Chapter 2
— RITU —
The man was obnoxious. Wearing a black on black suit and standing here in front of her on a festive night, looking like she was not dressed for the occasion.
There was that bored, condescending expression in his gaze again, half-hooded.
Always half-hooded. At first, she had taken it as a side effect of his recent attack. Now, she knew better.
His head cocked to the side, and the waves of his combed back hair did not move. Product. His beard twitched, and he opened his obnoxious
mouth to say something equally obnoxious when MM began to babble at him. His eyes cut to her, and Ritu had the strongest urge to hide her somewhere. Don’t look the bad guys in the eye, MM.
He tipped his chin to the baby like she was his lowly staff. MM pouted her lips, making her GoohGooh sound through her bubbles.
“What are you doing here?” Ritu shot out coldly.
“PVR ran out of shows.” His eyes came back to her. Then smiled even more condescendingly, going down her body and back up. Ritu’s throat tightened. She had left body issues way behind, and yet her tummy tightened under the flimsy, translucent fabric of her white saree.
“Did your BP come back under control?”
His smile vanished. Ritu stared hard at him and his face turned furious.
“NiP, hi.” Gautam’s voice broke the tense silence. NiP? Was that his nickname? Yuck! She took her attention away from whatever this man’s ‘name’ was and switched MM to her left arm. The right one was going numb.
“Gautam, nice party.”
So he did possess a courteous tone of voice and knew how to use it.
Ritu didn’t look up to check if he also had an expression to match, focusing her attention instead on getting the locks of her hair free from MM’s grip.
“Oh my god! You actually came?!” Maya came barreling down to them, opening her arms. To Ritu’s shock, she embraced the man like he was a long-lost lover. Ritu glanced at Gautam. He didn’t look like he was caught off guard.
“You sent me four invites,” he barked a laugh, his voice deep and heavy, patting Maya’s shoulder delicately and stepping back. “How could I not?”
“Correction — one save the date, one invite and two reminders. That’s how I plan. Or don’t you know yet? I love what you’re wearing, by the way.”
“Amavasya on amavasya,” Ritu blurted under her breath.
“Excuse me?” Nilay’s obnoxious voice was bass now, low, authoritarian.
“She means, you’re giving the new moon a run for its money,” Maya breezed. Ritu’s eyes met his, and the obnoxious smile was gone, replaced by an entitled one.
“Oh, let me introduce you to my Maasi…”
“Maasi?” His egoistical head cocked again.
“Can you believe it?” Maya rattled on. Ritu didn’t care at this point, but the silent laughter in the obnoxious man’s eyes was needling something inside her. Maya never took non-verbal cues though — “We are more like sisters. Grew up together.”
“I see.”
“She is the best interventional cardiologist on the East Coast, just recently finished as the head of St. Jude’s Medical Center in New York.
They also gave her an award… what’s it called, Maasi?
… They only give it to one doctor a year.
And she got it for saving lives without making her patients undergo operations. ”
“Is it?”
“Yep, and Maasi, this is NiP… why am I even introducing? You must already know him, naa?”
Ritu saw his eyes take a smoky, prideful look. Like he not only thought but believed that he was god himself.
“No.” Ritu deadpanned.
“No?” Maya’s wide-eyed gape turned to her.
“Are you serious, Maasi?! NiP?” She waved her palm like a wand at the man standing in front of them.
“The designer whose lehenga Dimple bawled and begged for, then threatened to call off her wedding for, then threatened suicide, and then Jimmy fuva finally agreed? I got the news via-via, but that’s what happened… ”
Ritu swallowed. Then shrugged.
“Wow, ok,” Maya huffed. “Then I have the honour of introducing you to NiP, the founder of Nilay Patel Couture. He has resurfaced Indian heritage fashion and indigenous textiles. Basically, bridging the road between the ancient grassroots and uber-rich couture. Versace is looking to collaborate with him and he has declined, can you imagine?!”
“Maya?” Nilay’s amused voice broke her monologue. They both glanced at him and he was looking down at her with unparalleled pride and joy — “You have my account.”
“I know! This is genuine admiration. The ego pandering was over on our first meeting.”
His head threw back in a bark of laughter, his eyes meeting Gautam’s. How was Gautam ok with his wife going gaga over a man as lowly as this? He had no sense of personal space, did not take his eyes away from women’s bodies, spoke trash, and was rude enough to make snobs seem angelic.
“A memorable first meeting,” Nilay smiled tenderly at Maya. What an asshole!
“I’m still holding you to the Mayanagri collection.”
“Alright, it will happen when it has to happen,” Gautam broke up the conversation.
“Let’s start the Pooja, MM is getting restless, as is everybody else.
” He reached for his daughter, who instantly opened her arms and flung herself to him.
Ritu gazed at the gesture. This girl had the best hiding place.
She had never felt happier than she did then, seeing Gautam plant another couple of tiny kisses to her head as he led Nilay Patel to the pooja table.
“Maya.” Ritu stopped her, grabbing her forearm.
“Yeah?”
“What’s going on?”
“Meaning?”
“This cosy chatting with that man… did you not see how he was looking at you in front of Gautam, with MM here?”
Maya’s face broke into a grin — “Oh, he has flirted worse with me. In fact, he also promised to build an entire collection with me as his muse,” she batted her eyelashes.
