India Palace was in essence a slightly upscale diner, boasting a buffet at lunchtime for the students and professors, and a fancier dinner service complete with candles on the table for the locals in the evenings. The owners were a lovely Indian couple who tended to come out to the guests’ tables and ensure they were having a quality dining experience. Jacob also knew them from chamber of commerce meetings, the same way he knew most of the Main Street and campus-town proprietors.
Avni met him with a smile as he came through the door, drawing him in for a quick embrace. “Jacob, so good to see you. Your boyfriend is already here, so I seated him.”
A thrill of delight and terror ran through Jacob at your boyfriend. “Thank you.”
She beamed like a proud mother as she escorted him to the booth near the window where, indeed, Rasul sat gazing out the window, a cup of chai in front of him, as well as a spread of naan and samosas. As Jacob expected, the restaurant was full to bursting, and everyone had their eye trained on Jacob and Rasul.
He didn’t blame Avni or her husband. He’d chosen them because he liked them and wanted them to do well. Also he knew from online interviews that Rasul loved Indian cuisine.
Rasul rose, smiling as Jacob approached. Then he put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “I ordered already because I accidentally skipped breakfast and lunch and I thought I was going to faint. Avni’s been taking care of me.”
Jacob went still as Rasul leaned in and bussed his cheek with a dry kiss. It was a perfectly acceptable part of the ruse, he acknowledged. All the same, it short-circuited all his nerve endings and made him long to curl into a ball on the floor and expire quietly.
Instead, he returned the kiss with what he hoped was a cool gesture, and sat down. To Avni, who hovered like she was watching the best television episode ever, he said, “Another chai, please, and a glass of water.”
“Of course.” She drifted away, casting several glances back at him.
“She’s wonderful,” Rasul said, dragging a samosa through the mint sauce. “And so is this food. Holy cow. You’re welcome to have some of this, of course, but I’ll warn you I asked her to make the samosas extra spicy.”
“How spicy is spicy?”
Jacob’s heart sped up again as Rasul dredged the samosa through the sauce and held it out for Jacob. It was intimate and sensual and made Jacob want to melt. He wanted to lock his gaze with Rasul’s and drag his tongue across those long, dangerous fingers.
Instead, he politely took the food from Rasul with his hands and steadied it before taking a bite. His eyes widened as the spice hit him. “That’s hot.” He caught some crumbs falling from his lips as he gave the samosa back. “But very good.”
Rasul’s eyes sparkled as he passed Jacob some naan and his cup of chai. “We can order some more.”
“I want room in my stomach for the main course.”
“Look, I have absolutely no argument with leftovers. Also I’m in the mood to pack away everything they have in the kitchen.”
They ended up ordering more samosas and naan and three main dishes to serve family-style in a variety of spice levels.
“I love samosas.” Rasul dipped the last of the one in the mint sauce again and paused to chew it with obvious pleasure. “They remind me of my grandmother’s kubbeh. Not the same at all really, but they’re similar enough to make me nostalgic.”
Jacob sipped his chai as he watched Rasul enthusiastically consume his food. “Your grandmother emigrated from Syria, yes?”
“Grandfather and father too, back in the 1960s. Dad was only seventeen when they came over, but he leapt headfirst into assimilating as an American. Got himself a high-powered job in New York City and flirted with a Brazilian model, who became my mother.” He wiped his fingers on a napkin, his lips thinning briefly into a line. “Mom thought Dad was richer than he was, but in the end she decided a green card marriage would do well enough as compensation, so she got pregnant to force his hand. Then got divorced and took off as soon as she was in the clear.”
What? “I never heard that in your bio, only that your parents got divorced when you were young.”
“Yeah, well.” Rasul shrugged and sopped up more of the sauce with his naan this time. “Doesn’t sound as nice, plus she’s mostly rehabilitated herself now. She—” He stopped short, his entire face lighting up as he froze. “Jacob, listen. They’re playing our song.”
Jacob glanced around, then realized Rasul meant the atmospheric music. During the day they played Indian music, but at night they put on various Spotify soundtracks full of soft rock. Right now Air Supply sang with heartfelt intensity.
Jacob couldn’t help smiling. “I don’t think we danced to ‘Every Woman in the World,’ though.”
“Every Air Supply song is our song, babe.” Rasul put a hand on his chest and lip-synched along with the singers as if he were on stage with them.
Blushing, Jacob tried to bat him away. “Stop, you’re making a scene.”
“I love scenes.” Rasul calmed down, though, resting his chin in his hands. “I sat up a lot trying to figure out what that song meant when I was little. Why is she every woman in the world to him? The only thing I could come up with was that when he was with her, all the women on the planet sucked into her and became a single entity. It was terrifying and wonderful.”
“Your speculative fiction roots being formed.”
Jacob had meant it as a gentle ribbing, but Rasul deflated and curled around his cup. “Do you know, sometimes I hate that I got boxed into that genre? I feel like I always do the same thing and people are going to call me on it. They already do. If they’re not bitching at me for taking so long to finish my book, they lambaste me for doing the same thing over and over.”
“What do you mean? You’ve only written two novels and a handful of short fiction. Your editor says this, or reviewers? That’s impressive, though, if it’s the latter, still giving you ink after all this time.”
“No, no. Readers. People online.”
Jacob leaned back in the booth, even more confused now. “They email you this?”
“No, though I think my publisher gets letters. They don’t know my email, thank Christ. This is on social media. Go read the comments on my Instagram sometime. They’re a nightmare. And on Twitter and on my Facebook page I get a lot of random posts about how I should be writing. And input on how I could improve in general. I should be more diverse. I should include more marginalized groups. I should stop doing diversity theater. I shouldn’t hate white people so much. I shouldn’t use Oxford commas. There was an error on page forty-five and when am I going to fix it, could I notify them so they can redownload their ebook. Would I like to hire them as a proofreader and here are their rates. Though some are only there to see me party, so there’s a clash.” Rasul laughed sadly and ran his finger through the mint sauce. “The look on your face.”
Jacob hoped the look on his face was that he was horrified, because that’s exactly what he was. “So people come up to you constantly and… what, give you advice? Yell at you?”
“Some comments are amazing. Sometimes someone tells you how much your book meant to them, and it hits at just the right time. Sometimes someone tags you in an awesome personal review and it makes your day. Other times it’s the other way. When I’m in a healthy mental place, I thrive on it. All that feedback. But Elizabeth says even when I think I’m okay with all that input, it affects me in complicated and detrimental ways. I hate to admit it, but I think she’s right. I have so many voices in my head all the time. Sometimes the most random remarks will stick to me, and instead of writing for days I’ll mentally masticate, worrying all the bits and corners for truth and things I should improve on. The problem is often the volume of feedback. For each online poster, it’s simply them saying something. When I log on to see how people like the photo of the sunset I posted, though, and somebody feels the need to complain about how I’m not writing fast enough or offer commentary on how I treated the shopkeeper on page forty of Carnivale, it can be a bit derailing.”