Chapter 12
I caught my reflection in an ornate mirror. Light from crystal chandeliers danced on it, giving my half-naked right leg the look of a painting.
‘I have great sticks,’ I said as I uncrossed my legs.
Chhaya roared her approval.
She had jumped at my suggestion for drinks and dinner, making it her treat. I protested, but she overrode it with typical Chhaya logic. Buy the bank if you can afford it. This ultra-luxe space in a seven-star hotel, the most happening nightspot in the city, Only Nights, was the upshot.
I looked around. The place was packed; I could tell by the din every time the music dropped off. The tables were tucked away in such a manner that it was hard to say if the space was full or not. This is where Bengaluru got away when she didn’t want to get papped. This is where real money hung out.
Chhaya and I had met twice after our reunion with Meena a little over a fortnight ago. Both times for our Wednesday breakfast. I didn’t bring up either member of the lovers’ circle and neither did she.
A drink or two down – gin and tonic with a wedge of lime being my poison of the evening and my CEO pal on the rocks, which was beginning to show in the wondrous disarray of her neckline – Chhaya leaned back in her seat.
‘She all but told me they were together. It should’ve clicked, babe. I should’ve known.’
I had told Chhaya everything about Andrew and me when we reconnected after completing our studies. I even told her that Meena had been in touch with him in the US. I had said it all but for the bit about him hitting on her.
‘What exactly did she tell you?’
‘That he hit on her.’
‘And?’
I couldn’t quite remember what followed, but those four words – HE HIT ON ME – had been ringing in my ears like a faulty alarm clock since our meeting with Meena.
‘I don’t think I said anything. I just laughed maybe.’
Chhaya’s expression was kind.
‘I told myself it was one day. I thought he was mad at me for not responding to his messages, picking up his calls.’ I slumped in my seat.
Initially, I’d thought Andrew would buzz me back, reach out, but as the weeks rolled and the seasons changed, I didn’t wait to lose hope; that would’ve been too painful.
I shut the door on Andrew Brown.
‘When did she tell you about him hitting on her?’
‘I can’t say when exactly,’ I said, letting the sentence hang on the uncertainty of my memory.
It wasn’t that I had spoken to Meena, or anyone for that matter, a ton at that time.
I had two, maximum four, conversations with her then.
‘Did she call when Sambrani passed away?’
That herbal essence was Chhaya’s moniker for Mummy, Sambhar Rani shortened.
‘Not on the day, but around that time. She didn’t persist, but after a few weeks, a month or two maybe, she called again. That’s when we spoke a few times.’
‘This is what I think,’ Chhaya said, pushing her hair back. ‘When you connected and she told you about Andrew, they were in a relationship. Already. That’s why he didn’t answer your calls.’
Was he with her when I called? When I messaged?
‘I don’t think theirs was a long-drawn affair,’ I heard Chhaya say.
I tilted the glass involuntarily, spilling some of the water on my lap. I felt it drip between my thighs and into the sofa.
‘Babe, my broken pieces, you pick them up
Don’t leave me hanging…’
Maroon 5’s ‘Sugar’ was breaking those walls that were not brick and mortar.
I shut my eyes and went back to a time when Andrew and I were ‘us’. There was nothing transient about us. We were never a couple for a reason or a season; we were going the distance. Bottled and sealed, no expiry date.
Andrew was clear about going abroad to study. He would return or I would join him, and we’d be together again.
When he was accepted by Harvard, his going away became a reality. We met later that evening to celebrate. My heart may have crashed to the floor of my stomach, but I was proud of him.
‘So, you’re going!’ I was smiling, and it wasn’t a sad smile.
‘I don’t have to, baby,’ he said, cradling my face in his palms. ‘I can get a decent job here.’
I wondered what he called her. Baby? Bubbs? Or Myraah when he was in her?
Chhaya snapped her fingers, and I opened my eyes.
‘Don’t go there,’ Chhaya said, as if she had read my mind. ‘We don’t know the truth, babe. We only have her version, what she chose to reveal.’
‘Why did she say he hit on her first up? Why didn’t she just tell me the truth?’
‘Because she didn’t want you to know the truth. “He hit on me” was her half-arsed attempt to be a friend while carrying on with your boyfriend.’
I took a deep breath.
‘He didn’t tell you either, Bae,’ she said after a while.
‘I know, but we were not in touch at that point, Bae.’ Chhaya sometimes called me ‘Bae’ and I enjoyed turning it on her. Completely original.
‘Like for what? Two months? Which was the most traumatic period of your life.’
‘He did try to get in touch.’
‘But when you called and messaged, he didn’t respond.’
They hadn’t thought about me, not my best friend, not the love of my life. That was hard to swallow.
‘That’s what happens when two people get together. They’re not thinking of the mess they’re leaving in their wake.’
My fingers were drumming on the armrest, soft, the dissonant notes of a dull ache.
Chhaya had long raised questions about my childhood friendship, just as my mother had.
