Meet Me In the Middle

by Vani Mahesh

  Anu then walked inside the house with a bright smile. All faces turned to her expectantly. Padma aunty too did not sport her usual I-hate-your-guts look.

  ‘Anu, you are late.’ That had to be her mother. Late for what? The birthday party I haven’t planned but invited people to?

  ‘Not late at all. Jake’s is only a half-hour drive.’ Anu rebutted.

  Anu’s mother-in-law, looking visibly happy, spoke. ‘Instead of everyone going separately, we thought we can all go together. Your father-in-law’s friends will come there directly. They all want to watch IPL on the big TV at Jake’s.’

  Anu smiled as brightly as she could. ‘That is the plan, aunty.’

  The caravan of cars started. Anu drove alone and sent Vicky with her parents. She had to reach there before all of them. Cutting, swerving and swearing, Anu reached Jake’s in a record twenty minutes. She was sure her father and father-in-law would take at least forty. Calming her breath, Anu stopped at the reception. Thankfully, Shwetha was already there. ‘Table for eight, please.’ Anu panted.

  The woman smiled. ‘Under what name, ma’am?’

  ‘Anu.’

  The woman looked and looked again and then spoke, looking very perplexed. ‘No, ma’am. I don’t see it here.’

  ‘That is very careless.’ Anu put on as stern a face as she could. ‘I called and made a reservation.’

  Shwetha was playing along well by dawning an angry face. The woman made a call and a man walked to the reception. Can’t these women handle anything by themselves? Something as simple as setting up a table?

  ‘Are you the one who had just called, ma’am? I told you there are no tables.’ It was the same voice that had spoken to her over the phone.

  ‘I made a reservation is what I know. This is my father-in-law’s ninetieth birthday and he is an ex-army man. Is this the respect you pay a veteran?’ Anu couldn’t believe herself for the lies that tumbled out.

  The man looked highly unconvinced but luckily, he didn’t argue. He instead turned to a waiter and mumbled something. ‘Follow him, please. We will arrange something.’

  There was no sign of her troupe yet. So Anu, finally smiling at Shwetha, followed the waiter. The man walked past the lawn, then past the large dining area with a wall-to-wall TV blaring IPL, past a tastefully decorated smaller dining area and stopped at a closed door.

  ‘Is he taking us to the toilet?’ Shwetha whispered. ‘To murder us there?’

  ‘Shh…’ Anu waited for the waiter to open the door. The man stood at the door and said politely, ‘Please wait here, ma’am. I will be back.’

  Anu and Shwetha rushed inside the room and stopped short. It was a storeroom! With cans of oil, flour and potatoes stacked all along the wall. In the middle was a table with three proper legs and one broken short. The dim light in the room was what her father used to call a zero-candle lamp.

  ‘Well done, Anu. Hope your invitees are blind and have lost their senses of smell.’ Shwetha began to laugh.

  Anu turned to the waiter who was now bringing in the chairs. ‘Look. Please don’t send in the old people who are waiting at the reception. Not yet.’

  ‘Shwetha, go get the balloons and the cake. Go from the garden entrance.’

  In the next fifteen minutes, Anu begged the waiter to cover the storage area with table clothes. It looked as though people were hiding behind curtains, but still, it was better than seeing sacks of potatoes. She then asked him to turn on the wall-mounted TV . It was a tiny one, but as long as her father-in-law could watch IPL it was all right.

  Shwetha placed the balloons here and there and put the cake on the table. Then she looked around. ‘Anu, this place still looks like a dreadful dump.’

  Before Anu replied, everyone walked in. Anu scanned the faces for disapproval. But the great thing about old folks is that they are not hostile. ‘Oh ho! A cake for me!’ Her father-in-law laughed in glee, his friends joining in.

  Thankfully, none of them noticed that the picture of the cricket bat on the cake was drawn with icing or that the table had only three good legs or that that was a room where the staff slept!

  ‘Winger,’ smiled Shwetha. Anu smiled contentedly. She had saved the night after all. When they were all about to disperse, Anu’s father-in-law stopped to talk to her. ‘Thank you, Anu. For all the effort.’

  Then, Padma aunty whispered in Anu’s ears. ‘Next time, try not to forget.’

