Half Boyfriend

by Judy Balan, Kishore Manohar

  He was so wise. ‘He’s living way below his potential,’ Rhea often thought to herself. Why run a country when you could be losing inhibitions and influencing young girls? Anyway, three years had flown by quickly and Rhea had acquired enough colourful experiences to last her a lifetime. But something didn’t feel right in her gut and she couldn’t put a finger on it. Maybe it was that dream she had that morning—she’s dressed like a bride and being carried on an elephant’s back through what seems like a forest when suddenly, a large brown package is FedExed from what seems to be … the sky! She dismounts the elephant and picks up the package but wakes up before she sees what’s in it.

  The dream hadn’t troubled Rhea but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was trying to tell her something. She tried ignoring it but ended up seeing elephants all day. Suddenly they were everywhere—on TV, in magazines, on Ro’s mother’s new embroidered saree, you name it.

  ‘Rhea, is everything alright?’ Ro asked for the nth time that day. She didn’t want to let on that something wasn’t because Ro had been onto Rhea since that night at the party. Though she had managed to keep the President’s number a secret, he knew something was up with her. She wasn’t the same girl he knew in Delhi and at times, he had no idea why he was still fake-married to her. Maybe it was the fact that they had been friends forever and that he had made a promise to her parents to keep her safe but Ro was concerned about her sudden unexplained disappearances and her mysterious, long telephone calls and Whatsapp bouts.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Rhea said dismissively. ‘I had a dream and I was just thinking about it.’

  ‘What dream?’ asked Ro.

  ‘Nothing; something about elephants.’

  ‘Maybe you’re going back to India,’ Ro joked but Rhea looked mortified. ‘Hey, I’m kidding,’ Ro said, patting her gently. ‘I’m not letting you divorce me already,’ he winked. He was the perfect husband, Rhea thought.

  But as the day progressed, Rhea couldn’t get the dream out of her head. She tried asking Siri about it but even she was being a sassy bitch. Google threw up some answers but none seemed to feel right. They said things about how elephants embodied honour, dignity, nobility and shit. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Frustrated, she closed her laptop shut and went to the living room.

  ‘Rhea!’ said the fake mother-in-law. ‘We’re just leaving for the Ganesh puja at Aarti’s house. You want to come?’

  Ganesh? Really? Rhea thought her head might explode. ‘No, it’s alright, Aunty. You carry on,’ she smiled. ‘I’m a little tired. Didn’t get enough sleep last night.’

  ‘Okay, but you’re missing out on a really yummy lunch!’ Aunty said as she made her way out.

  The minute the car pulled out of the driveway, Rhea pounced on her phone to call her beloved BO. ‘Such unfortunate initials,’ she had said the first time they had really talked. ‘Tell me about it. High school really did stink for me!’ he had said and laughed at his own joke. It was so liberating to not have your bad puns edited out of your speech.

  She couldn’t wait to tell him all about her mysterious dream and the repeated visions of elephants. It was a stupid thing to bug a world leader with in the middle of the day but she had done worse before. Like the time she drunk-dialled him repeatedly and made him excuse himself from a presidential summit to give her the cure for ‘too much of that green drink’. Rhea smiled as she thought fondly about how the President had patiently explained to her that the green drink was absinthe and she was to never have too much of it ever again. He had even told her that she was his break from uptight reality and he was thankful for every interruption. The world’s crises weren’t going anywhere after all.

  Rhea sighed as her calls went to voicemail. She was being selfish, she reckoned and tried distracting herself with online shopping but there were banner ads about holidays in Pattaya and they had pictures of—wait for it—elephants!

  Rhea spent the rest of the day curled up in bed trying not to think about elephants. She had almost fallen asleep again, exhausted from trying not to think, when the phone rang. It was him.

  ‘Hey!’ she gasped in excitement.

  ‘I only have a few minutes. I’m in the loo,’ he said. ‘What is it? Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s just this dream I had and it’s been bothering me and I know it’s silly but I feel like it means something.’

  ‘Well, of course. Dreams can be significant, even prophetic sometimes. What did you dream about?’

  Rhea felt her heart balloon up with hope. ‘You think you’d be able to help me figure it out?’

  ‘You’re lucky I happen to be an excellent dream interpreter,’ he said. ‘I’m basically Joseph with the Technicolor Dreamcoat.’

  That reference went right over Rhea’s cute millennial head but she quickly related her dream for him to break down.

  ‘Okay, alright. The dream is talking about your journey—your destiny, perhaps. And the fact that it’s an elephant could mean, well royalty? I don’t know … have you been secretly dating Prince Harry?’ the President laughed but Rhea felt her heart stop for a second. She hadn’t brushed up against the words ‘royalty’ or ‘destiny’ in a while. Visions of the astrologer’s smirk as everyone planned her fake wedding came to mind.

  ‘Rhea, you there?’ said the President.

  ‘Uhh, yes, yes. Keep going. I’m listening.’

  ‘Alright, so the FedEx could simply be some big news coming your way. Since you don’t see what’s in the package, we can’t tell if it’s good news or bad news.’

