Too Good To Be True

7 April 2023

Avani

My professor broke her hip bone.

Now I know it’s sad, but hear me out.

Being a law student was tough and tedious, and as much as I loved it, I didn’t like it as much on some days.

I had swum through my bachelor’s degree in law like a fish in the calmest pond.

Easy.

But my post-graduation dreams sometimes got me feeling like I was in a seafood restaurant’s live fish tank.

You know, the one everyone stares at before choosing the creature they want on their plate, cooked in butter garlic sauce? Exposed, nervous, strangely naked and constantly in fear of being picked up and put in boiling water.

Which is why when I woke up this morning and found our uni group chat had been renamed ‘Ipsita broke her Hipsita’, I chuckled, apologized to the universe for my instinctive response to our Intellectual Property professor’s distress and then rejoiced at the thought that there would be no classes and that it was a Friday.

I loved Fridays at the bookstore.

They were the designated days for a book club meet in the evenings and, though it almost always got cancelled every week, most of our regulars stopped by.

The store buzzed with familiar faces and new ones.

The café did great business from Friday through the weekend because we got many young college couples looking for a quiet corner to meet in.

On these days, Martin brought out his big guns.

Eclairs, croissants, home-made mustard and ham sandwiches, and Friday faloodas.

The whole show.

And then, once we downed the shutters, there commenced a secret happy hour that nobody knew about.

Not even Rhea’s dad.

Martin transitioned from baker to bartender and served up delicious cocktails named ‘Bloody Mary Poppins’ and ‘Rudyard Tripling’.

Maya, our friend who joined us at the bookstore whenever she got a break from her design studio, usually spent the Friday happy hour with us, and we rung the weekend in with music, crappy dancing and several drunken rounds of Cards against Humanity, the Hogwarts pack.

Utterly content at being gifted an extra free day, I decided to sleep in and get to work a little late that day.

I took a longer shower, finished reading the novel I’d picked up earlier in the week, fantasized a little about the hero and called for breakfast from Anna’s tapri downstairs.

Shanta Tai and I worked on my compost pit and spent some time gardening and bitching about her sister-in-law.

I’d never met her, but by the end of the conversation I was positive I hated her.

And after all of this, I still had thirty minutes before I left for the bookstore.

The store was a twenty-minute walk but a thirty-minute taxi ride from home.

If that isn’t Mumbai traffic in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.

A happy morning came to a standstill when I found myself lounging on my balcony swing chair with Instagram open on my phone and my finger hovering over the search bar.

Hmm. How do you stalk people when you don’t know their name? Hadn’t my phone heard me talking to him? Why hadn’t it suggested his Instagram account to me yet? Where was that creepy feature when you needed it?

Why are you trying to find him on Instagram, Avani?

I … I want to apologize.

An Instagram apology? That’s just lousy.

So should I apologize in person?

Yes. That way you get to sniff … umm … meet him again.

Isn’t that too much?

I mean, you could invite him to tonight’s happy hour at the bookstore.

I don’t know his name, remember? How do I find him?

I have two words for you. CUSTOMER. REGISTER.

I hate how I make a convincing argument. I should be a lawyer.

About an hour later, I walked into the bookstore with a spring in my step and the voice in my head screaming, ‘ Stalker! ’

Martin sat at the billing counter while Rhea animatedly chatted with him with a croissant in her hand.

‘No crumbs on the counter, friends!’ I yelled.

‘Mom’s here!’ they yelled back in unison.

I went over to hug Rhea and paused when I noticed that she was wearing make-up.

‘Looks like we’re accidentally going to run into Dhruv at the happy hour later tonight.’ I puckered up my lips and kissed the air dramatically as Rhea made a face.

I threw my bag over the counter and headed to the coffee machine for a cappuccino. Martin was usually very strict about anyone touching the machine, but on Fridays he let us make our own coffees.

I was waiting for the mug to fill when …

‘Hi.’

DON’T DUCK.

I turned around like I’d heard someone cock a gun behind my back. Slow and careful, taking in every inch of the café as my eyes panned across it to finally lock into a pair of gorgeous brown ones. Blue shirt, casual blazer and trousers, spotless shoes and a leather laptop case in one hand.

‘Oh, hey! It’s you. Who’s the poor customer?’ he said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Whose coffee did you just poison?’

I pursed my lips to hide a smile. So did he.

Hi, dimples.

‘I’m Avani.’ I held out my hand.

He took it. ‘Hi, Avani.’

