Bittersweet (6 page)

Edy returned from Kentucky to find her mother’s cavalry loaded up in the Phelps’ living room. Before her mom began running for a United States Senate seat, she wouldn’t have known that a campaign took years to complete. She also wouldn’t have known it required so many nights of sleeping in a house other than your own.

Edy carted her luggage in and got tangled at the door. She pried her bags free with a grimace and worked on stacking them neat as a bellhop. Suits shifted, ignoring her, and Edy’s lips quirked up. Already she stood there, like an idiot, with her fuchsia sack over one shoulder as her mother stood droned on in the middle of an all important political meeting. Her mom stood at the center of a universe she’d fashioned, and no doubt, could stand there forevermore.

“It’s undeniable that our shooting’s given us sympathetic traction in the polls,” Edy’s mother said. “Now’s the time to capitalize on the ire—”

Edy’s bag thudded to the floor and her mother lifted her head.

She lifted her head and stilled. Stilled at the menacing ‘V’ of Edy’s eyebrows, the total flare of her nostrils, and at the last moment, the tight flash of a smile.

Edy curtsied for her mother. “Sympathetic traction in the polls? Glad I could be of service.”

If there’d been a crinkle of alarm in her mother’s face, it ironed free in an instant.

“Fabulous,” her mother said. “Did you think that up just now? How rare of you to get one in. Should I ask them to clap for you?”

She surveyed her staff members. A few shifted uncomfortably in their chairs; one or two had important business on their phones.

Edy looked and wondered. Was this really her mother? The woman she’d blown to epic, unfathomable proportions? Had she ever really thought her more admirable than anyone else? How disappointing to have the curtain drawn back and find a hopping, schoolyard bully in miniature. How disappointing to find her so everyday cruel and ordinary.

“I’m about over you as a mom,” she said and cursed the shake in her voice. “I’d tell you to invest in a pet, but PETA’s taken a strong stance on cruelty to animals.”

Okay, so maybe she did want to hurt her mom. Edy couldn’t say why she went for the second swipe, only that when she dealt it, it cut both ways. Silence engulfed them. An apology hung on her lips. But her mouth wouldn’t move. She didn’t know why.

It wasn’t as if she thought her mom had been sitting at home in lemon skirts, teary eyed as she waited for her homemade cookies to bake. This was Rebecca Phelps. Everything worked to her advantage in the end, and in the end all things worked to her advantage. This encounter would end with a knife in Edy’s back.

 “I do hope you found the Kentucky fried chicken filling,” her mother said and rounded the room enough to show up in Edy’s peripheral. “Because it’ll have to tide you over for dinner. You’re heading up to your room for that one. And you’ll stay there until I’m interested in seeing your face again. I can’t imagine that will be for awhile.”

“Fine. The feeling’s mutual,” Edy muttered and snatched up her bag. Words spilled from her recklessly; she couldn’t figure the why or the how. She found each one of them dangerous, thrilling, insane and warmed to this braver, bolder Edy.

“‘I do hope you found the Kentucky fried chicken filling,’” Edy mocked. “Well, you would know, country bumpkin!”

Okay, that was dumb and disrespectful and she’d yelled at her mother. Plus, she liked the people she knew from Kentucky, all three minus her mother.

“You’re in your room a week!” her mother shouted as Edy thumped upstairs with the luggage. “A week in that room, you ungrateful little brat.”

