“Promise me, Reena. Don’t be like with the other ones. Promise me you will make an effort with Nadim,” Mum pleaded.
Reena forced a smile. “Anything else going on?” she asked. Deflect and distract. Reena wouldn’t make promises she had no intention of keeping.
“I heard on the Facebook site that Salim Shah lost a small fortune on a hotel deal gone bad,” Dad said.
Holy crap,theFacebook site?
“Dad, since when are you on Facebook?” Reena made a mental note to update her profile’s privacy settings.
“I’ve joined a new group there. Ismaili business networking group.” Keeping tabs on his professional rivals was Dad’s favorite pastime.
But Reena was trying very hard not to be as judgmental as her parents. Time to change the subject again. “What’s that?” She pointed to a glossy black bag on the sideboard.
“Oh, it’s for you.” Mum reached behind her to get the bag and handed it to Reena. “I was in Zipporah yesterday and they had these lovely rollerball perfumes. I bought you a langi langi one.” She handed the bag to Reena.
“Sephora, I’m assuming.” Reena took it and peeked at the small glass bottle in it. It was ylang-ylang essential oil fragrance. Langi langi was the name used for ylang-ylang flowers in Dar es Salaam, and Mum knew Reena had always loved the scent. It was a generous gesture…but Reena had to wonder…
“You know in the summertime all of Dar es Salaam smells like langi langi. There is even a big tree in the courtyard of the Jamatkhana in town. I’m sure the smell will remind Nadim of home.”
There it was. The gift was to lure the man in with a siren scent. Reena opened the bottle. It did smell amazing. She’d been to the Dar es Salaam Jamatkhana, the Ismaili Muslim place of worship, and the entire courtyard was filled with huge trees with fragrant blooms. This scent totally reminded her of the warm tropical breezes there. She sighed, closing it and putting it in her bag. “Thanks, Mum.”
“Now tell me, Reena,” Dad said, “is there any more news about your company hiring a director of finance? It’s high time you took a management role. If not at Railside, I am sure we can find a company with more growth opportunities.”
Reena finished chewing her channa before answering. “I’ll definitely inquire, Dad, but I have no interest in leaving Railside right now. I love it there,” she said, an enthusiastic smile plastered to her face. It was a lie. She hated her job. In fact, she hated working in finance altogether. But if Dad knew that, she’d once again get grief for insisting on this line of work instead of working in the family business. She wanted that like she wanted to lick a metal pole in January.
Reena had enough of a life outside of work that she didn’t care that she didn’t find her work fulfilling. But Dad would never ask her about that life—in his eyes, only work mattered. Not hobbies. Not bread. She couldn’t let on she’d been seriously thinking of enrolling in a night school program in artisan bread baking, hoping it would temper the monotony of the day job. That conversation would be weird—hey, Mum and Dad, my finance job is sucking out my soul every day, so I’m draining my savings to take an insanely expensive class to learn to make better baguettes and a really good pain de campagne.
“Well, I’d hate to hear that your career is stagnated,” Dad said. “You know, at your age I had—”
“Saira has news,” Mum interrupted as she passed the dish of channa to Reena to refill her plate.
Saira smiled. “Mum, I wasn’t going to tell Reena yet! It’s still not confirmed.”
Reena prepared herself to hear Saira’s fabulous news. It would be fabulous—in the Manji house bad news came whispered in hushed voices in darkened rooms, not told at the brunch table. If told at all. Maryam Aunty had been admitted to hospice before anyone told Reena she had cancer.
Straightening her spine, Reena took the bait. “What’s going on, Saira?”
Saira’s brows shot up as her smile widened. “Remember Janice? From high school? She works PR for publishers, now. She saw my posts on the Nourish blog and thought I should write a cookbook. She’s helping me with a book proposal!”
Reena blinked. Her sister was aiming to get published? A cookbook?
“Clean living is so big now, and Janice thinks I can sell my Indian take on it.”
Reena took another puri and squeezed the whole flatbread in her mouth at once, cheeks expanding like a hamster eating a burrito.
“Careful, Reena,” Saira said. “That’s how many puri now? You don’t need all that refined wheat.”
Sage advice from her sister. The puri was now a gummy, doughy ball in her mouth. She took a long gulp of lukewarm chai to wash down the bread before speaking. “That’s great, Saira. Good luck.”
“Yeah, isn’t it amazing! My therapist thinks it will be healing for me.”
Reena drained her chai, wishing for whiskey in it. Healing. That was why she couldn’t be angry at Saira. Saira needed this more than Reena did. And technically, no one in the family knew it was Reena’s almost lifelong fantasy to write her own cookbook. And they didn’t know just how close she’d come. That a small independent publisher had approached her and asked her to pitch a project when her cooking blog was still going strong. But the book deal fell through thanks, in part, to Saira. Reena wasn’t over her dream crashing and burning, and having the very person who lit the match now rub it in her face felt a bit much.
She ate another puri, chewing until the gummy mass almost choked her.
“Reena, you should be proud of your sister. Look how well her life has turned around,” Mum said.
After hitting some serious rock bottom, Reenawasglad Saira had a job at Nourish, her favorite health food store. Was glad her depression was being managed with professional help. Even glad Saira had a new relationship. But being glad about her sister writing a cookbook? She tried to be a good person, but Reena wasn’t Mother Teresa.
