The Corrupt Gene

By Abdul Bilal

The Corrupt Gene is a novel interwoven with four people that shows how life predisposes us to fall in love and seek certain relationships. The story unfolds with Sunita, a Wedding Boutique owner, who wants to be married as much as the customers buying her gowns, so to become married, she increases her efforts to make her boyfriend propose to her. Meanwhile, her best-friend, the tantalizing Katie, who has no problem making men commit to her, can no longer ignore the harsh and cold ways she breaks up with them.

But as the consequences of Katie’s actions catch up to her, and begin to toil on her conscious, she finds apart of herself more humane when meeting the most unlikely of people, Stew, who is an inspiring actor, and who also happens to be stalking his ex-girlfriend.

Just as friends are naturally acquainted through mutual friends, Novice, friend to Stew, becomes deeply affected by Sunita, even though he is married. And as the ties of affection increase between him and Sunita, it is thwarted by the same ideals of faithfulness that they both espouse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 16, 2008
• ISBN: 9781463464936

Abdul Bilal

Abdul Bilal is a young author who lives in Pennsylvania and resides in the Delaware County. His degree in Science and love of literature has helped him to compose this work.

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This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

© 2010 Abdul Bilal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/6/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4343-7169-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-6493-6 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Ice Cream on a Winter’s Day

The Y Chromosomes Named Stew and Novice

An Hour with the Girls

Noodlehead

Behind the Blinds

A Territory of the Senses

A Dinner to Remember

The Bookstore

After Seclusion

Blue as the Open Sky

Nirvana

Fashionably Cruel

Two Cups of Coffee and One Espresso

Work Them Dimples

What the Hell was Katie Thinking?

A Dose of Reality and Its Side Effect

All is Not Lost

That Rock Romantically Labeled Love

Déjà Vu

Bees, Butterflies, Cars, and Couples

Tout Est Bien Qui Finit Bien (All is well that ends well)

The Corrupt Gene is a novel about unfulfilling relationships. The story is interwoven between four twenty-somethings. It unfolds with Sunita, a wedding boutique owner, who wants to be married as much as the brides buying hers gowns. Mean while, her best friend, Katie, who has no problem making men commit, is in no rush as no man can live up to her standards. Somehow Katie begins to date the most unlikely of people, Stew. Though Stew is still in love with the consuming idea of what is now his ex-girlfriend; so, he decides to stalk her. But, if he also wants keep Katie around, he must curve his twisted methods, which are often condemned by his mentor, Novice. As Novice continues to advise Stew, he can no longer deny the reality surrounding his own marriage and what he thought it should be.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Thanks for the contribution of a number of people. First, I like to say a special thank-you to Ray Withelder, who was the first to read the novel in its entirety, from beginning to end, while giving me valuable insight. Rest in peace. By the way, I made it to London and back.

Next, I like to thank Mutaal for his persistent determination for me to start, proceed, and finish the book. And to my sister, Jameelah. If she hadn’t read the first two chapters, I hardly believe I would have finished the rest—that’s support.

I also thank Tyrone Thorogood and Raymond Corbin, who inspired me not to suppress who I am.

To God be the glory

Gene: a functional hereditary unit occupying a fixed location on a chromosome, influencing phenotype, temperament, and what others speculate as destiny.

Ice Cream on a Winter’s Day

IN ALL, A NORMAL STORY.

Some people are born to be beautiful: born with a lucky set of genes attached to each chromosome; born with a lotto-winning arrangement of molecules or with a perfect DNA sequence. Even to those who are not, birth is still a prize. Take, for instance, Sunita, who eased out the driver’s side of her black Range Rover as lifelessly as she did every morning. She was wishing she hadn’t removed her sunglasses; her eyes’ natural eye shadow was no match for the morning sun. Dressed in a pea coat that matched the brown highlights of her black hair, she stepped onto a light snow, which continued to peddle the ground, and then into the wedding boutique she owned.

