* * *
—
But back in the bedroom Sunny was on his BlackBerry.
“I have someone coming over,” he said. “So you should get dressed and go.”
She was hurt.
“OK.”
“It’s work.”
“I said OK.”
They both began to get dressed in silence.
After he’d put his trousers on, he stopped to watch her.
“What?” she said.
“It’s Dinesh. I was supposed to be with him all evening. I blew him off for a few hours to see you.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful?”
“Don’t get jealous.”
“I’m not.”
“I have a life.”
“So do I.”
“We’re all good, then.”
She finished dressing.
“Listen, about your mother,” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well,” she continued, with a fake, breezy smile, “that was fun. I’ll see you around.”
She walked toward the front door, put the key card on the sideboard.
She was almost there when he reached her. Grabbed her and turned her around and pinned her against the wall.
“What?” she demanded. “What!? Get off, you’re hurting me.”
His eyes searched hers.
What did he want to say? Do?
Was he really hurting her?
She didn’t know.
“You’re not . . . ,” he said, “like anyone else.”
“Spare me.”
“I mean it.”
He tried to kiss her, and she turned her face away.
“I mean it,” he said again.
Then he kissed her, and she didn’t resist, and then he let her go.
* * *
—
She met the soft eyes of the elevator operator. Inhaled the nullifying scent of jasmine and lemongrass. The pain around her wrists. Too much whisky in her blood. Her head spun. She was grateful for the lobby. She was grateful for the hot summer air. She stood at the same spot, with the valet, waiting for her Maruti to chug its way up the driveway, but now everything had changed. She drove off and accelerated through the streets rashly until she got a grip on herself and pulled to the side of the road. Her hand was shaking. She lit a cigarette. The day had escalated from nothing, detonated. Laborers passed along the roadside in the dark, smoking beedis, glancing in without expression. She called Dean. “Hey. Yeah. I’m on my way. Yeah, I got out of it. I’ll be there in twenty.”
* * *
—
Dean was already sitting upstairs in 4S waiting for her. He’d taken one of the front two tables, where the light from the sign outside bounced and flashed through the plate-glass window and bathed his face in neon. The narrow space was packed, as usual, with students. Dark and a little grimy and so very comforting to her—the waiters knew her by sight, they greeted her as she came in and twisted up the steep stairs.
He saw her emerge at the top and he already had his hand in the air in greeting.
She smiled at the sight of him, a big kid among all the college kids, an amiable professor.
He’d already ordered two Old Monks and Coke and a plate of spring rolls. She picked up one of the spring rolls as she was sitting down and took a great bite. “God, I’m starving.”
“So,” he said, “how was boy wonder?”
She stuffed the spring roll in her mouth, spoke through the food.
Somehow it was easier to lie that way.
“Oh, you know, world-class this, world-class that, a lot of bullshit.”
He shook his head. “If I hear that fucking word one more time I’m going to scream. I was at an RWA meeting in Sarojini Nagar, they kept saying it, they kept talking about the need to make Delhi world class. That fucking phrase. Global city, world class. The shop window of the world. Anyway, enough of that. I heard you actually asked the question.”
“Yeah, it must have been the wine.”
“I’m impressed. How did he take it?”
Her mind turned back to Sunny. She felt him inside her, smelled his cologne and his sweat on her skin, his tongue on her tongue. She could feel the weight of his arms like phantom limbs. She reminded herself to buy the Pill 72. Her mind fixated on him entering her, the intoxicating sensation of being filled and consumed.
“Hmmm?”
“How did Dinesh take it?”
“He offered to take me to Lucknow actually. He said I was the kind of fearless reporter the world needed, or some such rubbish. No way am I going. I don’t fall for that kind of stuff.” She waved for the waiter. “Shall we order?”