A week. A month. Under lock and key for your natural born life. These were the weapons every parent had. Edy shot an uncertain look behind her. Wouldn’t the staircase collapse and time warp as all of the great minor demons engulfed her in hell’s mighty flare? No? Probably not? Hmm. And it was in this way that Rebecca Phelps deflated, transforming from monster that she was to mere little mortal.

~~~

At a quarter to nine, Hassan slipped through Edy’s window with a backpack of samosas, a half bag of stale tortillas, and a bottle of flat Pepsi. He apologized for forgetting the cups and suggested they turn the bottle straight up instead. Edy unraveled from her fetal position on the bed and greeted him with a barely there nod as he laid out his offerings.

“Samosas are hot,” he said. “They’re from mom.”

Edy lifted a brow. The same mom who looked about ready to split her side wide with a scythe the same day?

“She went wild laughing at you calling Becca a country bumpkin. I’m pretty sure it’s her new favorite story,” he said.

They hesitated at the mention of his mother, eyes meeting without wanting to. Another crossroads, another boundary with ambiguity waiting on the sidelines.

“Yeah, so there’s that,” Hassan said and dropped his gaze to the floor. He plucked a plump pastry from the lot of them and thumped it in his mouth. He took another and walked it over to hers as if teasing a child. Little bits of steam tantalized her lips, while whiffs of mouth watering spices clenched and twisted her stomach.

“Open up,” Hassan said. “I know you’re starving.”

Open up. A second sort of hunger bated Edy and more than her mouth met him in reply. Lashes fluttering, fingers curling, she pushed back on a blush-worthy appetite and focused on the food instead.  

“How did you find out?” Edy asked around a mouthful of savory meat. God, it was just what she needed—his mother’s samosas—not the other thing. A brush of his thumb against her lips brought a pause between them. Their eyes locked and she forgot both her need for food and her embarrassment.

“You should eat, Cake,” Hassan said, though he hadn’t bothered to look away when he said so.

Slowly, Edy began to chew. When she did, she thought of his earlier words. “Who told you guys what I said about mom? Or that me and her argued?”

Hassan grabbed another samosa for her. “Well, apparently my dad’s a consultant for your mom’s political campaign. Not sure why when your dad’s around. Maybe they both are? Anyway, someone came over and consulted him. In the midst of that, the country bumpkin bit came out because it was funny, I guess. How could someone not tell that?” He shrugged. “People will be telling that for years; I’ll bet.”

Edy chewed, then swallowed her food. As she did, she thought about the way she’d screamed and stomped upstairs. “I had a tantrum,” she said. “I let her get to me and I threw a fit. It’s nothing to be proud of.” Shame pooled in her pores.

Hassan sighed. “Cake,” he said. His green-gold gaze flicked back and forth, eyes hooded and searching before settling again on her. “She’s your mom. It’s her job to solidify you, build you up, not tear you down. So what if you lashed out once? Everyone has a breaking point. Anyway, no blood’s been spilled. You and Becca will live to see another day.”  

He slipped a hand round to the back of her neck and pulled Edy in so they pressed foreheads together, then noses, and finally, at last, a brush of the lips. He tasted sweet, with lips stained of strawberry, and she reeled him closer, impossibly close, twisting his coat in with her fists.

“Edy,” he groaned. “I came to make sure you ate. To make you feel better.”

She kissed his neck. “Make me feel better then.”

He chuckled and dropped a hand to her thigh. His fingers danced, tracing circles in hesitancy as a faint smile painted his lips. Whatever resistance he’d built up lasted until her kisses found the sensitive skin shadowed behind his ear. Hassan gasped, fingers digging to the bone of her hip. He might have said her name. He might have said nothing. He shoved aside the food and gripped her blankets, twisting them in a fist.

“I’m doing a horrible job convincing you to eat,” he said.

“You could feed me,” Edy suggested.

His brow darted up. “I like the way you think.”

Soon, he was back with the tray of samosas and propped up on one arm.

“Part those lips for me,” Hassan said.

Edy did and he tucked the first bite between them. A burst of flavor found her in an instant. Then the rest of the samosa toppled on her shirt.

They burst out laughing. Filling ran the length of her shirt like bird droppings before dumping in her lap for the finish.

