Written in the Stars

by Divya Anand

  During the drive back, he insisted we listen to my playlist. In the spirit of our newfound friendship, I played the list that had all my favourites. Whenever an A.R. Rahman song came up, he sang along in Hindi even though I only had the Tamil versions. It was quite impressive to see how he managed to keep track of the lyrics.

  It wasn’t until he turned off the ignition that I realized I was home.

  ‘Thanks for the dinner and the ride,’ I said. ‘And for putting up with my family. And of course, your help with that presentation.’

  ‘Friendship main no sorry, no thank you,’ he said, doing a perfect Salman Khan impression. I laughed.

  ‘Seriously, you would have done a great job even without my help. I’m fairly certain Ash will green-light this, and I’m excited for you.’

  ‘I needed a lot of help and I appreciate the time you took out for brainstorming,’ I said. I wondered why I was suddenly sounding so formal. It was time for me to go home, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to step out of the car and end the night.

  ‘See you on Monday,’ he said, effectively breaking the spell. ‘Thanks for dinner, it was. . . fun,’ he finished.

  ‘Somehow, you’re not convincing me,’ I replied with a wry smile. ‘I hope you have a fun Sunday! Thanks for rescuing me twice today!’

  I got out and walked into the house thinking of what an odd day it had been. It had started out terribly, with Dhruv’s attempt to botch up my project. I lost my entire Saturday to work, and I was worried about presenting to Ash on Monday despite Abhimanyu’s confidence. I also couldn’t believe that Abhimanyu had walked into that disaster of a party and survived it.

  And yet, I hadn’t had such a fun evening in a long time.

  Maybe the butterfly earrings had brought me some luck after all.

  17

  Spend a Quiet Day with Your Loved Ones

  ‘Where were you?’ Kavya asked as I walked out of my room the next morning, bleary eyed and half asleep. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. She was a little too awake and put together for a Sunday morning. I stared at her bright blue yoga pants and fitted white T-shirt.

  How did she manage to go to the gym this early, I wondered.

  I looked down at my comfy and well-worn Snoopy pyjamas. They were so old, they had a hole in one knee but I loved them and didn’t ever plan to get rid of them. Kavya was still looking at me expectantly, but I didn’t say anything. I needed caffeine before I could formulate any sort of response.

  ‘Well,’ she pressed. ‘Where were you? Don’t tell me you worked all night?’

  ‘I had to go to Appa’s surprise party,’ I said. ‘But we got stuck in traffic on the way home so we decided to stop for dinner. Sorry, I forgot to message you that I would be home late,’ I yawned as I busied myself with making a cup of filter coffee.

  ‘We?’ she asked, giving me a pass for bailing on our plans for a late-night catch-up session the minute she heard there was a ‘we’ involved in this story.

  ‘Tell me about your date,’ I said, stifling a yawn. Kavya had gone on a Tinder date the previous night and I knew this would divert her from the questions around ‘we’ and who it constituted. I took a sip of the coffee, made a face and added two heaped spoons of sugar.

  ‘So, we were supposed to meet at that new place, The Permit Room,’ she began.

  ‘Ooh! The one that makes those south Indian fusion cocktails?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, as she walked into the living room and settled on the couch. She hugged her legs to her chest.

  ‘He spent the first fifteen minutes asking whether I drink or smoke. It was so weird.’

  ‘Maybe he was looking for a girl to take home to his mom,’ I quipped.

  ‘But that wasn’t how he was asking the questions. It was more like what’s the farthest you’ve gone. Oh get your mind out of the gutter,’ she said as I waggled my eyebrows.

  ‘Anyway, we moved on to other topics and I thought that was it. Until our drinks came. Then, he tells me he has something to show me.’

  ‘Please tell me he didn’t show you a dick pic,’ I said.

  ‘Ugh, you really do need to get your mind out of the gutter,’ she shuddered. ‘No. He tells me he has his own business, and wants to show me his website. And guess what this business was?’

  ‘What?’ I asked, as I picked up the giant bag of cream and onion chips lying on our coffee table. This would work as breakfast until we got around to going out for brunch.