Every morning before entering the boutique, when she saw the wedding gowns behind the glass—gowns created mostly by her—she was reminded of the one flaw she hadn’t been able to correct—she was not married. Years before, when she’d first opened, she would picture herself walking down the aisle in one of her own gowns. Now when she entered, it was hard to even look at them.

Isn’t it supposed to snow? a buoyant-looking girl said, coming into the boutique right behind her.

Morgan, I told you on the phone; I’m not closing—we’re not closing. It’s barely snow on the ground.

But our drive time home is going to triple. And, oh God, I miss my boyfriend. I miss him so much.

Oh, I‘m so sorry. You’ll find someone else, Sunita said with very little emotion. She was intent on beginning her day. I wish it would’ve worked out.

You’ll live, another woman said, coming down the stairs. Break-ups happen. She was emotionless.

Don’t be mean, Raquel, Sunita said.

You gave her yesterday off; now she’s broken up. Move on.

You’re just bitter, Raquel, Sunita said.

I’m not finished- Morgan said.

But boss, Raquel said to Sunita. They did say the storm was going to be pretty bad.

Anyone listening? Morgan yelled.

That bad, huh? I think we’ll be fine, Sunita said. She looked out the window and then asked Raquel, Where’s Katie? She here yet?

No, she’s not, Morgan answered. Raquel opened. But I wasn’t finished yet. Ready for the news?

Wait, Morgan; Raquel, we need to finish the McNeal’s gown. Why isn’t it completed? It should have been done yesterday.

Katie’s supposed to have done it.

Katie? She should be here now—why didn’t she open?

He just proposed to me! Morgan screamed.

Silence filled the room. Light flashed from the rock on Morgan’s finger as she waved it back and forth in the air.

He what! Raquel shouted in joy, breaking the silence of the room. But what went on within Sunita was unnoticed, yet she was affected much more than anyone in the room, maybe even more than Morgan, who was the one getting married.

I know, I know, I know, rushed from Morgan’s mouth to answer their stares. Yesterday, right after I called in, I called him. I didn’t care if he wanted to end it. I told him that I only nagged him so much because weekends just weren’t enough, not for me, and if he didn’t want to be with me completely, and … I didn’t want to waste any more time either, and that he could, well … he proposed! He proposed!

That did it. We’re closing! Sunita yelled. And within fifteen seconds, she was pushing them out the door, hitting the lights, turning the sign on the boutique from open to closed, and repeating loudly before turning the lock, Just tell Katie! Just tell Katie we’ve closed!

She was off to rush back home. What animated her so was the thought that if her employee could become engaged with one day off, why couldn’t she? She was the one who should be married; she was the one with a boyfriend for five plus years; she was the one pushing thirty; and now she wasn’t waiting any longer. Indirectly or directly, her boyfriend would propose.

Hopping in her Range Rover, she sped off while taking out her cell phone to call him.

While waiting for him to answer, she noticed the falling snow had already scared drivers into moving at the snail’s pace they had become accustomed to driving this winter, during a season so frivolous it now hid the closeness of spring.

Honey, where are you, she asked, greeting him. You still home?

Yeah, company closed ’cause of the snow.

Good; I’m coming home to be with you.

You’re coming home?

Yes, I’m coming home to be with you! This minute!

She didn’t hear a sound.

Ryan? she said again, Are you there? Hello? Ryan? Ryan! Ryan!

This stupid phone! she said, frowning at it and then redialing the number.

Awwww, she then groaned at the traffic. I wish these drivers would pay attention! she said in anguish under her breath. It’s not even sticking yet.

But a dropped call and overcautious drivers wouldn’t slow her down a bit. She was now on her cell, redialing him while looking at the signaled strength on her cell. But she had four bars. She couldn’t understand why the call had dropped and why this time when she called, it had gone straight to his answering machine. But, because she had heard him say he would also be home because his company had closed early, and because she knew that he had heard her say, I’m coming home to be with you, that was good enough; she didn’t worry and just focused on getting home.

