In-Genie-Us!

Chapter 1: Something Old-1

Chapter 1: Something Old

Hell, Shanaya Singh thought morosely, is watching your best friend get ready for a marriage you know will be flaming wreckage in less than three years.

What made it worse, if that were even possible, was the fact that she had been harboring a desperate crush for Allison ever since they were in middle school. The other woman was everything Shanaya was not; where she was small, dark, and homely, with mousy brown hair, unimpressive looks, and a chest that could only be called modest if you were doing a little creative flattery, Allison was tall, blond, and gorgeous, with a body which made men of all ages turn into stuttering idiots in her presence, unable to peel their eyes away from her stunning figure.

She was also, may all the gods damn fickle fate, resolutely heterosexual, with not the slightest interest in her – or any other woman, for that matter - as a romantic partner. Shanaya’s unrequited desire for her best friend would stay just that – unrequited. Over the years, she had made two fumbling attempts at seducing Allison - once when they were both in high school, and another the summer before her sophomore year in college. Both times the other woman hadn’t even recognized them for what they were. Shanaya didn’t know whether she should be relieved that she had been saved the embarrassment of having Allison reject her, or angry that her friend was so oblivious to her advances that she couldn’t even see a seduction attempt when she was waving it front of her face.

“Why are we doing this?” she grumbled as Allison pushed open the door of the antique shop, shoehorned between a comic-book store and a cut-rate Chinese restaurant. “Don’t you have enough jewelry at home? Why are we running all over town?”

Allison flashed her a dazzling smile over her shoulder. “Come on, Shannie. Don’t you know the old rhyme? ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?’”

“Yes. So what?”

“I need something old for the wedding. I already have something blue. Though,” she said, winking, “I’m not going to tell you what it is. It’s a surprise for Brad, too.”

Gross. She kept a smile on her face, even though her stomach heaved. To think of Brad Sorensen having his hands on Allison was like someone sitting on a whoopie cushion during the Ode to Joy. Some things were just plain wrong. “What about something new?”

“Well, that’s the wedding dress, silly. And I’m sure my mom can find something for me to borrow. Some of her earrings, maybe. But I still need something old.” She pulled her back towards the jewelry section. “It’s bad luck, otherwise.”

Shanaya sighed. She knew, as the maid of honor, she should be doing everything she could to help Allison out. But her heart wasn’t in it. She was her best friend, had been since their first day of preschool. Her lips quirked, remembering the story that their mothers never tired of telling.

“Are you reading a story?” the strange girl asked. Her mouth fell open when she looked up at her from her position at the bookcase, hiding away from all the other noisy kids. She had the most amazing hair, all golden and soft, tumbling around her face in curling ringlets.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re pretty.”

“I know.” She tossed her head and smiled. “My name’s Allison. Allison Weaver. But most people call me Allie. Who are you?”

She looked down at her shoes. “Shanaya.”

“That’s a nice name.” She sat down on the mat beside her with a thump. “Mommy reads stories to me. Can you read?”

“Yes. A little.”

“Good. Read the story to me, okay?”

And that was how shy, bookish Shanaya acquired a new best friend, almost by accident. Allison had always been there for her, even when the other kids had made fun of her skin color and her religion. Hindus were a bit thin on the ground in Mayfield, Kentucky, population ninety-eight hundred. And a family that not only wasn’t Baptist, but wasn’t even Christian, was looked on with deep suspicion by the denizens of Graves County.

Could be worse though, she admitted. We could be Muslim instead of Hindus. Though then people would probably be trying to get Mom and Dad deported, even if Mom is the best dentist in town.

She leaned against a pillar, her nose wrinkling as Allison poked through the displays of second-hand jewelry. Most of it was awful – tacky, gaudy stuff that a hooker wouldn’t wear on a bet. She closed her eyes as her friend tried on a pair of mismatched bracelets, then held up a tarnished necklace to her tan throat. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s crap,” she said flatly. She stirred the selection with a finger, then gave the whole mess a contemptuous flick. “There isn’t a single thing here that would look good on you. You’re wasting your time.”

She sighed, rubbing her temples. As much as she hated the idea of Allison marrying the six foot high pile of crap she was currently engaged to, she owed it to her friend to make her special day as happy as possible. “Listen. We can do better. What are you really looking for? What do you want?”

Allison’s forehead wrinkled adorably, the way it did when she was thinking hard. “A necklace, maybe? I have one or two, but I was thinking, something gold, to set off the dress…” She pulled out her phone, her fingers dancing as she summoned up a picture of her in her wedding dress at the last fitting. “See?”

Shanaya chewed her lip to disguise the pang of desire. Even on the tiny screen of a cell phone, Allison was stunning in her wedding gown. The dress was white lace, with a daringly low neckline, dropping in a deep vee between the rising swells of her friend’s impressive breasts.

“I have some lovely pieces,” she admitted reluctantly. “Old jewelry from my grandmother that came to me when she passed away and me and Mom and Nadia and Zahira divided things up. One…it’s very beautiful, made of gold. Linked discs in rows, connected by tiny chains.” Her fingers described a triangle in the air. “Thirteen in the first row, twelve in the next, all the way down to one in the last row.” Her mouth dried as she thought of the gold lying next to that tawny skin, and the effect it would have with the creamy white lace to set it off.

