‘What are you doing here?’
I laughed as I asked her the question. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but the nickname from our schooldays suited her. Summed her up. Meens.
‘Never mind me and my boring life,’ she said, standing at the entrance of the single outlet coffee shop tucked in the rear of the second floor of the mall.
How did she know about this place? She had obviously been here before with someone who knew the layout.
‘You tell me about yours. Are you and Ravi engaged or not?’
She paid for the two cappuccinos that came with an almond biscotti each. ‘So, are you engaged?’ she repeated, joining me at the table.
‘No,’ I said. I wasn’t engaged to Ravi. Much worse, I was beginning to think about this relationship more as a friendship, but I wasn’t about to tell Meena that.
‘Why?’
I shrugged.
‘Like I was telling you the other day, snap him up. It isn’t easy for someone like you to get a man as loaded as Ravi Rao is. Going by what you and Chhaya were saying the other night, he’s into you. If I were you, I’d dump mycomplexes and get to the party. For some folks, looks are not so important. You’re lucky.’
I wasn’t sure if Meena had no filter or whether she chose to discard it on occasion. Was it possible to outgrow it like your fifth-grade uniform? She hadn’t been this bad in school, but these days, she couldn’t open her mouth without airing prejudices.
‘He comes from great stock… heir to Karnataka literally.’ Her pencilled eyes lit up dramatically.
Wow! I was pretty sure I hadn’t mentioned who Ravi Rao was to Meena when we met, outside of him being a doctor. She and Chhaya weren’t in touch; I knew that, too. It wasn’t impossible to find out; all you needed to do was hit a button, but her mind didn’t work that way unless she had examined the connection. Deliberately.
‘Great catch, by the way!’
I yawned. I hadn’t been sleeping well. ‘How have you been?’ I asked.
‘Is that because you’re not so into him?’
‘What?’
‘You’re not excited by any mention of the man. I don’t see any chemistry or life in the relationship.’
‘Have you seen us together?’
‘It’s flat,’ she said, picking up the biscotti and pointing it at me, to explain what flat meant perhaps. She placed it back on the saucer before breaking into a laugh. A shrill, piercing sound. It’s funny how one doesn’t notice these quirks, however jarring they may be, when it comes from someone close. It’s camouflaged by an affection, perhaps, until you run out of it.
I shrugged. Why had she made it her business to know who Ravi was?
‘Anyway, what are you doing with yourself these days?’ she asked.
‘The usual – work and home and all that stuff.’ Why was I answering the questions while she turned everything on me?
‘All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. I can see that you’re heading down that path. You need some excitement in your life, but of course, you need to work. I understand that.’
What she meant was she didn’t need to work.
‘What about you? What are you doing these days?’ Outside of deleting other people’s messages, that is.
Meena launched into an explanation of how she was chilling and going out every other evening. She had joined a book club, which Chhaya was also a part of. Chhaya never attended, and the ladies were planning to kick her out.
‘Most of the women are older, late 30s, 40s. You know, it generally takes people that long to get into these circles,’ she said, rubbing her index finger and thumb, suggesting money. ‘Unless, of course, you are born to it. So Chhaya, if and when she actually attends, and I, are the youngest.’
Chhaya hadn’t told me about this book club.
‘I’m thinking of going back to the US,’ Meena said. ‘I want to get back to work, not for the money. Though I have to say the pocket money was good. I loved managing the art gallery. You meet the right kind of people there. I think I’ll go back for a short trip in September and look around. Hopefully, I’ll find something there and stay on.’