  ‘Wow,’ Rhea said finally. ‘You really do seem to know your shit.’

  ‘Yes. Dreams are powerful, Rhea. Don’t ignore them. This is how I run the country. And—you can’t tell anyone this—it’s how I tracked down Bin Laden and ended the bastard.’

  Rhea had trouble getting a word out. She wasn’t sure how she was feeling. What if Manav was coming back for her? Could he be psychotic enough to chase her all the way to London? She didn’t want to know the answer to that.

  ‘Look, I got to go now but don’t be afraid of what you think the dream might be telling you. The universe is interested and invested in moving you forward. It will only end things in your life that are not good for you and it most certainly will not add anything to your life if it wasn’t meant for your progress.’ The President was a fount of wisdom today.

  ‘Okay,’ was all Rhea could muster before hanging up. Her head was full. Of Manav, her life in Delhi, the bridal shower, that ancient prophecy …

  ‘How could that possibly be my happy ending,’ she thought mournfully. She still had a soft corner for Manav. She couldn’t help it. It was the loser thing. But she quickly shook the thought out of her head. If this was meant to be, then she’d find happiness in it. The President was right. He had been right about absinthe and he had to be right about this. No point worrying till an elephant actually landed up at her doorstep. ‘Which wouldn’t be a stretch if this dream really was about Manav,’ she thought.

  24

  Short Version: In which we reveal the twist in the tale: Manav has been manipulating the Man.

  ‘What do you mean what’s the update?’ growled the President. ‘I could have the husband picked up for possession of drugs and locked away till they make a movie about him; I could have the lesbian couple turned into terrorists and force them to kidnap her; I could even make her eat beef by telling her it is chicken. But all you want is to stick to your script!’

  Manav knew an upset head of state (or as in this case, an upset bodyguard of a head of state) when he heard one. His village-kingdom might have a fictitious-sounding name but it had plenty of real, present-day emotions. In fact, a cheap attempt to reference the royal family as part of a Twitter hashtag contest just got the local radio station sued. His Mother’s Voice (HMV) echoed in Manav’s memory as she thundered on about how she wanted the radio station to delete the family name from all broadcasts already made. They finally reached a c
ompromise when the station decided to offer the queen her own programme on the channel and a social media marketer who would manage the queen’s Twitter account. Given the paucity of good social media people in the kingdom and in the rest of the country, she accepted graciously.

  ‘I should not waste time reinventing the wheel,’ thought Manav unoriginally. ‘Do you have a Twitter account? I can get it managed by our tweet centre. Yes?’ he offered the caught-off-guard President.

  ‘Err, no thanks,’ he said. ‘We have staff to tweet the President’s tweets. We even have staff to hate on him so that our other staff can counter them and make him look good. We are the White freaking House, you know.’

  ‘Then what happened to making me look good for Rhea? I don’t know what she is doing in London. And I hope this Ro fellow is not taking her flower.’

  The President was now on the defence. This was like negotiating with an Indian prince. In fact it was. He had to draw on the legends that he had heard growing up in order to not seem impolite or ill-informed. ‘We do not like liking sex openly. We keep our opinions on the night’s activities to ourselves. Even couples don’t discuss these things.’ That was his friend Raghu from Harvard.

  ‘No, Mr Wadia might have his aspirations but this flower is not giving away anything just yet,’ said the President diplomatically, leaving the stoner, the experientialist, the lesbians, etc. with a lot less bed-cred. Manav smiled triumphantly knowing that his ladylove was still intact. Not being able to see this though, the President felt the need to appease him further and offered to put together a plan to bring Rhea back to India.

  ‘Cool dude,’ thought Manav as he slipped his cell phone into his sleeve like a professional magician.

  ‘Asshole,’ said the President under his breath, as he cancelled all meetings to think this through. He liked Rhea. She was cute. And sexy in a light-headed way. But she also had a heart. A perfect heart-shaped pink heart that loved lost puppies and losers equally. And if he ever wanted to start something like what the Gates were doing, she could make a great secretary. But he had struck a deal with this insufferable Indian prince and like all Presidents before him, his word was his bond. Or some fuck.

  His mind went back to that fateful night in Delhi when he had decided to take a drive across town, ‘To meet a man about a thing,’ as he had put it so eloquently to his security detail who were too traumatized by their bouts of diarrhoea to care about another mysterious presidential disappearance. The President however had not really been briefed about Indian automobiles and their innate ability to drive through red lights and overspeed when they sense the driver is not wearing a seatbelt. So in no time the Big BO was handing over his licence and registration to a member of the Delhi traffic police.

  ‘Arre yaar, this is USA licence, how can you show this? This is India. Where is your passport? Where is your birth certificate? Address proof hai?’ screamed the local guy, unmindful of the paan he was spewing. And while the great BO was fumbling in his wallet for any piece of paper that would not give away his identity, a young man leaned in on the passenger side and asked in surprisingly good English,

  ‘Any problem? I can help. These Indian police peoples like to hassle foreigners, especially Nigerians.’ That night the President of the United States had swallowed that harmless yet racist comment and accepted help from that complete stranger. However, he had to explain the very presidential-looking gear strewn across the car. So, while he made a mental note to kick his bodyguard for leaving government stuff lying carelessly around in the car, he also decided to lead the young man on with a half-fake story.

