Spice and Secrets (6 page)

But she saw so much of him in Jai…that same charisma, the biting wit, the silken dark hair that was almost too beautiful for such a serious face. It was frightening, sometimes, how Jai was a pocket version of his pocket papa. But he was her son also, with her broad mouth and thick eyebrows and loud, joyous laugh. He was everything to her. Her child, her best friend, her salvation. She was not going to play with his life.

“Mom, what’s your problem?” Jai’s sigh was a dramatic noise better suited for the theatre. He set aside his schoolbooks with an equally staged flourish. Already a perfect junior artiste, she knew it wasn’t long before he would ask to be in films.

“What problem?” She perched on the edge of a chair, setting her mobile aside on the just-wide-enough arm. “I don’t have a problem.”

“Yes, you do. Lots of them.
Maine sab sunliya.
I heard everything. This house is not
that
big, and there’s an echo.” He pulled a face, making her wonder just
how
much he’d overheard in the two years they’d lived here. “Papa’s doing great. Viki Uncle makes him happy. Why can’t you be happy, too?”

In his world, that was all it came down to: a romantic ideal of happiness. He didn’t care about safety or security; he was shielded by school uniforms, by Hari ferrying him all over Mumbai, and by the playground of Sam’s posh house in Bandra. Sunny willed herself not to clench her fists as she plucked a line of dialogue straight from the
Desi
Mother’s Handbook. “Of course
main khush hu
! I have you,
na
? I don’t need anything else.”

“So untrue, Mom!” He huffed, picking a
pakora
from his plate and chucking it at her. “You’re so negative. All you do is work. You need a life! After all,
zindagi na milegi dobara.
You only get one chance.” God help her, he was using movie titles to spout philosophy. “If you had more fun, I could go be with Papa and Viki for Diwali, and you wouldn’t be so lonely.”

It was unsettling to know that your child was smarter than you…that fooling yourself was an easier task than feeding him a PR sound byte. Sunny bent to pick the fallen
bhaji
off the carpet and place it on an end table for later disposal. “Jai, don’t disrespect me,” she told him coolly. “I have ordered my life how I want.”

Her budding actor didn’t buy her line delivery. Deep down, neither did she.

“Then rearrange it. Make room.” He shrugged off her attempt at discipline, cheerfully changing the topic. “Shaw-
saab
seems like a nice guy, no? You might like him very much.
I
might like him very much.”

Sure he might, but there was no way Jai was ever meeting Davey, no matter how sweetly he wheedled her. Her home and her work were
alag
, separate, and no amount of Jai suggesting that Shaw-
saab
become her Bachelor No. 1 was going to change that. “Your father seemed like a nice guy also,” she pointed out, which earned her an expressive scowl.

“Mom, that’s
bilkul
unfair. You know I love Papa.” Jai was the most sensible of them all, having decided quite some time ago to never listen to his mummy-daddy’s petty comments about one another. He only saw the best sides of them both. He would see the best side of Davey Shaw as well, no doubt. “You ought to love someone, too.”

She couldn’t. She
wouldn’t
. The cost of
that
was too high as well…wasn’t it?

“Didi, khokon bari aashbe?” When are you coming home?

It was a question she couldn’t answer, not with her upcoming filming schedule. Were Shonali’s cheeks fuller? Had she added a fourth centimeter to Anita
Didi
’s fabled three? A fist squeezed Priya’s heart as she memorized every detail on the computer screen. “
Amake bhoole jaoni tho?
” she asked, hoping her voice wasn’t as wobbly as her innards. Five was such a delicate age, so many new things to learn…so many old things to place away in boxes. Though she knew it wasn’t possible, she woke each day with the fear that Shona wouldn’t remember her. After all, Shona believed her real mother was a lost princess who had abandoned her beneath a mystical tree, on a magical mountain. Who was Priya but an elder sister who made films and lived far away?