Muse?
“Are you serious?!”
“Don’t worry. He does not mean it, Maasi.”
“Still…”
“Neither does he mean any harm. G is a good judge of character, and he has not warned me off either.”
Now Ritu wondered if it was to keep this account in his company. She knew Gautam, and yet she didn’t. He was a self-made businessman, working tirelessly to keep his company expanding. He wouldn’t throw Maya into harm’s way but… Ritu stopped the barrage of what-ifs. Her job was to warn.
“Let’s go, it’s starting.”
Maya turned her forearm until she had latched onto hers and pulled her along. The pooja table had a small stack of account books and a few laptops lined up.
“Ghar ni navi Laxmi saathiyo karse?[1]” The Panditji cooed at MM, who was trying to stand tall on the table between Gautam’s steady hands. She showed her gummy mouth and bounced, her curls bouncing with her.
“Chalo, karo[2],” he opened one book and pushed it towards her.
Maya took her little right index finger, dipped it in the kumkum paste and drew a tiny swastik on the first page of the book.
MM tried to throw herself face first into the dish of kumkum and Maya immediately passed her along, moving onto the rest of the books and laptops.
Ritu accepted her, and squeaked. Wet red fingers streaked across her cheek and down her white saree. Maya’s white saree.
“All the best, Mumma’s saree,” Ritu chuckled, hitching her higher.
“Give her here,” Gautam opened his arms, accepting his daughter, leaving her to clean the stain before it dried.
“Where is the bathroom?” Ritu whispered to the receptionist standing beside her. Leo, she recollected, was his name.
“Straight down and right. But if that’s locked, then upstairs.”
“Thank you.” Ritu slid out of the crowd of employees surrounding the pooja table and followed down the path Leo had sketched. And sure enough, the bathroom was locked.
MAINTAINENCE
Who shut a bathroom for maintenance on a party night?
She turned to the curving set of wide stairs, looking inviting even in this dark. All white and cobalt blues, with diyas on the periphery. She clutched her saree pleats in one hand and began climbing.
————————————————————
“Hey, Doctor?”
Ritu’s hand froze on the handle of the bathroom door. The strings of light running the length of the balustrade, coupled with the hanging fairy lanterns were enough to illuminate the man climbing up the stairs. Not that she needed illumination to recognise that obnoxious voice.
She turned, eyeing him climb up slowly, as if he was scared of something happening to him. His forehead wasn't perspiring. It meant it was in his head, not his heart.
“I wanted to catch you alone…”
“Not enough light to stare here.”
“I have good memory. Not that I need it.”
She wanted to raise her hand and paste a tight slap to his cheek. Who the hell was he to think or comment on her body, looks or weight?
“What you need is to stay at home, take care of your failing health and leave the world in peace.”
“My health is none of you concern…” he began to bite back, then stopped.
He stalled, as if exercising patience was not a virtue he had ever practised.
“Listen, Dr. Kaapadia, I understand you have your issues. But my visit to you is my private affair. You will keep it under wraps. Neither your niece nor her husband needs to know about it.”
“Worried about your couture lehenga company or your god-like image?” She eyed him up and down, just like he had.
He did his best with the god-like — black suit, dark thick beard, deep voice to exert his authority.
The facade was well-built. She had seen the man behind — a sleazy coward who couldn't come to terms with his own medical shortcomings.
“Why don’t you let me worry about my couture lehenga company and my image while you worry about that snappy attitude with your patients?”
Ritu stared. Silent. She had learnt that back and forth worked to an extent with difficult patients. After that, speaking, utilising your vocal cords, your brain, your words — was all a dismal waste of energy. Two decades had taught her to conserve it. Men like this did not deserve it.
“Now you are staring. And that is just as wrong.”
“So you realise staring is wrong? When did this holy realisation enlighten your sequin-sized brain? When you were stared at?”
His mouth curled in a cruel smirk — “Trust me, you’d need to stand in a line to stare at me.”
“Which zoo?”
His chest stuttered. But his face remained hard, cruel.
“I do not want to stand here staring at you or giving you myself to stare at any longer than is necessary. I am talking like a civilised man, listen like a civilised woman.”
“You entitled chauvinistic pig of a…”
“What’s chauvinistic about that?” His eyes widened. “Calling myself a man and you a woman?”
“You know very well what you said and what you meant.”
“I meant exactly what I said. I am talking like a civilised man so have the decency of listening like a civilised woman.”
“Because god forbid a woman does not listen?”
His cruel face broke into a grin — “That’s what you took from this? Man, you live in some other world. Must be crazy and lonely in there, isn’t it?”
“What gives you the right to talk down to people? What in the world gives you the right to come into my niece’s office, to her party, and talk trash…”
“To remind you, I came up here with the noblest of intentions.”
“To order me to keep your precious visit to Dr. Shravan’s clinic a secret?” Ritu fumed. “You asshole, you do not order me. You take orders from me if you want to keep that black heart of yours healthy…”
“Your world must be delusional and amnesiac too because that was my last appointment with you!”
Ritu recollected that exchange. And her latest chat with Dr. Shravan this morning. She smirked.
“For your sake,” she turned and opened the bathroom door. “I hope that’s true.”
Ritu banged the door in his face.