“Thirteen? That’s bad luck, isn’t it?”

“Maybe for you ridiculous Christians,” she teased. “Thirteen is an important number to Hindus. It’s the number of full moons in every year.”

“Oh? What about twelve?”

“Twelve signs of the zodiac.”

“Eleven?”

“The eleven trunks of mighty Ganesh, the elephant god.”

Allison’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I’m pretty sure you’re making that up. Someday I’m going to ask your mom about all the things you say about Hindus, and if you’ve been lying to me all this time, you can find a new best friend.”

“Hah. You’ve been saying that since we were six years old.” She gave the store a disdainful glance. “Ready to get out of here? I’m starving.”

They ate lunch at their favorite Mexican place. Shanaya had chicken tacos, while Allison chose fajitas, all the while moaning about how eating such a big meal with the wedding less than a month away was a terrible idea, because all the food was going to make her swell up like a nickel balloon. Shanaya ignored it, the way she always did. Allison had been pronouncing dire warnings about the death of her figure since she was fourteen, but never gained an ounce she didn’t want to.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, as they walked into the house.

“Hi, honey. Hello, Allison.” Maryam Singh was at the kitchen island, cutting vegetables with a wickedly sharp knife. “What are you guys doing home so early? I thought you’d be shopping all day.”

“We had a better idea. What’s for supper?”

“Rogan josh,” she replied, scraping chopped red chili peppers into a shallow bowl with the edge of her knife. “Will you be eating with us, Allison?”

“Rogan josh?” Allison bounced happily on her toes. She loved the lamb dish. “Sure! I’ll just call my mom and tell her I’ll be eating here, since my other mother loves me so much more than she does.”

Which was a far cry from her reaction the first time she had come over for dinner and a sleepover, Shanaya recalled. Completely unprepared for the hot spices which her mother used in cooking, the little girl had broken down into tears at the unfamiliar burning sensation in her mouth. Only an emergency application of chocolate ice cream as a treatment had rescued the night from complete disaster.

Maryam laughed, tilting her head back. “You’re terrible. You better treat your maan right, or when it’s time for your next turn on the wheel, you’ll be sent back as a stinkbug.”

Allison giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’ll remember.”

“We’re going upstairs,” Shanaya said. “Call us when dinner’s ready, okay Mom?”

“Sure, honey.” She waved the knife at them with the same casual skill she used when pulling a tooth. “No problem.”

“Do you really believe that stuff about coming back as an animal or something?” Allison asked, as they climbed to the second story. “Having life after life until you reach…what do you call it again?”

“Moksa,” she replied absently. “I don’t know. Do you really believe that the Romans nailed a Jewish carpenter to a tree for telling everyone how we should be all nice to each other for a change, rose from the dead, and was carried off bodily into heaven, and that all we have to do to achieve eternal bliss is believe in him? That eternal reward or damnation has nothing to do with how we behave on earth?”

“Well, it’s something to do on Sunday morning,” Allison laughed as they emerged from the stairs into the upstairs hallway.

I can think of much more interesting things to do on Sunday morning, Shanaya thought. And every morning after, too. And never mind most of them involved having her head buried between her best friend’s thighs.

“Here,” she said as they entered her room. She knelt down, opening the bottom drawer of her dresser, pulling out a largish box made of a heavy, dark wood. She set it on the vanity, taking care not to mar the polished surface. She opened a small tray at the bottom. “What do you think of this?”

“Oh, Shannie.” Allison picked up the necklace, the sunlight bouncing off the golden discs. “It’s gorgeous.” She held it up, small movements of her hands making the entire piece ripple like a waterfall at sunset. “Are you sure it’s all right if I wear it?”

“Of course.” She forced a smile to her face. “Maybe I can find something for all the bridesmaids to wear, so it’ll be like we’re a secret club.”

“That would be awesome.” Her friend held it up to her chest. “God, it’s so heavy!”

She nodded. “Real gold, you know. I don’t know how long it’s been in the family, but Mom says she saw her grandmama wearing it when she was a girl.

“Here. Take off your shirt. I want to see how it looks against your skin.”

“You just want to see me with my shirt off, you lesbian pervert.”

“That, too,” she said easily, ignoring the pang her words caused. Coming out as a lesbian had been the hardest thing she had ever done. And it would have been a thousand times worse if she hadn’t had the support of her family and her best friend. Mayfield was deeply conservative, with a church on every street-corner, it seemed, and populated by people who thought a deep heart-to-heart about accepting Christ as your personal savior was something you did in the check-out line at the grocery store. And although the high school paid lip service to buzzwords like ‘inclusivity’ and ‘diversity’ she wasn’t foolish enough to think that her s****l preference wasn’t the cherry on top of the weirdness sundae, as far as many of the teachers and students there were concerned.

Which was why Allison had been the first person she had come out to, even before her own family. If her best friend couldn’t accept her, then she really didn’t have any idea what she was going to do.