“Which you would be incredible at, though you know you’d also have to take on the cases you don’t like. Where you rep the bad guys. And don’t just palm them off onto me.”
“Hey, I’ve represented my fair share of dickheads.”
Lakshmi sighed. “True that. Well, at least our resident dickhead got us some prosecco. Coming?”
“I’ll meet you there,” said Reeva. “I just want to finish up the paperwork.”
“Only you celebrate a win by doing paperwork. Remind me why we’re friends again?”
“Because I celebrate a win by doing paperwork. See you down there!”
* * *
—
When Lakshmi had gone, Reeva pulled down the blinds of her office door and rushed over to the mirror. The paperwork was a lie; she needed to see if things had gotten worse. Lakshmi knew everything—what was the point of a best friend who didn’t?—but Reeva couldn’t bear the pity that appeared in her eyes whenever they spoke about it. She needed to do this alone.
She took a deep breath and looked straight at the woman in front of her, in her ecru silk blouse, wide-legged charcoal trousers, and pointed heels. Her wavy hair, dyed in various shades of browns, was cut above her shoulders, gently framing her slightly too-angular face. It was, as reflections went, a pretty good one. But Reeva was too focused on her task to notice.
Slowly, she used her little finger to push a large chunk of her hair over from the left to the right side of her head. It revealed a perfectly round bald patch. Reeva felt the sickening lurch in her stomach that hit her every time she looked at her bare scalp (at least twenty times a day) in the hope that it had shrunk. But it hadn’t. Instead, it was now so large that with the LED office lights shining straight onto it, it looked like a round lightbulb poking out the side of her head. Trying not to cry—or think about the fact that she now resembled a human lamp—Reeva reached for her ruler.
Just then her phone rang with a FaceTime call. Reeva looked down at the screen and frowned. Her mum. The last time they’d spoken, she’d forced Reeva to sit through a guided video tour of her villa on a private island in the Seychelles “right where George proposed to Amal!” It had lasted thirty-seven minutes. Reeva’s finger hovered over the reject button. She had too much going on in her life to deal with her mum right now. But at the last second, her finger slid over to “Accept.” She sighed in resignation; no matter how much she tried, Reeva was incapable of taking her younger sisters’ lead and rejecting their mother’s calls.
She quickly pushed her hair back to cover the patch as she held up the phone in front of her. The last thing she needed was for her mum to notice that she was going bald.
“Darling?” Her mum’s perfectly made-up face slowly appeared, pixel by pixel, on her phone screen. “Can you hear me?”
Reeva nodded. “Yep. Is everything okay?”
There was a dramatic silence before Saraswati replied with a pregnant monosyllable: “No.”
Reeva waited expectantly for the ensuing monologue on the latest crisis—last time, a Bollywood actor had dared to (accurately) suggest that Saraswati was in her sixties—but the sound cut out and the screen froze. She sighed, placing the phone down on a shelf so she could see her mum, but her mum couldn’t see her. Then she picked up the ruler. It was time.
“Reeva, where are you?” The pixels slowly rearranged themselves back into her mum’s familiar Botoxed face.
“I’m here, Mum,” she called out, looking at the ruler with trepidation. “Shall we just talk later? I’m quite busy and your connection isn’t great.”
“Oh, the bloody Taj,” muttered her mum. “I don’t know why they can’t fix their Wi-Fi.” As Saraswati began ranting about the five-star hotel’s poor facilities, Reeva focused on her task. She quickly flicked her hair back and reached up to measure the diameter of the patch. She gasped out loud—6.5 centimeters. It was growing.
“I know,” said Saraswati. “It’s shocking. Anyway, I suppose I should tell you why I’m calling.”
Reeva rummaged around her bag for her makeup. She had a date that evening—her twentieth with Nick, not that she was counting—and she wanted to look perfect. “Please do.”
“Okay . . . The thing is . . .”
Reeva pulled out her mascara and began applying it onto her lashes, her jaw falling slack as she focused on her task.
“Darling . . . your dad’s dead.”
“Uh-huh, and?” Reeva’s mouth was still open as she put on her mascara, so her voice came out lisping. “Ith there a reathon you’re bringing up thomething that happened when I wath five?”
“Don’t talk like that, darling,” said Saraswati. “You sound like you’ve had a stroke. And of course there’s a reason. It’s just . . . well . . .”
Reeva put away the mascara and pulled out a fuchsia lipstick that perfectly matched her shoes.
“I suppose I’d better just say it.”
Reeva was only half listening. Her mum probably wanted to talk about her latest realization in therapy, one that would doubtless focus on her own struggles and avoid the phrase “I’m sorry.” Reeva wished this new therapist wouldn’t encourage her mum to share all her supposed breakthroughs with her daughters. It was fine when you were being paid more than £100 an hour to hear them, but not when you were forced to listen for free.
“You see . . . Your dad didn’t actually die back then. He was alive. And he has been—all this time. Until today.”
Reeva’s hand slipped and smudged fuchsia lipstick across her cheek. “I’m sorry. What?” She grabbed the phone and stared into her mum’s shifting face.
“It was a heart attack in the middle of the night yesterday. All very sudden.” Her mum looked down at her nails (dark red Shellac—her trademark) and began fiddling with her ridiculously large diamond ring. “I’m sorry to not be able to tell you in person, Reeva. But this latest movie, it’s just taking up so much of my time.”
Reeva wiped the lipstick off her cheek and stared at her reflection in the mirror and then looked back down at her mum. “I’m sorry; are you kidding? Are you trying to tell me that Dad’s been alive all this time?! Until last night?”
Her mum nodded guiltily. Reeva scanned her face for some kind of explanation, but none came. “So why did you tell us he was dead?! Mum—you need to explain! What’s going on?!”
Saraswati coughed awkwardly. “I know it’s a lot to take in. It’s a real shock he died so young. Only sixty-four.” A series of muffled shouts erupted on Saraswati’s end, and her face brightened momentarily. “Darling, I’m so sorry, I have to go in a minute. That’s the producer calling me. We’re getting a flight up to the Himalayas today—I have no idea why these directors are so obsessed with getting the mountains into every song sequence. I think the Wi-Fi will be even worse there. Honestly, these hotels—”