Incense and Sensibility Read online

  “Yeah, no need to . . . Hold on . . . Oh God . . .” There was a scrambling sound and India heard the television volume turning up at China’s end.

  “China, what’s wrong?”

  “Oh my God.” That was not China’s emotional drama voice. It was real horror.

  “Cee! Will you please stop saying that? You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

  “Oh my God,” China said again. “Oh no. It’s Yash Raje. Something is wrong.”

  A sharp and dark feeling twisted in India’s heart.

  “What are you talking about?” It had been a decade since India had seen Yash. In person. You couldn’t avoid him on TV no matter how hard you tried. She was friends with his sisters and his cousin and they thought the sun shone out of his . . . well, out of one of his orifices.

  She had thought so too. For precisely one day.

  She hated the panic that gathered in her body. By all accounts, her experience with Yash Raje had been some sort of aberration. With everyone else he seemed like a perfectly stand-up guy. Not that any of it had mattered in a very long time. No matter how angry she’d been with him, she most certainly did not want anything to be wrong with him.

  Please let nothing be wrong with him.

  “Is it the polls? Has he dropped in the polls?” India tried not to follow politics, and she’d avoided it even more since Yash announced his candidacy, but she wasn’t an ostrich either.

  Over the phone, China let out a gasp. “It’s not the polls.” Her voice was shrill with tension. This was bad. Really bad. “Oh God. Oh no. I think Yash has been shot.”

  Chapter Three

  The last time Yash had emerged from general anesthesia he’d been fifteen years old and surrounded by a roomful of family. Every one of them with swollen yet dry eyes. No doubt because his parents had warned his siblings to make sure they did not cry in Yash’s presence because he needed them to be strong.

  This time when Yash regained consciousness he was all by himself. Disorienting as this was, it was also a relief, considering how on that day twenty-three years ago he’d been told he would never walk again. He wiggled his toes and moved his legs just to make sure he could.

  “You’re up!” Someone ran into his room. Hands were thrown around him with no regard for the shoulder that felt a bit like a boulder was balanced on it.

  “It’s you,” he said, poking at his brain for her name. It was gone again.

  Fortunately, his sister Trisha followed close on her heels. So he hadn’t forgotten everyone’s names, just the name of the woman who was supposed to be his girlfriend. Fabulous.

  “Hey, Yash.” His sister tapped the woman’s arm, obviously trying not to show her impatience, which was usually not something Trisha bothered with.

  His girlfriend squeezed Yash’s hand and left the room with an “I’ll be right back.”

  Trisha pushed his hair off his forehead. “You’re awake.”

  “Was that not what you were expecting?” He tried to remember the details of what had happened, but the fog blanketing his brain was too thick.

  She smiled her amused-doctor smile. “No, drama queen, we were fully expecting to not be rid of you just yet. Then again, we were also not expecting you to go and get yourself shot.” She looked like she wanted to smack him upside the head.

  Right. He’d been shot. “Abdul. How . . .” Yash tried to sit up.

  Trisha pressed him back down. “He’s in the hospital too. We’re treating him.”

  Yash waited, but she said nothing more and just kept petting his hair like he was a puppy she’d found on the street. All this out-of-character coddling was more than a little disconcerting. Trisha was his least warm-and-fuzzy sister.

  “And . . .” Yash prompted, not bothering to hide his impatience.

  “And you need to worry about your own healing right now. How’s your shoulder feeling?”

  Yash was the most bullheaded of the siblings. Trisha ought to know that. “But he’s okay? He’s conscious?”

  Her hesitation made it clear that they’d had a family meeting while Yash was out and strategized how much to tell him and when.

  “He’s out of surgery.”

  Usually Yash could outmaneuver his family’s strategizing in his sleep, but he was so not in the mood for that. “How bad is it?”

  Before Trisha could answer, his girlfriend came back into the room. Behind her his entire family followed. Could someone please tell him her name?

  “You’re awake.” Mina Raje was not given to crying, but her swollen eyes meant she had been.

  “Ma, I’m fine.”