  23

  ‘Everyone knew I had forgotten about the party and they were nice enough not to mention it. Except, of course, Padzilla,’ Anu gulped her beer down.

  Sameer chuckled. ‘Why do you have to lie? Just say things as they are!’

  Anu shook her head. ‘I lie only to those who make me feel miserable.’

  ‘Why do you hide from Sanju that we meet?’

  ‘Only to avoid a zombie war. If I tell him I am having a drink with you, his face will grow so tight, it will split at the seams. Then he will grow deathly silent. Then he will either boil the air around him or freeze it for the next couple of hours.’

  ‘The air thing did not make a lot of sense.’

  ‘Well, just emphasizing.’ Anu chewed on the masala peanuts.

  ‘Do you lie to me?’ Sameer asked.

  ‘No. You are cool because you make a million mistakes yourself.’ Anu munched on more peanuts. If she ate more, she drank less. ‘Do you lie to me?’

  Sameer shrugged. ‘I don’t lie to anyone. But you are a forgiving one. I have cancelled on you so many times but you still meet me.’

  ‘That is not a compliment. That sounds like I am desperate to meet you! Anyway, tell me what’s going on with you.’

  Sameer grew serious. ‘I am moving to Dubai.’

  Anu choked on her peanuts. ‘What! Why? You had this blockbuster news and waited till now to deliver it?’

  ‘I am investing in some real estate there with a friend. Maybe, I will even hone my photography skills.’

  Anu stared at him. ‘No offence. But where do you have the money to invest in Dubai? And, what will you photograph there? You can capture the deserts and Burj Khalifa only so many times.’

  Sameer laughed. ‘And, both are already done to death by all my Dubai-returned relatives!’ Growing serious, he added. ‘I will be a working partner. My friend Jaggi’s uncle will put in the capital.’

  Anu suddenly felt empty. ‘Once I get over my sadness, I will be happy for you. Can’t digest you being so far away.’

  Sameer smiled. ‘I may not even last there! So feel sad if I stick around for at least six months. Now tell me your stories. Pete, that girl, Vicky’s school, the mean mommies.’

  Anu was always the talker and Sameer the listener and she liked that equation. A conversation was more fun when she was the one talking, ‘Well, Pete and Pooja are good and nothing much to report. Except I have a very sore arm from playing. The bad thing is, Vicky is so unhappy with the school he cries every day.’

  ‘Then pull him out of that school. Bring him back here along with yourself.’ Sameer ordered his third beer while Anu was still working on her first. He had the metabolism of a bull.

  ‘Sameer! Your last name should be extreme solutions! Just listen to my distress, okay. Don’t give me suggestions.’

  ‘I am extreme? How about when you changed from Science to Humanities and didn’t tell your parents for six months? How about when you broke up with Sanju but let your mother keep planning your wedding? How about—’

  Anu cut him off. ‘All right, all right. That was then. Now, with a kid, I can’t make random decisions.’

  ‘Do what makes you happy. You will anyway, eventually!’

  Anu pursed her lips. ‘I won’t miss you one bit when you are gone. Precisely for such insensitive remarks.’

  Sameer smiled at her. ‘You will miss me precisely for such remarks!’

  He was right. She missed him already. He told her what he felt without ever sugar-coating his words but he meant well. And, he also said a lot of goo
d things about her. That helped blunt his blows.

  ‘Call me when you want to haul yourself and Vicky back to real Bangalore,’ Sameer concluded paying the bill.

  The next morning Anu had a spring in her step when she went to her old apartment. She was going to visit Supriyaji and Kavitha. Yashoda aunty was visiting her children in the US. The familiar trees, pathways with the most colourful oleanders, people she knew smiling at her and enquiring about her. Anu exhaled in delight and sat on the stone platform built around an old peepal tree.

  ‘Anu! How are you? You forgot about us.’ That was Mrs Rao offering flowers to the tree. Usually, such remarks irked Anu but not that day. People were nice to her here!

  ‘Anu! Is everything all right?’ That was Murthy uncle. A nice man who had been greeting her the same way for as long as she knew him.

  Anu finally got up after a good fifteen minutes to first visit Supriyaji. She was dressed in a crisp white and blue salwar kameez and had the warmest smile.

  ‘You have become thin, Anu,’ she said with concern.

  ‘That is the only positive of moving to Verdant Green, ma’am!’ Anu smiled.

