***
That night I cooked dinner for the whole family. I sincerely loved Indian food and learning how to create it from Mrs. Bashir—who learned from her mother, who learned from her mother before her—was an education I could not get from any cooking show or mass-produced cookbook from Barnes and Noble. These were ancient techniques and secrets handed down through the years. Even though Annika balked at learning how to pulse fresh ginger and garlic into the finest paste or how to pinch together a samosa so it would withstand the high temperatures of the frying pan, I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity. Her mother wasn’t going to be around forever.
“Scarlett, this is almost better than mom’s, right Rasheed?” Annika winked at me. Rasheed, a lover to all edible delights, gave me a thumbs-up. He shoveled another massive bite of chicken tikka into his mouth.
Dev walked into the dining room, having just arrived home from his marathon of number crunching at the hotel. He sat down without a word as Annika passed him a platter.
“Dev, tell us how you like dinner. Scarlett made it.” He ignored her. He turned his attention to Mr. Bashir while piling rice onto his plate. I pretended to ignore him back, but his slight bothered me more than I would admit.
What would it take to win this guy’s good graces? And why do I care?
“Dad, I’d like to talk to our accountant about last year’s numbers. I found some discrepancies today that are a little concerning. There were some injections of capital last year that I can’t account for. It’s like they came out of nowhere.”
Mr. Bashir seemed slightly unnerved. He took a long drink of water and then cleared his voice.
“Bill is in Austria on holiday with his family. Surely you can wait until he comes back.” As if to change the subject, Mr. Bashir smiled at me. “This is very delicious, Scarlett…” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “The best I’ve tasted.”
But Dev wasn’t deterred. “I’ll call him tomorrow. He can take five minutes out from sightseeing or whatever they’re doing.”
Mr. Bashir said nothing, but I could tell the he was trying hard—too hard—to act casual about the question. It was a strange moment I had never witnessed between them.
That night I said very little. Years past when ate at their table, Dev would eat quickly and leave, his quiet presence hardly noticeable. But now his overbearing energy seemed to fill the room, like he was running a corporate meeting. He talked to everyone but me. He asked his siblings about school, discussed the future of the hotel with his parents, and mentioned that he was invited to interview in New York for a job after graduation by an old family friend.
His father seemed oddly disturbed by this and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hide it.
“New York? Why not stay and manage the hotels?” his father asked, a slight frantic undertone to his voice.
Dev gave him a cold stare. “You know I don’t belong here,” he replied. A steely moment passed between father and son, subtext hanging in the air. Mr. Bashir went eerily silent.
Dev, trying to sound normal like his father had tried and failed at moments earlier, now turned his attention to his brother and sister. “Living in a real city is amazing. The people in New York are intelligent, diverse and…” He quickly glanced my way with disapproving coolness.
“…sophisticated.”
I cursed him silently and then made an attempt to smooth out my wild and unsophisticated curls which seemed to have a mind of their own.
He continued. “Did you know that the gross product for just the city alone last year was 1.5 billion?”
I couldn’t help myself.
“I guess that explains why New York attracts an inordinate number of greedy people from all over the world.”
I took a quick sip of water and instantly regretted my words. Dev looked at me like he had just realized I was a human being and capable of speech.
“I suppose you think there’s something wrong with the pursuit of money?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “No, just the love of it above all other things. Including people.”
He didn’t say anything, so I continued, fool that I was. “It doesn’t make sense to me, why there are so many people without basic necessities—like clean drinking water—and the super wealthy can largely ignore their plight…and even take advantage of their desperation.”
He laughed at me as if I were a naïve child who still believed in Santa Claus.
“Oh? Take advantage by creating large, successful companies that, in turn, create thousands of jobs that will, in turn, bring those very same people you care about out of poverty?”
I looked at him sternly and decided to cut to the chase.
“I’m just not impressed with people who want more money for the sake of more money and at the expense of everyone else.”
He dark, dismissive gaze shot through me like sharpened, poisoned arrows.
“Well, in that case, you’ll be happy to know that you’re the last person I’m looking to impress, Scarlett.”
I could feel my face turn red. Why did I care so much how he felt about me?
I abruptly got up and started to clear the table. Mrs. Bashir gave a stern look to Annika. She rolled her eyes and then stood up reluctantly.
“Let me help, Scarlett,” she offered.
Oddly, Dev stopped her.
“Actually, Annika, I wanted to talk to you for a moment.”
She shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”
They left the room while I continued cleaning up. I sighed. Typical Annika. Funny how she always finds a way to get out of dish duty.
A few minutes later, I walked down the long hall off the kitchen to use the bathroom. While I washed my hands, I studied myself in the mirror. Everyone told me that I was pretty, but it didn’t seem to matter to me like it did other girls my age. I knew I got my looks from my mother: her same heart-shaped face, high cheek bones, porcelain skin that would always burn in the relentless Texas sun. From old pictures, I could tell that I had her same green-blue eyes; but I didn’t want to look like her, so I pretended I was plain. That didn’t stop guys from hitting on me, but there wasn’t anyone at school who made me feel that certain “something” I was sure I was supposed to feel with a boy. The boys at school were such immature jackasses, and the only feeling I had for them was aversion.
As I dried my hands, I heard Dev’s deep voice through the vent at the floor. He was in the study next door, and I couldn’t resist eavesdropping. What did he want to tell Annika? He never talks to her. Part of me wondered if I had something to do with it. I knelt down to the vent and smashed my cheek up against it.
I was right.
Dev’s voice was irate. “Why is she here?”
“She’s my best friend and I didn’t want her to go to Nevada. You don’t understand that because you don’t have friends.”
“You have nothing in common. What does her father do? Fix cars? She’s just…white trash. Remember, you become your friends,” Dev warned, as if “white-trash” were an infectious disease Annika could catch from me.
White trash.
Of all the names I had been called throughout my life, this one stung the most. It was the identity I was so desperately trying to escape, but couldn’t, and through no fault of my own.
I leaned back against the bathroom wall, my heart heavy. I wished I hadn’t heard it even if I knew he thought it. Hearing it out loud confirmed my deepest, darkest fear: that I was just like my parents, never going to amount to anything but a cheap, rusted out trailer, a high school diploma and a minimum wage job.
As hard as I fought them, the tears came.
I was alone in the world and the one place I sought refuge now felt hostile. The pressure was too much.
I rushed out of the bathroom half-blinded by the tears in my eyes. Naturally, of all the things that could happen next, I ran into someone.
Into Dev.
He was walking quickly down the hallway from the study when blasted into his side. I tripped over his foot and nearly fell, but he caught me in the nick of time, in an awkward embrace.
For a moment, I forgot that he was my enemy. His touch was…electric. But the moment passed and I remembered who he really was. I turned my face to prevent him from seeing my tears, but I couldn’t be sure if I was successful.
“Sorry,” I uttered, before rushing off. I caught a glimpse of his stunned expression, like I was the last person he thought he would see at that moment. I thought maybe there was guilt in his eyes, or regret, but then he would be a normal person with a heart.
And I had already decided that he didn’t have one.