Looking in the rearview mirror, she looked like she always looked in the morning—a mess. If she was going to romance him into proposing, she would have to do better.

Looking ahead, she let out a deep gasp at the traffic in front of her, which had come to a stop. Using the time as well as she could, she pulled her comb out of her bag. Flipping the vanity mirror down from the visor, she began. But the right lane had opened up. Good, she said, and she quickly hit the gas, pushing her vehicle one car farther than it had been before.

Then it happened again, and again. Ha, she yelled in joy while scrambling from lane to lane.

Looking back in the mirror, she then pulled her scrunchie from her hair, held it in her mouth, and began combing her hair back with one hand while holding it up with the other.

Lip gloss, she thought, still staring in the mirror, and then she wondered what hand she should free to smear it onto her lips. While still holding her comb up with one hand and her hair with another, and her scrunchie still between her teeth, she looked in her pocketbook.

Still driving while looking in her pocketbook, she saw the lane was coming to an end, but she didn’t worry. Smoothly she changed lanes with her knees. She had skills.

No, she mumbled as the lip gloss fell from her hand to somewhere below the seat. She hit the gas a little and then reached down to pat under the seat for it. Feeling along the mat, she couldn’t find it by feeling. She then bent her head to the floor without stopping or even letting up on gas to search for it. Where, where, where she grumbled. But she found it, and in half a second she popped back up, looked forward, saw a car too close to hers, swerved in front of it, looked ahead again, then back into the mirror, spit out her scrunchie, smeared her lips, smacked them, pulled her hair back and then down, and again changed lanes with her knees. She definitely had skills, and being the owner of a boutique, she was a multitasker by nature.

She couldn’t stop thinking about her boyfriend now, and that maybe the storm would force her to close for not only one day but two.

Move, move, move, the energy within forced her to yell to the cars in front of her. It’s not even sticking, yet!

Next, her cell rang. Yeah, Babe she said to Ryan.

I’m in the airport.

What? The airport?

Yeah, the airport. I tried to call you, but no cell signal. Big contract, the company wouldn’t let me refuse. Be back in a day or two. Gotta go, losing a signal, Click.

That had been twenty minutes ago, and now, as she sat on the sofa in her mother’s house, she wondered if she should or should not go home. If she went home she would be bored, and, not only that, but tortured from thinking about her boyfriend. At least here she had the company of her teenage sister, who stayed home from school, sick. At least she thought so. Even now, while trying to decide whether or not to leave before her vehicle became snowed in, and while hearing the words of her now-annoying sister behind her, she stared out the window, watching the snow flurries fall, and continued to think of him.

Hey, you want to play Scrabble? her little sister said, and she coughed. Before that it had been checkers, and before that, chess. By the looks of things, you’ll probably be stuck here tomorrow, too, Ha-ha.

Sunita didn’t answer; she was too entrenched.

What’s the matter with you? she heard from behind; it was her mother. She hadn’t expected her to come home, for some reason, although she didn’t know why. It was snowing badly, and her little sister was home sick, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. Her mother, Jeni, was the only person who could both terrify and console her.

Same thing as last time, her little sister jumped up and said. She’s pissed about Ryan again, Mom!

Shut up, Sasha! Sunita screamed to her sister who had run out laughing.

Now, now. I come home to tend to one of my daughters, and the other shows, Jeni said in a consoling voice while hanging up her coat. Where is Ryan? He here?

On a business trip.

A business trip? Jeni said in a certain way, and then she turned to go into the kitchen for something.

Mother, Sunita said in exasperation. Please, not now.

I’m just glad you’re here with me, but it’s a snow storm, and he’s not here, as usual. But I guess some people are predisposed to be above all things, truly faithful … These were all the words Sunita heard, as her mother’s voice dropped when she entered the kitchen. Then she returned, and her words became more audible with, and when your mind ceases to imagine what is and is not, you’ll move on—that’s all I’m saying. Do you hear?

Yes, Sunita answered.