  ‘That can’t be true,’ Supriyaji flashed and ethereal smile. ‘You have to find things that give you a positive vibe.’ Anu wanted to drop everything and move back here to take her classes and listen to her wise words.

  Anu sipped the lime juice handed to her, which was just so perfect. How does Supriyaji do everything so perfectly? Her clothes, house, food, even the simple lime water spelt divine.

  ‘I am trying, ma’am.’ Anu spoke at last. She became very unhurried and calm after being with Supriyaji.

  Carrying that sentiment, Anu went to Kavitha’s. Okay, it was the exact opposite of Supriyaji’s house. Kavitha loved gold and glitter and did not at all believe in being subtle. She had done up the house with green walls, orange vases, and golden chandeliers. Kavitha’s mother ushered Anu inside flashing a big affectionate smile.

  ‘Come in, come in, Anu. It has been so long since I saw you.’ Then she whispered to Anu. ‘You are the only one who can put sense into Kavitha. Every day she orders things. Look at this!’ She pointed at a large, ghastly vase that was of a shark spewing water.

  ‘Please tell her to stop this madness.’

  Anu could see what Kavitha’s mother meant. The house was filled to the brim with tacky decorative items that weren’t there before. To name a few, there were two gigantic elephants on either side of the front door as if it was a King’s court, an immense statue of Buddha with an attached water-fountain, tables of all sizes and plastic flowers of all kinds. As Anu gaped baffled, Radha came running from the kitchen and almost toppled hitting against a stone pedestal.

  ‘Akka! Where is Vicky?’ Radha smiled and then sobbed. ‘I miss you both so much.’

  ‘I miss you too, Radha. Here is something I got for you. And Vicky made this card for you.’ She had bought a big box of dry-fruits for Radha. Vicky had drawn a stick man and named it Vicky.

  Radha smiled in happiness. She loved fruits of all kinds. She compensated for Anu’s bad eating. ‘Show me Vicky’s photos, Akka. I will bring you coffee.’

  Wading through the home decors, Anu entered Kavitha’s room.

  Kavitha had sprawled on the bed with a dozen home decor magazines all around her. ‘Anu! So good to see you! Sit here.’ She pointed at an ornate bench seat that had taken up half the room.

  ‘Did you see my decorations? I have so much time on hand, I am doing up the house big time, ya,’ Kavitha said with a dimpled smile.

  ‘Kavitha, how much money have you spent on all this?’ Anu pointed at a vase, a night-stand, a dresser, and a carpet—all brand new, large and gaudy.

  Kavitha was taken aback. ‘Err … I don’t know. I am using Aravind’s credit card.’

  ‘Isn’t he objecting?’

  Kavitha grinned. ‘He is afraid to, I guess. I am on bed rest and I have made sure he feels both sad for me and scared of me.’

  Anu chuckled but only briefly. She had to be firm with Kavitha. ‘Listen, all this must go. You have a tiny two-bedroom flat, not an Ambani mansion!’

  In the next two hours, Anu and Kavitha’s mother packed all the new arrivals and Anu, snatching the phone from Kavitha’s iron grip, put in return requests on all the items.

  ‘Kavitha! You have spent sixty-thousand on all this garbage!’

  ‘Must be six. See properly,’ Kavitha knitted her brows at the phone and Anu smacked her on the head lightly.

  ‘No more online purchases. Not even clothes till you deliver. Here, I thought we can twin in these!’ She draped Kavitha in a faux-Kashmiri shawl and wrapped a similar one around herself.

  Kavitha burst into tears. ‘This is so pretty, Anu! Once I deliver, I will reduce my weight and we can twin properly.’

  Kavitha’s mother handed Anu a plate with a dozen pooris and chole. ‘I know Yashoda is not here. She would have made this for you otherwise.’ Anu felt suddenly sentimental. Everyone here cared to know so much about her! Then she wondered if she had some sort of a split personality. A loving one for here and another that elicited hatred from everyone at Verdant Green.

  Pete had come to Bangalore as an IT consultant but had stayed on since his daughter wanted to spend a year in India after her divorce. He had now sent his daughter and his wife on a tour of North India and Bhutan for a month. He had invited Anu and Pooja over for lunch at his place that afternoon.