  ‘POT,’ she burst out.

  ‘Pots? Like ceramics?’ I wondered whether he had tried selling her a bowl or a water jug or maybe a ceramic replica of her face.

  ‘No! POT as in weed! The dude’s a dealer. He uses Tinder to find new customers!’

  I almost fell off the couch laughing. I had to place my coffee cup on the coffee table, otherwise I would’ve definitely scalded myself by spilling it right down the front of my shirt.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she insisted, as she struggled to stop her own giggles.

  ‘When I told him I’m not interested, he asked me to change my profile pic because I apparently looked the type . . . ’

  ‘He thought you looked like a pothead?’ I didn’t risk taking another sip of my coffee for fear I’d snort it out of my nose.

  ‘Apparently. I mean, I’ve had guys hit on me saying that I have “nasheeli aankhein”, but this guy went a little too far!’

  I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes. Kavya had some truly entertaining Tinder dates, including one extreme do-gooder who lived on his parents’ couch and made no money, who called her ‘Lucifer in the flesh’ for being a corporate stooge, but this one was definitely the worst of the lot!

  ‘So, who were you with?’ she asked, staring at me.

  I squirmed as I wondered how I could change the subject again. I had hoped that she would forget my use of the word ‘we’ as she talked about her date, but Kavya knew me too well. I reached out for a clutch to tie my hair as I attempted to evade her questions. I kept clutches in every room because I kept breaking them. Mostly because I couldn’t find the large ones that could hold all my hair. So I ended up breaking them as I tried to force every last curl into them. Sometimes because I dropped my clutches and broke them. Ok, most of it was because of dropping them. I owned so many clutches, that even if Rapunzel wanted to tie up her hair, I’d be able to lend her some and still have a few left over.

  ‘Abhimanyu was in the office, and he offered to give me a ride home,’ I said nonchalantly.

  Kavya stared at me. ‘So he dropped you home, and then you went to your dad’s party?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Wait, what are you saying . . . ’ she looked at me like I had grown a second head.

  ‘I was really late and I had to get to Malleshwaram as soon as possible . . . ’

  She took a chip from the bag and chewed on it thoughtfully.

  ‘So he drove you all the way to Malleshwaram?’ she asked, as her eyes widened in surprise.

  ‘It was raining and there were no cabs,’ I tried to defend myself.

  But Kavya had now realized something else. Damn her sharp mind that never failed to miss a trick!

  ‘You said you had dinner on the way back. Oh my God! You took him to your dad’s party,’ she said, covering her open mouth with her hands.

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ I said. ‘Once we got there, Inaya invited him . . . ’

  ‘I suppose Inaya also invited him to take you for dinner,’ she said.

  ‘No, we left early because my family was being, well, you know, their usual judgemental selves. But then we got hungry, so we thought . . . ’

  I couldn’t continue because Kavya was looking at me as though I had confessed to committing a murder.

  ‘And here I thought I had the most entertaining date yesterday,’ she said. ‘But your date escalated quickly!’

  ‘It wasn’t a date,’ I insisted. ‘We got stuck in a jam, so he suggested we stop for dinner before we get home.
Perfectly innocent.’

  ‘Yeah, really innocent. You seem to be in a lot of car rides with him these days. Are you sure there’s nothing going on?’ she asked. ‘Especially now that he’s met the parents!’

  She waggled her eyebrows at me, and then reached out and grabbed the packet of chips.

  ‘Some of us don’t want to go out with people we work with,’ I said, as if she didn’t know about my now non-existent crush on Dhruv.

  ‘Anyway, I can’t go out with him, he’s not really my type, what with his astrology obsession.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for that,’ she said, cramming a fistful of chips into her mouth.

  ‘We-ell, he does have a reason,’ I admitted.

  She stared me down until I gave in and gave her the gist of what Abhimanyu had told me the previous night, skipping the parts about Pooja cheating on him.

  ‘Listen, don’t say anything to Upasana or Shirin,’ I added.

