Honey Girl(48)

“Neuroethics,” Grace says. “I told her it seemed a bit much, but she’s—”

“Stubborn,” they say together.

“Plus, she has to cover the shop with Baba while I’m gone. She knows all of this, she’s just being difficult.” He sighs. “She knows how much I have to deal with, so I don’t know why she can’t just—”

“Hey,” Grace cuts in, leaning back as four tequila shots appear on their table. “She’s your sister. You know she has your back. Take a shot, please. You’re stressing me out.”

He does, taking them one after the other. He grimaces and turns toward the bar. “What do we want next? I’m trying to leave this astral plane.”

Grace grabs his hand when he signals for more. “Okay, let’s chat a little before we get blackout drunk, okay? You had your shots, now spill.”

In the moment, Raj looks way older than thirty-three. He looks tired and worn-out. Grace wonders how she forgot that other people could wither away from stress and anxiety and the weight of the world, too.

“Hardball, huh?” he asks. “Okay, well I’m here. Surprise. I told everyone, but I didn’t know if I could make it happen until the last minute, so I asked them to keep their mouths shut. I’m honestly shocked they all did.”

“Okay,” Grace says. “So, it was a surprise. I’m surprised. Tell me about the other tea room.” She leans back, squinting. “Why aren’t you more excited about this?”

He crosses his arms. “It’s nothing. I’m just a terrible son, I hate my life and I’m sacrificing my millennial dream of hitting the lotto and fucking off to travel the world in order to run my father’s tea room.” Four more glasses are set on the table. Raj downs one almost viciously. “Maybe I’ll even run two now. Fucking congrats to me.”

Grace blinks. “Okay,” she says carefully. “That’s a lot to unpack, but I see now why you wanted alcohol to do it.”

Raj gives a bitter smile. “Maybe you were onto something, Gracie,” he says softly, eyes hooded. “Maybe there’s something to running off when things get too hard.”

“Ouch.” She takes another shot, and both the words and tequila sting. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“You asked. Maybe I should fuck off to a new city and leave my friends to deal with all their shit, too. Ughhh.” He rubs his eyes hard and stares into an empty glass. “That tequila is gonna hit so hard.”

“You’re drinking too fast,” Grace says. “Also, are you, like, mad at me, or does drinking just make you point out my less than stellar coping mechanisms?”

Raj shakes his hair out of his eyes. “Mad? I’m not mad at you. Maybe I envy you. Did you ever think of that?”

She glares. “Do I even want to know what that means?”

“Did I ever tell you what I wanted to study?” he asks abruptly. “Did I ever tell you that?”

Grace is starting to get a headache. The bar starts to feel warm and too bright and too loud. “You have a business degree,” she says indulgently. “Maybe no more shots for you.”

He nods and wobbles in his chair. “That’s what I did study,” he says. “But not what I wanted to study.”

Grace waits.

“Medicine,” Raj says. He stares at her. He looks like the man who was wary of her when she first started working at the tea room. The one that hovered as she learned the different types of tea leaves and how to steep them and how to win over Meera. He looks less like the brother she has come to know, the one who is protective and safe and giving.

“I wanted to study medicine. Mama told me—” He inhales deeply. “She said Baba would understand in time. It was my dream, you know? Become a doctor, make my family proud, tell Baba he would never have to worry about that fucking tea shop again because I was going to take care of him. I’m the oldest, right? I have to take care of my family.”

Grace carefully places her hands across the table, close but not touching.

“You remember how fast Mama got sick,” he says, eyes distant. Raj Bhamra, both here and in the past. “It was like one day she was here, and the next we were barricaded in that house for two weeks.”

“Raj—” she starts.

“I never told anyone,” he admits. “Never said I was a coward who couldn’t look his baba straight in the eye, because I wasn’t sure I could keep the resentment off my face. Resentment, Gracie.” He grabs her hands too tight, like he’s anchoring himself. She lets him. “I resented him. Because I knew I couldn’t tell him I wanted to be a doctor when that fucking tea room was the only thing keeping him going. It was the only thing keeping him going, with us, after she died. You remember.”

She remembers. She remembers the stillness. She remembers how sometimes Baba Vihaan wouldn’t come out of his office at all, the whole day. It would just be Grace and Raj, struggling to keep up appearances so Meera wouldn’t burst into tears. So she wouldn’t start sobbing at the register over someone’s cup and have to apologize—Sorry, my mama just died. Here’s your ginger root tea.

“I hate that tea room,” Raj confesses. He smiles at Grace. “You should see how horrified you look right now.” He takes another shot and gags. “Fuck, that burns.”