Strong handshake. Long fingers. Warm hands. Soft palm. Skins touching. Still didn’t have a name …

‘So you’re a barista too?’ he asked.

‘No. I just handle the billing counter. But I’ll get Martin for you. You can place your order with him.’ I felt a strange warmth on my cheeks.

‘Martin!’ I yelled, louder than I needed to, startling myself and cracking my voice a little.

Martin dragged himself over like his feet were chained to concrete blocks. After a hundred years, when he finally completed his long journey of five steps and arrived at the café counter, he stood playing eyeball tennis between Rude Hot Guy (I really need a name here) and me.

I cleared my throat and broke the silence.

‘So, coffee? What name should Martin write on your cup?’

Look at you being James Bond, Avani.

‘We’re not Starbucks. Calm down. And there is literally no other customer at the café.’

And look at Martin being annoying.

I turned to give Martin the most sinister I-will-remember-that smile, made a mental note to step on his new white Converse shoes the first chance I got and started walking towards my seat at the billing counter.

‘Aman.’

I stopped and turned. Again, slowly. What’s with the theatrics?

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m Aman.’ He smiled.

‘Aman …’

‘Aman Raina.’

‘Nice to meet you, Aman Raina. See you around.’ I smiled, showing more teeth than I have in my mouth, turned around and continued walking.

Aman Raina.

Let the stalking begin.

Aman

I’m an idiot.

Did I have to go to the bookstore three times in two weeks? No.

Did I have to try to be funny and piss her off? No.

Did I have a four-year-old niece who loved books? No.

Did I have to bunk my weekly evaluation meeting by faking a headache so I could sit in this café pretending to work? No.

But here I was. At 1 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. If any of my friends had spotted me sitting in that corner by myself sipping coffee, I’d have a lot of explaining to do.

Sometime over these past two weeks, my life seemed to have changed.

I was driving down the street when I saw her walk into the bookstore close to my apartment.

White kurta, blue jeans, silver jhumkas.

She had a round face, bushy brows and brown hair that swung across her back every time she jerked her head to get the rogue strands out of her face.

She had smiled at someone as she had stepped into the bookstore, and it was the most gorgeous smile I’d seen on any woman in a long time.

The fact that I remembered, or even noticed, these little things after just a glimpse of her baffled me.

Most of my days were filled with looking at tailored suits and computer screens, sitting in boardrooms and attending formal lunches.

Only the occasional birthday celebration or human resources’ team-building offsite trips exposed me to colours beyond grey and navy blue.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my job.

I’ve spent most of the thirty-one years of my life watching my father build and run a successful textile business, and from the time I was ten—or eight, I forget—I’ve wanted nothing more than to grow into his shoes and have a corner office like his.

Well, I am there now.

Not bragging.

I was raised to be proud of anything my hard work produced and I’ve been taught never to forget that.

I had turned up at office every day at 10 a.m.

sharp since I had turned eighteen.

I’d been Papa’s intern for the first year and then his third assistant for three years.

On multiple occasions my parents had sat me down to ask if I wanted to explore something else—another workplace, a different career.

They had told me repeatedly that I didn’t have to get into the family business if I didn’t want to.

And as much as I appreciated being given the choice, I never once thought of doing anything else with my life.

I grew up watching my parents love each day of building the company with dignity and pride, and I honestly couldn’t wait to take on that responsibility.

When Papa turned fifty-five a year ago, he decided to take voluntary retirement and move with Ma to our home in Mussoorie.

Since then, I’d loved every day of being CEO of Raina Textiles. In fact, I would’ve said I had been quite content with my life until just a few days ago, when I’d first seen Avani.

I always had things to do, places to be, people to meet. And when I didn’t, I stayed home. But not over the past two weeks.

Now sitting in the bookstore with my second cup of coffee and laptop open to a random office e-mail, the clock’s hands seemed to be crawling and I couldn’t help but notice that Avani hadn’t moved in about an hour.

She was sitting on a stool by the window near the billing counter and had her back to me.

She seemed glued to her phone.

I wondered whether I should walk over and initiate a conversation, or continue to pretend-type and wait for her to look in my direction …

‘So, you like?’ The guy from the café, Martin, asked me from across the coffee counter. He must have seen me stealing glances in her direction over the past several minutes.

‘Excuse me?’ I feigned surprise.

‘The coffee. You like? I roast the beans myself, every day.’

‘It’s great. Thanks.’ I gave him a thumbs-up and went back to looking intently at my laptop.

‘Your office is in the neighbourhood, no?’

I looked up to see him watching me curiously.

