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?
