Chapter 3
Zubin turned the key and entered his own house like a thief that evening.
He set foot in the lobby, looked to the left, then the right.
Aara’s Pink Panther was blaring in the hall.
No Aditi noise. Or maybe she was also watching Pink Panther with their daughter.
Zubin smiled. He was eternally grateful to his wife for hooking their baby up to the good kind of cartoons on YouTube.
Pink Panther, Winnie the Pooh, Flintstones, Jetsons, Captain Planet.
The garbage that kids watched nowadays on other kids’ vlogs was just…
he shuddered, turning the door handle and shutting it soundlessly.
“Papa!”
He winced.
“Heeellooo!” He called out, forced to go out to the hall when he had plotted a perfect escape to his soon-to-be ex bedroom.
He set his coat, gown and iPad sleeve on the console, walking down the long, shiny lobby and out into the main hall, the terrace’s glass doors open.
The warm May breeze was blowing in. The sun had set, and the lights in his house were lit, his two ladies splayed on one of the sofas in front of the TV, one on each side, one leg each up on the back of the sofa.
Aditi’s eyes came to him, and he recoiled as well as lit to life.
“At least say hi properly,” he opened his arms, taking his eyes to his daughter. She raised one arm and waved her fingers up and down, eyes on her Pink Panther. “Papa today Nani sent thepla for you.”
“Really?” His stomach growled. “Where is it?” He looked at Aditi, who was now ignoring him for the cartoon. “Are we having it for dinner?”
She grunted.
“Are we having thepla for dinner, Mumma?” He emphasised that name, compelling her to respond.
“Yes, Papa. Go and shower.”
“Come and help me find my blue tracks, please.”
“If I come and see that they are right there on the bathroom counter, then you will get a good scolding,” she warned sweetly, eyes on Pink Panther. Aara giggled behind her hand.
“I’ll take the chance.”
“Think again, one must always think about one’s choices before making them.”
“Let me think…” he crossed his arms across his chest, now getting both pairs of brown eyes. He preened. Was he more interesting than Pink Panther? Zubin pushed it up a notch, running his forefinger back and forth over his chin.
“Hmm, thought. I will take that chance,” he nodded solemnly.
Aditi stared at him, expressionless. Her scariest. His blood thrummed, heated up, then began to leap in his veins. Her legs swung down to the floor and she sat up, her eyes not leaving him.
“Aara, screen time ends in ten minutes,” she pronounced pointedly and strode down the hall, her bare feet slapping on the marble floor, inviting him into an in-house annihilation. She passed him without even looking or touching. Zubin was jumping out of his shoes.
He got rid of the said shoes and socks and followed her, closing the door of their bedroom. Ten minutes. Ten minutes. TEN MINUTES!
“What the hell?!” She turned on him, her tone high but volume low. Her hair was sticking to her cheeks, her eyes honeyed. He began to smirk, but her jaw ticked.
“This is serious, Zubin.”
His smirk dropped.
“I cannot understand how to trust you if you go behind my back, after we agreed on something, and that too professionally.”
“Adi…”
“No,” she held up a hand. “Don’t even dare justify or argue or find a way to make this ok.
I told you it’s my partner’s best friend.
I told you. I told you to step back. You said yes.
What changed? And from what I know, this couple is stinking rich, both of them.
They can hire anybody. And you are not even a divorce lawyer. Why you, and why can’t you let it go?”
“I did let it go…” he started. Her gaze darkened. “At first,” he added. “But… she… Aditi, she is an old friend.”
“Your laughter club friend! How many others laughed there with you for five minutes once a week?! How much can you become friends at that place?!”
“Don’t you know me?!”
“That way half of SoBo is your friend!”
“High possibility!”
“Uuuughhh! Zubin, why?! Why, why, why?” Her hands fisted in front of her face, frustration and anger and fire burning bright.
“Listen,” he caught her shoulders, stroking his thumbs over her skin. “We had fought one case before, we will fight this one too.”
“We were not married then!”
“Still can’t keep your eyes off me in court?” He cocked his head to the side. “I promise to come show you the face card at home.”
“Shut up!” She pushed out of his arms. “I need to get this client his divorce. It’s a stepping stone for me at Dalal Chambers. A big one.”
“Scared you won’t be able to get through me?” He slipped his hands inside his pockets. Aditi whirled, and that anger was for a whole different reason — “I will take that pretentious smile and those cheating brain cells and smash them up to add to Aara’s glitter box!”
“My smiles and brain cells are glittery, you mean?” He smiled.