“So much for smooth moves.” He sighed before looking her up and down. “Unless, of course, you want to just get out of all that right now.”

Edy rolled her eyes. So much for smooth moves for real.

“Anyway, as much as I’d love to lie here all night and be seduced by you, I don’t want to push my luck with mom.” He gestured to the samosas. “Especially since she knows I came to feed you. I couldn’t eat knowing you hadn’t.”

“Thank you,” she said. Of all the things he’d said to her, and they numbered the stars, she counted that among the sweetest.

Edy had nightmares she didn’t remember. Kicking, twisting, mumbling events that made her streak tears in her sleep. She did it most nights in Kentucky, but never cried while awake. She never cried, never cried out, and never called for Hassan like he wished she would. In Gaitlin, he’d hesitated, always waiting a split second in insecure hope that she’d need him, or maybe just want him in the throes of fear. But always, he’d buckle in a flush of fright and shake her awake, desperate to save her a thousand times over. When he woke her, she’d feed him the most oblivious of expressions before asking him if everything was all right.  His tongue would knot and his mind would curl battling his next course of action. Tell her she’d been crying, terrified in the dark, or leave her to blissful ignorance? Ignorance he’d settle on every single time, watching her slide off to sleep in the hopes she’d find peace.

Edy wasn’t the only one who had nightmares sometime. Wyatt visited Hassan, a bleeding Wyatt, with terror stricken eyes, pleading to his last breath. He’d accuse Hassan of wanting him dead and finally finding happiness now that he’d get his wish. He lay rasping in the dark, begging Hassan to move, to help him, to care, to be human. Never a footstep was managed, not a word of comfort, nothing, but the same bleak stare, a look of expectancy. Wyatt without Edy sobbing beside him left Wyatt ugly when stripped bare. Wyatt stripped bare left Hassan cold, dreading, but willing to wait out nature’s verdict. When the last rattling breath was managed, and all the dying was done, Hassan exhaled in quiet relief, woke up, and vomited. That was the first dream. With time, the throwing up got easier. 

“You okay?” Edy said.

Hassan smiled and hoped it was enough. “I’m good,” he tried and made an effort to bully himself off the dark tangent he’d veered on. He was with Edy; after all, having kidnapped her away from punishment, and even for him, getting away had its merits. Getting away from mom and her drama definitely had its merits. She’d taken to praying loudly at their home altar for the nonstop pardons he now required. When that wasn’t happening, the phone chatter was, with her chatting up aunts from Chandigarh to Chino to discuss every wedding in recent and remote history.

Her other favorite pastime was doling out advice. Let it be on in-laws, parenting, or growing the perfect tulips, whatever the topic, his mother would relate it all to raising him right. “Ah,” she’d say and make a point of looking at him. “You mustn’t be so old fashioned. It’s as I am with Hassan, giving him the chance to see reason and fail. It is inevitable, yes. Which is why the hard shove may not be the way.”   

Yeah. Mom escapes definitely had their merits.

Not for the first time, Hassan wondered how his dad would take the news of his relationship with Edy. He was a hot tempered sort, a run-out-in-the-street-and-see-the-car-later kind of guy. His dad loved hard first and sorted out facts only later. There could be no denying how much he loved Edy, who he called his daughter, his princess, his dear. No amount of reasoning could make Hassan forget that the old man’s marriage had been arranged though. He would expect the same of his son and make no apologies for it either.

Wind blew in insane currents, blinding with tufts of white. They walked side by side, Hassan and Edy, alongside the Charles River, trekking prints along the way.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said and pressed into his side. “Try to hear me out with this, okay?” Her hair fluttered from a purple knit cap, dark, twisting locks against a snow white backdrop. Tendrils of beauty.

“Okay,” Hassan said and wrapped an arm around her overly padded, goose down waist, warming her, warming them as best as he could.

She shot him a hesitant look. “You see, it’s all so confusing—the right thing to do—but seeing that he’s alive, I can’t get him out my head.” Edy swallowed. “I need to visit Wyatt.”

