Chapter 15
Honestly, Jia had no idea what to expect when she walked into the Mimosa office on Monday morning. Perhaps Charu would cry, or worse, yell at her; meanwhile, Eshaan would come to his senses and decide to apologize for kissing her out of the blue.
Neither of those things happened.
Jia kept her bag under her desk and looked around for Charu. Her desk was the same, the miniature pink crystal tree Eshaan had gifted her on one side and little figurines of the zodiac signs on the other. But her chair was empty, and there was no scent of the jasmine flowers she wore in her hair every day.
“Where is she?” Jia exclaimed, slamming her palms on Damini’s desk.
Damini jumped, and her glasses nearly slid off her nose. She pulled her AirPods out and regarded her. “What? Who?”
Jia gestured toward Charu’s empty desk. “She’s always early!”
“Maybe Charulata had to conjure a spell circle for someone. Or bring the dead back to life.” Damini shook her head dismissively. “Did you get time to review the Facebook graphics I emailed you?”
“She must be really mad at me.” Jia sank into a nearby revolving chair with a huff. “The #CheshaanProject failed.”
“I gathered as much from your latest blog post.” She sighed. “What happened?”
Jia glared at Eshaan’s empty office. “He kissed me, that’s what happened.”
Damini gasped. “He did?” Then she raised a brow. “How was it?”
“Disgusting, sloppy, and wet.”
“Well,” she replied simply, returning to the open tab on her browser, “I told you so.”
“You’re supposed to be comforting me,” Jia said. “And helping me comfort Charu, who is nowhere to be found.”
“Lucky for you, she just got here.” Damini nudged her head to the side.
Jia spun around, and her breaths came out rushed when she saw Charu sitting at her desk, about to start her meditation, her earphones probably playing some solfeggio healing frequencies. Charu had gotten Jia to try them too, as part of her morning routine, but all they had done was give her a headache. So much for healing.
Jia opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. Never rouse a meditating Charu, she decided. She ambled over to her own desk instead, setting up her workplace and turning on her laptop. After a quick peek around and behind her, she opened her WordPress admin dashboard and scrolled to the comments section of her most recent blog post, approving and responding to comments from her loyal readers. Odd, TheReMix hadn’t commented on anything since Jia’s last, slightly snarky one-line email to them. And they always—always—shared their thoughts with her about her blog posts. Within hours. But maybe they’d had enough of Love Better with J after that disagreement.
Jia sighed. There goes my very first loyal reader, she thought. This sucked. She’d always looked forward to hearing TheReMix’s thoughts on her posts—more so than any other reader’s comments. And she’d thought that someday, somehow, she’d get to know them better than just talking on a weekly email thread. Maybe meet them, since they lived in Mumbai too.
But why should she keep waiting for them to respond? Why couldn’t she send another email to clear the air? Even if they were mad at her for some reason, they had loved her writing for a year and been her pen pal for seven months now. Yes. She would reach out again.
Hiii!
I haven’t heard from you in a while, so I thought I’d check in. Is everything fine with you? And…between us? Our last interaction felt like it ended prematurely. If I said something to upset you, I’m sorry.
I need to tell you how much I value your comments and our conversations. I get so excited when my phone lights up with a notification from you. I mean, you were my first subscriber! Literally the day I started my blog, even before the first post went live. You said you found the blog by accident, but if I believed in destiny, I’d call it that.
(Was that too cheesy?)
Anyway, you’ve stood by me since the beginning, for a whole year now. In fact, Love Better with J’s first anniversary was yesterday. I hope you’ll read the anniversary post, and I hope we can go back to emailing regularly like before.
Talk soon…?
Love hard love better,
J
Just as she hit Send, she spotted Monica walking in her direction, so she closed the browser and opened the Mimosa email portal instead. “Monica, how are—” She had barely greeted her when Monica walked past her desk and headed instead to Eshaan’s office door to tap on the glass. “Knock, knock,” she sang. Eshaan called her, and she went inside.
“What’s that about?” Jia mumbled under her breath. She swiveled in her chair and noticed Charu had just opened her eyes, inhaling the first of the three deep breaths she took after every meditation.
Once Charu was through with her breathing ritual, Jia waved at her. “Charu? Hi.”
“Oh, hi, Jia.” Charu smiled weakly. “How are you?”
Jia had planned to be calm and collected, build some rapport and make small talk first, but instead she got it out in one breath. “I’m so sorry for what happened on the date, Charu. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m—”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Charu dragged her chair closer and took her hands. “I’m not mad at you. I guess I’m just…” She lowered her gaze to Jia’s kitten heels. “Sad. I’m sad.”