‘I googled you. It’s not every day that we have a billionaire CEO stopping by for coffee, and, ah, views.’ He didn’t look in Avani’s direction, but his shoulders panned towards her, while his eyes stayed on me.

‘I was looking for some quiet close to office. Financial year end. I work better in silence. And the views aren’t unhelpful.’ I grinned.

A hint of a smile touched his face and he nodded faintly. ‘Can I get you anything else?’

‘I’ll take two more coffees.’

Martin raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in a knowing manner. ‘Coming right up, boss.’

I had a high-pressure job.

Everyone around me was always waiting for me to falter so they could throw my father’s struggles in my face.

Nepotism was a touchy topic with most people these days.

I got up every day and brought my point to bear at every table I sat at. I’d stood up to people twice my age without batting an eyelid. I was relentless when it came to business. And yet, the idea of having a cup of coffee with a girl was making my chest tighter. This was new.

I shut my laptop, pocketed my phone, picked up the two mugs of coffee Martin set down on the table and made my way to the window by the billing counter.

Avani must have sensed me approaching in whatever voodoo-telepathic way that women know and sense things, because she put her phone down on the windowsill and turned to face me.

‘Hey.’

‘Hi.’ She smiled and looked at the extra mug in my hand. ‘Martin didn’t tell me he had a new waiter.’

I chuckled and placed the mug on the windowsill. ‘Yes, I start today. He’s offered to pay me in unlimited eclairs and the chance to share one coffee with any employee of my choice. Given he’s busy, you were my next best option.’

‘Oh, I don’t have to be,’ she said, and before I could ask her what she meant, she yelled in the direction of the café, ‘Shambhu Kaka!’

I turned to see a man in a grey kurta and white pants walking out of the pantry behind the café, nodding gravely in her direction.

‘ Sir tumchya sathi coffee gheun aale aahet. Ya. Basaa. ’ Sir has got some coffee for you. Come, sit.

She gave me a fake smile, mischief brimming in her eyes, picked up her phone and her book, and skipped towards the coffee counter, looking back only when she got to the table I was seated at. She pulled out the chair I’d slid into place, sat down and called out to Martin.

‘Martin, I’ll have what he’s having.’ She bit her bottom lip to hide a smile as she seemed to turn her attention to the book.

This girl was going to be the death of me.

Avani

This guy is fucking perfect.

It took a couple of minutes for my heartbeat to return to normal after I left Aman standing at the window with Shambhu Kaka while I took his seat at the café.

When did you become the female model in a men’s deodorant commercial, Avani? Since when do your eyes involuntarily shut halfway and your head tilt backwards at the scent of a man’s aftershave? Thank god you had your back to him.

I stole a peek in his direction and saw him standing with Shambhu Kaka, his face slightly turned away from me.

His eyes caught the afternoon light and were now a lighter brown, and his dark brown hair shone in loose waves.

Friday hair, a little more casual than the first time he’d walked in.

How did I know these details without looking at him directly, you ask? Well, the bookstore was filled with mirrors.

Great for making a small space open up and just as useful for staring at hot strangers whom you could later stalk on Instagram.

Speaking of Instagram, the man played a strong engagement game for someone with only thirty-odd posts on his feed.

Let’s see what we’ve got to know so far …

He was the CEO of a family-owned textile company.

He travelled often to Mussoorie, where his parents lived with six adorable dogs, and he had a regular social life.

A couple of photos with three other guys about his age, seemingly on some sort of vacation.

There were also two girls who seemed consistently present in his party and vacation pictures.

They weren’t related to him.

I’d checked.

No signs of a romantic involvement with either of them, although one of the girls had commented ‘cutie’ on every photo; the other had a private profile.

The rest of his page was pretty regular.

Exotic vacation pictures (in some of which he was shirtless and which I might or might not have scrolled past slightly slower than the other posts), smart formal pictures of handshakes with important-looking people.

And sunsets.

I was about to click on his LinkedIn profile next when I heard loud laughter from the direction of the window and looked up to see Aman and Shambhu Kaka throwing their heads back, guffawing over something while they sipped on their coffees.

Now, I’d worked at the bookstore for almost a year, cracked innumerable jokes and not once had I got this reaction from Shambhu Kaka.

Martin and I turned to each other in sync and mouthed ‘wow’ in tandem, eyebrows raised.

Shambhu Kaka could single-handedly bring gloom to any room by simply walking into it.

Don’t get me wrong, he was sweet, but lord knows the man was as dull as a hairpin.

We’d hardly ever heard him speak a word, let alone laugh out loud.

Most days we didn’t even know if he’d come in to work until we found the books brushed dust-free and our lunchboxes cleaned spotless and drying upside down on the pantry counter.

What was so funny, I felt like asking out loud.

Care to share with the class?

‘There’s something about that seat, it seems.’ Martin had walked up to me and was now sitting on the chair opposite mine.

‘Huh?’

‘Whoever sits there,’ he said, pointing to the chair I was sitting on, ‘keeps staring in the direction of the window.’ His smile told me I would soon be bombarded with questions I wouldn’t have answers to.

‘Was he staring at me?’

‘Don’t act like you don’t know. I saw you looking at him through the mirror, you creep!’

Right. It was silly trying to hide anything from Martin. Maya, Rhea and I might be BFFs, but Martin got me in ways the girls didn’t. There was something that tied us together in situations such as this one, where he saw right through me.

‘You have to see his Instagram,’ I said in a hushed tone, pushing my phone towards him. ‘This guy is fucking perfect. Textbook son, dog lover, successful, social, hot in a suit, hot in swimming trunks, hot in a T-shirt, hot without a T-shirt.’ I whispered the last two lines almost out of breath. Why was it so hot in here?

Martin snatched up my phone and scrolled through the profile while I kept an eye on Aman to make sure he couldn’t see what we were huddling over.

I had almost forgotten I was at work with all this teenage fun time I was allowing myself to have, when Meera Aunty walked in.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded when she spotted Aman, who had moved to the billing counter by now, reading the back cover of a book I had left on the counter. ‘This is Avani’s seat … although you do look immensely better than she does on that stool. So I won’t complain. You can call me Meera.’

Classic Meera Aunty.

‘Hi, Meera,’ I heard him saying. ‘I should’ve taken this seat much earlier today if I’d known you would walk through that door. You have a very beautiful smile. All the women I’ve met lately scowl at most things I say.’

Idiot.

Shambhu Kaka nodded in greeting at Meera Aunty, took the empty coffee mugs and walked past me into the pantry. Traitor. I’ll deal with you later.

I walked up to the counter and smiled at Meera Aunty as she wiggled her brows at me and walked away to the Romance section.

I turned to Aman. ‘Could I get my seat back, Aman? We don’t usually let customers go behind the counter, so playtime’s over. Some of us have jobs.’

‘Of course.’ He threw his hands up in submission and hopped off the stool.

The swing door that gave us access to the counter was narrow and allowed only one person at a time to pass through.

Aman waited for me to go in before he sidled past me on tiptoe.

His arms brushed against my hips as he took one slow step after another until he was out.

I felt the hair on my arms stand up.

He turned to me and winked as he walked over to the café.

He winked.

The guy winked .

At me .

My stomach flipped and my cheeks turned hot as a sudden urge to duck and crawl under the counter arose from deep within.

Thankfully, my limbs protested and instead of the habitual duck, I stood there looking at him like a doe caught in the headlights.

Then, before my brain and heart could form a well-discussed way forward, my tongue went rogue and blurted out, ‘Do you like happy hours?’

He looked at me as he reached the table he’d left his laptop on. ‘I just had a happy hour and I don’t hate it.’

‘No …’ I shook my head, unable to stop chuckling. ‘Do you like cocktails? We have happy hour here at the bookstore later this evening … if you’re interested.’

‘I don’t drink.’

Of course he didn’t. This guy was the template that got lost when God did Her laundry without checking the pockets. Hence, the one and only piece.

‘Oh. Never mind, then. See you soon.’ I forced a smile.

‘What time?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What time is “soon”? 8 p.m.?’

‘You said you didn’t drink.’

‘I’m fun even without any alcohol in me.’

I’m sure you’re more fun with alcohol in ME.

‘We’ll see about that,’ I said as I made a show of getting busy with the cash register.

‘We will. See you at 8.’ He packed up his laptop, paid and walked out the door without looking back.

‘See you,’ I whispered as the door closed behind him. Then, finally, after what felt like hours, I breathed.

Who was this guy and what in the name of god was happening here?

Did I tell you Martin is freakishly strong?

Yeah, Martin is freakishly strong.

He simply walked over to me, scooped me up from behind the billing counter, carried me over to the café counter and set me down on it.

‘Talk, bitch.’

I know God has a sense of humour, because just then, like clockwork, the doorbell dinged and in came Rhea. ‘About what?’ she asked, taking off her jacket and skipping over to the interrogation zone.

Fuck my life.

‘About Avani’s new hot rod.’ Martin has a way with words, as you would have noticed.

