Grown-Up Pose

by Sonya Lalli

  The table grew quiet. Damien picked up his pint, and in a breath, half of it was gone. He set down his glass on the table, hard. Gently, Anu reached for Jenny’s hand beneath the table, but Jenny swatted her away. Anu wanted to laugh out loud and throttle her simultaneously.

  “So I guess we should never have met. Is that what you’re saying? Because I’m too immature or something?”

  Jenny shrugged, glancing out the window. “Or something.”

  Who would have thought that Jenny could develop a crush on a guy—a real, rare crush—and she, too, could turn into a silly teenager? Anu and Monica were the type to giggle and bat their eyelashes at their crushes, while Jenny, apparently, acted like a jerk.

  Why wasn’t that surprising?

  Tyler caught Anu’s eye from across the table, and when he gestured to the door, she nodded in understanding. Slyly, she reached for her purse under the table and then for her coat. “Jenny, I’m going to take off.”

  Jenny turned, stared up at her blankly. “I can’t drive anymore.”

  “That’s fine,” Tyler said, also standing now. “I’ll drive you, Anusha. It is Anusha, right?”

  Anu laughed. “Call me Anu.”

  * * *

  • • •

  They barely made it out the door before they burst out laughing, and then they spent the whole drive back to Burnaby replaying the mix-up, trying to sort it out: Anu thought she was on a date with Damien, who thought he was on a date with Jenny, who thought she was on a date with Tyler—who thought he was on a date with Anu.

  “It sounds like a Mindy Kaling show, doesn’t it?” Anu said, dabbing at the tears. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed this hard. With Jenny and Monica, it was a different sort of humor: quick, combative. More often than not crude.

  This was different. More subtle, she thought, watching the city go by. When was the last time she had laughed like this?

  Her face dropped when it hit her.

  It had been with Neil. Kanika was a toddler. They were giving her a bath, and she had pooped everywhere. Everywhere.

  That was the last time. That was more than three years ago.

  “Are you disappointed?” Tyler asked. She looked over, unable to read his face. “I know I have my charm, but I’m telling you, it’s hard to be friends with a guy like him.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  He grinned. “I’m straight, but I’m not blind. If Damien is Idris Elba, then I’m. . . . Martin Freeman.”

  “Oh, come on, I love Martin Freeman,” Anu said. “The Office is one of my favorite shows.”

  “Damien is Kanye West, and I’m—”

  “Vanilla Ice?” Anu teased.

  “Ouch!”

  “Damien is . . . ,” Anu started, “Barack Obama . . .”

  “And I’m . . . ,” Tyler finished, “Joe Biden?”

  “I was going to say Justin Trudeau.”

  “Trudeau.” Tyler laughed again, and Anu had this unsettling feeling that she was starting to like him. Suddenly, she was overcome with the urge to call Imogen and tell her all about the double date, right there in the car before the “date” was even over. Swallowing hard, she remembered their last conversation and the fact that Imogen had been ignoring her ever since she ran out of the studio two nights earlier.

  “So are you disappointed, then?” she heard Tyler ask. “That you’re on a date with Justin Trudeau?”

  “Not at all,” she said, pointing out her exit from the highway. “I’m not disappointed.”

  On that final stretch of the drive, he told her about growing up in interior British Columbia near a ski field, about his class of seventh graders in South Surrey. She told him about working at the clinic with Jenny and her newfound attempt to be an entrepreneur. All too soon her neighborhood appeared, Kanika’s school, her local grocery store and gas station. All too soon, she was home.

  “If it works out between Damien and Jenny,” Tyler said, pulling into the driveway, “we might be seeing a lot of each other, hey?”

  “We’ll have to tell the story of how they met when we co-emcee their wedding reception.”

  “And in the hospital waiting room, at the birth of their first child.”

  “Who knows?” Anu said. “We might be the kid’s godparents.”

  “I’m going to make ’em an offer they can’t refuse,” Tyler said in a gruff voice, and when it hit her, she burst out laughing.

  “The Godfather?”

  “The Godfather,” she repeated, still smiling. “I got it.”

  Behind the drawn curtain, Kunal’s shadow appeared in the front window. It lingered for a second before disappearing again.

  Twelve years ago, she would have been mortified if Kunal had caught her sitting in Neil’s car. She would have run in the house, gone straight to her room, and avoided eye contact with her dad for days.

  But today?

  She straightened in her seat. Today she’d go inside, and over the dinner they prepared together, she’d tell him the truth. She would relay the story of the double date and the mix-up, and it would make Kunal laugh—his full-belly, raucous laugh, the one he usually reserved for his favorite Indian comedian, Johnny Lever.

  Would Anu also tell Lakshmi? A part of her wanted to, if her mother was ready to hear it.

  “There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet,” Anu said to the dashboard. “I have a daughter. Her name is Kanika, and she’ll be six next month.” She turned to Tyler, who didn’t look at all alarmed by the news. “Her father and I are . . . separated.”

  He nodded, holding her gaze. “Is it a . . . new separation?”

  “It’s been more than a year now.”

  “A year,” he said, nodding.

  She appreciated that he wasn’t asking any more questions, ones she didn’t have the answers to.

  Is the separation going to become permanent?

  When are you getting a divorce?

  She couldn’t think about these questions without thinking about Paula, and so Anu tried not to think about the subject at all.

  “And you have a daughter,” Tyler said, shrugging. “That’s nice. I like kids.”

  “Me, too, I suppose.”

  “Never would have guessed.”

  Anu laughed. Something about him made her want to let go and laugh even more. He reached his hand across the seat and, without hesitating, intertwined his fingers with hers. They were warm, rougher than she had expected. For a moment, she imagined them elsewhere.

  “I’d love to see you again.”

  He was smiling at her, but her palms had started to sweat and so she couldn’t meet his eye.

  “Is that your babysitter watching us from the window?”

  Anu looked up. Kunal had come back, but disappeared when she started to wave at him. “My babysitter and my dad.”

  “Your dad.” Tyler gently squeezed her palm. “I have to admit, it’s been years since I dropped a girl off and her dad was waiting up.”

  Right then, she wanted to kiss him, but she didn’t. She wasn’t ready. And besides, Kunal was probably watching.

  chapter twenty-nine

  JENNY: OMG I just got home—what a weird night. After you left, Damien hung around (against my will) and we ended up talking for hours. Other things ensued. . . . Are you pissed?

  ANUSHA: Why would I be pissed???

  JENNY: Because he was your date!

  ANUSHA: He clearly didn’t know that.