  ‘How do you work, cook, clean and care for the kids, Pete?’ Anu gasped walking into that ultra-tidy house. Pete seemed like a superhero to Anu.

  ‘Because I come from a land where there is no help. No cooks, no maids, no housekeepers unless you write out your paychecks to them.’

  Anu shuddered. ‘God! That is precisely why I didn’t want to live in any western country.’ Then she grew thoughtful. ‘Then again, Verdant Green is no better for us. We are writing out our paychecks and more for the help we are getting!’ A sudden worry gnawed at her. She had to pay Rathnamma’s extra salary and the gardener’s wages from her savings. Did she have any savings by the way?

  Sitting at the dining table, waiting for Pooja to join them, Anu looked around the immaculate minimalist house. ‘Pete, such neat spaces depress me.’

  ‘Then feel free to scatter things around,’ Pete shouted from the kitchen.

  Anu laughed. ‘Very funny. How do you keep things this tidy?’

  Pete brought out a steaming hot pot of soup to the table. ‘Hmm, let me think.’ Setting it on the table, he knitted his brows and narrowed his eyes as if thinking deeply. ‘Maybe by actually tidying up? Pick things up, put things away, throw things out. That sort of highly glamorous tasks.’

  ‘I wish the houses were self-maintaining.’ Anu bit into a nacho. The Table (without even the food on it yet!) looked inviting with matching cups, plates and serving bowls.

  ‘Soup and nachos with salsa for starters. And, make-your-own tacos for the main course, ma’am.’ Pete sat down facing Anu. ‘So how was the weekend?’ He asked.

  Anu sighed. ‘Long story for another time. I always bother you with my woes.’

  ‘Please do bother me with your woes! They are highly entertaining, to say the least.’ Pete opened a beer for himself and Anu refused. Alcohol made her put on weight almost instantly.

  Before Anu spoke, Pooja walked in, taking out the ear phones. Setting the phone on the table next to her, she let out a mild exclamation. ‘Oh! Mexican. Where did you order from?’

  Anu laughed. ‘From his kitchen! He cooked all this if you can believe it.’

  While Anu and Pete talked, Pooja mostly ate and kept checking the phone each time it beeped. Finally, Anu couldn’t resist asking. ‘Expecting a message from someone?’

  Pooja shrugged. ‘No, just that some of my old friends are planning to meet in the city.’

  ‘I have never seen you hang out with the kids here. Are they aliens or vampires in the disguise of humans?’

  Pooja laughed. �
��Most of them are! But I don’t hang out with them because they don’t want to.’

  Pete cleared his throat; that was an indication for Anu to back off. But she pretended not to hear him. ‘Why wouldn’t they? Because you are not a vampire or a werewolf?’

  Pooja grew serious. ‘Long story.’

  Anu pulled the chair closer to Pooja. ‘Oh, do tell. Pete is in no hurry to get rid of us.’

  Pete cleared his throat again and Anu pushed a glass of water to him, flashing an innocent smile. ‘Drink water, Pete. Your throat will feel better.’

  ‘A guy who is in my lane asked me to join him and his friends for a night party last week. Never thought their night would go on till beyond midnight. My mom, in a state of panic, rushed into the pub where we were, yelled at me in Tamil, and I left with her like a lamb.’

  Anu knitted her brows. ‘That should make them not want to be around your mother. But why not you?’

  Pooja flashed Anu a look of incredulity. ‘Are you serious? Who wants to be with someone whose mom yells at the top of her lungs? I never got near that group again. I hide when I see the guy who invited me.’

  Pete sat right there but pretended to be not too keen on the conversation. But Anu was sure he was very clued in. She turned her attention back to Pooja. ‘You should talk to that guy and laugh about it. All mothers are lunatic to some degree. His mother will be too. It comes with motherhood.’

  Pooja sighed. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Hey, I know so! I was a teenager only a decade ago. My mother still embarrasses me.’

  ‘Let me think. Maybe when I see him again, I might talk to him.’ Pooja smiled. ‘If he runs away, Pete has to make you play half-an-hour extra for a full week.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Pete raising his cup.

  24

  The next morning was not any different with Vicky. On the other hand, it got a lot worse because the puppy had developed the courage to leave its habitat and had wandered away. Anu finally had to promise Vicky that they would look for puppies in other streets and he could play with them for ten minutes.