“Paris Fashion Week is soon. Like, in two weeks.”
Marley fell heavily back in her seat.Shit. Her surgery was in two weeks. Shayne would be deserting her right after her mastectomy. But this was too amazing an opportunity to turn down.
Marley forced a smile. This news was probably why he’d planned this party. To soften the blow. “It’s fine. I’ll go to my parents’ to recover.”
Shayne shook his head. “Youcannotgo to your parents’. Your dad will, like… pretend whatever is happening to you isn’t happening, and your mom will tell everyone on the family WhatsApp every detail about your recovery. No. Your friends will help.”
Reena nodded. “Yeah. I can come over every day. I just hired a new part-timer and—”
Marley shook her head. “Reena, you can’t come all the way here every day!” As a baker, she was up making bread at three a.m. daily. Marley couldn’t ask Reena for help after that. “My mom is home all day. It will be fine.”
Shayne shook his head. “What if we got a bunch of people to take turns coming? Grams too. We’ll set up shifts.”
Marley hated the idea of putting that many people out. “Maybe I can put the surgery off…” She was pretty sure she couldn’t. Dr. Abernathy had a long waiting list.
“You cannot put it off,” Reena said. “It’s lifesaving surgery.”
“It’s not lifesaving,” Marley said. “My last mammogram was fine.”
Shayne put his hands on his hips. “Mahreen Abigail Kamal, you know that with your family history and genetics, this isn’t a case ofifyou’ll get breast cancer butwhen. Do you really want to go through what your mother went through?”
Marley frowned. “Abigail?”
“You don’t have a middle name—so I’m loaning you my sister’s. If you’d rather, you can borrow mine, but Beauregard ishorrendous, and it’s bad enough that I’m saddled with it.”
“Marley,” Ruby added after being silent for a while. “Think about my mother.” Ruby didn’t have to say anything else.
Marley leaned back in her chair, looking up as tears filled her eyes. No one needed to remind Marley to think of Ruby’s mother. She was always thinking about Maryam Aunty.
When Marley was clashing with her parents on just about everything, Maryam was theonlyone who understood. Marley had even told Maryam Aunty and Ruby about her first girlfriend when Marley was fourteen, and they had kept her bisexuality a secret. Marley and Ruby’s passion for clothes and fashion came from Maryam, who worked as a seamstress from her home. Honestly, Marley wouldn’t be the person she was now without her aunt. Maryam Aunty died of breast cancer when Marley was eighteen, right after Marley graduated from high school, and Marley still wasn’t over losing her.
When Marley’s own mother was diagnosed with the same cancer two years ago, Mom’s genes were tested because of the family history of cancer. First Mom, then Ruby, then finally Marley were all found to carry the BRCA1 genetic mutation, which gave them an 80 percent lifetime chance of developing breast cancer and a 40 percent chance of ovarian cancer. Mom had a mastectomy after chemo and now wore external prosthetics. Ruby had been living in Montreal back then, and she had a prophylactic—a preventative mastectomy—there soon after.
And now it was Marley’s turn for surgery. The timing sucked, but she needed to do this.
Reena’s voice lowered. “It’s your decision to make. We’ll support you either way. I can’t imagine how hard this is, Marley, but we got you. I’ll come every day. And Nadim, if you want him. We got you, Marl.”
“I can help, too,” Ruby added.
Reena maybe could help, but Marley wasn’t going to let herself be a burden on Ruby. Ruby had already been through enough thanks to this stupid gene.
Marley smiled at her friends. “Don’t worry about me. I’mhavingthe surgery. No matter how hard it is,” she said softly. She had no choice. She couldn’t go through what her mother went through. What her aunt went through. She blinked away the tears. “I’ll figure it out.”Hardseemed like the biggest understatement right now.
“I’m already planning your one-month-post-mastectomy party,” Shayne said. “I’ll get streamers. Now, how about lychee martinis to wash down that Thai?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Nikhil
Nikhil was one hour into his first styling meeting with Mahreen, and his self-esteem was even lower than before. Why had he thought all this pressure and impostor syndrome would miraculously go away by having someone whoknewhim pick out his clothes? Ridiculous. They were just clothes. Lydia and Kaelyn, the studio publicist, were right now arguing about his outfit while Mahreen was looking back and forth between them like it was a tennis match, and Nikhil felt as invisible as ever.
And of course, Mahreen was stillsobeautiful that he didn’t know what to do with himself when he was in the same room with her. Just like when they were in high school and he’d discovered that sitting next to the hottest girl in the school wasn’t the windfall he’d thought it would be, especially if he wanted to actually pass the class.
At least in chemistry Mahreen had been focused on the teacher, or whatever chemical warfare they were cooking up. Now her attention was 100 percent onNikhil. She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip as she eyed him in his newest getup—black pants, a casual-ish white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and a funky black asymmetrical vest. Nikhil thought the outfit was cool, even if it wasn’t something he’dnormally wear. Too monochromatic and stiff. But Lydia said the studio had requested dark colors to move him away from his goofy comedian image.
“That looks too Indian inspired,” Kaelyn said, shaking her head. “We’re going for mainstream looks. The pants are good, though.”
Nikhil snorted. Because God forbid anyone reminded people of Nikhil’s homeland. It was one thing to hire a nonwhite actor—but apparently it was important that his skin tone be the onlyforeign-looking thing about him.