Why was it that what Meena did for you always more than what you did for her? Just because there was a price tag attached?
Chhaya laid the cards on the table. A little carelessly.
There was Meena Iyer and there was the image, a gilded frame – sophisticated, generous, loyal, kind. The two – who she was and who she liked the world to see her as – were inconsistent. But so thorough was that drill that she actually believed the picture was her.
Meena liked to think of herself as a gentle soul who reached out to those in need.
She’d get out of her chauffeur-driven car and help a blind man cross the street.
She pointed out potholes to kids. But that was what she did in the public eye.
What about her private, private self? Who was she when the doors closed and she was alone?
‘Maybe he was guilt-ridden, even shamefaced. Or he thought that connecting with you at that point would ruin your friendship with Meena. It’s possible that he thought Meena hadn’t told you about them and… he didn’t want to tell on her or didn’t want to rock that boat…’
I knew all of what Chhaya was telling me was a possibility.
‘He faltered, he let you down, but it was an honest mistake,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure if I can say that of our one-time friend.’
What Chhaya left unsaid was playing on my mind. Why was Andrew back in Bengaluru?
There was a tentativeness about Andrew 2.
0, an air of ambiguity. It had replaced the calm, the certitude of his youth.
I’m not sure, though, if Andrew was ever really young; he was born old.
This air of disquiet just couldn’t be the result of an affair or even a series of transgressions.
It’s like he was not sure about something.
He was anxious, searching, looking, reaching…
There was also anger. It resonated in his tone, his fidgety body language. Atypical.
Did he know Meena was also in Bengaluru? Was that the reason?
‘You were lost to him, but had he reached out to you then, he would’ve had to come clean, or at least that’s what he’d expect of himself, and that would’ve ruined the friendship you have with Meena. Maybe in his own weird, convoluted way, he put you above him.’
‘Maybe it was his ego. He didn’t want to come crawling back; he didn’t want to apologize,’ I said, picking up the last of the stuffed mushrooms.
For a while after my mother passed away, I couldn’t relate or associate with anything or anyone she had approved of; it may not have been every single thing or person, but there were some things (like a comb the two of us shared, like TV shows that sometimes kept me away from her, like Andrew, whom she approved of) I needed space from, to let the biggest loss of my life weigh me down. And then accept it.
‘This is what I think,’ Chhaya said, not for the first time that evening.
She was considering a french fry, which she held between her ring and index fingers.
‘Andrew didn’t get back to you only because he didn’t have a face to come back to you with.
What could he tell you? Sorry, babe, while you were mourning your mother, I was fucking your best friend?
From what I can tell of this man, he wanted to tell you, he understood the importance of being honest, but he didn’t have the guts, at first.’
I shrugged. I was empty, I was excited. I’m a walking, talking contradiction.
Chhaya had moved forward in her seat. ‘It’s an awkward situation, but he’s trying; he’s reaching out to you.’
‘I feel about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit.’
Chhaya laughed.
I pulled out my phone and went to Instagram and opened Pooja Patil’s page. A planet of looks and likes. Andrew’s picture, the bare-chested one, had 40,431 likes.
I passed the phone to Chhaya, saying, ‘Little Miss Polka Dots.’
‘Get out!’ I think she was screaming. She was out of her chair. ‘You can’t be serious?’
Chhaya was in polka dots, too; hers was a knee-length dress in red and white.
‘My undergarments too!’
We just couldn’t stop. We had turned this sophisticated set-up, where you might hear the folks in the next booth but didn’t necessarily see them, into a market square, cracking tawdry jokes.
‘And this when he looks like a million ball-locks!’ She let it drag.
‘Mr and Mrs Polka Dots,’ I said.
After every stupid line that escaped our lips, we took another sip from our quickly disappearing stock.
‘Who is this person anyway?’ she asked.
I explained the business of fashion blogging to my friend, describing how these bloggers influenced the agile dynamics of the industry.
‘What does she hope to achieve with this pic?’ Chhaya asked, waving my phone, before adding, ‘As good as he looks.’
I was feeling light – the polka-dot effect. ‘This blog is about the various types of cotton fabrics in the market. She’s extolling modal here, saying it’s eco-friendly.’
‘I’d say she’s more enthusiastic about the model.’
‘Savage!’
‘But why would he fall for something like that?’
‘Polka dots,’ I said, and we were laughing again.
‘I’m proud of you. You’re handling this well,’ Chhaya said.
She was sitting up now, determined to give her alcohol-infused words a backbone. ‘I know Meena’s actions were apocalyptic in that she transgressed a trust. I also get that since you have Ravi now… Still, Myra Rai!’ Chhaya said, picking up her empty glass.
I swallowed something back. It wasn’t the drink; there was none of that left.
‘By the way, I like this new shade of lipstick.’
It was Dior’s 999. Chhaya had bought it for herself but found it too heady. She had forced it on me, insisting I ditch my pink and brown tubes, which I had refused to do until now.
‘Like you’ve tasted blood,’ she said.