“Ugh!” She began to stomp away but he caught her mid-path and pulled her to his chest. She collided into him, and the smoke was worth every smashing of his smiles and brain cells.
“What do you say, Doshi?” He pushed his nose to her jaw, nuzzling the sweet scent over her skin.
“May you tumble and fall while twirling in that pretentious gown of yours.”
He vibrated. “Wishing ill upon your husband?” He puckered his lips and pressed them there.
“You are opposing counsel.”
“Not at home.” He pressed a kiss to her earlobe.
“You brought this home, Zubin.”
“On the contrary,” he pulled back, holding her chin — “I took it out of the house.”
Her mouth fell open. And he lost his amusement. Zubin peered into her eyes — “You would have fought this case against any big divorce lawyer. Fight it just like that. We have kept our personal lives aside in the court once before.”
She scoffed — “Yeah, sure. You were constantly needling me with college moot court precedents.”
“To be fair, you brought in the elephant and his peanut supply case to get Justice Deshmukh to recuse.”
Her eyes smouldered. “Zubin, you get on my nerves sometimes!”
“I’m sorry,” he said solemnly. “It’s the age and the family life. I’ll try to do it more often…”
Aditi’s head fell back, a loud sigh leaving her mouth.
“Fuck, look at you…” He began to kiss her throat when their room’s door handle rattled.
“Mumma?”
They both straightened, schooling their features just as the door opened and their daughter skipped in, dancing. “Papa?”
“Mmm?” Zubin raised his brows, matching her naughty smile.
“Did you get scolded?”
“For what?”
“For your tracks, silly,” she giggled, climbing up on their bed and lying down to make snow fairies on their pristine sheet. Zubin looked at Aditi, smirking — “No, I made the right choice.”
Her teeth pressed together, but she turned her eyes to Aara. “Come on, now, dinner time. Papa will change and come.”
Aara rolled off their bed and ran out, Aditi behind her.
“Doshi,” he grabbed her wrist before she could go.
“What now?”
“Are you pissed or disappointed?”
“What difference does it make?”
“If you are disappointed that you can’t trust me, then I will leave this case right now because you can trust me 110%. If you are pissed that I took it even after we talked, then I will keep going.”
“Pissed is ok, you mean?”
Zubin smiled, feeling like the adoration for this woman — not the wife, not the partner, not the mother of his child, but just this girl, was overflowing in his chest again after years.
“I can do pissed, I mean.”
She shook his hand off and power-walked out of the room. That power walk was pissed. That was undeniably, amazingly pissed.
————————————————————
“I only said yes to this meeting because of you, Zubin,” Chandni Aunty warned him as he led her to the conference room of his office. “I wouldn’t spit on his face otherwise.”
“You live in the same house, Chandni Aunty.”
“I live in the house, he lives in the pool on the terrace.”
“How does that work?” Zubin pulled a chair for her.
She set her small Hermes bag that could hardly hold her gigantic iPhone Pro Max on the conference table and settled on the chair, tucking her hair behind her ear — “It works purfectly. Puurfectly. Because he is not in the home for more than two nights a week.”
He frowned, taking a chair beside hers — “Ok, I am asking this with zero judgement or implication, but do you have reason to believe that there is cheating involved?”
“Yes.”
Zubin sat up. “Chandni Aunty, when you told me the story, you skipped this part. You haven’t made any mention in your plea either. If another woman is involved, then your chances of getting these demands…”
“Oh no, what woman? That man can’t even patao a woman, forget keeping her. But cheating is not just…” she made kissing gestures with her hands.
“Sir?” Meera knocked on the glass door. “They are here.”
Zubin looked at his client, eyebrows raised.
“Let them come,” she ordered, sitting back like a queen, pushing one leg over the other and staring out of the window.
Zubin’s eyes, though, went straight to the glass wall and couldn’t move again.
There was Advocate Doshi, striding across his office, in her black trousers and crisp white shirt that he had seen her button up not even five hours ago.
Her hair in a high ponytail that she had pulled up after drying her hair right in front of him, on his side of the mirror.
Those eyes, in nothing but her mascara, falling on his and locking, without any expression or emotion.
She pushed open the glass door and stood back.
That is when Zubin got a good look at the man behind her.
Raviraj Jethmalani. A lean man, distinguished in his appearance, hair gone salt and pepper, eyes sharp behind fine, round, rimless glasses, his shirt and pantsuit tailored.
Zubin glanced from him to his soon-to-be ex-wife sitting beside him, then back at him.