No. Not even. Never. He didn’t want her in the same city limits as the perv. And what had Wyatt done to his cousin, anyway? Everything? Almost everything? Enough to scare her into silence? Hassan could smash and spit on a guy like that. He could rev his Mustang and contemplate some kind of murder. Yeah, his conscience would kick in somewhere between ignition and gas, but still, he’d give the act some thought. Especially if they were talking about reintroducing Wyatt into Edy’s life.

Hassan threw her a brick-heavy look and inhaled the length of the atmosphere. She’d do whatever felt right about Wyatt and he could stand by or not stand by all that.

“Hassan? Are you listening?”

He laughed.  “Uh yeah. Definitely listening. And you’re ready to visit Wyatt Green.” As for him, he was looking forward to the spring. When the flowers came out and the Charles River thawed. Wow. Also, he could use a drink of water. Maybe a thousand drinks of water. Then a summer vacation. He’d never been to The Cook Islands before. How about that for a goal? 

“Hassan.” Edy touched his arm. “I know this is hard. I’m just—trying to do the right thing.”

“Which is what?” he cried and snatched free of her.

Whoa. Talk about finger on the trigger. That outburst surprised him as much as her. He dragged a hand over his face and tried for calmness. An even keel, cool smoothness: all that was within his grasp. Forget that his father ran hot as habanero when pissed; forget that his mom preferred to scorch dissidents with a thousand tiny match burns. Hassan decided what he did and what he didn’t do. And at that moment, he would breathe. Relax. Reel it in. He thought of Cook Islands, warm weather, and Edy in a bikini. 

Edy stopped to stare at him and wrapped both arms around herself; so she looked fragile and tiny with her purple scarf flying like a flag in the wind. Hassan opened his mouth, thought better, and closed it. He wanted her forgiveness for yelling. He wanted his arms around her. He wanted a time machine to go back and be the friend she needed before Wyatt filled her void.

“Don’t,” Edy said. But don’t what? Don’t care? Don’t love her? Don’t hate Wyatt?

Hassan shook his head slow.

“We can look at things the black and white way and say he was shot for being stupid, for standing up instead of lying down,” Edy said. “But that’s not right. It’s not fair. It isn’t even the whole story.” She took a step toward him, crunching snow underfoot before she took Hassan’s gloved hand in hers, enveloping it in warmth. “Reggie Knight is responsible for shooting Wyatt. But the two never would have met if it wasn’t for us.”

Yeah? So? Wyatt had been veering into some strange territory with Edy when he got shot. Him showing up in the middle of the night the way he did proved that he was way off in terms of gauging boundaries. But that meant what? That he deserved what he got? No, of course not.

Then there was the other matter plaguing his conscience. It came as a rough reminder that Reggie Knight had been gunning for Hassan. Hadn’t Wyatt saved Hassan’s life by going to the window and becoming an unwilling victim? Who might have been shot if a guy of Hassan’s approximate height hadn’t shown up and taken bullets meant for another? Maybe the whole house would have sprayed. Maybe Rebecca would have died.

Maybe Hassan would have lost Edy that night.

“Do you … don’t you think he’s been at the hospital long enough?” she said. “I’m beginning to get worried.”

Hassan sighed. What was ‘long enough’ for a person riddled with bullets? In his mind, no amount of time could be ‘long enough.’ What could they know about gunshot wounds and recovery time, anyway? The only doctors that visited their dinner table had social science degrees, with one or two variations for literature. Therefore, Hassan would say he’d been at the hospital however long he needed to be. No more, no less.

“Edy …” he said.

“I know, I know.”

No, she didn’t. She didn’t know what it was to love someone who insisted on riding the rough waves of uncertainty and crashing the cliffs of Wyatt Green again and again. It churned his stomach. It wrecked him as worry for her consumed everything. That police report from Chaterdee placed evidence where only a hunch had been before. He was wiser now, more certain, and sadder for it, too.   

Another thought occurred to him; Hassan tried to shove it away even as he spoke. “You don’t …  miss him do you?”

He hated himself for thinking it. After everything that had happened, all the danger, all the madness, he had to flirt with insecurity. He wanted to snatch the words back and swallow them, to ask her forgiveness, to tell her forget it. But he didn’t. He stole a look at her and kept quiet, letting the seconds tick by and his stomach roller derby as he waited on her answer.