But I have told you before- Jeni stopped when she heard coughing in the back. Sasha! she called, Come here. She continued while she poured something into a spoon;

Falling in love is like catching a cold; to get it out of your system, you just have to let it run its course. Its one of those things, Jeni said to her eldest daughter. Sunita’s dark eyes mirrored the Persian heritage in Jeni’s own eyes.

Jeni didn’t have a normal Persian name, nor did she name her daughters that way. She was born and grew up in India, but she was not a typical Persian woman; anyone could tell that by hearing her speak.

But Sunita had heard this thousands of times.

Open your mouth, little girl Jeni abruptly said to her youngest daughter, as she coaxed her to swallow the horrible-tasting medicine imported from some place overseas. Sasha then ran into the bathroom to throw up.

Must be the flu, Jeni said, and then continued with Sunita. Falling in love is like catching a cold; to get it out of your system, you just have to let it run its course. It’s one of those things; it’s a process, a cycle.

Sunita said nothing, only continued to face the window.

It’s a process, Jeni repeated. Once it has run its course, it’s gone. Just like that cold subsisting in you. I can hear it in your chest. You’re just like your father; he couldn’t understand that, and he never saw anything clearly. You must’ve inherited that flaw from his genes. Not mine. I’m never blinded.

I don’t see blindly, and I don’t have a cold, Sunita replied.

If you say so. But in any case, my child, just look at this snow; it will keep at this rate till the morning, Jeni said, changing the subject as she always did when the scent of criticism was near. She didn’t do it to sneer at another’s opinion, but only as a technique to let time elapse just long enough to return with a stronger point. It was a strategy she had learned at work when arguing theories in the lab.

Just stay here tonight, then, Jeni said. People don’t think in conditions like these, and we live closer to your boutique than you do. Besides, I’d like to see the latest gowns you’ve designed. What other cultures have you embraced—and some saris would be nice. But Katie …—this was the break or injunction she had waited to return to with force—Katie creates on her own accord and fully understands my views. She has no illusions. I guess that’s just how many Americans are. They don’t overemphasize the foolish things. No pouring in on culture, no fixed ideals to tradition, men, marriage, or other nonsense like that.

Katie doesn’t know a thing, Sunita responded. Right now, she’s probably mixed up in something she shouldn’t have any business in.

Sunita was right.

Moments before, flurries of snow had cowered under the footsteps of passersby strutting in the shopping district. A cold determinism blew with the wind down the strip—not from the weather, but from Katie. As she paused for a second to slurp the ice cream that was dripping off the cone, she continued to walk while licking the second scoop just like the first. She never thought about weight gain, unlike Sunita; Katie’s metabolism was too fast for that. She shopped with a resolute will to have all that was fashionably desired, or rather with a weakened sense morbidly developed. Even a snowstorm wouldn’t blow the opportunity of a sale, especially since Sunita had given them the day off. The only thing that stood a chance was her own self-will, which often went against good judgment—and maybe the price of an item whose cost towered above her credit limit. It was chilly out, so she wore a pair of stylish polar-bear-white Eskimo boots that rose just below her knees and a skirt which fell barely above them. And because it was snowing, it seemed to accent her style. Looking at her reflection in the store windows, she smiled at her clothes—this was a style she felt she had invented.

Then she saw someone through the glass and thought about going in.

You idiot, what the hell are you doing? Don’t do that. Don’t even go near. No smiles, you flirt. You know his fiancée; she’s in your culinary class; even though she’s a bitch, you’re still friends. Being a bitch is what made you friends. You’ve already spent everything on this handbag ten minutes ago and now this.

This is the voice of Katie’s unwanted helper upstairs—not upstairs as in a two-story building, but upstairs in the upper region of the brain. It’s a voice that she’s ignoring, for now. Katie is just like many of us; she is ignoring the familiar, but often unwanted, voice working from above.

