Chapter 5 Aaditha - What Happened Last Evening? #2
Prem, the server, enters the room. He is carrying hot cups of coffee and a bakery basket – muffins, pain au chocolat and our signature confectionery, mango Danish.
Vedveer pushes back his sleeves, exposing toned forearms. I give in to the image of them wound tightly around me for a nanosecond. Is that what happened last evening?
He takes a sip of his coffee, ignoring the deliciously laid-out basket.
‘Good?’ I ask stiffly, knowing immediately I should specify what exactly I meant by good. ‘Hot enough?’
He nods. ‘Hot, yeah. Very hot.’
‘Too hot?’
Vedveer is smiling. ‘Right hot.’
I laugh.
Maybe he, too, likes his coffee hot like folks down south do. Generally speaking.
Vedveer’s posture is all lines, starch stiff and straight.
I draw up my bare feet and fold them next to me before picking up my cup and taking a sip. My brain is crying for caffeine.
Vedveer reaches for the mango pastry.
‘Good ch-choice,’ I say. ‘It’s our speciality.’
‘It’s good,’ he says.
His sleeves have ridden up on his right arm. An entire subculture on Instagram is dedicated to his forearms. They are wholly brawny, but that’s not why we are facing each other across a table this morning.
I stop thinking about his arms.
How can we call this roka off?
I’m playing with words in my head, arranging and rearranging, aiming for the right tone.
‘I called you a couple of times,’ Vedveer says, leaning back in his seat.
‘When?’
‘A week ago? I thought we should at least speak before we meet.’
‘I don’t know, I’m not sure…’ I may have blocked his number.
‘I’m probably on your block list,’ he says, nodding.
‘Apologies.’
I feed his number into my phone and send him a message.
Me: Hi
‘I should have messaged first, maybe,’ he says.
His phone is in his pocket, probably. I haven’t seen it.
God, oh god! I call out to the powers that be. Please tell me we did not kiss. I will not ask you for anything ever again.
‘Did you send the flowers?’ Of all the million ways I could have worded that question, I choose preposterous.
‘No,’ he says, before asking, ‘You don’t know who sent you those?’
I shake my head.
‘Anonymous admirers, casually slipping red roses into the mélange.’
‘What are your interests?’ I blurt out. ‘Do you have hobbies?’ I ask like a kindergarten teacher.
‘Organic farming,’ he says, his smile brightening.
‘Environmental science and engineering,’ I say.
His head bobs.
Dung. Cow Dung. Soil chemistry. I try to perk myself up. We reside in parallel universes. I could tell Appa that we are very different. That has got to count as a good reason!
‘Aahdeethaaah,’ he says, pausing to smile. ‘I hope I am saying it correctly? I was sufficiently schooled on pronunciations last evening.’
It is an improvement. ‘Aahdeethaaah’ didn’t drill a hole in my head like it did yesterday when the Rathores came calling. But that may also be because any mention of ‘last evening’ is sending me on a tailspin.
‘Last evening,’ Vedveer is saying.
My head is turning. My fingers threaten to cover my mouth, but I clasp them tight and leave them on my lap.
‘You were bright and bubbly, a whole different person,’ he finishes.
I try to smile. ‘We met socially,’ I say. I know I’m sounding unhinged, but what happened last evening? ‘We ran into each other,’ I correct myself. ‘Lavanya, my friend, was there too.’
Vedveer nods. His eyes move away from me. He is considering what to say, maybe searching for my surname. I hope it has been wiped out of his memory. Phonetic atrocities should be remanded.
He is on his feet. He peers into my two-shelf library cupboard. ‘Are these for sale?’ he asks, picking up Robert Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime. His eyes are on me. I shake my head.
This tiny 150-square-foot space is my escape, my Himalayas, where I can disappear. Door bolted and phone switched off.
My strip of an office space has a library cupboard, and the top bracket holds an assortment of books I like, from Nooyi to Robert Iger and Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, To Kill a Mockingbird and Matthew Perry’s memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
‘No. These are my books. We have contemporary fiction on our shelves outside.’
The café itself is a large, wide-open area with pots of greenery and loads of natural lighting.
The seating is spread out across the floor, which is standard in all our outlets.
We have three 10x10 shelves of books, and just behind the books, we stock Alia’s lingerie selection. That is always a crowded space.
‘Would you rather sit in the café?’ I ask out of politeness, knowing he’ll turn it down. Who needs one more picture of themselves on social media?
‘Yes,’ he says enthusiastically.
My eyes widen in horror. Do you want to be photographed again with me, you dolt?
TittleTattle already has a photograph of you preening in Bengaluru, as if that wasn’t bad enough.
I’m clinging to you like some shrinking violet in a photograph a freaking fan has clicked.
Now what, you want us to walk the ramp for them?
‘I like open spaces,’ he says, ‘the outdoors.’
The man couldn’t think beyond his royal nose even if he was commissioned to.
I get on my feet reluctantly.
‘You don’t want to go out.’ It isn’t a question. Vedveer settles back on the sofa and picks up the coffee cup.
I exhale.
‘You’ve never been photographed in your café,’ he says, nodding to himself.
His tone is gentle, but I miss it because questions are coming at me in my head like traffic in this city, from every possible direction.
‘Never?’ I counter too quickly.
‘Yeah. I looked quite a bit on social media and didn’t see a single picture of you in the café,’ he says. He’s facing me.
‘Why social media?’
‘Because I wanted to know something, anything about you before I came to Bengaluru.’
‘What did you want to know?’ I ask. I feel the sharpness of my tone.
‘Get a sense of who you are,’ he says. ‘We are practically engaged, Aahdeethaaah!’
‘It was the roka then yesterday at my place?’ I ask.
He nods.
Roka is not my custom. When we get engaged, rings are exchanged, we send out invitations and put out a feast.
‘Why are we here?’ he asks. His shoulders straighten, and for the first time in the morning, there’s an edge to his tone. ‘We are very different people.’
Chalk and cheese. I couldn’t agree more, but why is he playing innocent? How did TittleTattle know he’s in Bengaluru? He’s probably tipping them off and providing them photographs.
I exhale. I listen to the air that escapes me. ‘How did we even get here?’ I ask, laughing.
Vedveer’s shoulders drop to a relaxed position. ‘Our folks find us well suited!’ he says, adding, ‘That’s how well they know their children.’
I want to give him a high-five, but I’m not sure if I will be breaking protocol.
‘The question is, how do we end it? It doesn’t matter how we got here!’ I say.
He nods. He wants to say something, but he’s holding back.
‘But you were almost already engaged,’ I say, giving him an out.
‘Someone else also likes to scroll, I see!’ he says. ‘But rookies must be warned not to believe everything they see and read.’