My eyes flicked across his screen briefly. Clearly, only Pooja was messaging. I laughed. Hysterically.
‘I’m not responsible for this,’ Andrew said. His eyes were on me. ‘I haven’t encouraged this. She sends me random messages like this from time to time. It doesn’t mean anything.’
The sambhar was hot and spicy. I felt sick.
I turned away.
‘I just read it,’ he said.
He may not have engaged with Pooja, but they definitely shared something. No one talks to a wall, not even a 22-year-old.
‘She does this all the time.’ His eyes were dark. We were back in the car.
How can I trust you again?I didn’t ask that question, but it was my companion for the better part of that nearly eight-hour journey.
Chapter 26
I had to shut the door on Andrew Brown – lover, friend and colleague. All of it.
I miss you.
Thank you for letting me lean on you.
Both messages were punctuated, the second line with a red heart.
Independently, they meant nothing, but I’d be a fool to treat them in isolation. Pooja didn’t threaten me; she only reminded me of a wretched probability.
Meena Iyer. Past. Present. Future.
It was happening all over again.
I couldn’t be around him again. I needed time. Months or years maybe. If we were in the same cloud space, I wouldn’t be able to keep him out of my life. When around him, everything passes, the load lightens, and the road beckons. I’d want to take walks, get coffee, go on campaign trails, road trips…
During the day, doubts hovered over me like a threatening nimbostratus. At night, it made for a hard pillow.
Who breaks up with the love of her life just because he had an affair? With her best friend? People mess around; it’s what they do. It was just once. It started with one woman, then there was a chain reaction.
I don’t know when that became ‘just’. I must’ve read it somewhere, in one of those pathetic self-help pieces, or I may’ve heard it in a song. A tune that stayed and words that stung. A magnitude of 9.5 on the Richter scale. Just?
I could flip it, too.Justbecause he had admitted to the transgression and apologized?Justbecause he regretted the affair with Meena. Those two messages shone the torch on all those questions that needed answers.
The toing-and-froing in my head had woken me up at the crack of dawn after two hours of sleep. Just two hours.
I had directed myself to stay in bed. That’s not much of a struggle usually, but this morning, I wanted to be out. I was itching to run. When I run, I often race away from things that need to be dealt with. Rejoice in the morning air, the early sun and the irregular carpet of flowers. It’s a beautiful time of day. I hear the hum of traffic at a distance. It reassures me that I’m still in the city and not kidnapped and locked up at some half-cooked resort they call one with nature.
I’ll look at it after another kilometre. It’s my favourite hiding place.
The time for dwelling on matters was over. I needed to commit.
There was a seed of an idea in my head. I rolled to my left, stayed in that position for a few minutes, then over to my right. It was almost 8 a.m. I could afford to go to work late. I had no assignments, and my diary was empty, too. No calls to make, no dots to connect.
I pulled myself up and sat square on the bed. My phone was charging on my overcrowded side table. I reached for it, dropping a couple of books in the process. I didn’t know how I was going to go about it, so I simply got started. People looked for jobs all the time.
Some folks get offers, but it’s not like they aren’t tapping sources. Sudha was constantly being romanced for jobs, but I’m sure she was laying it out there that she was looking for something more, a change. Maybe.
I’ve never been faced with the delightful dilemma of a job offer in all these years. I don’t recall ever having got a mail or message, much less a phone call from whomsoever these folks are who cast the net for these mighty media houses. It’s not like I’m not good at what I do. I have a decent reputation, some 10,066 followers on Instagram (the last time I checked) despite sporadic effort. You’d think people knew I existed, and someone would call and say, ‘Hey, Myra Rai, look out of your window; you’ll find a jet waiting to pick you up. We have an offer you can’t refuse.’
I’d love the jet.
