Last Man She'd Love

by Summerita Rhayne

  ‘They won’t,’ Guy’s reply was clipped and short.

  After dinner, there was the usual retiring to the lounge, with the perverse kids now begging to be allowed to watch TV. Savika sat, going through the diary kept for the party preparation, and checking list items. She frowned and began to consult Hina. Soon Kalyani joined them.

  ‘Do women realize what a giveaway it is when they put their heads close together like that?’ A voice spoke in her ear.

  ‘Vinay!’ He had just entered the room. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Shh…not so loud. If the old man sees me, he’ll hold an inquisition over my doings.’ He sat down near Lyna, angled so that he wasn’t in direct line of vision from the senior man. ‘Will you look at that?’ He directed her attention to the three women animatedly discussing something grouped in the far corner of the room. ‘All the time gossip. Savika’s getting the worse of it. She doesn’t like what Mummy and Kalyani are discussing. Ah, look at Kalyani…she reminds one so much of a nosy hen when she gets hot after a piece of gossip. Don’t you think so?’

  Lyna laughed. ‘You are such a sweet brother. I’ll tell Kalyani how much you admired her animated expression.’

  He grinned. ‘I know you won’t. Anyway, I don’t mind.’ A shadow crossed his face. ‘Even a fight with Kalyani would be better than what I have to face.’

  ‘What?’

  He uttered a few choice swear words. ‘Mummy says I’m to leave right after the engagement. She’s even asked Da- him to make the payment to the bloody institute. He insisted on sending a draft because he doesn’t trust netbanking, so it will be a week before it is processed. But oh hell, what am I to do? Have you ever run away from home, Lyna?’

  ‘No. I don’t think you should either.’

  ‘I determine every night I’m going to do it. But I can’t. I’ve never been on my own. And what about Priti? I have to think of her. If I run away, I’ll be out of her life forever. That will be as bad as going to Kota. Or jumping off the roof!’ He ran his hand through his hair.

  ‘You are distracted. You just spoiled your hair!’ Lyna teased.

  ‘You bet, I am. I am reaching the end of my tether. There’s nothing – nothing I wouldn’t do to avoid Kota.’ He sat in a morose silence.

  Lyna tried to pull him out of his black mood. ‘Think of the dance. Priti will be there. You can have a nice time together. Have you bought some dashing new outfit to impress her?’

  ‘No... I hadn’t thought of that. Mummy would probably invite Mrs. Reddy. I’ll ask her to accompany her. I’ll do some shopping tomorrow. I’ll go and call her now.’

  He left, looked marginally relaxed and Lyna felt relieved. Despite his grown-up appearance, he was still a boy. She was reminded of her own college years. How ignorant and unworldly she had been, compared to her more city smart friends. That was why Harish had made such an impression on her. She must have been an easy win for him...

  She grimaced, remembering the time. In her last year, she had taken up a full-fledged affair with him. She’d dreamed of love. He’d wanted what they had and nothing more. She’d emerged from the experience bitter but wiser. According to Harish, she should have known what he offered. She should have taken care not to misunderstand. She shouldn’t have confused sex with love.

  He’s right, she had thought. I took a lot for granted. Including the misconception that a man is supposed to stay faithful to you while he professes to love you.

  Harish told her his declarations of love were just a way to get a girl into bed. ‘You know you needed those to soften you up. I obliged. In this day and age, who wants the hassles of a long relationship? Enjoy your lack of virginity and be happy I helped you get rid of it.’

  His harsh words had implanted a seed of distrust that made her shy away from intimacy with a man for years. She threw herself into work, never examining her emotional scars, determined they should fade away and leave her without any memory of Harish.

  She had come a long way. She had healed. In asking Guy that they should get to know each other, she had taken the first step out of toxic relationships. When he invited her…she shivered, remembering the evening and the way they had kissed. How she’d succumbed to his sexy invite! It had been the hardest thing to pull away from such potent sexual attraction.

  But Guy… he hadn’t given her a straight answer about what kind of relationship he wanted. Could she get involved with someone like him? He was the kind of man she’d have sworn to stay away from some years ago. Was attraction blinding her to his faults?