She was near the end of the shopping district, the extravagant part, and had determined to leave without purchasing further. No more shoes, no more skirts, and no more shopping, she promised herself, but only ice cream. She had slid along the famous strip of boutiques with her too-much-for-any-man strut. She did this routinely, slyly looking into windows of each store she passed while vainly catching glimpses of men as they checked her out. But she didn’t have to look to know this.

The snow was not only sticking now but blowing about everywhere, and each step out of the district was a hard one, each one second-guessing the one preceding it—not because of the snow, but because she was there—shopping was her calling. Just years ago, she had left college to pursue a career that she now thought of as destiny.

While she was still glancing inside the store and battling on within herself, her cell phone rang. Instantly she recognized the number that flickered across the call screen. It was her ex-boyfriend. She had broken up with him by saying that she had to leave as fast as possible to enroll in the few remaining freshman seats which remained in medical school. She had left this message on his answering machine. All of his calls to her defaulted to her answering machine—which was now flooded by his messages asking, Where’s the medical school located? What’s its name? and Please return my calls.

She didn’t pick up because of her boldfaced lie. Breaking up just wasn’t her forte. It went against the way she did things: she had to be cute with every subtlety—the smallest accessory, the chewing of food, or the way she cursed—but there was no cute way to break up. And so that process for her was discarded, like any biological process that doesn’t benefit its organism. She focused on how she attained things, from attention from adults when younger to too much of it when older. It was for her a natural selection and a waving away of what did not fit. This became an ability not only to survive, but to excel. Perhaps, when Darwin noted that only the strong survive, Katie would be the spitting image of his reflection.

Sunita was still sitting in her mother’s house and thinking about her witty aphorisms. She remembered previous quotes of her mother’s. She had said that beautiful people are like chameleons—they change into anything you want them to be, so don’t be deceived; they are charming, perfect, and—Who cares about that crap? She thought as she twisted the end of her mom’s idiom out of her mind. It irked her that any and everyone who had ever been married always thought that they had a right to advise and were entitled to give advice without consent. She hated that.

But what if what her mother said was right, she thought. If falling in love was like catching a cold, then she must have a strain of an antibody whose cure did not yet exist, or was hard to find, such as malaria or E. coli. And Ryan, her boyfriend—if he ever did love her—his cold must have been as passing as last year’s flu, once there but now gone, and his remaining with her must only be the leftover symptoms from that cold.

And this plague, she got from her mother Jeni’s moralizing, was like everything else of tragedy in this world, which she would say was due to some human defect. The grace to think freely, she’d say about herself, never draws me out of the mundane and also makes me face calamities head-on and truthfully, and I never become desensitized by such trifles. Unlike most people, the lecture would continue, "… after a tragic accident, there is an imagining of reasons, for humans, strictly a defect!" And she would scold anyone who dwelled over what happens after death—the heavens, the hells, the rebirth and all the other what-ifs as defects! Let it go, she’d say. She didn’t believe in the handiwork of God anymore or that he mingled in life’s affairs—not after her devastating loss. And love, the purpose of the corrupting gene residing within, was to her another defect: Let it go! Get over it! She believed that we modern humans had lost the vitality for life and now behaved relatively like the biological denigrates of wolves called dogs. Especially, when something truly bad is thrown our way—as when a dog is hit by a rock and the dog simply cannot comprehend the cause, like the dog, we bark at the rock and not the person who caused our pain—that damn rock romantically labeled love. This isn’t the way we used to be, she’d say. Back then we were as fierce as wolves; now we’re only pups. Pups! Such thoughts communicated so effectively in the science journals she lived by and sometimes wrote commentaries on, instead of her traditional Qur’an. She was a genealogist in the crudest form.

Sometimes, I still miss Daddy, Mom, Sunita said out of nowhere.

Jeni looked at her with a solemn face and then turned away. You can never cure a cold, she thought. Because, even though she acted as if she didn’t, she still missed him, too.

Sunita knew that would work for a while. And while her mother left to go smother her sister in vapor rub, Sunita let her mother’s maxims seep out of her head and out of her ears. It was just as her mother always mocked: in one ear and out the