by Atul Todi
Just like Tia, Khushi was patient.
Khushi was more than halfway through her notebook. She told Abhay that once she was done with the story she wanted to convert it into a novel and tell the world about Bugsy's love story.
Telling her not to be too hasty, he told her that his story was yet to unfold. Only once she knew the whole story, she could decide if it was really a love story.
Later that evening, as promised, Khushi took it upon herself to cook dinner. She was going to make pasta, the way her mother had taught her. Abhay offered to be her sous-chef and helped her with cutting the vegetables. Standing on a stool to reach the stove, she ordered him around. Using her stirrer as a magic wand, she made him work and run around the kitchen.
Abhay and Khushi looked cute together. The helpers in the house could not help but chuckle watching them. They had never seen Abhay act like a kid and get ordered around.
Abhay would have never done that for anyone else, but Khushi was special. He just did not have the heart to say no to her.
Watching Khushi dance on the stool as she stirred the pasta, he couldn't stop himself from reminiscing his college days when Tia would turn his whole kitchen upside down. It was like he could see a resemblance of her in the little girl.
He remembered how he and Tia often made dinner back in college. Forcing herself inside his kitchen, she would decide how the dinner was to be made. Just like that evening with Khushi, his job was to chop vegetables, hand her all the ingredients she needed and listen to her constantly blabber about some intellectual jargon.
He had to do all that while ensuring that Tia did not burn down the whole apartment. She was a pathetic cook, but the most entertaining chef.
Making a big mess in the kitchen, Khushi and Abhay put together an edible dinner that night. Later, after cleaning the dishes, Abhay dug out an old picture album that he had buried inside a trunk and packed away for years in a secret closet. Those photographs were some of his only memories from more than a decade ago. He had not seen them since he moved to the vineyard. There never was a reason to browse through the past he had left behind.
That evening, showing Khushi some of the pictures, he thought it would help her with her writing and connect better with his past.
Browsing through the album, Khushi came across a picture in which he was driving a truck with Tia as his navigator. Abhay was on the driver's seat and Tia sat next to him posing for a picture. They had stopped at a gas station and had asked the attendant there to take a picture of them inside the truck.
Looking at the picture, Khushi was in awe. She could not believe how different Abhay looked back in college. With long hair and clean-shaven look, he looked like a rockstar. Wearing a stud in his ears and big sunglasses, he looked full of life and stylish. Years of staying and working in the vineyard had taken a toll on him. Maybe it was the excessive alcohol and smoking that made him appear intense and serious, unlike his college days.
Khushi was pleasantly surprised to see the picture of Tia. She looked dorky in her baseball cap and nerdy glasses. Khushi had a completely different visualization of Tia in her college days, but was pleasantly surprised by the picture. She could she that even though Tia looked simple and ordinary, she had the most beautiful eyes and striking facial features.
Wondering what Abhay was doing inside a truck with Tia, Khushi asked him.
He told her that on the day when they were meant to return from Panama City, it rained non-stop. Unfortunately, Precious' BMW broke down. With no BMW showroom around, there was no repair shop that could fix the problem. Local mechanics told her that it was an engine failure, and the repair would take a few days and more than five thousand dollars.
Even though money was no issue for her, Precious' parents did not know she was on Spring break and would have freaked out if they found out. She had to find a fix herself and had to do it fast. Staying back in Panama City and getting the car fixed was not an option.
Not sure what to do, to help her friend, Tia had called up Abhay for his suggestion. With no other way left, being a sport, he offered to take the car on a trailer all the way back to Indiana where it could get fixed at a regular BMW repair shop.
Renting a twenty-foot truck with an attached trailer from U-Haul to haul the big SUV on it, Abhay decided to drive it all the way back to college. Tia decided to go along with him to give him company. Rest of the girls hitched a ride back to college with other people from Purdue.
It was a very daring move to drive that truck, especially with a trailer attached behind carrying an SUV. Abhay had never done it, but he wanted to help and was left with no choice. When he saw the girls worried, his fix-it-all-man image forced him to offer his help.
The look on Khushi's face made it obvious that she did not believe Abhay one bit; she knew that he was still trying to impress Precious and the other girls.
It was a long drive, and they had to go through Atlanta, Tia's hometown. That was the first-time Abhay got to meet Tia's parents, who were not supposed to be at home as they were traveling to the West Coast.
Taking a pit stop at her house for lunch, Tia realised that her parents were back from vacation. Awkwardly, she introduced Abhay to her parents who were clearly not too pleased. With his carefree attitude, long hair and his unconventional fashion sense, Abhay was far from the ideal son-in-law they had wanted.
They were in shock when Tia snuck into the house, using the backdoor key she had. Firstly, Tia had not told them about her spring break plans and secondly, being conservative, they were not expecting their daughter to bring home a guy. It was a very big deal!