  ‘Ooh! A secret office romance,’ she replied.

  ‘Ugh! No. There is no romance. He shared some things with me as a friend and I don’t want to leak his personal story to the world . . . ’

  ‘Of course, it’s just friends sharing personal stories. There’s no romance whatsoever,’ she replied sarcastically.

  ‘There’s no romance,’ I insisted.

  ‘Uh huh. He makes big revelations about his personal life, and you still think you’re just friends,’ she said, making air quotes around the word friends. I felt like I was a Bollywood celeb being grilled by a journalist.

  ‘We’re friends,’ I repeated like a broken record. I now felt even more like those celebs as they insisted every relationship was nothing more than a friendship.

  ‘There’s nothing going on between us,’ I said again as I took another sip of coffee.

  Nothing.

  Except that I’d stayed up till 4 a.m. going through his sparse Facebook profile after he’d accepted my friend request.

  Except that I went through every last photo on his Instagram, trying to find one of Pooja to see how I compared.

  Except that I was also pathetic enough to stalk his LinkedIn activities to come up with things to talk to him about.

  Except I then shut off my phone, and tossed and turned while thinking about the look on his face when I hugged him in the restaurant.

  Except that I couldn’t fall asleep thinking about how that hug made me feel.

  Except . . .

  ‘Where do you want to go for brunch?’ I asked, wanting to stop thinking about Abhimanyu.

  Kavya gave me a dirty look and harrumphed. She wasn’t letting me off the hook so easily.

  ‘You worked together all day?’ she asked.

  ‘Marketing is super important for my presentation, you know that,’ I said.

  ‘Did he make any other life-altering revelations to you?’ she asked. ‘Or is he introducing you to his parents next?’

  ‘We do share a love of 1990s Bollywood music, but so do you and I,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Sitara!’ She leaned forward and clapped in front of my face.

  ‘Good morning! Smell that coffee!’ She pushed the mug closer to my nose. ‘I don’t think he’s being nice, it sounds like he really likes you.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I insisted. ‘He’s still hung up on his ex-fiancée. And I have a crush on someone else.’

  I mentally thanked God I hadn’t got a chance to tell Kavya yet about my disastrous evening with Dhruv and how his sliminess had completely turned me off. I could hide behind a pretend crush on him.

  ‘Meh, that guy’s a weasel and you know it,’ she dismissed Dhruv entirely, as though she always knew it wouldn’t last. ‘Are you sure you don’t like Abhimanyu?’

  ‘Of course I like him,’ I said. ‘But I don’t like him, like him. He has this terrible habit of acting like he’s always right, he likes healthy green food, he’s sarcastic and he listens to Ellie Goulding!’

  Kavya raised her eyebrows and walked out into our balcony.

  ‘If you say so,’ she called out as she picked up the watering can. ‘Eats healthy food! What a turn-off.’

  ‘I say so. Now, what about brunch?’

  ‘You’re being very quick to change the subject. What will I do with you?’ she gave me a broad grin.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t even realize what you’ve got yourself into.’ She shook her head and started watering our hibiscus plant. ‘You may want to think about this horoscope game you’re playing. When you realize the truth, it will come back to haunt you. I’m sure you’ll get promoted even without this obsessive horoscope checking.’

  ‘Just because you’re focused on your Tinder escapades doesn’t mean everyone else is also in that frame of mind,’ I insisted as my cheeks heated up. ‘Can we please just pick a place for brunch? I could do with a mimosa.’

  ‘How about the new Italian place down the road?’ she winked.

  Yet again, I remembered why it was a terrible idea to share an apartment with your best friend. Your monthly budget forced you to abandon your plans every time you wanted to murder them.

  18

  Behold Your (Un) Lucky Moon in Pisces

  ‘Will this work? I’m not convinced that people will pay to get these freebies,’ Ash said. He took a sip from his coffee cup as I tried not to look at the ‘ASS’ that the Starbucks barista had helpfully scrawled on it.

  Across the table, Upasana was stifling her smile as she pretended to take notes. I knew she was busy doodling.

