He nodded quickly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, straightening up to his full height.
‘Don’t be,’ I said, sweetly. ‘It’ll catch up with you, too, Mr Political Editor.’
He laughed again. That slow, rhythmic laugh.
Chapter 3
Andrew Brown was my first crush. He was the boys’ school captain at Bangalore Scottish. A topper in academics, he ran a mean 100 metres and played on the right wing for the hockey team. I was blushing within minutes of being introduced to him in a light-flushed quadrangle. I was 12 and new to the debate club where he was already a senior at 14.
He had started inhabiting my dreams a couple of years before that introduction. It was the name that intrigued me initially, the Anglo-Indian in him grabbing my attention. My classmates were Anita or Sita or Akila, and the boys’ school, which was across the road from us, had its share of Stanleys, Sureshes and Shoaibs. There was a distinctive ring to Andrew Brown.
I told no one about my crush. Not even Meena, my closest friend at the time. There wasn’t much to say, outside of the warm welcome he had given me to the debate club. He had done the same for almost all the other 64 people in the guild; besides, half the girls in school had the hots for Andrew. All of which I chose to ignore, playing thatgreeting in my head every night as if it were a sonnet penned just for me.
I had no plans of acting on my feelings. I was content with spotting the waistband of his underwear that popped out every time he bent during debate club meetings. On the odd occasion he passed me on the street, I followed him at a distance. He, of course, barely noticed me outside school. I was fine with that; he wasn’t seeing anyone. Had Andrew Brown bought so much as a leaf, never mind a red rose, it would’ve been the lead story of our campus weekly.
My crush, however, came undone a few years later, on the night of the school’s annual ball. Andrew opened the floor with the girls’ school captain, Manisha Seth. She was in an Anita Dongre dress. If I had the means, that was what I’d have worn. It was electric blue with self-colour detailing.
After the first song, he walked in the direction of where the bulk of the girls were seated.
Meena was not with her regular fashion clique; she had chosen to sit with me. I was elated. She was in a cream Chanel dress that skimmed her knees. She could’ve worn any outfit and made it look grand, but that deliciously fresh shade, almost the colour of her skin, was a standout choice. She paired her skyscrapers, which had a dainty red strap, with a clutch of the same shade. She whispered the brand name of the footwear in my ear, Manolo Blahnik (it sounded like a European variant of Hakka noodles).
Meena was in a particularly chatty mood that evening. I tried to keep up with her words, make sense of what she was saying, even as my eyes got busy. Andrew looked exactly like he had in my dreams. Never mind the corduroy blazer, which hadn’t seen a lint roller since it was first put together, or the ill-fitting black trousers. His steps werelight and quick; there was a rhythm to his stride, as if he were already dancing.
When he was almost in line with the row in which I was seated, I felt my stomach churn. It turned into a tight knot, a cricket ball. I began sweating. I wasn’t prepared for this. Andrew Brown, the hottest boy in town, was going to ask me, this skinny, awkward girl, for a dance. He was actually going to ask me. I was going to break into grateful hysterical sobs.
My dress was new; my mother had bought it for me. It was loose in all the wrong places, but I loved it. I had borrowed my mother’s sandals, and her lip gloss was the only make-up I had used.
She said I looked lovely, and that was good enough for me when I left home earlier in the evening. But with Andrew standing before me, I wished I was better dressed. Wearing something sharp. I should have listened to my mother and bought a nice pair of stilettos. I had saved money for it but got lazy in the end.
Who would have thought that Andrew Brown would ask me for a dance? I didn’t think he even knew my name. I stopped breathing when he paused by my chair, standing in front of me. I wasn’t sure if I was already dead, so I instructed myself to inhale, exhale. Go through that stuff that living, breathing creatures generally do. Just to be sure. I inhaled him. Dettol soap, perhaps.
Andrew bent down to my level and smiled. I promise, the rising sun was the colour of melting chocolate. I tugged at my dress, preparing to get up.
‘Excuse me,’ he said softly. A ton of bricks might’ve felt lighter.
He had moved past me to Meena, who was still in her hundred-word-per-minute mode.
I tried hard to forget what followed… But how do you wash away a rubber stamp on your heart?
Andrew stretched out his hand; his palm was open. In a flash, Meena was walking beside him. ‘Bye,’ she turned to tell me, delighted by her conquest.
I can’t recollect much of that evening except that Andrew danced with Meena all night. He had eyes only for her, even if hers were wandering.
The next morning, the student’s edition ofMorning Heraldcarried a picture of Meena and Andrew, captured between the railings of the school gate. It was all the photographers could get of the closed-door affair, a marked event on the city’s social calendar.
I was also in the photograph, somewhere in the blackened background. Like a balloon deflated with a pin.
Chapter 4
I had taken refuge at my workstation an hour ago, but it felt like 10 minutes.
I scrolled through the breaking news stories on social media.
An actor was getting married. She was wearing an ornate diadem because her name rhymed with ‘tiara’.
A batter had scored runs and a bowler had taken wickets.
Somebody was making pickles and elsewhere people were raising funds for world peace.