Tia was able to handle the situation by telling her parents that Abhay was dating her roommate Precious, and that was why he was helping take back her broken car all the way to Indiana. She had come along, so she could stop over in Atlanta and meet them.
Her story worked and her parents decide not to inquire further. It needed some convincing by her brother, but her parents decided to ignore the absurdness of the situation.
The next picture Khushi looked at was of Abhay nursing a black eye with Tia standing next to him wearing a black pirate eye-patch. Abhay told her that it was an outcome from one of the drunken bar nights back in college and Tia was mocking him.
Remembering what had happened that night, he told her that once they returned back to college, Tia started to hang out with Abhay and his friends quite often. They would drag her along to the bars every once in a while, forcing her to have fun and take a break from her rigorous academics. While she pretended to hate the pretentious college parties, she loved being out there and meeting new people.
It was during one of those bar nights that a drunken white American student was hitting on Tia. Abhay was ordering drinks at the bar counter, when the big guy forced his way through and got close to her. Flirting with Tia, he became physically intrusive and forcefully held her. In the crowded club, she told him to back off, but he continued to misbehave. Seeing what had happened from a distance, Abhay could not stop himself. Charging towards him, he pushed the guy back and swung at him. Almost twice his size, he turned out to be a football player. The big guy punched him in the face, giving him a black eye. The bouncers at the bar had to come stop the fight before it went too far.
The highlight of the story that night was what Tia did next.
Making up a story, she went and told the big football player that Abhay was a Ph.D. student and the teaching assistant (TA) for his mathematics class. It was a blatant lie, but he was too intoxicated to think and question Tia. He knew that a TA was capable of getting a student to fail the class. If that happened he would lose his scholarship and not be allowed to play football.
The football player believed every word Tia said with a confident look on her face. To apologize, she suggested he went and said sorry to Abhay and took some alcohol shots along. Fooled by her genuine lie, he did exactly what she suggested. He went, said sorry and bought Abhay and all his friends’ rounds of shots.
&n
bsp; The nerds won that night. Tia’s smart move worked like magic.
While the alcohol shots made up for what had happened that night, Tia was very moved by what Abhay had done for her: He stood up to a man twice his size for her. Even though he did not know it then, he had unknowingly started caring about her a lot. His actions indirectly reflected his feelings. She on the other hand was already in love with him but could not find ways to express it.
Neither of them openly expressed the way they felt. They both relished the unspoken relationship they were in. Their actions made it obvious to everyone that there was something brewing between them.
Holding up the picture, Abhay continued his story. He told Khushi that the day after the incident at the bar, he woke up in the morning with a black eye. Tia sat next to his bed, irritating him until he woke up. Instead of showing some appreciation, she mocked him by wearing a black eye patch and calling him ‘The Pirate of the Bar'.
Like a mother she lectured him to not act macho when it was not needed. Abhay disagreed with Tia, but she continued to pull his leg. Trying to stop her from mocking him, Abhay chased her around the house.
Without their knowing it, Jolly was witnessing the childish argument. He took a picture of them wrestling on the couch.
With a smile on her face, Khushi had tears falling down her face. Staring at Abhay, she did not even realise that she was crying. Snapping at her, he said, "Why are you crying? Stop it now. If you don't stop, I won't be able to go ahead with the story."
Abhay told Khushi that she was even worse than Tia in terms of crying; he did not understand why they had to cry about the smallest thing. Wiping off her tears, Khushi asked him to continue.
He turned through the picture album, looking for more memories to weave his story.
Curiously looking for interesting photographs that would help Khushi relate with Abhay's story, they found one where Tia was making a toast to the audience. Khushi wanted to know what was going on there and the story behind the toast.
Diving back into the time long gone, Abhay puffed his cigarette, sipped his whiskey and remembered what had happened that evening. He narrated the incident with an animated look on his face. It was clearly a happy moment from his past.
A semester after that Spring Break in Panama City, Tia wanted to enroll for a college course called Wine Tasting 101. She duped Abhay into taking the class with her. While they both took the class thinking that it would give them an excuse to get drunk and try new wines, it was a very rigorous course. It included learning about the climate, soil and grape cultivation techniques required for making wine. They were required to understand the different grape varietal and quality of wines grown across the world.
It was an extremely daunting class, especially for a non-wine drinker. It required one to be open-minded and think of wine drinking as a form of art. Abhay hated wine and was clearly not the most suited to be in that class. Tia gave him no option; she blackmailed him into signing-up.
Hoping to get drunk in the class, at the end of every class they were given measured 30 ml of three wines from different parts of the world to taste. The name of the class: Wine Tasting 101, was very deceptive and enticed people with false hope.