  Whatever happened, she’d go into any relationship with her eyes open, no longer blinded by impression or her girlish dreams.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  ‘The benefits of staying at an out of way place,’ Kalyani grumbled, putting a crisp and evenly browned dosa on her plate from the platter. ‘The choreographer I usually work with refuses to come here.’

  Savika made a sympathetic noise and explained in response to Lyna’s questioning glance, ‘Kalyani always gets her dances choreographed beforehand.’

  This was quite the norm with some, Lyna had heard, but not seen.

  ‘Why do you want him here?’ she asked cautiously. ‘We don’t have an event of a very large scale, do we?’

  ‘How can you say –’

  ‘When Kalyani is in it –’

  Both the sisters spoke together. Savika continued more slowly, ‘Kalyani loves to organize dances. This dance won’t be a formal ceremony but given her choice Kalyani will definitely make us all do a Bollywood number on stage.’

  ‘On stage?’ Lyna said faintly. She’d pictured a crowded dance floor and not more than a foot square space for each couple, if that. She hadn’t dreamt she could be in the spotlight as a performer. ‘No can do!’ she said, trying to laugh it off. ‘I can’t dance if the TRP of my serial depends on it.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to be the star of the show...I mean, event,’ Kalyani said. ‘If you don’t dance, what will Jashith do? He’d look strange doing a catwalk or something. I can’t recall a solo male number in the film hits.’

  ‘Let’s give him some routine from the pop songs,’ Savika said.

  Kalyani looked like she’d burst. ‘If I’m at the party, it won’t be as half-baked as that. We’ll get them both to dance. We don’t need to worry about Guy, he can improvise pretty quickly. As for you… Don’t worry, Lyna, we’ll think of something.’ She grimaced again. ‘What a pity, my choreographer can’t make it. He taught someone at my sister-in-law’s party to dance for ten minutes in just two days.’

  Guy, who had been busy in his breakfast, interrupted, ‘I thought your intention was to have a casual get together and dance? Don’t stray too far, now, Kalyani.’

  ‘Of course, I won’t. It will be casual. I haven’t – I mean, Mummy didn’t invite more than twenty or thirty couples.’

  ‘That’s some range,’ Guy derided. ‘Thirty will stretch to forty, if I know you.’

  ‘Me? I hardly know anyone in the district. Who do you think will come from Thane at such short notice?’ Her eyes wide, she asked innocently.

  Guy snorted. ‘Knowing you, any number of our mutual acquaintances.’

  Savika said, ‘Well, it will be good to see all of them. I’ve been so out of things since I moved to Pune.’

  ‘Also, there’s no need of having a stage,’ Guy declared, his gaze on Lyna’s bent head as she cut the dosa for Sheena, seated nearby. ‘We can dance on the floor.’

  ‘But a stage has so much impact!’ Kalyani protested. ‘Besides people can see your dresses full length.’ She added, ‘What’s the use of spending if you can’t even have people look at them properly.’

  She said it in such a plaintive tone that Lyna giggled involuntarily. Hina looked impassive as ever. Guy barely controlled an eye roll, but then gave in allowing his mouth to curve up as his gaze met Lyna’s.

  Now why should his dark gaze keep hers locked to it?

  You might not have a perfect understandi
ng with me in all we do, but we smile at the same things and that’s enough for me.

  How had that popped into her mind? Kalyani told her to finish breakfast quickly, so they should practice and she was thankful for the distraction to make her break the eye contact with Guy. She’d heard if you gazed at somebody too much, you were in danger of falling for them.

  Even after Kalyani’s repeated directions to them all to hurry up, it was quite three quarters of an hour before she herself finished her breakfast and finally got up from the dining table.

  They all collected in the banquet hall, except Guy and Kalyani’s husband Mahesh who were shut up with the senior Pratap Singh and some managers of the estate.

  Savika made her practice a few steps. She watched open mouthed, then shut her eyes in pain. ‘You’ll push us all offstage...I mean, away from the dance area. And break the legs of your partner. Oh, I’m sorry, I meant you might hit Guy’s ankle accidentally. You shouldn’t flail your arms like that! And the thumka is all wrong. When you move your hips, don’t swing out your leg. Slow dance might be your thing,’ she pronounced hopefully as Lyna stopped moving.

