When Devils Sing(65)
Neera’s cheeks warmed as she glanced at the portrait of Guru Nanak hanging on the nearest wall, watching over them with empty eyes and an open palm.
“You never listen to me,” Neera lamented. She yanked off her apron, folding it into a messy ball, and tossed it on the countertop. “I could win this competition. Don’t you get that? Nani, this could change everything for us.”
Nani shook her head, pulling the sizzling roti from the pan with bare fingers. One side of it was burned to a blackened, overcooked crisp, filling the kitchen with smoke. “You sound just like him—just like Ajay.”
The sound of Ajay’s name from Nani’s mouth was enough to make Neera pause. “Wh-what?”
Nani tossed the burnt roti into the trash, lingering beside it. “He would tell me the same things. Since he was a boy. He made so many big promises, too many. I could not trust a word from his mouth.”
“I’m not him,” Neera said weakly.
Nani looked at her then with an awful, pitiful expression. Her wrinkled forehead creasing even more, her dark eyes heavy. “I know.” She crossed the small space of the kitchen. Tenderly, she patted Neera’s face, leaving a bit of flour on her cheek. For a heartbeat, Neera thought her grandmother would apologize and make things right between them. Instead, she merely said, “It is not enough.”
Nani walked out of the kitchen and then the lobby, leaving Neera alone, once again.
* * *
THAT EVENING, NEERA found herself climbing out of the passenger seat of Isaiah’s car in the Tavern’s parking lot. “I don’t think I can do this,” she confessed.
Isaiah adjusted the collar of his shirt in the driver’s side mirror. He glanced her way in the reflection, gaze warm and sympathetic. “Neera, come on. Don’t start doubting yourself now.”
Panic had begun to set in. “But what if Grant Langley was right? What if I don’t have what it takes to play onstage?”
What if my deal with the devil doesn’t work?
Isaiah shook his head. “Trust and believe, I’ll be cheering for you the entire time. If you get scared, just look for me in the crowd, all right?”
“All right,” Neera repeated, struggling to temper her anxious thoughts. She adjusted the long off-white dress she wore, feeling distinctly exposed. “Thank you, Isaiah.”
“Anytime.” Isaiah wrapped her in a one-armed hug, guiding them across the parking lot to the Tavern’s front entrance.
Everything in Lake Clearwater seemed to glitter and shine that night, even the hot, baking asphalt. They stood in the long line of people waiting to get inside. As they reached the hostess stand at the door, the two girls asked for their coats. Considering that it was the dead of summer, they had nothing to give them.
As they stepped inside, Neera opened her mouth to comment on the fanciness of it all, but her thoughts were quickly lost in the madness of Southern wealth that surrounded them. Tanned legs in khakis, cackling women in pastel summer dresses and wineglasses in hand, boisterous laughter over things like golf and climate change. TVs on every wall that displayed a different sport in bright, 4K resolution.
Neera noticed familiar red hair across the room. Sam’s braids bounced through the crowd, weaving in and out of bodies with frantic energy. She disappeared through the kitchen doors before Neera had a chance to wave.
“See someone you know?” Isaiah asked.
“Yeah, Sam,” Neera said, turning her attention to the bar that sat center in the room. It was there she spotted her mom shaking a mixed drink and carrying easy conversation with patrons. Kiran was in her element, it seemed.
“You can go ahead,” Isaiah said. “I’m going to look for my father’s table. Good luck tonight.”
“Good luck to you, too.” Neera gently squeezed Isaiah’s arm. She didn’t elaborate further on Isaiah’s meeting with Reid, but he understood what was unsaid. “Text me after, so I know you’re okay.”
“Will do,” Isaiah said, but his eyes were already looking beyond her. “You’re gonna kill it, Neera.”
Isaiah disappeared deliberately into the crowd, leaving Neera awash in a sea of heavily perfumed bodies. The smells made her dizzy. She pushed her way to the edge of the restaurant, moving along the wall until she found an area that was breathable. Her gaze was drawn again to her mom working the bar.
Kiran was focused and detached. Neera had spent many a night with her as she worked in restaurants over the years. There was a level of capability to her mom Neera could never quite mirror, no matter how hard she tried. Neera supposed that was the immigrant experience; it chewed you up and spat you out. Whoever you were after it all determined how far you made it in the world.
Neera realized then she wasn’t the only one watching Kiran. Grant Langley stood out across the room, wearing a crisp, baby-blue button-up and shining silver wristwatch. He laughed with an entourage of men and women, the group carrying themselves with the kind of ease only obscene wealth could endow. But his eyes continued flitting toward Kiran, watching her like a hawk. Even stranger, despite the frantic bustle at the bar, her mom looked at him, too. With a subtle move of his hand, Grant raised his glass to Kiran and tilted his head down, ever so slightly.
Does Mom know Grant? Is that how she got me the audition? It wasn’t an impossible thing to consider. Grant owned the Tavern after all. But why wouldn’t her mom have ever mentioned they were friendly, knowing Neera lived and breathed music?