Instead of telling Abhay that the class had exams and study material, Tia told him that he would get to drink on every Thursday night in the company of beautiful women. The male-female ratio in the class was five girls for every guy. No sensible guy could say no to that good a proposition.
It was Tia's evil trap for Abhay. She loved wine and everything about it. Besides enjoying the treacherous class, she reveled in making Abhay miserable.
Dragging him to class every Thursday, he was made to study everything about growing grapes and making wine. They learnt about the right climate to grow grapes, correct cultivation and irrigation process, how to grow and harvest the plant and even different techniques to make quality wine. Every week they had to spend hours studying about wine, and in return they got to sip a few wines from around the globe and develop a taste for fine wine.
Tia loved the class. She would look at the map of the world and explored places where she could one day own a small vineyard of her own. He, on the other hand, being a self-proclaimed scotch connoisseur, hated the idea of drinking wine. He was happy drinking cheap wines when he was running short of money or was in the company of a girl who would drink nothing but wine.
Being put through the torturous class with Tia, he was left with no option but to start appreciating the intricate taste of different wines and the art behind it. Tia was very particular about making sure he paid attention to the complex characteristics of the wines they tried.
In the photograph that Khushi was holding, it was another one of the miserable classes on a Thursday evening. The French professor had been throwing out technical details about why the soil and weather in central France, from Burgundy to Champagne, was the best suited for growing world-class wines.
Ignoring the lecture, Abhay sneakily sipped on the whiskey he was carrying in a little flask and shared it with people sitting around him.
At the end of his lecture that evening, they were given 30 ml of three wine varietals from France. After the wines had been served out, few volunteers had to go up to the podium in front of the class and make a toast. That evening, finding courage, the extremely introverted Tia took it upon herself to show her appreciation for the French wine. She decided to go make a toast while Abhay sat back laughing, waiting for her to fall on the way to the podium.
Wearing a pretty pink floral legging with a furry jacket and matching stole and boots, Tia walked up to the front of the class and stood at the wooden podium with a microphone in front of her. Looking in his direction, she raised her glass, made an eye contact with him and made a sincere toast. Carefully measuring her words, she said:
"Here's to this water,
Wishing it were wine,
Here's to you, my darling,
Wishing you were mine."
The entire class cheered and clapped, it was an extremely sweet toast. Abhay took a picture of her and sat back in his chair a little taken aback. He knew who the toast was meant for and was not expecting it.
Tia came back to the seat and sat down without saying a word. She had turned red because of the exhilarating experience. He just looked at her with a zombie expression; he wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her. Her wine-stained lips looked tempting, her sincerity was irresistible and her love for him unquestionable. But he did nothing; absolutely nothing!
She knew exactly how she felt for him and was not scared to express it. Always being subtle, she never openly admitted to how much she loved him. Not wanting to push him, she never tried to impose upon him to reciprocate the love. Giving him time, she hoped that he would someday wake up to her feelings, and life would be wonderful. Yet, that evening the French wine gave fire to the romantic inside her. She just could not control herself and voiced her feelings.
Abhay did not know how to respond to the toast she had made. In the complicated head of his, there was a whirlpool of emotions. He knew that he liked every moment he spent with her. Time just flew by when she was around. She was smart, sexy and accepting; she was everything he wanted from a girl. More than anything else, she knew him for who he really was: an insecure introvert who wanted to be loved, and not what he pretended to be, a charming, insensitive man who didn't give a damn about the world and what people thought about him.
Deciding not to say anything, he pretended that it was just another toast, and it did not mean anything. She too decided not to make a big deal out of it.
That evening, like other Thursday nights they headed to ‘Cactus', a popular dance club on campus, with a few friends from the wine class. Jolly who was dating Miranda then joined them at the club. Everything was normal, just like other Thursday nights, but something felt different, something felt off.
Tia, who was usually quite chirpy and had some wise comment to make about everything, was utterly quie
t. Her smile looked fake; the seriousness in her demeanor was evident. After a few rounds of drinks, while everyone wanted to dance, she surprisingly decided to sit by the bar and sip on her glass of wine.
Her excuses could not convince Abhay. He knew exactly what the problem was and what he had to do to cheer her up. Taking a few vodka shots, he headed to the DJ counter.
Tia sat with a few friends from her biology class, talking about upcoming exams.
The loud electro beats and the flashing lights in the club suddenly came to an abrupt stop. Silence drowned upon the club, as everyone wondered what happened.
While everyone looked around trying to figure out what was going one, the spotlight moved and focused on Tia. Abhay spoke on the DJ’s microphone from behind the music podium.
Khushi looked at Abhay amazed, waiting for him to tell her what he said.
Lost in old memories, Abhay recited the drunken toast he made on that unforgettable night.
"I would like to make a toast to a special friend: