Every expense these days involved her doing a mental calculation about whether she could really afford it. She had never considered herself rich, but she had been fairly comfortable on her salary. The feeling of being so insecure about money was new to her. Why couldn’t she make any breakthrough with the job market? She had been a good worker and had risen at a steady pace; she just didn’t know how to sell herself. She resolved to figure something out about getting that damn MBA, maybe part-time when she was out of this jam and had the funds for it. She suddenly felt low. She glanced down at the dull, loose t-shirt and pyjamas that had become her daily wear these days. It made her feel even worse. Why would anyone hire someone like her, anyway? That bloody DNX Publications had let her go after so many years of service with barely any sort of notice and a minimal severance package. And of course, Trish had just accepted the decision and walked away quietly with her tail between her legs.
The fact was, she didn’t think she deserved any better. She was a loser. And now she was going to be out on the streets within a matter of months, with two senile parents to somehow care for. She imagined holding out a begging bowl, her father lying prone on a tattered sheet behind her, while her mother nagged her continuously from next to him, ‘Who will believe someone so fat doesn’t get food regularly? I’ve told you so many times before to watch your weight. Even this begging business you’ve managed to mess up for us.’
Okay, this was going into the realm of the dramatic, which Trish liked to steer clear of. She shook herself out of it and went back to frowning at the wanted ads. Surely there would be something.
The doorbell rang. Trish grunted. Who could it be this early in the morning? The people for the car were supposed to come in the afternoon. She got up and walked over slowly to the front door. She definitely felt heavier these days. The little activity that she used to do while walking around in the office had ended, so she wasn’t getting any form of exercise. And then Ma had taken to this irritating habit recently, of making besan laddoos and suji halwa and gulab jamuns and all sorts of other sweets. No matter how hard Trish tried, she would end up sampling them all. Ma claimed all this was for Ba, but the quantities she prepared were enough to feed a horse and there were always leftovers. Trish’s midnight raids of the fridge were doing her in. She fumed as she reached out to open the door. It was all right for Ma, she had never had an extra inch of flab on her body. Trish had got her genes from her father, who had been a big, boisterous man in his prime. He had been tall too, so he had carried it off; but he was so shrunken and frail and thin now.
‘Say hello to Trish-aunty.’ It was Akanksha, with her small daughter Lisa.
Trish didn’t like being called Trish-aunty, or for that matter, the baby-voice Akanksha always adopted around Lisa. The kid was seven years old, nowhere near being a baby, but Akanksha didn’t seem to realize that.
‘Hi there, Akku.’ Trish pushed her unruly curls back from her face and peered through her glasses at Lisa. ‘Hey, Lisa.’
‘Arrey, say hello,’ repeated Akanksha.
Lisa said sullenly, ‘Hello, Trish-aunty.’
‘Come in.’ Trish moved aside to let them in.
Akanksha pushed Lisa forward and addressed Trish. ‘Sweetie, I wanted to ask if you could just let her hang around at home with you today. I’ve got somewhere to be and didn’t think she would enjoy being alone at home with just the maids. She’ll read or something, I’m sure she won’t be a bother at all. Is that okay?’
‘Umm, sure.’ Trish was a little taken aback. She had never had to babysit anyone before – Ba didn’t count, he wasn’t an actual kid. She did have a lot of work to get done. But still, this didn’t sound too tough. ‘What happened to school, though?’
‘Summer holidays just began.’ Akanksha rolled her eyes. ‘Sixty days! Can you believe it? I don’t know what I’m going to do with her. It’s so great to have you around, though.’
‘Well.’ Trish began to say that it wasn’t like she wasn’t ever going to get a job. But then she recalled the day Akanksha had spent looking after Ba when she was in the hospital. She figured she would take the opportunity to return the favour. ‘Sure.
No prob—’
Akanksha cut in: ‘Great, thanks so much.’ She appeared to be in a hurry. ‘I’ll be back to pick her up around four, okay? You’re a doll.’ Trish did not think of herself as anything remotely like a doll and didn’t like being called one, but Akanksha was already retreating towards the stairs, calling out, ‘I’m sure you guys will have lots of fun bonding together.’
Trish looked down at Lisa’s face. The kid was sulking; she looked positively hostile. Without a word, she stalked in past Trish on her long, skinny legs and disappeared around the bend in the hall. Trish thought about calling after her to tell her that shoes were supposed to be left at the door, but changed her mind. She shut the door wearily, already feeling spent.
Lots of fun bonding together. Sure, why not?
‘I want to rewind and watch that ad!’
Trish looked over at Lisa, who was sprawled out on the most comfortable sofa in the house, the worn green three-seater in front of the television set. It had been over three hours and she had been glued to the TV the entire morning.
Trish cleared her throat. ‘Lisa, we don’t have a rewinding facility on our TV.’
‘This is Tata Sky.’ Lisa said accusingly. ‘You can rewind and record on that. Don’t you know?’
‘You probably have Tata Sky Plus at home,’ Trish said, trying to keep her tone friendly. ‘That’s different.’
‘So why don’t you get that?’ Lisa demanded.
Trish said carefully, ‘Never felt the need.’
Lisa looked like she was going to remark on the stupidity of this decision, but then she simply puffed out her cheeks and rolled her eyes and went back to staring moodily at the screen.
Trish wondered if she should just go and hide in her room again. But the WiFi was weaker in her room and she really did need to send out the application and follow-up emails that she had composed so carefully over the last couple of hours. She found herself getting distracted by the sound of the music videos that Lisa was watching.
‘Babydoll main sone di, babydoll main sone di …’ Lisa began to hum along tunelessly.
Trish looked up again. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to just hop on over home and pick up a book? Your mom said that you would spend the day reading.’
‘Mom doesn’t know anything … and she doesn’t care either. And she said I should just stay here until she came.’ Lisa didn’t take her eyes off the screen, on which Sunny Leone was gyrating.
‘I’m not sure this kind of music video is the best influence on you,’ Trish began.
‘What’s influence?’ Lisa asked distractedly, only mildly curious.
‘Never mind.’ Trish went back to her work. Who was she to try and educate anyone about this stuff? She didn’t have any kids. Never would, given that she didn’t plan on getting married. No nieces or nephews either – her mother had always been vague about her relatives and kept distant family at a distance. Must have fought with everyone, Trish thought uncharitably. Anyway, this Trish-aunty thing was new to her and, frankly, it didn’t look like she was cut out for it. She hoped Akanksha wasn’t planning to make a habit of this.
She spent the next few minutes focusing on sending out her resumé to various potential employers. Her phone rang just as she hit ‘Send’ for the last time. Ah. One of the people who were coming to see the car. The other guy had cancelled on her already. She answered. ‘Hello? Haan ji. Yes, I’ll be down in a minute. You can look at the car in the meantime. It’s the blue Corsa next to the gate.’
She got up and called out to no one in particular, ‘I’m heading out for a while.’
Lisa didn’t acknowledge her words, she was still staring open-mouthed at the screen as if hypnotized. Trish’s mother didn’t bother to answer her either, though Trish was sure she had heard her from the other room. She stom
ped heavily out, wondering briefly why anyone bothered to have family and friends. Or kids, for that matter.
By the time Trish came back upstairs, her mood was even worse. The fellow had been a short seedy small-office worker who had just moved from Agra and was shocked by the prices of Mumbai and was trying to negotiate his overall cost of living down on every front. He had complained about the state of the car and yet he seemed insistent on having it – at approximately half of Trish’s asking price. Her polite response that she wasn’t interested in negotiating was met with fiery gusto and he had kept talking at her for twenty minutes, trying to get her to change her mind. It was when she realized that his eyes kept dropping to her bosom – she had initially written his wandering gaze off as a nervous tic but then she finally noticed the pattern – that she cut the meeting short, saying, ‘Thank you for your interest. Goodbye and good luck.’ She walked away from him even as he still went on in that whiny seedy way of his. She was feeling disgusted and had the impression that his creepy eyes were now on her bottom. She quickened her pace and entered the building to walk up to the first floor.
