe it was thanks to the bliss of her new relationship, but she saw her sister differently today. It couldn’t have been easy to be excluded by her older sister repeatedly. Always being told she was too young or too emotional to play with Reena and Khizar. And for months now, Reena had been resenting Saira for something without even really explaining to her sister why.

What would have happened if she’d told Saira about her own cookbook deal? And a bigger question, what would have happened if she’d included her sister back when Reena was blogging? Saira was a registered dietician—she could have been helpful to Reena’s blog. Maybe really supporting her sister should have meant more than just offering her the sofa bed.

She pulled out a mustard seed cracker from the bag and took a bite. Chewing, she analyzed the flavor. “Did you fry the seeds at all?”

Saira frowned. “No.”

Reena smiled as she moved around the breakfast bar and pulled her apron from its hook. “Come, Saira. Let’s see if we can bump up the intensity of these flavors. And while we’re at it, I think it’s time we talked…for real.”

*



Reena couldn’t remember cooking with her sister, not since they were knee-high arguing about who got to stick her thumb in food coloring to decorate nan khatai cookies with Mum. But inexplicably, they spent the rest of the afternoon tweaking Saira’s recipes for crackers. Toasting the spices in oil jacked up the flavor in both cracker recipes, and Reena’s suggestion of adding fresh curry leaves to the mustard seeds while they fried in the grape-seed oil brought a new aroma that made the crackers sing.

Reena had ideas for the dips, too. Adding mint to barely blanched frozen peas before pureeing them in the food processor resulted in a fresher dip, both in color and in complexity. And adding pomegranate molasses to the hummus created the perfect balance of sweet, savory, and acidic. She left the lemongrass white bean dip alone—it tasted so good she found herself in the unlikely position of asking her sister for a recipe.

“This is good. I’m impressed,” Reena said, dipping a spelt cracker into the creamy white dip again.

Saira smiled widely, taking a hot cracker off the tray. “See! Healthy food is tasty!” She crunched loudly on the cracker. “Mum says I have to stop with this diet food or Ashraf is never going to propose. But he loves my bird food, as Mum calls it.”

“You think Ashraf will propose?”