Love does make you brave Chapter 10

The next morning Ashmi woke up at six and then slept again instructing the staff to get the girls ready for school.  Laily was kind enough to drop them around midnight as Rhea had created a ruckus when she woke up from her slumber.  ‘How can I wake up when I slept at 2.30 in the night?’ she murmured to herself. The excitement of escaping from the sticky situation spoilt her sleep completely. A call from the work ruined Akhil’s romantic mood. He was confined in the study, and she watched re-run of Cleopatra on HBO.

Around 7.30 in the morning, she woke up. Akhil nudged her. He needed his customary masala chai. He was tossing and turning in the bed. Groggily, she forced herself to get up to prepare the masala chai, their morning ritual. Absentmindedly, she hunted for aspirins. ‘May be his blood pressure is not in control,’ she thought.

The tea simmered. Instructing Melissa to strain the beverage in the teapot she breezed in the bedroom.  Akhil was sitting groaning with his head in his hands, clutching as if it was a piece of bomb. Anyway, Akhil was difficult to handle, and when he would groan, he would behave like a baby. Ashmi hated it. ‘When will this man learn to grow up?’ she would think in the beginning of her marriage. Now she knew the answer. Never.

Her head too was stuffed at the moment: girls’ tests, extra curricular activites and the maid who had given her ultimatum that she would be leaving, as soon as the replacement would be there.  Still, at the moment even an earthquake wasn’t more important than groaning Akhi. She handed him two aspirins with a chilled glass of water, along with a Digene and quickly retreated to the bathroom to get ready for the work. In a hurry she clutched her maroon kurta and teamed it with a mustard yellow churidar and wrinkled cotton mustard dupatta. She loved colours and the more vibrant they were, they suited her all the more. Clutching her purse, she went to do the puja room to pay thanks to the god for saving her the night before, ignoring the impatient honking from Laily. She and gods shared an amiable relationship. They understood the complexities of her life.

One minute later, she was inside the car. ‘You look so tired, what happened?’ asked Laily. Ashmi ignored her question and closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She needed it when Laily drove.

She was zany, mad and sweet at the same time. Unlike Ashmi the lady never forgot and rarely forgave. If you rub her on the wrong side, you had to be very sure that she would take revenge. They were two poles apart, yet the best of friends. Ashmi cried when she was angry and Laily would make the offending person cry. In the world of Laily, you have to pay for the sins, here and now, there was no escape, kal ho naa ho…

She was attractive and could easily eat ten years of her age. Women were jealous of her. Her single status gave men the licence to flirt with her.  Someone honked behind her and she realized a moment ago traffic had cleared and people behind her had gotten impatient. One more curse spluttered out of her ruby red lips, as she pushed the gas and whizzed away.

‘We still have some time, let’s grab a quick bite before Paras comes,’ Ashmi recommended. Jain hadn’t reached office.

 ‘Sounds good!’ Laily nodded and they sat at her desk to finish their breakfast. She took a bite of omlette and gobbled it. Next moment she was choking. ‘Easy lady,’ admonished Ashmi and offered her a glass of water.   ‘Jain would be here any minute.’ She threw a quick glance at her wrist watch and scampered on her feet. It was going to be five minutes past nine. And she better be at her seat. The moment she settled there and was chewing on her food, Paras Jain, her boss, strode inside the office.

He was a balding guy in fifties, who had got his waist mixed with his chest. His trousers started just below his chest and he would keep pulling it up all day. By the looks of him, he looked suave, sophisticated and well-mannered professional, but looks could be deceptive!  ‘Good morning, sir’, Laily greeted him with enthusiasm. He didn’t answer. That was a BAD OMEN. ‘Jain had morphed in a dog today,’ she forecasted the weather report in Epicure Exports on the chat window to Ashmi.

 ‘Laily. Can you come in?’ he yelled. He was fiddling with pebbles, a clear indicator of his rage.

‘What’s this?’ he shouted.

Laily was confused. Three Bourborn cream biscuits gave her a forlorn look. Jain repeated his question.

‘Sir, I am not sure what you are trying to say,’ Laily mustered courage.

‘Three biscuits?’ Jain barked. ‘I eat only two.’