  Their father squeezed his foot. Other than the squeeze, Dr. Shree Raje was as regally stoic as ever. Yash’s father had been born a prince, and the staff at the Sripore Palace, the Raje’s ancestral home in India, still referred to him as His Royal Highness. It was so fitting that Yash and his siblings had always called him HRH behind his back. The shadows under HRH’s eyes were the only tell of his worry.

  Now that they were adults, at least he wasn’t glaring at Nisha and Ashna for crying. And, man, those two were making up for the rest of them. As soon as she saw them, even Trisha’s eyes filled up.

  Yash could bet his life having a bullet enter you after hitting someone else made it much less serious. For you, not for the person who’d saved your life.

  “Will someone please tell me how Abdul is doing?”

  His sisters all looked at one another and refused to meet his eyes. He turned to their significant others: DJ, Trisha’s boyfriend, looked at Trisha, and something passed between them. Something that kept DJ from answering Yash.

  Next he looked at Neel, who was married to Nisha, the sister who was also Yash’s campaign manager, therefore also an employee (not that Yash was brave enough to remind her of that). Neel had been one of Yash’s closest friends since they were in diapers, but the traitor did the same thing DJ had done, he looked at his wife and then studied the walls.

  Were his sisters puppet masters? Looking at Rico yielded the same results. Rico looked at Ashna, who gave him a wide-eye, and the man promptly turned to studying the many monitors in the room.

  “For shit’s sake! . . . Sorry, Ma. Will someone tell me what is going on with the man who took a bullet for me?” Yes, he yelled, and it made him break into a cough, and that made the worried faces multiply their worry twenty times over.

  “They don’t think Abdullah Khan is going to make it,” his girlfriend said, impervious to the glares that went flying around the room.

  “What Naina means,” Nisha said in her intimidating-mom voice, “is that his condition is critical right now but the doctors are trying their best to save him.”

  Naina. Of course.

  This memory-lapse thing was annoying as hell. Yash fought to reach for the rush of relief knowing her name should have brought, the hope Nisha’s reassurance about Abdul should have brought, but all he felt was parched emptiness in place of all the emotions he should be feeling.

  All around his bed were faces he loved, looking at him with absolute adoration and gratitude that he was alive. A tightly squeezed circle of all the reasons his life was far richer than anyone deserved. He knew this. Logically. Intellectually. Up in his head. In his heart there was nothing.

  “I want to see Abdul,” he said, and the circle of faces turned all shades of indignant.

  “Let’s have your doctor look at you first,” Trisha said. Then she turned to the rest of them. “Can everyone clear out? We’re not all supposed to be here. He’s fine. Seriously. We’re overwhelming him.”

  He was not overwhelmed. He should be. He was not.

  That didn’t change the fact that this was a hospital. It was Trisha’s domain and DJ squeezed her hand and headed out. Rico and Neel followed him. It was also their father’s domain, but Ma took his hand and tugged him out. Which meant there was a strategic plan at play. Yash studied the people left in the room and tried to calculate who’d been assigned to manage him.

&nb
sp; “Naina, beta, let’s wait outside,” Ma said to Naina in a far kinder tone than the one she used on her own children. It was her children-in-law voice and it was always extra-kind toward Naina.

  “Yes, Mina Auntie.” Naina dropped a kiss on Yash’s lips and smiled sadly.

  Did he and Naina kiss? Was that part of the deal? Then why did it feel so strange? Did their kissing always feel so . . . so . . . dry?

  He smiled back, managing only to highlight the fact that there was nothing where his feelings should have been. Nothing where her kiss had landed.

  Once they were all gone, it was just him and his three sisters. Strategically speaking, he had to admit it was a smart choice.

  “I’m not overwhelmed.” Honestly, any degree of whelmed would be great. “I just need to see Abdul.”

  “I think they’re only letting family see him right now.” This from Nisha. Other than Yash, she was the one who had spent the most time with Abdul. She knew him. And Yash knew her. There was no way she hadn’t gone to see him.

