At least he always said that he loved her, even if it was always followed with a “bye” in one swift breath. That was not something that she could expect from Mohan, and it was certainly not something that she needed from someone like Achyut. She simply wanted to feel like a woman worthy of attention from someone in the prime of youth. Then she wouldn’t feel so detached from everyone, including herself.
Although she hadn’t looked at Achyut’s chart, she had looked up the date of his next appointment in the computer. Consequently, in spite of herself, she had been looking forward to today for the past two weeks. Like the last time they had met, she lamented the fact that she had to wear scrubs. It wasn’t like she had that many fancy outfits, but it would have been nice to wear a blouse and some nice pants, just in case Achyut apologized and asked her to chai, just in case their conversation left the confines of her glassed-in cubicle again. She had spent ten minutes fixing her hair this morning, using an emerald-encrusted butterfly clasp that she had unearthed from an old jewelry box in her closet. She had pulled the messy poof of her hair in one hand and secured it with the butterfly, anchoring it at the nape of her neck.
Cheryl commented on it as soon as she saw her, of course, calling it “purty.” Ranjana hoped that Cheryl would let it drop, lest Achyut become aware of her efforts when he came in for his appointment. True to character, though, the butterfly grew in intrigue to Cheryl as the day passed.
“Hey, Dr. B,” she said when he surfaced after a particularly long consult. “Check out this one’s hair.” She used a vernacular with Dr. Butt that Ranjana could never have pulled off. Dr. Butt, usually so buttoned up, somehow seemed to find Cheryl amusing, perhaps because her cheerfulness put the patients at ease and made them fond of coming to his office. “Don’t you think it looks nice? Like a princess.”
Ranjana wheeled around and gave Cheryl a death stare.
“Do you have princesses over there in India?” Cheryl asked.
“It looks nice,” Dr. Butt said, uncomfortable and clearly eager to change the subject. “Cheryl, please schedule a follow-up for Mr. Docker.”
Achyut’s appointment was at three in the afternoon, which seemed like an eternity the more that Ranjana waited for it. She had brought a lunch of two aloo parathas, and before noon even arrived, she was unzipping the Ziploc bag and tearing off little bites that left a thin film of grease on her fingers and spice on her breath. Aware that she was a mess, she deigned to ask Cheryl if she could have a piece of gum to get rid of the odor.
Three o’clock came, then ten after three, and Ranjana worried that Achyut was not going to come at all. He was merely late, sauntering in just before three fifteen in the same clothes that he had been wearing last time. If he was as nervous to see Ranjana as she was to see him, he didn’t show it. He was even handsomer than Ranjana had remembered. She felt ashamed again, mainly because this was a man only a few years older than her own son.
He walked up to her and signed in, his head bent, as if he were actively ignoring her.
Cheryl spoke. “Hey, hon, welcome back.” She had been crunching peppermint candies all morning, and Ranjana could smell the sweetness of her breath as it wafted forth. “Did you see what Black Beauty did to her mane?”
Mortifying.
At least the comment made Achyut look up. He examined Ranjana’s hair, and his features softened. “Well, look at you,” he said.
*
Ranjana shouldn’t have been associating with a patient, but whatever. Without having to ask Achyut, she assumed that they would meet as they had last time—outside after work hours. It was Wednesday again, another evening when Mohan and Dr. Butt had their tennis match, and it was as easy as pie to get Cheryl out the door early. “I’ll close up,” Ranjana said. Cheryl protested unconvincingly, already picking up her bag to leave as she demurred. As Ranjana turned off the lights—the fluorescent bulbs flickering out as if sighing themselves to sleep—she felt as if their energy were flowing into her body.
They went to Buzzed, a new coffee shop located a couple of blocks from Dr. Butt’s office. Ranjana figured that it would be the kind of place that Achyut liked—metallic and full of students and twentysomethings like himself. She hadn’t thought enough about how incongruous she would be in such a venue, not until she looked around and saw countless pairs of mascara-ridged eyes staring at her. The wind had somehow picked up during their short walk over, and Ranjana could feel the wispy mass of her hair expanding like the smoke from a volcano. Worse—she was still in her office scrubs, which made her look even wider and less kempt than usual. Achyut shuffled forward, his hands deep in the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“Tea, of course.”
“English Breakfast?”
“What an imperialist!” Ranjana quipped.
Achyut smiled, getting or not getting the joke. “Maybe. No, really—what do you want?”
“Earl Grey. But please go find a seat. This is on me. What do you want?”
He made a short sound of disapproval, and Ranjana put up one hand in protest as she dug in her bag for her pocketbook. “Just a regular coffee, black,” he said.
As she paid the cashier, she wondered how on earth she had agreed to this. She didn’t know this person at all, and he was a patient. She looked around again, then understood the looks that she was seeing on people’s faces: they assumed that she was Achyut’s mother.
She found him in the one corner that was not near a window, with his hood up and his face even more striking under it.
“So, Mr. Bakshi, what do you want to tell me?”
“Are you really going to keep calling me ‘Mr. Bakshi’?”
“Achyut.” Simply saying his name made her hot with nervousness. She never addressed Mohan by his name.
He sighed and took a sip of his coffee. Ranjana noticed the flick of heads as people snuck surreptitious glances at him. Even under his hoodie, he commanded attention.
“So, are you a student, Achyut? Recently graduated?”
“Just graduated, yeah. From the University of Pittsburgh.”
“What did you—?”
“English. That’s always the next question that people ask. And yes, an English degree is just as useless as it ever was.”
“You were born here, I take it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you been to India?”
“No.”
“Are you interested in going?”
“Of course. I wish I could just fly there and tool around. A buddy of mine did that, but he’s rich.”
“And what do you do now, Achyut? For work.”
“I’m a bartender.”
“That must pay well.” Did this sound condescending?
“It does, actually. So much for my English degree, right?”
“I am sure that people appreciate an educated bartender. You can dispense advice from the works of great writers.” She could feel an edge to her voice, something steely yet playful: flirtation. Her knees were together, her feet apart. It was wrong to be here.
“What do you do for fun, auntie?”
“What do you mean?”