‘And now I have to eat all three,’ he spluttered between rocking on his plush leather seat. With a flick of remote he turned the TV on in his office and pretended to be busy.

She would double up laughing any minute. It took restraint of the Mountain Everest to control. She had to inform Ashmi. On the pretext of visiting lady’s room, she went to Ashmi’s desk.  Ashmi was busy on a presentation. She welcomed the reprieve offered by Laily. They giggled like little girls on Jain’s predicament of eating three biscuits all by himself.

‘Why didn’t he share one with you?’ Ashmi offered a solution.

‘Because when they were teaching sharing in the school he didn’t attend those classes,’ Laily explained. Her phone buzzed and she galloped towards her seat. It was from the travel agent for Epicure Exports. She was the thin line between her sanity and insanity. Multiple times, she had threatened to stop handling the account of Epicure Exports, Jain in particular, because of his eccentric travel schedules. He would cancel ticket any minute. The buzz was that until he boarded the flight, his travel wasn’t sure.  Jain, himself had contemplated firing her hundred times. Somehow, Laily had been able to walk this tight rope so far. How far she would go, she didn’t know. She would have given up, if she had the financial security called marriage.  Dejectedly, she struggled with the task of getting his flight details re-re-re-confirmed and Ashmi called Mathias. She needed  to talk to him. It was too close last night.

‘Am I risking all? What if Akhil would have found out?’ she contemplated as her fingers keyed in an unsaved number, which she had memorized.

But, the forbidden pleasure was too much of a temptation for her. It had brought back the spring in her step and zing in her outlook. 

‘Hi..how are you doing today morning?’ he asked her casually. ‘The sentence was devoid of any tinge of last night’s fiasco.

‘Last night was so close,’ she said.

‘Agreed. it was, but I must say that you are a cunning woman. Last night was my first encounter with your razor sharp wit,’ he exclaimed the unspoken thanks to her.

‘I have saved you and you are being ungrateful to me,’ she said feeling a bit offended.

‘You didn’t call or text me even a measly good night after last night,’ she complained.

‘I thought you would be busy with your husband,’ he taunted.

‘I want to be close to you, he said later,’ as if as an afterthought.

Ashmi was completely at loss of words, ‘Even after that close you still want to be more close with me.’

 ‘You have an extremely good sense of humour, but I wish to meet you once again,’ he said laughing.

‘Why?’ she asked.

 ‘A lot of tasks remained unfinished last night. By the way, did Akhil ask about me anything last night?’ he said.

‘Yes, he did, he wanted to know which dumb ass drank his Jack Daniel?’ she said.

‘I did have his Jack Daniel’s but almost missed the heavenly nectar,’  Mathias spoke with regret about the slip between the cup and the lip.

I will talk to you later, she said and disconnected.

 ‘Why did you put the phone down?’ beeped a message on her phone, the moment she disconnected.

‘Because I have work to do sweetheart,’ she wrote back.

‘I am not that sweet and am not good either, am a typical bad boy,’ bounced back the message from him.

 ‘I learned that last night,’ she texted.

‘Explanation please.’

‘You taste a bit salty.’

‘But, you are as sweet as honey. If only I could have tasted you more,’ Mathias insisted like a five year old who is hell bent on a candy which is out of reach for him.

‘STOP IT,’ the words admonished him even long distance. 

‘Did I ever tell you that I am a good boy?’  Mathias wanted to clarify once again.

‘That’s what attracts me to you,’ she wrote.

 ‘I am tired of good people, the typical Hum Saath Saath Hain families who just believe in spending time together,’ she texted.

 Ashmi had grown comfortable with texting, Mathias noted, but preferred to stay quiet. She was getting in her zone and during such moments he didn’t want to disrupt her flow of thoughts.

 ‘Still you didn’t answer, how can I meet you again for a movie and a dinner?’ he texted.

 ‘Did I tell you, my birthday is in the next week?’ he informed.

‘What do you mean? I checked it on Facebook, your birthday is sometime in October and we are sitting on July at the moment,’ she said completely surprised.

‘Only for you, my birthday is in July, he texted her.

‘YOUUUUUUU,’  she typed back and put her phone on silent, to concentrate on work.