“You don’t understand,” Ashna said. If everyone was going to accuse her of trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, she might as well go with it. “The award is a really big deal to Shobi. She doesn’t want it to look like she has no family to share it with. It’s important to her to show everyone how she has it all.” A blatant lie. Shobi was, in fact, a vocal advocate of women not pressuring themselves to “have it all.”
It was yet another pet lecture: Men don’t have to choose between family and achievement, so why should women? Every time we talk about women having it all, we focus the conversation on whether or not women should choose one over the other, which reinforces the problem it’s trying to solve.
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” China said, suddenly dead serious. “When the head honchos called me into a meeting this morning, giving me a bonus and you a raise wasn’t the only thing they wanted to talk about. I was the one who brought you in last minute; they know we know each other. I promised them you weren’t going anywhere. I know I’ve been saying this, but I’m not kidding around. If you leave the show, I will lose my job.”
ASHNA IS HOLDING Trisha’s hand. Her terrified grip is too tight.
Trisha tugs Ashna closer to the cliff that drops straight and sharp into the ocean. The idea of throwing herself off it makes Ashna’s stomach bounce up to her chest.
Nisha sits cross-legged on the blanket, playing Three Two Five with Mina Kaki and Mamma. Nisha is uninterested in getting her new swimsuit wet; it’s a pretty purple with yellow swirls. Trisha and Ashna wear sporty navy Speedos.
Every one of Mina Kaki’s features is strained with worry. “Girls, you don’t have to do it,” she calls. “Come back here and we’ll play Bluff instead.” Mina Kaki uses her high-pitched protective voice.
Next to her, Mamma widens her eyes in reproach. “Stop transferring your phobias to the children, Mina.”
“You let Vansh and Yash do it,” Trisha says in her defiant voice as she tugs harder at Ashna’s hand. “Let’s go before she stops us from doing this too,” she whispers to Ashna.
“I don’t want to.”
Shobi stands and Ashna’s heart sinks at the determined look on her face. “Go, girls. Do it. There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Trisha squeals. “I love you, Shobi Kaki!”
Shobi grins. “I love you back, Shasha bear. You’re my brave tigress!”
Mina stands. “Come over here, Ashi. You don’t have to jump if you’re scared.”
“Why would she not want to?” Mamma says, a frown twisting her mouth. “You want to, right, Ashna?”
Ashna freezes. She can’t answer her mother, but she tugs her shaking hand out of Trisha’s.
Trisha runs screaming to the edge by herself ready to throw herself off . . .
ASHNA SPRANG AWAKE on the couch, her heart skittering in her chest. Her phone was vibrating in her hand. She touched her jeans. No swimsuit, thank God. The pitch darkness of the living room made the flashing of her cell phone dance like a strobe light against her black T-shirt.
“Shut up!” she hissed at it before hitting talk and pressing the blameless thing to her ear.
“Hello, beta.”
Shit, being woken from sleep meant she hadn’t checked caller ID. Ashna pulled the phone away from her ear and checked the time. Three A.M. Had Shobi really ambushed her in the middle of the night, knowing she might answer the phone without checking?
“What’s up, Mom?” She got off the couch and stretched her stiff back, half expecting to feel the sandy cliff from her dream beneath her bare feet.
After her call with China, Ashna had obsessively mixed and sampled tea blends, labeling them things like Apocalypse Averted and Nowhere to Run. Then she’d settled into the couch to think with a cup that she’d finally gotten right (Hidden Strength). Her social media and text messages were filled with The Video and her brain had shuttled wildly between knowing that China was being her dramatic self and believing that her best friend’s job hung in the balance. With so much spinning in her head, it was a miracle she had fallen asleep.
On the phone Shobi sounded almost surprised that her ambush had worked. “I’m just checking in to see if you’d given any thought to our conversation?”
Okay, so at least Shobi hadn’t watched the clip. Thank heavens for tiny mercies.
Was it still called a conversation if only one person speaks? “Our last conversation ended with you telling me what I do is worthless. What exactly did you want me to give thought to at three A.M.?” Ashna made her way up the stairs to her room.
“Ashna, please let’s not argue,” Shobi said in her deliberately cool negotiator’s tone, which made Ashna dread the thought of backtracking.
Please let’s not argue was Shobi code for Let’s do this my way.
Thanks to her grotesque luck, right now doing it Shobi’s way was the only way to not end up in front of a camera with Rico again.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about us,” Shobi said in that same determinedly calm tone. “I understand that you aren’t excited about my Padma Shri. I even understand why coming here and being part of the awards ceremony would make you uncomfortable, but having you resort to lying about a new job, that just broke my heart.”
Ashna stopped at the top of the stairs and squeezed the banister. Shobi didn’t believe that Food Network would employ her daughter. That shouldn’t have surprised her, and Ashna was livid at herself for letting it.
Shobi let out a long-suffering breath when Ashna didn’t respond. “I know you’re angry with me, but do you have any idea what the Padma Shri is? Can’t you see, I want you—and all women—to believe that you can achieve whatever you want.”
“Except saving my restaurant, or being on television?”
“Come on, Ashna. I’m your mother, I know how much you hate the spotlight. You won’t even cook with your grandmother watching. You want me to believe you’re going to cook on television?”
Ashna’s mouth went dry. How on earth did Shobi know this? No one knew this about her.
She swiped the stupid tear that slipped from her eye. Letting the woman make her cry was not something she did anymore.
Stay upbeat.
“Food Network believes I can do it.” She didn’t care that she sounded like a petulant child.
How was it fair that Shobi got to be right in this? Ashna was cutting off her nose to spite her face. Twice over.
Something trembled in Shobi’s voice. “Listen, beta, the way I said it last time was wrong, but what I said wasn’t. At least consider getting away for a while. Come see the work we do at the foundation.” She sounded so sincere Ashna almost believed it, then she went on. “You’ve given so much time to your father’s dream, don’t I deserve the same consideration?”
No. Baba’s dream meant something because he’d used Curried Dreams to give Ashna a life. Shobi had used her work to take herself out of Ashna’s life.
“You have to let that lost cause go.” That sounded an awful lot like an order. The thing Shobi hated most.
Baba had loved poking at her about it. FYI, that was not an order. Before you go off saying no just because you’re too important to be ordered about. Growing up around parents who fought constantly was not something any child should ever experience, because it was impossible not to carry it with you for the rest of your life.