She felt relieved to be back home. She turned the corner into the drawing room, glad that the music from the TV had stopped. Her jaw dropped when she saw what Lisa was doing.
That incorrigible kid was on her laptop. She was frowning at the keyboard, typing something slowly.
‘Hey. Lisa.’ Trish tried to keep it friendly. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
She regretted using the cuss word but Lisa didn’t seem to notice. ‘YouTube. Why is this thing so slow?’
Trish went over and gently dragged the laptop away from the child’s little paws, turning it around to face her on the other side of the table. ‘This “thing” is mine,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And no one else is allowed to touch it.’
Lisa scowled. ‘There’s nothing to do here. And you weren’t even using it.’
‘Lisa.’ Trish sighed. ‘How about having your lunch now? It’s getting cold. We all ate an hour ago and you said you would have it when you were hungry.’
Lisa made a face. ‘It was some yucky sabzi.’
‘It’s alu-zeera. It’s perfectly nice. You should try some.’
‘Do you have any chicken?’
‘No,’ Trish said in a measured tone. ‘We don’t eat chicken at home.’
‘What?’ Lisa threw up her hands. ‘What kind of house is this?’
What kind of kid are you, Trish thought, her blood beginning to boil again. There were just too many people who seemed to take her for granted. Her parents, her friend, her previous employer and now even this random seven-year-old.
Her phone was ringing again. She frowned as she recognized the number. It looked like one of the office landlines. Strange. What the heck did they want? She picked up and snapped, ‘Yeah?’
‘Trish darling.’
It took Trish a moment to place the voice. She made a face at her phone. Nivedita. Smarmy woman from the print editorial team. What did she want? She had always behaved in a supercilious manner with Trish except when she wanted a favour. Everyone from the print side looked down on the folks who worked on the Internet business; they considered themselves ‘real’ editorial folk. But they’d had a lot of common content and Nivedita had been in the habit of picking up a lot of Trish’s writing to fill print space – often without even giving her a byline.
‘Hello,’ Trish said guardedly. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing, darling,’ Nivedita gushed. ‘We’re missing you. So sorry that you were kicked out.’
‘Wow,’ Trish said. ‘Thanks for the concern. I …’
‘So, listen, darling,’ Nivedita cut in, not bothering to listen. ‘I have something interesting for you. I’m sure you’ll love it.’
‘Really?’ Trish’s tone was dry. She sincerely doubted it.
‘Well, my stupid junior has gone and got some stupid chicken pox. The one who’s currently writing the AMA column.’
AMA was the ‘Ask Me Anything’ column. ‘The agony aunt thing?’ Trish said, curious despite herself. ‘That’s still on?’
‘On and off, actually. I know, I know, who reads that shit, right?’ Nivedita’s tinkling laugh grated on Trish’s nerves. ‘Still, there are lots of disturbed people in Mumbai – lucky for us, right?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘So anyway, since the idiot is out for a while, I need someone to do that column for me over the next three weeks. It won’t pay much – you know the deal with how cheap this shithole is, right? – but I heard you still haven’t found work and thought you’d jump at the offer.’
Trish had never thought of her as a subtle or pleasant person, but Nivedita had never actually managed to get her this angry before. She unclenched her jaw, noting the tightness in her wrists and got ready to tell the presumptuous bitch exactly what she thought of her and her so-called offer.
But then she had a better idea.
‘Okay.’ She tried to keep her voice neutral. ‘Fine. I’ll do it.’
‘Of course, darling. I knew you’d do it. I’m mailing you the questions right away. Answers by eight p.m., please. Don’t be late. Tata.’
‘Tata,’ Trish mocked but realized that Nivedita had already hung up.
She looked up to see Lisa staring at her through narrowed eyes. ‘You’re still not using that thing,’ She said in a whiny voice, pointing to the laptop. ‘Can I watch YouTube now?’