“You deserve so much better than Eshaan Bhargav,” Jia declared, shooting him—and Monica, whose laughter echoed from inside the office—a glare. “I’ve been thinking, what if Manoj is actually the guy you’re meant to be with?” She’d replayed her conversations with Jaiman over and over in her head, and realized that she at least had to give Manoj a chance to prove himself deserving of a commitment with Charu. She couldn’t write him off based on assumptions alone. A tough pill for Jia to swallow, but if he made Charu happy…
Charu’s smile faded. “Well, that’s not going to happen anymore.” She spun toward her desk, her fingers grazing the crystal tree Eshaan had given her. Her lip wobbled.
“Why not?” Jia asked.
“Because he got back together with his ex.” Charu showed Jia the latest photo from Manoj’s Instagram story. It was a picture of a young woman, probably in her early twenties just like him, blushing and hiding most of her face from the camera. The text simply had a red heart emoji and a kiss emoji. “She was in a bunch of his photos up until four months ago, when they broke up,” Charu added as Jia pushed the phone away, her gut churning.
“I’ll find you someone else, Charu,” Jia insisted. She rubbed her temples. “We could try speed dating. Or apps. Hinge is becoming really popular with millennials in Mumbai—”
“Jia, I know this matchmaking trial run is important for your column, so I’m willing to give it a shot. But…” Charu frowned. “I’m not going to be very hopeful. And neither should you.”
“Can I borrow you both for a moment?” Damini asked, leaning against Jia’s desk. “I need y’all to take a look at the social media graphics I emailed you for your next set of articles.”
“Of course.” Charu pulled on the end of her braid and returned to her desk.
Jia tried to go through the assignments sitting in her Mimosa inbox, but all she could see was that photo of Manoj’s ex.
She summoned the will to focus on work, at least until lunch break, when she would brainstorm more ways to find Charu her life partner now that Manoj was likely unavailable. Charu deserved love. She was soft-hearted but strong in spirit. She wasn’t sitting at home in her pajamas, eating ice cream straight from the carton and listening to depressing songs about heartbreak. She was at work, meditating, and still writing those astrology-Human-Design-palmistry pieces that had increased their page views tenfold.
Charu was a badass. And she would get the love story of her dreams. Jia would make it happen.
It had been a chaotic morning for Jaiman, juggling personal and work expenses, not to mention trying to guess how Jia was doing. Her lip and cheek makeup was slowly turning pinker, which was a good sign, but she still seemed quieter than usual, favoring small talk (“Finish the whole packet of granola for Papa’s sake, okay?”) instead of bringing up her “project” and if she’d thought more about setting Charu up with Manoj. Regardless, Jaiman was looking forward to the rest of the day. Flora was joining him for brunch at his pub, and he bet she had a lot to catch him up on. She always had so much to talk about, what with all her success: rich-as-fuck customer horror stories, her newest recipes lauded by magazines, and the latest gossip in the culinary world.
At eleven a.m., Jaiman opened the pub door to let one of his employees in and was heading back to his office to respond to some emails when the sounds of power drills and hammers greeted him from the building next door.
He walked outside and regarded the two men putting up a neon-lit board at the front of the building that his rival, Harish Chandran, had bought. He automatically gritted his teeth.
Jaiman couldn’t tell what it said, because they were blocking his view, but he could make out a “Vada” at the end. Vada, like the fried savory South Indian dish? That made sense. Harish was South Indian, after all. His restaurant in Kerala had probably had the same cuisine.
Jaiman heaved a sigh of relief. A South Indian restaurant was nowhere on his list of competitors. Nobody would choose vada, sambar, chutney, and rasam over sour cream and chili nachos when they were in the mood to kick back with a cold beer after an exhausting day at work. He’d be just fine, and so would J’s Pub.
“A little to the left!” one of the crewmen yelled, and finally, the board was nailed to the building. When the men got down from the ladder, Jaiman’s mouth fell open.
Because the place was called Vodka Vada.
This wasn’t a South Indian restaurant, after all. It was another pub, except with a South Indian zing to it. Jaiman hadn’t seen a lot of those in Mumbai. Or anywhere, for that matter. He gulped.
“Looks good, yeah?”
Jaiman found himself facing Harish Chandran, who had just stepped out from his pub, and gave a forced grin. “It does. Welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Thanks, man.” Harish held his hand out.