  ‘Ash, our customers are extremely value conscious,’ I began. ‘This programme charges a yearly fee and provides them with a host of benefits through the year. They get free samples, makeovers . . . ’

  ‘But why do we need to sell subscriptions? Instead, we can create a loyalty programme, the kind where people have to spend a lot of money to get a membership. That will drive more repeat purchases on Glam,’ he interrupted. He leaned forward and stared at me.

  I glanced at Harsh. This was one of the most gruelling meetings I’d ever attended. Ash had been firing questions at me, and so far, I had to field them all. Tranquillity had well and truly left the building. I wondered if Ash had stopped drinking the custom blend herbal tea the programme had recommended. Or maybe the effects were wearing off.

  I took a deep breath, collecting my thoughts before I responded.

  ‘Actually, Ash, others have done this. The exact same concerns came up at my previous organization, but now we can all see just how well a similar programme has worked for them. We need to communicate and offer great benefits, and people will sign up,’ Abhimanyu jumped in.

  Ash nodded as I struggled to keep a straight face. My boss was busy avoiding my eyes, while Abhimanyu was busy helping me out.

  Must be because his horoscope said that helping the team achieve a big goal will reap rich career rewards, I thought.

  ‘Also, we are planning features like a savings calculator that will show customers how much they have saved. It’ll become fairly clear to them that the benefits we are offering far outweigh the subscription fee,’ I added. I was hoping this would convince Ash.

  He took another sip of coffee.

  ‘On the one hand, you want to create aspirational benefits that are not easily pegged to a rupee value. On the other hand, you want to put a savings calculator. This is not adding up.’

  I had a sinking feeling that I was losing my grip on the presentation.

  I looked at Harsh again. He appeared to be lost in thought. I hoped not stepping into the conversation was his misplaced way of trying to show I was in complete control. If so, he was doing a terrible job because it felt like he didn’t care about this project, or me.

  Harsh took a deep breath and looked up. I perked up. Maybe he had finally decided to step in. Then he reached out for the bottle kept in the middle of the table, poured himself a glass of water and leaned back in his chair. He took a long sip, while I ground my teeth in frustration.

/>   ‘Actually, the vision is that we have one category of benefits that are linked to things like discounts and cashbacks that we can value very clearly. But we are also proposing things like expert makeovers, access to a personal stylist and so on, which can’t be valued. They’re things that will make people want to sign-up,’ I replied to Ash.

  ‘Let’s take a step back,’ Harsh began. I held my breath for a helpful comment. ‘I feel like we are rushing into a marriage with this list of initiatives, without dating first.’

  Um, what?

  ‘I mean, I wouldn’t marry someone on the first date,’ he continued. ‘I have to know her . . . ’

  There was an awkward pause as every single person in the room stared at him, wondering where he was going with this.

  ‘ . . . and she has to like me,’ he finished with a grin.

  At that moment, I wished that Harsh had stuck with his original plan of not speaking. Anything would’ve been better than that ridiculous analogy.

  Ash stood up. I held my breath, hoping he wasn’t about to storm out of the room.

  ‘Harsh has a point,’ Ash said, as he leaned against the wall. ‘This concept sounds interesting, but I don’t think we’ve identified how this project will get us our next round of funding.’

  He looked directly at his reports Harsh, Abhimanyu and Abhijit. Now would be the perfect moment for Harsh to give a concrete solution. But he was busy staring at the ceiling as though the answers would magically appear there. Or maybe he was thinking about dating and marriage. I was furious. I had given Harsh a cheat sheet before this meeting, and it had included the answer to this question. I would have to answer this myself.

  ‘Ash, you’ve always said the best way to prove whether something works is through an experiment. We can offer a version of this programme to a small, targeted group of customers and measure the impact on all our metrics. It’ll help us prove the concept with no questions, and make an effective pitch to the board.’

  Ash continued to sip his coffee and stare at his leadership team. It was almost as if he hadn’t heard a word I had said. I wondered if I should jump in again.