Bindu squeezed her granddaughter’s hand and tapped her own wrist to remind Cullie of her Shloka bracelet—their code for “calm down.”
“Answer the question,” Alisha said, also turning up her glare. “Are you representing Richard’s family?”
Leslie pinched the bridge of his nose as though the conversation had completely slipped out of his control. Good. “Of course I’m not representing the family. Rich was a friend. I’m not representing anyone but him.”
“And what, you think your friend couldn’t possibly think enough of me to . . . to . . .” Never mind, Bindu couldn’t finish that, because it was beyond ridiculous that Richard had left her anything at all. Let alone all his wealth. This was Oscar all over again.
A thought flew in from nowhere. Could the emails about Bhanu be coming from Oscar’s family? Had Oscar done something stupid on his way out too? What was it with these men wanting to lay claim even as they moved on to their next life?
“Never mind,” she said. “You’re right. The money belongs to his family. Not to me. And I don’t care if you believe me or not. But I had no hand in his . . . his . . .” Dear heavens, a man had died while having sex with her.
The room spun a little, and she dropped back in her chair.
Alisha and Cullie were on her in a second, faces tight with worry, forcing a bottle of water at her until she drank.
When Leslie tried to ask if he could get her something, Cullie pushed him back and got up in his face again. “You can’t accuse someone of murdering your friend with her vagina and then act all worried when she faints from the shock of it.”
Oh, Cullie! Despite herself, Bindu’s shoulders started to shake. With laughter, Ganesha forgive her. “Cullie, beta, please! I did not faint.”
Seeing Bindu let a laugh escape, Cullie cracked a smile, and Alisha let a small one nudge at her lips too, even as she shook her head disapprovingly.
Leslie studied them with some confusion. Bindu didn’t care. This is how they dealt with tragedy, and she didn’t need him or anyone else to understand.
Alisha turned on him. “You can take your preposterous accusations and your friend’s money and do whatever you want with it. Just leave us alone. We want nothing to do with it. And since you’re a lawyer, let me put this on your radar too. If your HOA doesn’t stop harassing Ma, we’re going to be the ones doing the suing, and it will not be pretty. So if the bad publicity is what’s making them act like middle school bullies, then you’d better tell them that they don’t know what bad publicity looks like until a discrimination suit hits them.”
Curls had flown loose from her prim bun. Her dark eyes had gone large and livid enough to shoot sparks. Alisha was blazing, and Bindu wanted to high-five her, but the room spun a little bit again, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut. She hated how helpless she felt when she opened her eyes and Alisha was handing her more water.
Pushing it away, she took Cullie’s hand and pulled herself to standing. There was a reason she never took sleep aids. Her body reacted terribly to them. She’d been too thrown off her game yesterday to remember not to take one.
Leslie looked genuinely concerned now, even a little shaken. Well, good. Until the stupid drug was out of her system, Bindu was going to ham it up for him. The nerve of him! To walk in here pretending to protect Richard’s interests to support his little coven.
“I’m sorry. I should have been more sensitive. I do know that Rich had a high opinion of you,” he said as though making that concession hurt his lawyer brain. “We can discuss this later. You should get some rest.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Bindu said, following Cullie out of the room. “I’ve said all I need to say.”
He opened his mouth to respond but then took in the daggers Alisha and Cullie threw at him and closed it again. His nod was courteous, but the look in his eyes made what she already knew clear. They weren’t done with this. Not by a long shot.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CULLIE
My greatest fear was that she’d end up with someone who’d break her. Not because she was fragile. But because without meaning to, I taught her that breaking yourself is the only way to love.
From the journal of Oscar Seth
Chinese takeout had been the only option to cheer Binji up after Richard’s funeral. Cullie’s cooking skills might have been rudimentary at best, but no one could accuse her of being anything but spectacular at ordering things online. If grubhubbing were a verb, it would be Cullie’s signature verb.
She’d outdone herself, ordering all Binji’s favorite dishes: Szechuan shrimp （that Binji insisted on calling prawns） and Szechuan chicken and Szechuan fried rice and pretty much every dish on Lotus Garden’s menu that started with the word Szechuan. Because Binji associated it with spice. Real spice.
“See, this is real spice,” Binji said, red nose sniffling from the heaped spoonfuls of the hot sauce she had slathered on the already spicy food. “Not the American version of spice. Which, frankly, is embarrassing to taste buds everywhere.”
Cullie rolled her eyes, but Binji didn’t look restless and sad for the first time in the week Cullie had been home. Getting to go to Richard’s visitation seemed to have helped. Richard’s friend Mary had made all the arrangements for his funeral, which seemed odd considering he had a family that was eager enough to sue for his money. Mary had been kind enough to invite Binji to say her goodbyes privately, before the coven and others arrived.
Cullie and her mother had stood with Binji as she chanted a prayer over the casket, then tucked a tube of lip balm under Richard’s hands, hugged Mary, and left.
They’d driven home in silence, then changed out of the white clothes Binji had asked them to wear out of respect for the dead and showered before the food arrived.
The spice had accomplished the rest, because Binji looked like herself again, in possession of herself and the universe. A combination of the goddesses Laxmi, Saraswati, and Parvati in the Amar Chitra Katha comic books Dad had read to Cullie every night in his most dramatic voice. On days like today she missed him so much, it was like a physical ache. Or maybe she just missed the simplicity of her childhood.
“Ma, that stuff can burn a hole in your intestines,” Mom said, popping a spoonful of white rice into her mouth.
“I’m sixty-five, and I’ve been eating food five times spicier than this from the day I was born.” Cullie couldn’t believe she was thinking this, but she was so relieved to have Binji’s extraness back. It had been terrifying to have it gone. “So my intestines are either like a sieve by now or they’ve become thick skinned, like me,” she declared fiercely, before delicately—because she was Binji—sliding a massive oily red prawn into her mouth.
Mom patted Binji’s shoulder and took a bite of her own shrimp. Even without the extra-extra-hot sauce, Mom’s nose was Rudolph red. But she looked happy too. American Chinese takeout—as Binji called it—was Desai catnip.
“You’re resilient, Ma. That doesn’t make you thick skinned,” Mom said gently. “You’ve handled all this admirably.”
Binji’s chopsticks paused on their way to her mouth. She gave Mom a half-tolerant, half-grateful smile. “Honestly, I have no idea how to handle it. I wish I’d had a chance to become friends with Richard.” She bit into another shrimp and chewed carefully. “All I know about him is that he loved words.” The saddest smile lit her eyes. “Even when he talked, it was like he was writing his own dialogue. And taking immense pleasure in it. Like he was never separate from his art.”