“Hello?” Mohan asked, as if their home number hadn’t popped up on his phone. Was he even really at the club? Or was he with her?
“Ji, your food is getting cold.” It was the shoddiest lie. Normally, she heated up his food when she heard his car pull up; or, if she had made it fresh that evening, she knew to keep it on the burner. No wonder he met this comment with confusion:
“Heh?”
“Will you be home soon?”
“I am in the locker room, yaar. I’ll be home in the next half hour, forty-five minutes.”
“OK.” Good.
“What did you make?”
Oh, dear. What was she planning on serving him? She took a second to remember what was in the refrigerator but panicked. “Rajma,” she said, even though she hadn’t made any.
“Perfect, ji. I’ll pick up some yogurt.” Then he hung up.
Ranjana slapped the counter and harrumphed. Now she couldn’t write at all. There was no rajma prepared, but her husband was bringing yogurt for it.
Somehow tipsy on the few sips of wine that she’d taken at dinner, she spent the next half hour rushing around to make the dish. Later, as Mohan was sitting at the kitchen table, spooning the red beans into his mouth and chatting about the match, Ranjana wondered which might taste saltier—this quick dinner or the tears of joy she would shed when she finally finished writing a book.
THEY DID NOT SEE EACH OTHER for a few weeks. Teddy e-mailed Ranjana that first night, of course—already suggesting dates in the next “fortnight” when they might meet again—but she deflected his invitation by saying that she had to go out of town unexpectedly. She didn’t give a reason, thinking that the ball would stay in her court and she could reach out when her curiosity about Harit’s well-being grew great enough. But the following week, Teddy found her on Facebook. A little note was embedded in his invite: “If you made it from Delhi to Ohio, Facebook is a piece of cake!” Ranjana had to laugh in spite of his persistence. She e-mailed him back and wrote, as charmingly as she could, that she had been admonished by her son not to engage with Facebook for fear that their social circles would intersect online. She thanked Teddy for the sentiment and wrote, “Hope all is well on your end.”
He disappeared for a while after that. She returned to her routine—the office, Mohan, and, with less frequency, her writing. Achyut had inspired her to write, but now he had retreated from the forefront of her mind.
Actually, he had brushed her off. A few days after the night at FB, he had called her and begun berating her without even saying hello.
“Why were you so weird to my friends?”
Sputters issued forth as if her lips had taken on a life of their own. “I—I’m sorry, Achyut. I wasn’t prepared for everything that happened.”
“What do you mean ‘everything that happened’? Nothing was supposed to happen except for you meeting my friends and being nice to them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I. Look—maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. I need to be surrounded with people that are supportive.”
“I thought I was being supportive. I was trying to be, at least. Achyut, please—I was just out of my element. Please give me another chance.”
“I’ll think about it.” He paused. “Also, I have something to tell you.”
“What?”
“I kind of have a boyfriend.”
“You do? That’s wonderful.”
“He’s great. Older. More responsible. I’m probably going to be staying at his place.”
“That’s—I’m glad to hear that.”
“Anyway … I’ll … let me see how I feel about things and then I’ll get back to you.” Then he hung up.
He was still mulling things over, apparently, because she hadn’t heard a peep from him. His next appointment was several months away, so it wasn’t as if she was going to see him around the office. The incident with him seemed all at once to have been a fever dream.
If she was being honest with herself, Achyut did not loom as largely in her estimation as he once had. Something about that night had changed her perspective. She had seen, in the neon carnival of his job, that she was one in a mere throng of admirers. She didn’t exactly feel duped, but there was something off-putting about his socializing, to say nothing of his mercurial personality, which seemed more and more volatile. She did not feel enmity toward his sexual orientation—in fact, she congratulated herself for the even logic with which she thought of it—but she did have to admit that she felt some resentment for being a person in which Achyut could have no romantic interest. She did not wish to be his keepsake. Surely this was a natural reaction to have.
But at the same time, if she was being honest with herself, she couldn’t help but feel that Achyut’s new boyfriend would not only occupy the space that she had filled but also would be able to offer Achyut emotional and physical solace that she never could offer. And this stung.
So she regressed to the nights before she had met Achyut and the doldrums she had inhabited soon after Prashant’s departure. Sometimes, when Cheryl unwrapped a candy and said something about the latest episode of The Bachelor, Ranjana would remember Achyut crumpled in her passenger seat as they watched the in-progress remains of Paradise Island, and she would feel physical pain. It was almost funereal—which was ridiculous. Achyut was very much alive, and she could break the détente and reach out to him. As with Harit and Teddy, the ball could be in her court, provided she wanted to put it there. But: routine.
Then, one day, she had an occasion to socialize. Preeti Verma, a casual friend, had lost her father to cancer, and there was to be a small gathering at the temple to do a puja in his memory. Would Ranjana and Mohanji please come, perhaps with some prasad for afterward?
“Of course, ji,” Ranjana said, her body bending in assent even though they were speaking over the phone.