Edy twisted her fingers together so they tangled. “I miss talking to him.” Something in his face made her hesitate. Maybe a flash of doubt, a sprinkle of sickness. “I miss his friendship. At the same time,” she said slower, “I don’t him back in my life.” She shook her head. “That stuff about his cousin?” Edy shuddered and shrunk into her coat somehow, growing smaller even as she grimaced. “It’s all so creepy. And we haven’t even talked about how he came over to snitch on us that night because he’s against the whole idea of me and you. I mean, I know you two have you’re your differences, but no true friend would do something like that.”

“He was tired of being your friend, Edy, and in need of a little promotion.” Frustration stabbed him with her tentative stare. Would she make him say it? Would she drag words out of him he’d tried to bury?

She would. “Listen, Cake. When he—we—thought Wyatt was dying, his last words were ‘tell Edy I love her.’” In his dreams, whenever Wyatt asked the same, Hassan backed away from him, firm in denial, uncommitted, unwilling.

In real life, he’d promised to deliver the message.

In real life, he’d promised to tell his girlfriend that the dying guy he hated was in love with her.

Edy blinked, blinked liked the world faded from sight, even as the sun sat fat on the horizon. “God, I’ve been stupid,” she finally said.

They walked on in thick silence for awhile.

“Even if he wasn’t my friend,” she said. “I was his. I know I’ve wronged him in some ways, too.”

There. Her mind was made up. Her mind was made up whether she knew it or not.

“I’ll go with you to visit him,” Hassan said. After all, she shouldn’t have to go by herself and there was no way she was going by herself.

He pulled Edy to him and tucked away a thousand complicated emotions.

“I’m sorry for being so difficult,” she said.

He couldn’t help the smile. “That didn’t just start.”

She slipped her gloved hands into his coat pockets and jabbed his side with a finger. He laughed and got the benefit of her squeezing him in even closer. Her head rested smooth on his shoulder as the winter wind howled. A toddler careened by drunkenly; a woman barreled after, shoving an empty stroller and shouting for Adam to come back.

Hassan tilted Edy’s chin up for one, two, three kisses. After that, he stopped counting.

“Hassan? Edy? Is that you?”

His heart petered to a stop. A thud, another thud, then death. Slowly, he and Edy untangled. He wanted to ask her if she was half as dead as him.

Dr. Chandra Dhumal pulled up right alongside them, long black ponytail swishing as she jogged in place.

“You know,” Dr. Dhumal said and shoved back her burgundy sweatband as it slipped low on brow. “When I saw you two kissing, I thought I had to be mistaken. Surely, Dr. Phelps or Dr. Pradhan would have mentioned this. So, I came over to see, and yes, it is you.”

They let her words hang, naïve and reaching, dangling in a bubble of absurdity.

“Yeah, well, you see it’s us now,” Hassan said. “So, you know.” Get bent.

Edy looked brittle enough to break. Maybe she didn’t like his tone. “Well, tell us, Dr. Dhumal, how have you been? Any new discoveries in …”

Hassan tried to bat back his smile before mouthing, “Sociology,” to her. It appeared one of them had been paying more attention than the other when some of their dads’ colleagues came over for dinner.

“Er … Geography?” Edy finished

Dr. Dhumal picked up the pace, knees high, fists punching the air. She came off a little high strung, enthusiastic even. Now that he thought about it, Dr. Dhumal and her husband liked to challenge his dad’s every idea. Dinners with them were always the loudest. 

“My field is Sociology,” Dr. Dhumal corrected. “Funny you should ask about it. You probably don’t recall, but my primary areas of interest are gender, sexuality, family processes and inequality. At the moment, I’m researching family life and its influence on intimate relationships. It’s within the context of personal ideology. Fascinating stuff, really.”

“Yeah?” Hassan said. He exchanged a look with Edy. They could tell her how family life influenced intimate relationships. It smothered it. End of story.

Dr. Dhumal jabbed the air with enthusiastic fists, feet frantic in her stationary run. “Well, it was good chatting with you. Tell your dads to contact me on return. Maybe we can do dinner sometime.”

Right. So she could gush about seeing them kiss out by the Charles River. That message would be delivered promptly the day after never. Hassan only hoped Dr. Dhumal was the forgetful sort.