  Vinay volunteered to partner her in this as a melodious number played, but halfway through the first twirl, he gave up. ‘Sorry, Lyna, I can’t. Have to save my feet to dance with Priti,’ he whispered in her ear.

  ‘Well, Kalyani, we didn’t foresee this.’ Savika turned to Kalyani.

  ‘I can sit out the dances.’ The words were hardly out of her mouth before the sisters yelled, ‘No!’

  They put their heads together and came up with some basic moves she could do. Lyna nodded doubtfully as they explained.

  ‘How did you not learn to dance? At school or college? How did you get through life?’ Kalyani wondered.

  ‘I don’t go to that many dance parties,’ Lyna said with suitable air of regret. For Kalyani, it seemed existing was synonymous with dancing.

  For someone of her bulk, she moved pretty fast and had all the Bollywood twists and gyrations right down pat. The two boys, like her mother, were superb dancers. The elder one was designated to be Lyna’s partner.

  ‘But, Mamma, I have to play cricket this morning. It gets hot in the afternoon.’

  ‘Oh no, you don’t. I’ll tell Dadu you broke Mamu’s sedan’s windshield and he will take you home straightaway!’

  He had indeed done the deed. While scoring a six, his bat had twisted and struck in the other direction. While the kids cheered that he’d scored like Virat Kohli, the next instant an explosive shattering indicated that another sort of hit had been made.

  The incident was talked about at length the day before, but Dadu had gone down to the village and didn’t hear about it. Kalyani and her husband indulged in a hot debate about whose duty it was to mind the kids, Hina took potshots at Guy for parking his car under the driveway right in the way of playing children while Savika declared the shouting got on her nerves and she would leave the house. Lyna cooled them down by telling the help to bring her special thandai. Guy refrained from making comment, other than assigning his nephews to daily washing of his car to repent for their misdeed.

  Lyna hadn’t expected any praise for breaking things up and keeping them from heating up, but what she didn’t expect was Hina’s criticism of her behavior. She’d teased Kalyani and lightly scolded the kids, directing them to apologize to Guy, so she didn’t see why Hina should be so cold towards her. A little later that same evening, when all of them were gathered at the porch and Guy brought in the kids after letting them see the damage, she had mocked Lyna for handing out the cool drinks. ‘She is really able to shrug off the most serious matter,’ Hina declared to Kalyani. ‘While we were so worried about the damage – it had to be expensive – she went about distributing thandai without so much as a wrinkle on her forehead!’ Guy had heard and not looked too pleased about it. A surge of annoyance made Lyna’s hands curl into fists, but she’d distracted herself by attending to little Sheena.

  Kalyani’s threat to her son worked well and the boy consented to dance with Lyna in spite of her protests. Instead of taking advantage of her reluctance and capering off, he encouraged her to put her feet in alignment.

  The whole afternoon passed in the ladies making clucking noises and shaking their heads in disapproval. Lyna declared she couldn’t take another step and poor Shrey escaped to his freedom and cricket.

  Guy was busy the next day too. Lyna was ready to give up, had she been allowed. Secretly, she wished she could do at least one or two graceful pirouettes. But her hands and feet refused to move where they were supposed to.

  ‘Maybe you’re tone deaf. I’ve heard people who can’t hear music properly, can’t dance to it. Let me give you a number you can feel the rhythm of.’ Vinay put in his collaboration that morning as they reassembled in the banquet hall.

  Soon a drumming number was playing whose vibrations seem to permeate the air and reverberate in the walls. The boys immediately began to make intricate moves in tandem with the rhythm. Kalyani broke up their show by threatening to take away their cricket gear if they didn’t heed her and help Lyna. Lyna insisted they couldn’t do any more than they had.

  Then Shrey hit upon the idea of asking her to make one move at a time and say ‘pause’ under her breath and concentrate on the next. This had the effect that she got her arms in order while her feet moved in the step. She looked out of place with the music, and quite slow, but at least not unwieldy.