  Nisha studied his face. “His wife, his parents, and his in-laws are with him. They’re hopeful.”

  “And Naaz?” Yash asked.

  Nisha went just a little bit green. Her hand went to her pregnant belly. A baby having her father shot two days after she was born was a dose of reality no expectant mother should be exposed to. “His little girl is healthy. So is Arzu.”

  “Good. Then I’d like to go see them.” Yash moved to stand, and for the second time today Trisha held his shoulder—the good one—keeping him in place.

  “It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t the one who shot him,” Ashna said.

  “I’m aware,” Yash snapped. “But Rico was there with me. If he’d been standing closer. If he’d been hit, would you still think it wasn’t my fault?”

  Her fingers twisted together. “Yes,” she said after a long pause. “I would still blame the person with the gun, not you. You’re a victim here too. There’s a hole in your shoulder too. And a rip in your arm.”

  That, too, he was aware of. As if on cue, the wounds in his shoulder and arm gave a throb. Good thing the bullets had struck his left side. Since there was no more space for scars on his right side. The accident had already taken care of that. Automatically his hand went to his chest; the hospital gown covered his torso and shoulders, but he still pulled his blanket up to his neck.

  Nisha picked up a bag from a sideboard. “Ma brought you your pajamas.” Obviously, Ma knew he’d need his clothes as soon as he woke up.

  For a moment the discomfort of unspoken things, unspeakable things, silenced them all.

  This wasn’t a time to wallow in old wounds. He turned to Trisha. She was his only hope. “I need to see Abdul. You know you can make it happen.”

  Trisha looked at Nisha.

  “Fine. I’ll talk to the family,” Nisha said. Then the three of them exchanged another one of their loaded looks.

  “What now?” he said. “I’m fine. Just spit it out.”

  “You haven’t asked about the polls.” Ashna was the one who spoke.

  Right. The election. Another thing that felt several lifetimes away. He wondered if he should tell someone about the numbness. What would he say? I’m not feeling anything? I can barely remember the election.

  His family would only argue that not feeling anything was a feeling in itself. Then they would freak the fuck out.

  “Yash?” One of them prodded him. He wasn’t sure who. All of a sudden he couldn’t bring himself to focus. The fog in his brain had thickened to sludge.

  They stood there, his wall of sisters, watching him so intently that he had to respond. He pushed through the sludge and racked his brains for what they wanted to hear and came up with, “What are the polls looking like?”

  Last he remembered Joshua Cruz, his opponent, had been leading by a narrow margin. Cruz sold himself as the blue eyed and blue collared, father of four, “all-American” candidate. If Yash had a penny for every time the man used the term “middle class family values” Yash may never need to do another fundraiser again. Cruz had played in the NFL, so middle class was pushing it.

  “What?” he asked when no one answered.

  All three of them looked at him like they were going to explode.

  Finally Trisha squealed, like a child who’d just received a long coveted present. “You’re leading in the polls! By ten points!”

  What? “Leading Cruz?”

  “That is who you’re running against. So, yes.” Nisha retrieved her cell phone and navigated to a video, bouncing on her heels. “The entire state is in an uproar over the shooting. Vigils everywhere. For you. For Abdul. For Naina.”

  “For Naina?”

  “Yes, she’s a damn hero!” Ashna said.

  At the cost of repeating himself: What?

  “The footage of Naina leaning over your gurney and sobbing as you bled all over her has hit the public hard. It’s everywhere. She’s Jackie Kennedy.”

  “Except. She isn’t. I’m not dead in her lap.” Neither was he her husband or the father of her children. He was, in fact, no more than her friend. A partner in crime. Someone who had conspired with her to cheat their families so they didn’t have to deal with their pressuring tactics.

  On the phone Nisha handed him, Naina was crying mascara-stained tears into Yash’s face. She looked devastated, and he looked quite near death. Were they more than friends? Had he forgotten more than just her name?

  “The video has been playing on the news cycle nonstop,” Ashna said.

  “Is Rico responsible for this?” His tone must have been harsh, because the wall of sisters turned their joint frowns on him.