6
The Letters
‘All right! You want answers?’ Trish growled, fingers poised over the keyboard. ‘You’ll get answers.’
She would teach that Nivedita not to reach out to her again so condescendingly. Stupid random assignment that paid peanuts, and she’d thought Trish would jump at it. Her offer was an insult for a writer of Trish’s level. Well, erstwhile level. Now, she was apparently considered good for nothing other than composing responses to this drivel.
Dear AMA,
I am crushed. I found out by reading some messages on my husband’s phone that he has been having an affair with his colleague at work. When I confronted him, he was honest and admitted to it, but says it’s just that he finds his office women more powerful and attractive than me. I’ve never been a career woman and I know I haven’t taken enough care of myself over the last eight years of bringing up our children, but I never expected this. I wouldn’t like to separate because our sons would suffer. Please advise.
Crushed.
Trish’s blood was boiling by the time she finished reading the letter. Stuff and nonsense. What was wrong with people? Her fingers flew fast and furious as she typed, barely thinking.
Dear Crushed,
Relax, darling, have yourself a nice cup of chamomile tea, or three. Let me break this down for you (although you guys seem to have broken things down pretty well yourselves so far). You seem to have a rare talent of being able to find redeeming qualities in that cretin you have the misfortune of calling your husband. You say he was honest and admitted to an affair … AFTER you’d already caught him at it. You sure he isn’t a direct descendent of Satyavadi Harishchandra? The man has the balls to then confess that he really couldn’t help it because, after all, anything in a skirt in his office is naturally superior to and more attractive than the devoted wife waiting for him at home, caring for his children. Man, this guy sounds like a keeper.
My sincere advice to you, dearie, would be to think about what one of those powerful office ladies would do if they were in your situation. Would they sit around like martyred cows, forever subjugating their needs to those of all the men in their lives (you mention you have sons, I hope they don’t take after Dad) or would they look to sue the arrogant bastard’s unworthy ass off, taking his money AND the kids and resolving to give them a better life than they could ever expect with a man who takes his wife for granted like that?
Entirely your choice, of course. You could just choose to play Mother Teresa in your little setting as the perfect pillar of support to him. Except that
from whatever I know about Mother Teresa, she had no time for losers. More importantly, she had something called self-respect.
You may or may not end up getting yourself some of that. But oh, definitely get the chamomile tea.
Love,
Amy (I prefer that to AMA)
There. Trish felt immensely satisfied just getting those words out, even though she didn’t quite know where they’d come from. It was as if she were releasing some of her own frustration by being overly caustic. She knew her letter would never reach the wretched woman, and she didn’t want it to either; she just wanted Nivedita to get the point. Especially since in her one-line email brief with the questions attached, she had informed Trish that the tone of the column had always been ‘warm, friendly and understanding’.
Trish snorted to herself. She knew she’d be getting a plaintive call from Nivedita about this tomorrow. But it would be worth it.
She scrolled down to the next letter.
‘What the hell have you done?’
Trish cringed and held the phone away from her ear for a couple of seconds. She had been woken up by its ringing, so the call had caught her off guard. She was never fully prepared to face the world without a cup of coffee. Okay. So she had expected mild annoyance from Nivedita, but not this hysterical shrieking. And not this early in the morning. What was it, eight a.m.?
‘Hey. Relax, Nivs.’ She thought the use of ‘Nivs’, a nickname which Nivedita tried to force upon everyone and which Trish had never bothered with before, might calm her down. It didn’t seem to be working at all, though, because Nivedita went on babbling incoherently, speaking so fast and in such a high-pitched tone that Trish couldn’t understand what she was on about. She attempted to cut in. ‘Listen, it was just a joke …’
‘Just a joke?’ screeched Nivedita. ‘A joke? My job is a joke to you? I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire company. The chief editor has already texted me just now, calling me for a meeting as soon as I get in. I’m going to lose my job and be a worthless has-been like you by this afternoon.’
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