“Na, Prithu Didi, na!”
The daughter she couldn’t acknowledge insisted in a high, sweet screech. “Shona will not forget you!”
Baba
was teaching her English, successfully, and he hadn’t yet corrected her habit of speaking of herself in the third person, like she was the Queen of England.
“Tumi Shona ke bhoolo na!”

Her
forget Shona? “Never,” she whispered, slouching against the sofa cushions, absorbing the heat from the laptop into her skin as though it were Shona’s arms around her.
I will never forget you. I will keep you in my heart always. You, and not your father.

Priya was still lost in those sentiments when Shonali wandered away, singing bits of a Bengali folk song, and her sister returned to the webcam. Anita’s eyes were the mirror of hers—dark brown and thick-lashed—except that they were shrewd and canny where Priya’s, not for lack of trying, conveyed only innocence. “Now tell the truth, Prithu,” she said briskly. “What is really going on in Mumbai?”

“N-nothing,
Didi
! Just work!” Coming from Anita, her childhood nickname always discomfited her, reminding her of that girl who no longer existed. Of course Anita lived to throw her off her game, in that competitive/protective way that only an older sister could manage.

“And how is the ‘work’ with Rahul?” she asked Priya, as though she was examining one of her class-nine girls.

“There is no working. The shooting for
Khoon
isn’t until after Diwali.” Months away. Practically centuries. So, then, why was Rahul constantly at her heels? Round every corner that she turned? She couldn’t stand to see the answer in Anita’s eyes…or to feel it in her own heart. “
Didi
, I have to go.
Rakhi
?”

Without waiting for a reply, she ended the call and shut her laptop. Would that she could shut away Rahul Anand just as easily.

Chapter Eight

KK’s script was flimsy at best, penned by some second-gen Bolly brat who had big ideas but no talent to back it with. As a boy with a similar background who
had
proven his worth, Rahul was willing to be generous…and happy to have his guys, Rajat and Ravi Chandra, rewrite nearly the entire story. It was the least he could do after KK got him on the picture,
na
? A
thank you
, really.

With a few tweaks, Rohit, the college boy with a grudge against the judge who’d jailed his innocent father, became a corporate lawyer gunning for the CEO who’d ruined his parents in a Madoff-style financial scandal. After a few keystrokes, the judge’s innocent daughter vanished from the pages entirely…and the bad girl who accepted the hero’s dark intent, oh, she came directly into the spotlight. Ishika, Rohit’s perfect partner in crime. They loved one another and hated one another…dark, destructive, but somehow pure. They plotted their vengeance in bed over martinis and cigarettes.

Ishika’s big item number would be the film’s climactic point, the backdrop for the CEO being framed for her gruesome—completely staged—murder. It would be shocking. It would be delightful. And Priya would be a fucking revelation. This, Rahul knew in his bones. KK’s film would launch her into the stratosphere…and, God willing, back into his arms.

As if determined to ruin his fierce burst of ambition, his mobile buzzed with an SMS. Nina’s number. Probably some crass comment about whatever young stud she was “auditioning” in her office and if he wanted to offer a second opinion. She seemed to have a GPS dedicated to only his whereabouts. Everywhere Rahul turned, she was at his heels. Like a pampered dog, groomed to the point of absurdity, with a juicy bone. He’d tried locking her out of his office only to have the cleaning staff give her a spare key. It was like working with a stalker.

“
Arré
,
beta
, don’t be dramatic!” his father dismissed when he brought up such concerns. “She is family, she is business. Compromise!”

Ha. The only compromising Nina was interested in involved positions. Much like those
ghatia
bastards from the restaurant, she had her very own, very used, casting couch. And she had a cushion reserved for him. The very idea made him ill.

Rahul struggled for a cleaner imager, something pure to scrub the filth from his eyes, and, like always, he returned to Priya. That night in the hotel. Free of makeup, of costumes, of defenses…at least for a moment or two. And for a cherished moment or two, she’d been wholly with him. Making love to him, taking him into her, kissing him the way she had when he’d first taught her how.

He would have that again. He would have that forever.

Rahul rose from his office chair, striding toward the hall—and locking his door behind him.

