Accidentally Engaged(4)
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, Reena was glad 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.
“Reena, did you hear Khizar is being considered for junior partner in his firm?” Dad asked. No surprise he changed the subject—a cookbook project couldn’t come close to the prestige of his eldest child being promoted in one of the capital’s biggest accounting firms.
And that’s when Reena decided she had done her filial duty for the week. Time to get the hell out of this house. She had already heard about Khizar’s likely promotion—he’d texted her about it before he’d even told their parents. But any conversation with Mum and Dad about her brother’s success would very quickly delve into the type of firstborn hero worship that usually left Saira in tears and Reena wondering if a thirty-one-year-old could emancipate from her parents. True, Khizar always outshined his younger sisters, with a great job, a loving wife, and not one, but two babies on the way (trust Khizar to take overachievement way too far). But Khizar also had the distinction of being the nicest of the three of them. Reena tried to avoid the sibling rivalry her parents seemed to want to instill, lest she start to resent the only member of her family she really trusted. She knew her limits—she already felt mighty small because of Saira’s cookbook news. Khizar’s absolute winning at adulting might be a bit too much to pile on top of that heap of self-loathing.
Reena mopped up the final puddle of channa on her plate with the last bit of her puri. “I didn’t notice the time.” She took her plate to the kitchen, rinsed it, and placed it in the dishwasher. “I have to feed…Brian.” Crap. That was a terrible excuse.
“Brian? You got a dog?” Saira asked.
Mum snapped her head toward the kitchen. “Keeping dogs is haram in Islam. You can’t have a dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.” Reena sighed. “Brian is a sourdough starter. A rye bread one. Get it? Bri the rye?”
Mum’s nose wrinkled. Reena needed to get out of this house before Dad and Saira joined in voicing their displeasure about Reena’s obsession with bread.
Saira’s face puckered in the exact expression Mum had just sported. Uncanny, really. “I guess rye flour is better than all that refined wheat, but maybe you’re taking this little hobby too far?”