  ‘Two more days,’ Savika said hopefully as the afternoon session finished.

  ‘Only two!’ Lyna moaned and rubbed her aching feet.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ Savika said enthusiastically.

  The evening of the dance was upon them. Outside, a cool wind blew, promising lovely weather. The gardens were lit and teeming with bustling waiters hired to serve the buffet style dinner which was to accompany the dance.

  Taking a peep in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, Lyna agreed that she’d never looked grander. The peach color lehanga was sexy without being obvious. It left the long curve of her waist bare, but being half hidden by the semitransparent drape of dupatta that ran over her shoulder to cross her waist diagonally and be fixed at the hip, it didn’t look like too much skin. Her bustier like blouse molded her breasts and ended just underneath but the rows of beads swinging vertically again made it look demure. She wore silver heels, a thin diamond strand at her neck with long drop earrings. Kalyani had arranged her hair. For an informal dance, it shouldn’t be tied, she declared and created an artful look, swept up from one side and a raining profusion of curls on the other.

  ‘You look great yourself. Like the kids’ sister and not their mother,’ Lyna told Savika. She had chosen to wear a sari gown. In deep green with sequins around the lower half, it sparkled as she walked. The bustier like blouse molded her slim figure, leaving her waist, upper back and arms bare.

  She giggled. ‘I just sent a pic to Sunil and he’s called me twice already, to ask who I’m dancing with.’ Her eyes laughed. ‘I told him there’s a hot and happening actor from your serial who won’t let me off the floor.’

  The two women doubled up with laughter, still chuckling as they went downstairs and into the garden where a large marquee had been erected.

  For all Hina’s preparation of the banquet hall, Dadu declared the party must be outdoors and so two days earlier from the formal function, the garden was made ready.

  In a few minutes, the party was in full swing. Neighbors and friends, already curious to meet Guy, who had gone inexplicably out of their society, flocked to see the errant son come home. Lyna and Guy’s video had made them a subject of gossip, now the impending engagement – as Guy had envisaged – assumed a romantic flavor, irresistible to the curious. Not a single invitation was unattended.

  Hina played the graceful and attentive hostess. Decked in cream and orange sari with gold at her neck, jangling at her wrists and loops hanging from her ears, she presented a striking appearance. If there was anyone
more imposing, it could only be Kalyani. Adorned by a maroon second skin gown, non-withstanding her plumpness, with a diamond neckpiece which was chunky enough to be thought to be made up of artificial stones, and six-inch gold heels, she quite took one’s breath away. Guy’s stepfather had been unable to arrive in time for the function. Lyna and Savika surrounded Dadu who had taken out a suit to lend formality to the occasion.

  The kids were already on the dance floor which had been laid down in the center of the vast lawn. Six feet high speakers blared out the latest remixes and made conversation next to impossible if you were close by.

  Vinay looked ecstatic and she saw why, as Priti was introduced to her. A slim smiling girl in a simple yellow dress which made her look charming and easily set her apart from the crowd because of its very simplicity and elegance. Lyna instinctively approved of her and began to feel as though Vinay’s crush was – maybe – not so temporary after all.

  Fearful of his mother’s disapproval, he had never mentioned Priti to her, so he couldn’t openly claim his closeness with the girl. Savika introduced her to Lyna and taking a moment, Vinay whispered to Lyna, ‘I’ll bring her along to meet you. Dadu would never approve, so we’re dancing secretly.’ Since various passages lined the vast house, she didn’t ask where. ‘I’ll message you, okay? Keep your phone close to you,’ he said.

  And then there was Guy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  She nodded and smiled and turned to find he stood just behind her. For a stunned moment, she could only gaze at him and absorb his appearance.

  She already knew he wore well the waistcoat without suit jacket look. At the Pinkanwalas anniversary, he’d worn it with full sleeves shirt. Now he wore it with half. The result, he looked amazing. The emphasis of white half sleeves made his shoulders look broader while the black glossy waist coat tapered to a flat stomach and lean waist. Perfect fit of black pants and he looked far more handsome than any man should. Lyna had the feeling she’d been fighting a losing battle resisting this man.