Jaiman looked at the outstretched hand, then, slowly, shook it with his own. Harish wore a powder-blue three-piece suit (in this humid Mumbai air?), his short, curly hair slicked back with oil. His rectangular glasses framed his dark brown eyes, a flicker of amusement in them, just like old times. He was almost a head shorter than Jaiman, but with the confident way in which he drew himself up to his full height, Jaiman had to admit he felt smaller.
“I didn’t expect our rivalry to continue beyond culinary school,” Jaiman said, pushing the door to J’s Pub open. “Want a drink?”
Harish smirked. “Yeah, I don’t mind checking out the competition.” He followed him inside, his eyes wandering all around. “Nice décor,” he said, hands in his pockets. He peeked behind the counter. “Love the ambiance too. It’s very…you.”
Jaiman narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean?”
“You know”—Harish gestured to the cozy booths, the stools by the bar counter, the wooden beams and visible red plumbing along the walls—“playing it safe. Looks like your average pub. Definitely going to make people feel at ease, remind them of the good times they’ve had at other pubs.”
Playing it safe?It didn’t escape Jaiman that he had literally thought something similar about his pub not too long ago, but how was it Harish’s place to point that out? “Excuse me?”
“You never took risks in culinary school.” Harish chuckled. “Like dating your best friend and then staying friends with her because she was the only person you ever hung out with. Do you two still talk, by the way?”
“So nice of you,” Jaiman said, ignoring his question. He exhaled and turned to the bar. “What’s your drink, Harish?”
“Chivas Regal, neat.” Harish ambled around the pub some more. His eyes rested on the pool table. “Of course there’s a pool table.”
“My regulars love it.”
“I’m sure they do.”
Jaiman had just opened the bottle of scotch and grabbed a glass when Harish went on, “Well, if I ever have people come along looking to play pool, I’ll send them your way.”
“Know what?” Jaiman pushed the bottle and glass aside. He scratched along his chin, hiding one curled fist behind his back. “I don’t think I want to have a drink with you anymore. Maybe you should leave.”
“Sure,” Harish mumbled, his eyes twinkling. Jaiman held the door open for him, but Harish screeched to a halt instead of leaving. “Oh, hey,” he said, looking straight ahead.
Jaiman poked his head outside. Flora stood by the door, dressed in a white maxi dress, large sunglasses hanging low on her nose, a purse dangling from one wrist. “Hey,” she said slowly, her eyes narrowing behind her sunglasses. “Harish. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, just walking down memory lane.” Then Harish winked at Jaiman. “See you around, neighbor.”
Once Harish had gone back inside Vodka Vada, Jaiman closed the door firmly and greeted Flora with a hug and a kiss on either cheek. “Not the best way to start brunch, is it?”
She hugged him back and took off her sunglasses, looking confused. “Yeah. But what did he mean? Why is he here?”
“Come in first.” Jaiman led the way inside.
Flora nodded and set her purse on the counter before sitting on one of the stools. Then she raised an eyebrow at him, waiting.
“It appears Harish is back in Mumbai for good. And not just in Mumbai, but…” Jaiman exhaled. “…right next door to me.”
Her mouth fell open. “That pub next door is his? Vodka Vada? Fuck.” She lowered her voice, as though what she said next embarrassed her. “He’s still so creative.”
“Yeah.” Jaiman wrinkled his nose at the compliment and swallowed the bile that had crept up his throat. As he talked, he prepared a dirty martini for Flora. “Wonderful, right? Here I can barely make rent, and he bought out the entire two stories of the building next door to compete with me.”
Flora’s eyes widened. “You haven’t been paying your rent? Jaiman, you should have told me. I would have—”
Jaiman chuckled. “You would have what? Taken pity on me and sent your customers my way, like Harish just promised to do?”
“No,” she said, rolling her eyes, “I’d have loaned you some cash.”
“I wouldn’t have let you,” he shot back. “You know my rule. Never take money from friends.”
“You loaned me forty thousand rupees in our first year of culinary school when I didn’t have anywhere to go for summer break.” She raised a finely tweezed brow. “Or is that not breaking your rule?”
“I never said I don’t lend money to my friends,” he said, grinning, though it was strained. “Relax. I’ll figure something out.”
“Jaiman,” she started, looking back at the front door, her forehead creased, “you now have competition right next door. And this is Harish. You know he doesn’t back down from a challenge.”
“Well,” Jaiman stood up straight, sliding the dirty martini across the counter to Flora, “neither do I.”
“Cheers to that.” She raised the martini glass as a toast, smiling, although there was fear in her expression as her eyes darted toward the closed door.
Jaiman didn’t blame her for being scared. But Harish had taken too much from him during school, and he wouldn’t let it happen again. Or rather, for the sake of his future…he couldn’t let it happen again.