Page 11 of Red Flags and Rishtas
That seemed to tick him off again, and he scoffed. ‘What the hell is wrong with this generation?’
The judgement in his tone angered me, and I wondered if his disapproval of one-night stands was reserved only for women or if he frequently lectured his brother as well.
As if on cue, Karan appeared from inside the house. He was whistling a tune I couldn’t quite place.
‘How’s it going, guys?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows and smiling like a maniac.
‘Oh, good. Karan, will you please tell your self-absorbed brother that nothing happened between us last night?’ I asked, absentmindedly plucking a leaf from the creeper on the wall behind me.
He bent down to pick up a small stone and threw it high in the air above him.
‘Well, I wouldn’t saynothinghappened,’ he said, tilting his head to the side and dropping his voice to a whisper.
Aadar whacked his brother on the arm, saying, ‘Dude, I swear I’ve had it with you.’ Karan laughed, seemingly satisfied with the reaction he’d gotten out of his older brother.
I couldn’t decipher what kind of relationship the two men shared. Were they close, despite the silly bickering and trash-talking? They had to be, I concluded, if they lived in a flat together and also showed up for each other’s life events, even if it was out of a desire to witness the other in the face of disaster.
‘By the way, they’re asking if you want anything to eat,’ he said, directing the question to Aadar.
‘I’ve had enough. It’s time to leave,’ he said, waving his hand at his brother to join him inside.
Instead of heading back indoors with him, Karan took a step towards me and stretched out his arms, offering to help me down. I placed my hands on his shoulders, and he lifted me off the platform and deposited me safely on the ground. When we turned around, Aadar had already left the garden without so much as a glance in my direction.
I caught a glimpse of him, frowning and shaking his head as he entered my house for the last time.
4
The Calm Before the Storm
Unpopular opinion: monday isthe best day of the week. I know, I know. Most people prefer the rear end of the week, but not me. Weekends are unpredictable. With no boss, deadlines or eight-hour shifts defining them, there are too many ways in which those two days can go. I could meet a guy for dinner on Friday, fall in love over main course, seal the deal by dessert and take a spontaneous trip to Bali for the rest of the weekend. Or I could binge-watch four seasons ofOutlander, only to decide that the fifth is not worth my time. On Fridays, I was always overcome with a sense of uncertainty – would I end up conquering the world or avoiding the shower for the next two days?
Mondays, on the other hand, were solid. I could count on them to be boring, formulaic and tremendously obvious. In fact, if you asked me now, at 7:00 a.m., how my day would go, I’d be able to tell you everything, right down to the minutest details. I would snooze my alarm clock until 7:30 a.m., at which point my mother would barge into my room and glare at me. I would quickly shower, get dressed, grab my breakfast to go because my dad was waiting by the door and follow him to his car as he grumbled about how I’d gotten him late again. He’d drop me off at work by 8:55 a.m., and I would run up the two-storeyed building to punch in before the clock struck nine.
I would then pretend to work on the PowerPoint presentation I’d already finished on Friday for the next eight hours. I wouldn’t leave my cubicle except to get coffee and go to the washroom,about five times each. At 4:55 p.m., I would book a cab to V’s place, and by the time it was 5:00 p.m., I’d be punching out. The perfect, reliable Monday.
Unfortunately, that’s not quite how it went this week. My boss, Pooja, was waiting for me by my cubicle when I reached the office. She was wearing a white shirt with dramatic puffed sleeves and a grey pencil skirt. She was tapping her white Gucci sandals on the wooden floor, which was never a good sign.
Even though she was well in her forties, Pooja Ghai didn’t look a year over thirty. A lot of it had to do with what she wore and how she carried herself. She took pride in being a power dresser. To be fair, pretty much everyone in this office believed in the power of fashion – it kind of came with the territory of working in a men’s fashion and lifestyle website like TheManJournal. And while I admired everyone who made the effort of colour-coding their outfits and blow-drying their hair so early in the morning, I simply couldn’t join the gang. That being said, I couldn’t show up in jeans and a T-shirt either – I had no interest in being the office outcast. And so I chose an option that was both convenient, comfortable and cute enough to be considered mildly stylish – casual dresses with sneakers. The fact that I looked younger than my twenty-seven years helped, and on most days, I was left to mind my own business, away from the office gossip and confrontations.
As I’d said before, today was not the usual Monday.
‘I’m going to need that presentation before lunch, Ananya,’ Pooja said, greeting me without a smile, tapping her crystal watch.
‘Oh, how come? The meeting is tomorrow, right?’ I asked, throwing my handbag on my chair.
I was referring to the weekly review meeting in which all the department heads got together to eat expensive snacks and blame each other for not meeting their individual targets. Pooja,who headed the events department, considered those two hours a complete waste of her time. Unlike the editorial, sales or social media teams, our team didn’t always have weekly updates. Events, whether editorial or branded, took place months apart, and the build-up to each one was slow.
Pooja leaned on the cardboard wall as I entered my tiny six-by-six-foot workspace, her chest pressed against the edge.
‘They’re moving up the Tuesday meeting to the second half. Somebody from International is here,’ she said, looking me dead in the eye.
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Some guy called David Miller. Apparently, he’s Michael’s right hand,’ she said.
Uh-oh.We both knew what that meant. Every time Michael Evans, the global editorial director of TMJ, sent someone for a visit, our asses were lit on fire. And even though I’d already finished the PPT in question, it would crumble under the kind of scrutiny this meeting would carry. I’d have to redo it, and I had less than four hours to get it done.
‘Oh, and make sure you include a slide or two about the new branded event ideas I asked you to work on,’ she said, pointing to my laptop as I plugged it in. ‘I want them to know we’re not just rehashing annual editorial events, but also introducing a line-up of big money days.’