I opened my mouth to protest, but no words came out.

‘Boy toy?’

I cringed.

‘Man muffin? Dick stick?’

‘Eww … shut up!’ Rhea and I whined together.

‘ You shut up! I saw you undressing him with your eyes. Now spill,’ Martin said.

‘You are SO extra.’ I ignored Rhea’s dancing eyebrows and drawn-out ‘Oooooh, Avaneeee’ and continued in a monotone. ‘There was no undressing. He’s sweet. And I was feeling bad about snapping at him the other day, so I invited him to our happy hour.

I’ll buy him a drink and say sorry and that’ll be it. Let’s not overreact here. And let’s please behave ourselves when he gets here in hopefully four hours and thirty … three minutes.’ I glanced at the antique clock that hung on the gift shop wall.

Silence. I could feel Rhea muffling a snigger. My ears felt hot again.

‘Okay, fine,’ Martin said after a few beats, bobbing his head gently. ‘Won’t say a word. I agree, actually. Let’s not overreact. I like that you’re keeping it all under control by counting every minute down since he left, by the way. Good plan.’ He disappeared into the pantry.

Jerk.

Meera Aunty emerged from somewhere near the Romance aisle with a telling smile. ‘Okay, kids. I have to be off … have a taash party to go to. Enjoy your raging hormones!’ she said, giving me a mischievous look. She had obviously heard our entire conversation.

‘Enjoy your trash party, Meera!’ Martin called out.

She rolled her eyes at Martin’s words, hugged me goodbye and walked out of the bookstore.

I used this welcome distraction to get off the coffee counter and was walking to the billing area when I was yanked back like a coat on a hanger and dragged off to the staff bathroom.

‘So? What did I miss?’ Rhea asked with a twinkle in her eye. The kind of twinkle a child has in a candy store, a parent has at the gates of a daycare centre when they are dropping their kids off for the day—or the kind a crackhead has at a music festival.

I took my time replying, acutely aware that I had to choose my words carefully. Why? Because this was Rhea, the group leader of ‘Romantics Anonymous’.

Everything was a sign for her. Everything was dreamy. She would see this situation as so much more than it actually was and I wasn’t ready for that.

I wasn’t ready to be told that the universe had sent Aman to be exactly where he should be so our paths would cross.

‘Maybe the universe sent him—’

‘NO.’ I cut her off.

‘Rhea.

No.

Please don’t read more into the situation than needed.

I would like to believe that the universe has more important things to take care of than making Aman appear out of the blue in my life.

Like world peace or whatever else the girls on beauty-pageant stages talk about. Hell, I’ll be pissed off if the universe had anything to do with this, because I’ve been praying for my skin to clear up for way too long now, and if this got prioritized over that, I’m done with writing my morning affirmations. It’s just one drink and an apology. I don’t want you to freak out about this, okay?’

‘Mm-hmm.’

It must have seemed like a ramble to her, because for the first time in forever Rhea replied with a nod. No counter argument, no alternative explanation, no looking for the silver lining … nothing. Just a nod.

She hugged me, kissed me on my cheek and walked out. I looked at myself in the mirror, told myself to get it together and followed her out.

It was still only around 4 p.m., which meant I had four whole hours to get my heart to beat normally and my armpits to stop sweating.

Martin was busy at the café with two new customers who had walked in and Shambhu Kaka was hovering gravely around the two tables of college kids working on some project who had ordered nothing more than a coffee close to ninety minutes ago.

I walked over to the Bestsellers section. I’d been meaning to buy Dhruv a present for his birthday (which I’d missed three months ago). I knew he loved murder mysteries.

Since I had no clue about what was hot among the mass murderers’ fan clubs, I figured the Bestsellers section would be my best bet.

After a brief confusion between an anthology of serial-killer stories and a contract killer’s journal, I picked the journal.

I mean, at least the killer in this one was guaranteed to have a great self-help routine going if he was journalling, right?

The next forty minutes were spent in wrapping up the book in purple crepe paper, decorating it with white ribbons and writing out an elaborate note wishing him the best for the year to come.

I wasn’t even that close to Dhruv.

I hung out with him because, one, he was the only student in class who could talk about things other than law, and two, because Rhea had become so immensely interested in him.

Gift wrapped, accounts tallied, book finished, work schedule for the next week sorted, hair brushed, lip and cheek stain fixed, perfume heavily sprayed … and I still had time to kill before the clock struck 8.

Why were the clock’s hands moving so slowly? Was it never going to be 8 p.m.?