13. Meena
13
Meena
For days her phone didn’t stop buzzing, and she couldn’t deny the thrill she felt every time there was a message on the other end. Sometimes the messages were foul, but mostly they were respectful. Much of it was because her profile picture had her face but the back of Sasha’s head. She had made it clear from the outset she was a mother. Maybe motherhood meant that men on the app didn’t necessarily become rude or lewd from the get-go. For the first time in a long time she was wanted – or better than that, desired. There were men out there begging to fuck her and she was suddenly reminded that perhaps the sexiness she thought she had lost hadn’t gone altogether.
She sexted some of these men. Sent photos of her cleavage and then as she got bolder, her breasts. Once she sent a photo of her thighs but she stopped there. She had to have some boundaries, but she could see how easily they could be dropped. After days of sending messages she’d agreed to meet one of them. They had conversed so easily over text. He was funny. He also had kids. They both told each other they were separated from their partners, though she didn’t want to push it to find out if he really was. From the pics he sent her he appeared handsome. He liked to go for runs and seemed like a committed dad when his kids were with him. These were all big ticks for her, which was why she had decided to meet up with him. That was when Sophie dropped by.
After Sophie’s initial reaction at the pub, Meena had wanted the dating app adventure to be her own private thing. She didn’t want to tell Sophie she’d gone through with it and she knew she wouldn’t need to tell Owen because he barely noticed anything about her anyway. It was, for the first time, a small secret thing she did for herself and no one she knew needed to be a part of it.
Sure, Sophie thought she had found out about Meena’s online escapades, but she didn’t know everything. Meena hadn’t, for example, told her that she had put her actual face on her profile pic. She could imagine the things Sophie would say in response to that. ‘What if someone you knew saw you?’ or ‘What if the school parents found out?’ It wasn’t like Meena hadn’t thought of all these things beforehand. But so what if she got caught out? She would tell them to mind their own business. Or ask them why they too were on a dating app. Or maybe she would say they could do with that information whatever they wished, which was her way of saying, they could tell Owen if they liked.
The thought made her breath slightly hitch. What if someone did tell Owen? What would she do if he found out? She thought about it for a while and the only answer she could come up with was that she would be delighted. If he confronted her about it, she would tell him that he had driven her to do it. Don’t you see, Owen, these men are giving me the attention you should have been giving me? she would say.
It was Owen she was thinking of when she had made her way to the Rooftop Bar, the top of her dress hitched up to conceal the cleavage Sophie had made such a big deal about. Was Sophie telling her her nips were showing only to throw her off? It did seem like a Sophie thing to do. The more she thought about it the more it made sense. Maybe Sophie liked being the good-looking one in the pair, whereas she, Meena, was the plain one.
On the apps some white men had been open about how they had never been with a brown woman. How they had always wondered what it would be like to kiss brown nipples, not pink ones. That’s how forward they had been and she hadn’t even batted an eye at that. Maybe it was her age. There was little at this point that could rattle her. Even her age hadn’t put them off. She was a woman in her forties and she was open about it, and soon it became apparent how many of them had a thing for milfs; the younger ones especially. After a series of messages from young men in their early twenties telling her about how they had a thing for mothers, some of them veering into territory that made her skin crawl, she changed her age range from men over the age of eighteen to men over the age of thirty.
The man she was meeting at the bar said he was forty-five, but when she met him it became apparent that he was easily in his fifties. His paunch said he didn’t run a lot. This along with his lack of quick wit made her wonder how he had managed to be so funny when they texted. Was a friend helping him? Was he searching the internet for quips? Or were the responses he sent her something he’d sent to countless women before, his text exchanges honed over time?
It took her ten minutes to figure out she didn’t want to waste an evening with him, but she didn’t know how to tell him. They ended up sharing a bottle of wine and a couple of canapés. At the end of the night, he asked her to split the bill. It was the final nail in the coffin of her ill-fated first venture into the world of online dating.
When she got home Owen was again in front of the TV. She was expecting him to barely acknowledge her as she walked in, but he turned to her.
‘Where’d you go?’
The question caught her off-guard. He let his eyes run over the length of her. The red dress was no longer hitched up to her neckline and had slipped, so he could see a fair bit of her cleavage.
‘You look nice,’ he added. ‘You dressed up like this for Sophie?’
She’d not told him who she was meeting because, frankly, she didn’t think he cared.
‘No, I dressed up nice for me,’ she replied.
He let his eyes linger over her and for a moment she considered where the look could lead. And as much as she had wanted before to get him to sleep with her, now she no longer did. Eventually Owen’s gaze drifted back to the TV and she went to their bedroom.
She got changed and went to bed without saying a word. She wondered briefly if she should delete the dating app altogether. Then, as she had found herself doing recently before she fell asleep, she wept silent tears. The crying had become almost a nightly ritual. What else could she do other than cry? Life had turned out completely opposite to what she had wanted and now she was trapped.
The next day Asma called her. Meena didn’t want to answer. She let the phone ring three times before she took a deep breath and pressed ‘Accept’.
‘I dreamt about you last night,’ Asma said, after the two sisters had exchanged halted greetings.