I’m blind
, Priya thought, squeezing her eyes shut.
I’m never going to see properly again.
She backed up over the threshold of the office, wondering if it was too late to pretend she’d never presented herself for this meeting. It had only seemed polite to say sorry to Ashraf for what Rahul had done…but, clearly, Ashraf did not stand on ceremony.
Na
—she stifled a hysterical laugh—he didn’t prefer to stand at
all
. Sprawled beneath Nina Manjrekar like a fur rug, he had priorities above and beyond a lost role in KK’s picture.

Oh
. The tube light flickered in Priya’s brain as she wrenched away from the door and stumbled down the hall.
This
was why Ashraf had asked to meet at Anandaloka’s offices. Because he would be finishing up his tryst. Bile rose in her throat and she shuddered. Rahul’s stepmother was like a villainess from a serial. Overly made-up, overdressed and over-the-top. The kind of character that made Shona laugh and laugh. But applied to reality, Nina didn’t inspire so much
haasi.
Nahin
, just looking at the woman froze the bits of Priya that weren’t already ice.

So traumatized was she that as she hastened down the hallway and away from the hideous visuals, she didn’t realize she was on a collision course. She smacked straight center into someone coming round the corner. “Oof!”

“Sorry!” Sam Khanna exclaimed, grabbing at her to keep them both upright, his narrow features lit with concern. “
Arré
, Priya!”

“
Nahin
,
nahin
, it’s okay.” Barely taller than her but solid like bricks, Sam packed quite the punch. Like her, he embodied that saying about small packages…and he’d been in a terrible state the last time she saw him, that night at China House. She’d barely paid attention, only knowing that she had to run from Rahul before he saw just how closely her determination and her hunger were wrapped. But Sam had been cursing his ex-wife up one side and down the other…something about his son. About
losing
his son. And
that
, she understood without having to pay any attention at all. “Are
you
okay?” she asked, before she could think better of it.

Sam didn’t so much as flinch, instead offering an easy shrug. “It is what it is,
hain na
? Life happens. Sorry you had to see me that way. I’m trying to be on my best behavior lately. After…after
The Raj
.”

The oblique reference to the fight he and Vikram had engaged in after her item number was enough to make her squeeze his hand in empathy. Lucky for the boys, that loud, public scene had ultimately led to a happy reunion. A luxury she couldn’t allow herself. He looked at her and saw innocence—just as they
all
did—but Sam did not realize just how alike they were…how the court of public opinion would happily condemn them both. Her, for being a woman of loose character, for having a child without a husband, and him for being an abomination. Mumbai was not Hollywood, where a gay man could star in hit films openly and a woman could raise six children with her lover and be the most desired actress in the world.

So they lied. They kept their secrets. And she erased all traces of being Shona’s mother from her face, her body, her soul. In Kolkata,
Ma
and
Baba
helped make the illusion a reality, so thorough were their lies to their friends and neighbors. “Don’t change yourself completely, Sam. No one will recognize you. Least of all yourself.” The words were a bit too relevant, a bit too close and a bit too pompous. Priya shook her head, forcing a lighter smile to her lips. “Besides, I’m more used to naughtiness than you think.” She dropped her voice theatrically. “I even know bad words.”

He widened his eyes in faux horror. “I’m shocked, Priya-
ji
, shocked. I’m going to ring the Censor Board straightaway!” They shared an easy laugh, before Sam’s expression sobered. “Listen, I don’t know what happened between you and Rahul…but he gave me a chance when no one else would. He believed in me, and I believe in him. Whatever he is doing with this movie…see it through, okay?”

She couldn’t promise that. She couldn’t promise
anything
that had to do with Rahul. “
Jo hoga so hoga.
Life happens,
na
?”

Sam reached out, covering her hand with his and giving it a squeeze. Suddenly, he was the one offering comfort and words of advice. “
Nahin
, Priya-
ji
, we
make
life happen. We fight for it and defend it and never let it go. I had to learn that the hard way. So, if you want this comeback, if you want to make something of yourself…
you
make it happen.
Samjhe?
”