Say the Word(16)
“It looks nice in here. Something’s different. Did you get a new display case for the gum? Oh, you have the green Tic-Tacs!?”
Shockingly, Mrs. Patel had no response other than to add my mints to the grocery sack.
“I like your sari today, Mrs. Patel. You look fantastic in turquoise. Where can I get one of those? Though turquoise isn’t really my color. Is that hand beaded?”
As I reached out a hand to touch the gorgeous small beads dangling from the embroidered trim of her sleeve, Mrs. Patel snatched her arm out of reach and growled — yes, growled — at me, before unleashing a menacing glare she’d perfected over the many centuries since her birth.
Okay, so she wasn’t thrilled with my existence. But hey! At least she’d acknowledged my existence that time. I was counting it as progress in our budding friendship.
Today, I was so wrapped up in my own mind that I didn’t even attempt a conversation. I bought three — yes, three — bags of Cool Ranch Doritos because this was a real emergency and, let’s face it, no one wants to face down a crisis without snacks on hand. Silently handing them to Mrs. Patel, I stared at the colorful array of lottery tickets hanging behind her head and tried not to think about Sebastian Motherf*cking Covington or the facts that he was both dating a model and had the audacity to look like one himself. Seriously, karma was such a bitch.
Lost in my own thoughts, it took me a minute to realize that Mrs. Patel had stopped bagging my Doritos and was staring at me with a strange look on her face. Definitely not concern, but her weathered face showed, at the very least, a level of interest that I’d never seen in the year since I’d first come to Swagat. It took me a moment to register her expression as one of thinly-veiled confusion.
Wow, I really must’ve looked like shit if it was enough to catch Mrs. Patel’s eye.
I guess I probably did look a bit dazed — like Jamie had that time when we were fourteen and he’d accidentally shocked himself trying to fish a bagel out of the toaster oven with a fork. The prongs hit the metal and zap!
Instant brain fog.
Everything felt slightly removed, out of focus, as though I were watching my own life play out on a fuzzy dark projector screen while I sat in the audience eating popcorn with only a vague interest in what was happening to the heroine or where the plot-lines were going to twist next.
I met Mrs. Patel’s narrowed eyes and shrugged my shoulders at her before forcing my lips up into what I hoped could pass for smile.
From the way her face contorted in response, it wasn’t hard to guess that my lackluster grimace fell short of the mark. Her eyes flickered away from my face to study the exposed wine bottle tops peeking out from the paper bag I was clutching to my chest like a safety blanket, before returning to examine my features. A beat of silence passed between us before she opened her mouth and spoke. As in formed words, made conversation, actually communicated with me for the first time ever, which, I might add, left me dumbfounded and utterly unable to string together a coherent thought.
“Are you alright, Miss Lux?” she asked in perfect, if accented, English.
I started, shocked that she was — freaking finally — speaking to me after a year of resolute silence.
“I— uh, I’m…” I stammered, at a loss. “I’m fine.” I swallowed roughly, again fighting welling tears. You know those idiotic people who, when they’re upset and someone is even the tiniest bit nice to them, immediately burst into tears?
Yep. That’s me.
“You don’t talk today,” she noted, her head tipping sideways as she studied me intently. I don’t think she blinked once — which would’ve been totally creepy if I’d had any brainpower left to dwell on things that weren’t the ex-love-of-my-life.
I nodded, unable to speak.
Abruptly, her head snapped upright and she nodded briskly in return. Without further ado, she reached beneath the countertop and pulled out a bottle of top-grade, black label scotch, followed by two stout glasses. Before I could fathom what was occurring or even begin to muster a protest, Mrs. Patel had poured two fingers of amber liquor into each glass and was shoving one across the counter at me.
“I— what—“ I began, feeling like a bumbling idiot.
“Drink,” Mrs. Patel snapped at me, her shrewd glare back in full force, pinning my feet to the floor. Jesus, she was scary. No wonder her grandkids were so well behaved whenever they were in the store with her.
I nodded, grasping the glass with my free hand and watching as she lifted hers into the air — toasting god only knew what — before throwing back her scotch like an old pro. She didn’t even wince as it went down and only when she had again trained her glare on me did I realize I’d been frozen, staring at her in open-mouthed shock.
Hastily, I threw back my own shot, gasping at the fire that burned down my throat, stole the breath from my lungs, and blasted an inferno of warmth into my empty stomach. My eyes a watery mess, I spluttered — clearly I was not in Mrs. Patel’s league — and leaned over the counter, heaving in large gulps of air. When I’d finally regained my composure, I looked up at Mrs. Patel who, if it weren’t such an impossibility, I would’ve sworn was smiling enigmatically at me from her maroon chair.
“Thanks?” I whispered through a hoarse throat. I wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, or why ancient Mrs. Patel was forcing me to do shots with her at two in the afternoon, but I wasn’t about to argue. I’d always been more a lover than a fighter.