  ‘I am Ozone. Bodyguard to US President,’ he fake-stuttered in what he felt might be perceived as a Nigerian accent. After all in India life was like a poorly written book—anything could happen to help move the story along.

  ‘Myself Manav,’ said the young man, ‘and I can make this problem go away.’

  In London though, Rhea was still seeing elephants and this wasn’t helping Ro at all. The guy had assured him that the pills were straight cut. They would make her horny. She would wake up wanting a man and would take what she found. That had almost happened but he had panicked at the last minute and decided to do the gentlemanly thing. In the privacy of his bathroom. The President of course had figured all this out. He decided to move ahead with his own plans. The dial on his watch split open and he spoke into the electronic display like an eighties television super hero. ‘Activate Project Grass Stopper.’

  25

  Short Version: The heroine realizes she’s been played. All her life. By everyone. And decides to beat them at their own game.

  Rhea was torn. Ro was gone.

  The agents from the Bureau of Guns, Drugs And Allied Substances (Gundaas) had swooped in that morning and sat both of them down and laid out all the facts. The emails. The Google search strings. The registrations in various websites. And finally the clincher: fake receipts from the dealer who thought it would be cute to humour a very fastidious first offender. And before he could come up with an explanation Rohan Wadia was whisked away leaving Rhea all alone in an empty house with no option but to make The Call. Only this time it was not for help but for clarity. As the bass voice of the husband of The First Lady droned through a static-filled line, Rhea’s head was being filled with several images.

  ‘I would leave him. He just used you,’ the Voice said. ‘The decision is yours. After all, he is your oldest buddy.’

  Rhea remained confused. Had people always manipulated her by constantly complimenting her looks, her clothes, her gait and the one thing she felt she had that no one else did—her voice? Was this how an entire social environment chose to mislead her? Was she at the end of the day just a prawn in the hands of a multi-cuisine chef? The non-vegetarian simile shook her out of her reverie. She dashed to the mirror and practised her expressions as she did every day. It was time to fight fire with fire. She pulled out the eyeliner, the rouge and the lipstick and told them what was up. She was no prawn. And she was certainly not chicken. She was Rhea Somany and only she would decide who could mess with her.

  Four hours later a desperately apologetic Rohan was grovelling in front of a now-totally-in-control and sexy-looking Rhea. He wanted her. He had wanted her from the beginning. The shoulder rubs and the asexual cuddles had almost driven him to the brink of madness. Yes, he was her best friend. But something had changed as it tends to when a single straight guy ends up in bed every night with a girl wearing nothing but the basics. And then there were the pictures. They came to him from different forms of media. Rhea smoking pot. Rhea grinding against a long-haired hippie at a party. Rhea kissing another girl. He was just a regular, average Delhi guy. Surely all this meant he should take a shot at getting into her pants. And why not make it a shot she couldn’t refuse. And technically sliding someone some MDMA is not the same as roofie-ing some chick in a bar. Plus, technically they were married. Even if it was one of convenience, he should still have some rights over her as an Indian husband, yes?

  Rhea bit her lower lip thoughtfully. She had a lot on her mind. She used to have a half boyfriend. That meant she was once a half girlfriend. Now she had a fake husband—the wedding was real but the marriage wasn’t. Did that make her a half wife? If so, was Ro half right in expecting what he expected or were they just half expectations? Did roofie-ing a half wife make it a quarter crime? Or were quarter crimes minor crimes by minor alcoholics? Was a former family friend but current half husband a half husbuddy? Life could get quite fucked up when one coins a term at random, she realized.

  She shook her head and returned to the formerly cool Ro. He was on his knees and not in a good way.

  ‘What are you doing? Get the fuck up!’ she yelled at him in what some people so easily term high-class, man language. Ro refused.

  ‘This is prostration. I am prostrating in front of you. It is a sign of ultimate capitulation. Much like a tap-out in MMA,’ said a face-to-the-floor RO.

  ‘There are different types
of prostration, you know,’ he added. ‘Flat as a bat with arms out, Iron Man style on the elbows and the very suggestive Face Down Ass Up which I’m doing right now,’ he replied, his voice all muffled by the floor it was coming up against.

  ‘Get up!’ she screamed, making her perfectly matched nostrils flare in unison while she bared her front teeth at the shape in front of her. It was a good thing Ro was face down but he didn’t know that. Instead, he jumped up and gave her his most winsome smile as he laid on the most powerful Rhea pacifier. ‘Ohhh Ohhh,’ whimpered Rhea as she watched Ro hold his ears in fake apology. She was in his arms the next minute. There are many things you can do to an Indian girl to piss her off. But when it comes to patching up, there are very few things you need to. A smug Ro awkwardly patted Rhea’s head that was at least four inches above his own. What he couldn’t see was that Rhea was biting her lower lip again. A dangerous sign that she was thinking. And she was. Rhea was staring at a poster on the wall behind Ro’s head and briefly the world spun into a flashback.