Page 45 of Devil in Disguise
Pavani looked beyond her, her expression arrested, and Dyma said, “What? They’re behind me listening? They’re preparing their blowgun darts, tipped with untraceable poison from the Amazon rain forest? What?” Because, yes, Sydney and Cassandra tended to eat late, just like her. Dyma could have adjusted her own dinnertime, but it seemed she was too stubborn for that. They weren’t driving her out.
“No,” Pavani said. “They’re just over there talking about you. I mean, I’m guessing, because people keep turning around and staring over here. What did youdo?I know they’re major drama queens, but it’s, like, afeud.At least that’s what people are saying.”
“What people?” Dyma asked. “Who are all these people who are so fascinated? Nobody’s saying anything tome.”
“Because your only friends are those two guys,” Pavani said, proving that Dyma wasn’t the only one who’d cornered the market on blunt honesty. “Guys don’t care that much about girl-drama anyway, and it’s mostly the Bush School people, and some of the Lakeside people, too. Plus assorted hangers-on.”
“Uh … Lakeside?”
“Another private school. It’s kind of a club. I know, because I went there—Bush, I mean—starting in sixth grade, and those two were the queen bees. Some of that’s about how much money your parents have, or rather, how far up they are at Microsoft or Amazon, but some of it is the usual popular-girl thing, as seen in every high-school movie ever made. Largely focused on grooming and ruthlessness. Also, it’s rumored, cosmetic surgery. Sydney’s nose didn’t used to look like that, I’ll just say. And her boobsdefinitelydidn’t.”
“Sucks to be them, then,” Dyma said. “That they’re not going to, what was it, Pomona or Mount Holyoke or wherever, where they could all be private-school kids together.”
“Harvard,” Pavani informed her. “It’s all about Harvard. Of course, they didn’t get in. That was abigshock.” She smiled cheerily and took another bite of eggplant moussaka.
“Hey,” Dyma said. “Are you vegetarian, by any chance?”
“Well, yeah. Obviously. I’m Hindu.”
“Uh … is that related?”
Pavani laughed. “Guess you’ve never known any Hindus. You didn’t notice the whole cow thing?”
“Oh. Huh. The cow thing. But I didn’t realize it, uh, extended to everything.”
Pavani shrugged. “Yeah, not everybody does it, especially NRIs, but in my house? Yep.”
“NRIs?”
“Non-Resident Indians.” Pavani waved her spoon. “Meaning, Indians overseas. My parents are always saying they’re westernized now, and my mom might have short hair and wear jeans, but you’ll notice it’s still Desi Town in our house. Full-on Indian, complete with my grandparents living with us half the time, keeping us pure. Indian food.VegetarianIndian food, and don’t even get mestartedabout virginity. Or marrying a non-Indian. Or evendating.I thought I might branch out, now that I’m here and they can’t see, but you know … if you’ve never eaten meat, it’s kind of gross. The dating thing hasn’t happened yet, either, but the year is young. If I knew how to date, that is. How you even start. What you say to the guy.”
“Yes,”Dyma said. “On the meat, I mean. It’s gross anyway, right? Flesh.” They shared a shudder, and Dyma said, “Except that my boyfriend’s a cattle rancher, so …” She took a bite of her cake. “Awkward.”
“No, seriously? How do you even get a boyfriend who’s a cattle rancher? Are those just …” Pavani waved her yoghurt spoon again. “Wandering all over the … plains, or whatever? Does he have a horse?”
“Yes!”Dyma said in delight. She’d been sorry she’d mentioned it as soon as the words were out of her mouth, because shewastrying to start with a blank slate here, but … there was Owen. So big in her mind, and nobody evenknewabout him. “That’s what I said! When I met him. Like, with a log house and a horse and that big gate thing with the name on it? And yep, he does!”
“So what’s it like?” Pavani asked. “The ranch?”
That brought Dyma’s mood down a little. “I don’t know. I’ve never been there. He doesn’t always live there.”
Pavani was looking at her a little squinty-eyed, the same way Dyma would have looked if somebody else had said that. “So he’s a … cattle rancher who doesn’t live on his ranch,” she said slowly. “Is that a thing? I’ve read quite a few romance novels, and I have to say that the rancher’s always pretty much on the … ranch.”
“Well, for him it’s a thing. So I guess if the college deal doesn’t work out, I can become a cowhand or something.”
“Do you know how to ride a horse?” Pavani asked.
“Anotherthing I’ve never done,” Dyma said. “Well, I rode one of those ponies before that go around in a ring at the fair, but I don’t think that counts.”
“So maybe not a cowhand,” Pavani decided. “And OK, now that we’ve bonded and everything, tell me what happened. If you didn’t hit Sydney and Cassandra … what actually went down?”
Dyma told her, and Pavani made the kind of gratifying noises you’d expect. And when it came to the part with Logan, she shuddered.
“He thinks he’s God’s gift,” she said. “He was my AP Chemistry partner. Do not get me started.”
“You did all the work,” Dyma guessed. “Ugh, group projects, am I right?”
“Absolutely. And he’d say these things like, ‘You’re so good at this stuff, though,’ and smile at me like I should be all flattered, when you know he’sreallythinking, ‘Because you’re Indian.’ And calculating how much he’d have to flirt with me to get me to write his papers for him. Like that was aprospect.”
