The late-evening westerly was playing mind games with me.
‘Are you hurt?’ Andrew asked, his palm warm around my elbow. I felt his strength.
I inhaled his perfume. I needed air to dilute the effect.
Andrew’s eyes caressed the length of my legs. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked again.
I hadn’t seen him in office today. I had thrown more than a few furtive glances in the direction of his cabin. I didn’t want to run into him in the middle of the editorial again.
I wanted to say something, anything… but those words that came cold through the telephone line some eight years ago rang in my ears. Like a cross-connection.
I was torn, shredded into a hundred pieces.
Andrew was now looking at me like I were a book, the pages of which he couldn’t turn.
Other women…
Over you…
There was more.
The words settled on my tongue, refusing to leave it like a stubborn stain. I was sweating.
Andrew was saying something. I think he was asking me if I was heading out on work.
The question rang like a timer.
I stepped aside, forcing him to drop his hand, which was cupping my elbow. I swallowed the bitter aftertaste and made my way past him.
I felt his eyes on my back.
I gave myself a once-over in the full-length decorative mirror at the entrance of the resto-bar that had recently featured in Asia’s top-10 nightspots.
I was in my go-to black dress, an angular hem that finished well above my knees. I was looking sharp. Andrew’s eyes had told me that. I checked my watch. I was on time.
Chhaya had informed us that she would be late. Maybe she’d be in time for the bill!
‘Oh my god! Oh my god! You look stunning!’ Meena was standing with her palms pressed against her cheeks.
I paused mid-stride and looked around me before covering the few steps between us and enveloping Meena in a hug.
My ankle felt fine, but there was an anxious strain inside me that was threatening to break.
We stayed that way for a whole minute; it was comforting. Meena set me aside and wiped off a stray teardrop.
‘Look at you!’ she said.
Compliments made me cross-eyed.
‘You, too, gorgeous.’ I attempted a comeback.
Meena was wearing a linen dress. She looked like she had walked off the pages of one of those glossies she deified.
‘I love your shoes. You’ve changed fully, Myra. You’re a whole new woman.’
A whole new woman?
‘Tell, tell, tell. When did all this happen?’ Sometimes, she had an accent; at other times she sounded just like she had in school.
