“Doctor?” It was his voice. “Ritu? What happened?”
“Nothing. Can I call you back?”
“Why are you crying?”
Was she crying? Ritu tapped her cheek. Nothing. Dry.
“I am not crying.”
“Where are you right now?”
“At a function.”
“Alone?”
“Maya and Gautam are here too.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. Nilay, let me call you back in a while…”
“Where are you? I want to see you.”
“I am not at home until this afternoon, I am in town. But I saw your reports. they are good…”
“Where in town?”
“Thacker…” She saw Jimmy fuva’s eyes catch hers from across the ground and her throat closed. “Nilay. Bye.”
She ended the call, pushed her phone inside her potli and turned to leave. The path itself ran under her feet. She planned the logistics in her mind, pulling her phone out again to book an Uber. She would have to call Maya but she would do that from the Uber. She wasn't in the mood to go for Pizza By The Bay. She stepped out of the club and into the parking.
“Ritu!”
She kept walking.
“Ritu, wait.” Jimmy fuva came running behind her. She stopped. Turned.
“Ritu.” He had aged. Of course he had. Life had moved and the world had changed. He must be in his sixties now.
“How are you?” He smiled. She kept blinking at him. His hand reached out to her shoulder and her body tautened.
“You look good,” his palm moved to her arm. “I wanted to get in touch with you… but I didn’t have your number. Good that Dimple called you here. You can’t imagine how proud I am of you. The doctor you have become,” his eyes widened. “I tell everybody we talk to about you. My friend Kush in Canada was going to New York for his angioplasty and I told him to go to you. Now my mother is ill. I told Nalini that we must send her reports to you. Now that you are here, can you come see her? Or we can bring her to you. You are staying with Maya?”
“No.”
“Oh. Then where are you staying?”
“I have to leave,” she began to pull away from his hand. It tightened — “Ritu…”
Her control snapped. She grabbed his hand and twisted his fingers to the point of snapping. A satisfying crunch, and he screamed in a silent cry. Ritu jolted. She had never done that. Never been violent. She did not know what came over her. She didn’t even know how to do it. How to break those fingers. She just did it. And saw as if she was seeing it from outside her body — the man trying to gnarl at her, then turn and run inside at the pain that must be tearing through him.
Her eyes teared up. Ritu glanced around at the security and valets. She turned and began to stride. She would find an Uber outside. Or walk back to the suburbs if she had to. This place, this area, this entire part of Mumbai was her prison. She hated it. Shehatedit. She was so scared of it… tears scattered down her face and she kept her head down, trying to suck them back, walking, seeing somebody barring her way. She raised her eyes enough to see a man’s shoulder and began to side-step to keep moving, head down. The shoulder moved with her and she glanced up in time to collide with it.
Familiar dark eyes were staring down at her. Nothing more registered as the tears scattering and sucking back into her eyes burst free. Her face crumpled and his shoulder caught it. Ritu let those tears spill free, in a place, in a scent that felt familiar.
His palm came to the nape of her neck, tamping her hair — “You are crying, Doctor.”
“You can’t tell anybody.”