‘Uh-huh,’ Meena said carefully, waiting for the inevitable insult that was to come.
‘You were sad,’ Asma said. ‘In my dream.’
Her words made Meena catch her breath.
‘Are you sad?’ Asma asked.
For once Meena was lost for words. The silence from her end was all Asma needed to hear.
‘You and Owen, are you guys okay?’
The question made something stir inside Meena’s chest. Of course we’re okay! she wanted to shout back. How dare you suggest that we are not? Cos you and Osman are perfect? You both never fight? Must be nice to be so freaking amazing.
But she didn’t say those words. She was using all her power not to start crying with her sister on the other end of the line. She had taught herself this from an early age, when she was living with her aunt.
‘I know I’ve said this before, but it’s silly that we’re both in the same city and we hardly see each other. I get we didn’t have the best relationship growing up, but when I think about it, I don’t know why that was. What made us start competing with each other? It’s so ridiculous,’ Asma continued.
Meena sniffed and immediately got angry at herself for sniffing. But Asma didn’t mention it and kept talking. ‘You know, I’ve been so busy with my own career and life and everything I’ve let so much else slide. And that’s ... well, that’s been really bad of me. It’s only now, in my forties, I’ve realised that what makes life fulfilling are the relationships you cultivate. I’ve let friendships go, I’ve not been the best big sister, and for what? It’s so silly, right? Sometimes we realise things far too late. But it’s not too late for us. Is it, Meena?’
Meena was so taken aback by Asma’s honesty she didn’t know what to say.
‘I should’ve told you a long time ago, but I’ve been happy for you and all your successes,’ Asma said.
‘What successes?’ Meena blurted, her voice thick with emotion.
‘Are you kidding? I look at how brave you were to just follow your passion and move overseas and live this incredible, carefree life. Sometimes when I heard about the life you were living, the parties, the travel, the hobnobbing—’
‘Hobnobbing,’ Meena said with a smile. ‘It’s a word only you would use.’
‘Well, you know what I mean. All the yacht parties and like that one incredible party you had in Versailles? Was it Versailles?’
Meena didn’t want to say it wasn’t Versailles, but a bog-standard chateau and, yes, even chateaus could be bog-standard. ‘Yeah.’
‘All those times I heard those stories I kept thinking, she’s doing it. She’s grabbing life by the throat and going for it. You lived a life, Meena. You did things. Extraordinary things. Meanwhile I just stuck around at home. Did what was right. What is it they call it, model minority? I fell into the model minority trap. And now I’m learning that wasn’t the proper thing to do.’
‘Who said it wasn’t the proper thing to be a frigging doctor?’
‘I’ve been reading ...’
‘Well that’s your problem, isn’t it? You read too much,’ Meena said. And to her credit Asma laughed.
‘Maybe. But apparently being a model minority creates stereotypes. It erases individuality. All this time Mum and Dad painted you as ...’ She stopped, realising perhaps that she had said too much.
‘As what?’
‘It’s just. They created such impossible expectations—’
‘Ones that you not only met, but exceeded.’
‘But I didn’t see it that way. I constantly felt like it wasn’t enough. Everything I did wasn’t enough. And in one way that pushed me to keep wanting to achieve more, but in another way it created this hollowness. I feel empty most of the time, that no success will ever fill that emptiness. And then I think, what even is success? Like, what does that look like?’ Asma stopped speaking abruptly and took a deep breath. ‘I wish we hadn’t left you behind. That we had taken you when we went to Dubai. It must have been awful being left like that. Especially when you got sick.’
A tightness gripped Meena’s throat. She was scared that if she spoke she wouldn’t stop crying.
‘I cried for you every night, Meena. I missed my little sister so much. I don’t know what Mum and Dad were thinking but I hope in time you’ve forgiven them.’
Meena’s silence seemed to make Asma talk more.
‘But I think there was a positive in all of that. You learnt to be independent. You’ve always known what you’ve wanted and gone all in. If we look at success as experiencing life and squeezing out all its many variations of good and bad, ups and downs, seeking out pleasure and giving in to the joy, then you’re the success, Meena.’
‘You really think I gave in to joy?’ Meena asked with a tremble in her voice.
‘Didn’t you?’
‘Um, have you met my husband?’ Humour, as always, came to her rescue when emotions were running high.
On the other end of the phone, Asma snorted. It gave Meena the permission to laugh too.
‘About you and Owen ...’ Asma finally said.
‘Well, it’s not good. I think you can tell.’ Not all of us can have the perfect relationship you and Osman have , Meena stopped herself from adding. Perhaps that was the secret to creating a good relationship with her sister. To stop herself from saying hurtful things to her. Or perhaps more simply, to not let her insecurities get in the way when she spoke to Asma.
‘And so, what’s the plan?’ Asma asked.
‘The plan? Do you think I’ve ever had a plan in my life? I’ve winged it every single day.’
‘Ah okay, so that’s the secret. Maybe I should take notes,’ Asma said lightly.
‘Only take notes if you want to know how to make a total mess of your life,’ Meena said, and as soon as she did a cry escaped her lips and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t stop the howling that followed, with Asma trying to soothe her on the other end.