When Sam left, Meena rushed into action. What she’d thought she’d found here wasn’t real. She couldn’t stay. Once Sabina learned of the loose link between Neha and Meena, she’d find a way to take the apartment. Meena couldn’t stick around and watch Sabina win. Plane tickets, assignments, discovery—those were her life. Living everywhere was what suited her.
She reached for her backpack, which she’d left on a side chair by the fireplace. As she dug out her laptop, Meena noticed the small round table next to it. It was gray, made of iron, suited for the outdoors. A lot of knickknacks sat on top. An old-school wooden alphabet block caught her eye, the kind she’d played with in kindergarten. There was only one. The letter M in bright yellow.
She picked it up. Felt the weight of it in her hand. She clasped it tight until the edges left dents in her palm. She ignored the burn and ache of the wood against her skin. Then she turned and flung it into the fireplace. It didn’t even nick a brick, which meant the throw wasn’t as satisfying as she’d needed it to be. She picked the block up from the stone floor, where it had landed next to a fake giant decorative plant. Inside the plant’s vase, she noticed a silk ribbon in pale pink. She tugged at it, pulled it from the fake brown branches. She unknotted it where it had gotten tangled up in the white and pink silk flowers.
On the other end was a small yellow envelope sealed with red wax. She lifted it, ripped the edge around the seal, and pulled out a folded letter. The paper was old, pale brown.
I don’t travel. I know what the Eiffel Tower looks like. I do not need to stand in front of the Taj Mahal. Everything worth seeing can be done through photos. When I want to be somewhere other than this apartment or my office, I stay at a little bed-and-breakfast in Northampton. The main street has curious shops, and the people are average. There is nothing particularly spectacular there, and that’s what I like about it.
She wanted to cut the note into little pieces. Neha was taunting her from beyond the grave. These notes weren’t cute little fun facts—they were designed to manipulate and mislead. If she’d found this note earlier, she would have thought of it as further proof. Reading it knowing what she knew now, she saw it had been written to confuse, to make her wonder. Just enough information for Meena to believe something that was and wasn’t true at the same time.
Meena added it to the pile and shoved the full envelope into her backpack. She’d had enough of being toyed with.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The train was crowded with passengers and suitcases, and she was glad she’d found a little corner in which to stand, away from the doors. Meena read through a dozen text messages on the tube from Heathrow to central London. The aunties were tenacious.
Where are you? Sabina.
Emergency? Uma.
Next time leave more details. Sabina.
Come back for New Year’s Eve. No, come before then so we can go shopping for a dress. One that will make it impossible for Sam not to kiss you at midnight. Tanvi.
It’s been two hours. That’s too long not to respond to a text. Uma.
We are worried you’ve been kidnapped even though Sam says that’s unlikely. Tanvi.
On and on they went. Twenty texts later, Meena glanced around to see if the private investigator Uma had threatened to send was looking for her on the train. She slid the phone back into her backpack. She didn’t want to miss them. They were the past. She had a life to get on with. Meena was hit by a wave of unfamiliar guilt. She shouldn’t have worried them, at least not Tanvi and Uma. Should have left more than a terse note—Off to London for the holidays. Apartment is unlocked. They’d been kind to her and deserved more, and so did Sam. Except it was taking all her strength to push away the loss of what she’d thought she’d found.
Her phone rang. It was Tanvi. She ignored it. Put them in the rearview. Except she was weak. I’m fine. Just busy. She texted, then put away her phone.
She rubbed her forehead. She wrestled with the familiar tiredness from travel. She was ready to crawl into her twin bed at Zoe’s and acclimate. She wanted a cup of coffee and a warm blanket.
She wondered what Sam was up to, if Wally was behaving. She could text him. She fiddled with her phone. She didn’t know what to say. A simple “Hi” would be too vague and put the burden of conversation on him. She could explain why she’d left so suddenly, that she always chose flight over fight. It had not been a great way to leave, Meena acknowledged. She should have at least told Sam. As a courtesy. He had been a good friend, and she’d left with a generic note on the door.
She would apologize to him. Eventually.
The train stopped at South Kensington Station. She exited and caught the bus to Battersea. The small apartment with its closet-size spare room was empty. She sent off a text to let Zoe know she was there so as not to surprise her friend, then curled up in the twin bed she rented for under a hundred pounds a month and closed her eyes.
It was better to leave things as they were with Sam. It wasn’t as if she were going to see him again anytime soon.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Meena huddled in her coat as she crossed over the Battersea Bridge into Chelsea. London was familiar and unfamiliar, a feeling Meena grew accustomed to in her travels. Each city had its urban centers and its suburbs, its shops and drinking establishments, its special corners for when locals wanted to keep away from tourists. There were areas of density, areas of luxury, and areas of inequity. The ethos of each city, however, was unique.