“Has he contacted you once since you’ve been here?”
“Once.” I swallowed hard before I answered completely. “On May twenty-third. Two days after my birthday.”
“Do you think he saw the article?”
He’d left the subject line blank, so I couldn’t predict. I braced myself for whatever he’d have to say.
Anika,
I have received a forwarded article today with my name below a gossip rag photo of you. I am disappointed to find this. Please remember that my name is forever yoked to yours, and your actions reflect on your family. I expect better from you, Anushka.
Papa
By “my family,” he meant himself. His wife didn’t acknowledge I existed, and my mom was clearly delighted by my antics. That’s what I had to deal with. One parent I never disappointed and one parent I always let down. I put my laptop on the coffee table and curled up on the sofa, hugging a pillow.
“Bad?” Zion could ask invasive-as-hell questions, but he wouldn’t read over my shoulder.
“No.” I covered up the warble with a nervous laugh. I sat up and took a drink of water. I would not cry. He wasn’t worth it. He didn’t have the power to upset me.
Zion didn’t seem to notice. “So what did he want? Did he see the article?”
“Yeah. He’s just irritated.” I laughed again, even though I’d said nothing funny. “He used my pet name, so he’s going with shame instead of threats.” That was kind of hilarious.
“What can he do, Josie? Tirovanillapooram is eight thousand miles away. And you’re an adult.”
I corrected his pitiful attempt to say the name of the city where my dad lived. “Thiruvananthapuram.”
“Right. What I said. But seriously, what can he do from there?”
“He can still make me feel like I’ll never measure up.”
Once upon a time, my dad sat me on his knee while he dismantled his camera or picked through slides to find photos to submit to magazines. He would talk to me with an accent he never lost and tell me about exciting treks into Nepal or a chance to meet a traveling dignitary. I always associated those memories with the smells of thebeedihe smoked and the Robusta coffee he imported from Kerala.
Back then his name held no special recognition. But he had to work, and among his future prizewinning shots of exotic peoples, less artistic photos of run-of-the-mill celebrities mixed in. And I still recalled his pride and joy when his image appeared in the local newspaper in black-and-white, catching him speaking to the actor Mohinder Khan. But he conveniently forgot that he’d had to start out somewhere. In his mind, he’d always beentheChandra Namputiri, world-class photographer—no longer “world’s greatest dad.”
I could live without his hypocritical condescension. I deleted the email.
In the inbox, another email caught my attention. “Oh, Eden wrote me.”
Zion had settled on a chair with his feet propped on the coffee table. “Seriously? Look at you moving up the social ladder. What’s she want?”
I read the email. “She wants me to come photograph her performance at some club in Lower Manhattan. And she said my three favorite words.”
“Micah loves you?”
I threw my pillow at him. “She said:I’ll pay you.”
Chapter 8
Since Eden had said I could bring a friend, Zion insisted on escorting me to her show. I couldn’t tell if he was hoping I’d get to hang out with Micah again or if he was actually concerned for my health. But either motive was invalid. He had no reason to expect Micah to show up for his sister’s show. And I could take care of myself. I wasn’t likely to forget to eat again after last night. My pocketbook held sandwich bags filled with emergency snacks.
The entrance to the club hid under scaffolding, but even without the obstruction, the door was nondescript, dark. A neon sign lit the window behind a curtain of advertisements and posters. Zion pushed the door open, and I followed him through, unsure whether I should hold my breath. The room was so murky, I assumed there would be smoke, but the delicious aroma of coffee and food hit me. Underneath that, I could detect a slight underlying stink of cigarettes and body odor—the smell of dark places.
Several feet in, we approached a podium where an Asian woman leaned on her elbows watching us. “Tickets?” she asked.
“No, uh, we—”
“This is a private show. Tickets required in advance.”
