Accidentally Engaged(74)
She stayed in her apartment for the rest of the day. Mostly in bed, where she got through most of Saira’s Bollywood watch list on her laptop. Drinking chai and watching beautiful women in ornate saris sing and cry into ponds or waterfalls helped. Well, maybe not helped so much as distracted, which felt like a victory right now.
She knew she shouldn’t have, but she also watched the cooking contest videos a few times each. From that first gin-and-cold-medicine-fueled potato bhajias lesson, to Nadim showing her how to retrieve eggs from surly Agatha. The videos were a wonder to watch. She could see in her eyes and body language how her affections for Nadim grew each week. The way her gaze lingered a bit longer on him. How she found excuses to touch him a bit more. To smile at him more. She could watch herself fall in love.
But Nadim was the same in all the videos. From the first to the latest, he always looked completely smitten with her on camera. Oscar-caliber acting. Which she knew he was capable of from the beginning, and she still let herself believe the hype.
She closed the videos and made a promise to never watch them again.
He’d texted her two more times just saying he needed to talk to her. Not that he missed her. Not that what Dad learned about him was untrue. She ignored the texts. And he stopped texting.
Saira checked in a few times but didn’t mention any new news or gossip about Nadim. Mum and Dad didn’t contact her at all.
On Tuesday morning her brother called as she was feeding the starters. He knew the basics of what happened, and he had texted Reena a few times the day before, but this was the first time she spoke to him about it. After telling him everything in exact detail, Khizar, with his skill that was so brilliant, and so compassionate, it was almost unreal, managed to make her feel better by doing little more than repeating back what she told him.
Like, “Wow, he bought you a starter jar? He knew you well,” and, “It sounds like he was completely under his father’s thumb. We know how much that sucks.”
Evil big brother.
“I know, but he lied. He’s engaged,” Reena said.
“Or was engaged. Don’t tell me you believe Dad’s gossip at face value, do you?”
“Dad doesn’t gossip! He hates gossip!”
“Seriously, Reena? All Dad does is gossip. When he and his business cronies get together and talk about who is losing money, or who is partnering with who, or whatever, what do you think that is? He thinks because he’s talking about business instead of love lives or clothes it doesn’t count as gossip.”
Reena frowned. How was it fair that her brother was both wise and perceptive? It was true—Dad usually knew what was going on with everyone, until Nadim came along. Although, Dad didn’t appear to know what his own wife was up to, either.
“Khizar, did you know that Mum secretly plays in an underground poker league and went to Vegas last winter for a card tournament?”
He snort-laughed. “No. Really?”
“Yup. She may have sabotaged a job I wanted.” Reena lowered her head to her hard dining table with that statement. With everything else going to shit right now, she hadn’t really grieved the loss of the Top Crust job. Ugh. She should have a drink. She hadn’t had one yet, but bourbon would be welcome right now.
“What job?”
Right. She forgot Khizar didn’t know about her employment woes. There was no point in keeping things secret now, so she told him about losing her job at Railside, and about how much she wanted the one at Top Crust.
“Oh, that sucks, Reena. I’m sorry. That bakery job would have been perfect. What are you going to do now?”
A question for eternity: What the hell was she going to do now? She knew what she wanted to do with her life: she wanted to be working at Top Crust, and she wanted to be building a real relationship with the man she thought Nadim was.
There was no chance of winning the scholarship now, even if they did make it to the finals in the contest. There was no way they would make that last video. So, no bread course to fulfill her dreams and help break the monotony of her life, either.
Everything would go back to how it had been before. She would work somewhere dull during the day and bake bread in the evenings. Live in her father’s apartment building. Visit Amira on weekends. Sunday brunches listening to Mum sing the praises of the newest eligible Muslim bachelor. Maybe she’d even find another superficial relationship with a man who didn’t buy her a starter jar or rub her feet.
Reena looked at her bare fingers on the hard table. Never in her life had she accepted the magnitude of her loneliness.
She couldn’t break down again. She needed to hold herself together.
“I don’t know, Khizar. I don’t know what to do.”
He was silent a while before he spoke again. “What did Nadim say when you confronted him about this?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
“At all? Did you find out whether he really did work for Salim Shah? You might find that out by googling.”
“I haven’t looked. And before you say anything, I know. I just—”
“Reena, I know it’s a mess, and I get it that it hurts, but you always deal with problems by pretending they’re not there. I’m not saying you have to forgive the guy—I certainly wouldn’t. But you can’t live with your head in the sand all the time. You can’t breathe in there, and you know it.”