Incense and Sensibility (The Rajes #3) - Sonali Dev Page 0,58
over most things. Sure, it was lonely, but she knew that her sudden loneliness had little to do with not being able to share her financial troubles with her siblings.
This same loneliness had devastated her ten years ago. It had taught her that waiting on someone else for happiness was the surest way to never be happy. Forgetting that lesson was a path to heartbreak, a path lined with the gravel of unforgivable recklessness.
When China stormed into her office, interrupting India’s thoughts, she was beyond grateful for the distraction.
“Why are you upset with me?” China dropped into a chair as though she owned the room. The sisters had spent hours in the office “plotting world domination,” as China called it. Starting from China’s college projects and presentations to every job she’d gone after, India had played many a tough interviewer, many a disapproving panelist for China.
“I’m not. What are you talking about?”
“You know you can’t lie.” Getting straight to what was bothering her was China’s way. Even though this recent lovestruck avatar had mellowed her manifold. “It’s probably the one thing you’re awful at.”
“I’m awful at a great many things,” India said.
“Yeah? Like what?”
India looked off into the distance as though thinking really hard. It made China laugh, so it was worth it.
“I’m an average cook at best.”
“Come on. Who else can put cocoa in avocados, call it cookies, and not make you gag? Who else can make wheat-germ muffins taste like actual food instead of cardboard?”
That made India laugh. “That’s me, skilled at making food that doesn’t make you gag and doesn’t taste like cardboard.”
“See, you’ve got nothing.”
China was wearing a well-fitted jacket over jeans and her hair as always was perfectly styled into a pony tail. To say nothing of the gorgeous hot pink lipstick.
“I’m horrible at dressing up,” India said.
“That’s because you rock yoga wear to a point where it looks like high fashion. You know, I don’t know how an active wear brand hasn’t asked you to model for them yet.”
“No one has asked me to model because they’re usually actually interested in selling stuff.”
“Oh, India, India, India,” China said in her dealing-with-a-lost-cause tone. “Then let’s just say you’re amazing at anything you happen to have an interest in.”
“Everyone is good at things when they’re focused on them. No one as much as you, though,” India tried not to make it sound like a reprimand. She wasn’t upset with her sister, but she was worried sick. “You’re the best television producer in the business. There is nobody on earth as good as you.” China had said those words herself so many times.
India had always pushed China to think about work-life balance, but China had been far too obsessed with the work half of it. India couldn’t remember the last time China had talked about her work.
“I know. I know. Stop looking so worried. I still love my job. But I’ve never felt this way in my life. My whole self feels awake. You know how you and Mom are always going on about life force? Even the insides of my cells, the very nuclei inside my cells”—she made little pinching actions with her fingers—“even those feel lit up. I feel all the things we spend a lifetime wanting to feel, like the life force inside me is an inferno. I feel . . . consequential when I’m around Song. Being removed from her presence feels violent. I know you’ve never felt that, but how can I not be true to that?”
Every word sliced through India like a hot blade, cutting far closer than it should. She was happy for China. She focused on that.
“That’s beautiful, Cee.” China had a right to these feelings no matter how much it hurt afterward. India had no right to assume hurt was coming for her too. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Are you? Because I need you to be. I can’t contain all this happiness by myself. I need you to not be ashamed of me.”
India reached across her desk and cupped her sister’s cheek. “Listen to me. There is nothing on earth you could ever do that would change how incredibly proud I am of you. But please, you’ve given so much to this job. Don’t give them an excuse to take all that hard work away from you.”
“Cynicism? From you, India? What’s wrong?”
The need to talk to her sister, really talk, about their mother, about everything, rose, but it had been a while since China had been interested in