  “You got shot. What exactly is that question supposed to mean? Are you suggesting Rico made that happen?” Ashna, who was the least mean person on earth, snapped in a tone that sounded pretty darn mean. “You’re acting very strange,” she said more gently. “Are you feeling okay?”

  Not at all. I feel like a block of ice encased in paper. “Of course I’m okay. I’m great. I can’t feel my shoulder. A man might be dying because of me and no one will let me see him. But I’m just peachy, thank you very much. You’re right, we should all be celebrating the polls!”

  “Yash,” Nisha said with all the gravitas of someone who had dedicated her entire adult life to his career. “We are all heartbroken about Abdul, every one of us. We’re praying that he wakes up. He believed in you. He was obsessed with you winning this election, just like the rest of us. We will do everything we can to make sure he and his family are okay. But did you not hear us? With these numbers and the outcry so close to the election, only an act of God can stop you from winning in November. The election just became ours to lose. Everything you’ve worked for—we’ve worked for—it’s going to happen.”

  TRISHA WHEELED YASH down the eerily quiet hospital corridor. Nisha and Rico had done a great job working with the hospital to keep the press out.

  “Stop here,” he said to Trisha, when they got to the door of the private lounge where Abdul’s family was waiting for him, and stood. He didn’t need a wheelchair, but Trisha had refused to let him leave his room if he didn’t use one. God save us all from bossy sisters.

  This one was looking at him as though he were breaking her heart. “I’m fine. I’m not going to do anything irresponsible. Don’t worry.”

  “I know that. You’re Yash. Do you even know how to do something irresponsible?” She smiled at him kindly enough that he knew she was hurting for him. “I know how hard this is on you. But it’s not your fault. Abdul was doing his job.”

  “His job was to keep people from getting too close and familiar. Taking a bullet was never in the job description.”

  “Taking a bullet is always in the job description. You just wish it wasn’t.”

  They had arrested the shooter. Your garden-variety white supremacist who didn’t want his state handed over to a foreigner. Yash should have been angry, but he was still having that little problem o
f not being able to feel anything. Plus, dealing with bigots was half his job. It was half the job of anyone not born white in this country. He could do it in his sleep.

  The good news was that the man was going away for a very long time. The bad, but not surprising news was that for all the outrage and sympathy that had landed Yash at the top of the polls, there was no shortage of people on social media turning the bastard into a martyr and supporting his “cause” and wishing death upon “browns who conspire to steal America.”

  “You have five minutes. Then you need to be back in your room,” Trisha said. “I’ll be back to get you.”

  “Doesn’t a fancy surgeon have anything better to do than wheel patients around?”

  “She does. But there’s this dumb kid sister getting in her way because her brother won’t stop being a stubborn ass.” With that she kissed his cheek and hurried off, leaving him to enter the waiting room.

  Arzu, Abdul’s wife, sat flanked by an older couple.

  The man stood and shook Yash’s hand. “I’m Hafiz Khan, Abdullah’s father.”

  Yash took the man’s hands in both of his. “Thank you for seeing me,” he said, looking at Arzu, whose eyes were so dry and stoic they should have been a sledgehammer to Yash’s numbness.

  Next to her, in a baby carrier hooked to a stroller, Naaz was rolled up in a pink blanket and fast asleep. Her head was covered in a cap, leaving open nothing more than cheeks, a button nose, and tightly closed eyes.

  “How are you?” Hafiz said, and the ice inside Yash went even colder. He was here, standing on his own two feet, the wounds in his shoulder and arm nothing more than a few stitches. While Abdul was hooked up to a ventilator, a head injury and major blood vessels and tendons in his neck torn and sewn up. His brain unable to process that his body was alive.

  Yash bent over Naaz. She’s so beautiful, he wanted to say, but nothing came out, so he simply stroked a crooked finger along her baby carrier, too afraid to touch something so fragile.

  “They’re not sure if he’ll wake up,” Arzu said, her strong voice at odds with the words she was saying.