Page 49 of Red Flags and Rishtas
It had been my idea to invite Saurav to our late-night interior decoration sessions, hoping that doing up a bridal boutique would help get his head out of his ass. He’d promised Vrinda he would propose when the time was right. That had been two years ago. It’s not like he didn’t want to marry her – he’d made it perfectly clear that V was the girl he wanted to spend his life with. And yet, he eluded the topic every time she brought it up by sweet-talking some nonsense into her. The worst bit was he refused to give her a timeline to work with. He could pop down on one knee tomorrow for all we knew, or fifteen years later.
Two days ago, he’d been cooperative while helping out with the boutique, if not enthusiastic. Tonight, he was plain grumpy.
‘Fine,’ he grunted, throwing me an ungracious look.
The kaleeras, which V had painstakingly sourced after a long day spent in the markets of Old Delhi, were to act as curtainsfor the changing room. We couldn’t find somebody to customise them, so we’d spent the previous night linking them together to achieve the desired length.
Saurav braced himself for impact, took a small run-up from a few feet away and dove into the sheet of jewellery curtains. He emerged a few seconds later, rubbing his forehead lightly. His murderous look was fixed on me.
‘I guess we’ll have to tell the customers not to do that, then,’ I said, a giggle threatening to burst out.
But V beat me to it as she threw her head back and guffawed. I joined in. Saurav didn’t.
‘You guys are evil,’ he said, but his tone was warmer now that V had bracketed herself into my little joke.
I got up to give him a friendly pat on the back.
‘Now thatthat’sout of the way, will you tell us what this big idea is all about?’ V asked.
She was seated cross-legged on the floor, next to the sofa that had been delivered earlier this evening, still covered with cardboard and plastic sheets. We had spent three nights working at the boutique, without so much as a word from me about where this was going.
‘Don’t worry about that. Your mum will love it,’ I said. ‘Everyone will.’
The conviction I had on the outside wasn’t particularly mirrored on the inside. But I refused to let the voice of doubt drown out my gut instinct. This would work. Thishadto work.
‘Yeah but why can’t you tell me?’ V pouted in the way she did when things weren’t going her way.
‘Why can’t you trust me?’ My voice was low, my right eyebrow raised.
Saurav looked from her to me as the silence dragged out, as if he was watching a tennis match.
‘All right,’ she finally said, holding her hands up, ‘what’s next?’
I pointed to the wallpaper rolls arranged vertically in the corner and said, ‘Let’s get those up.’
From the corner of my eye, I saw Saurav glancing at his watch. I knew it was well past midnight. I wondered if he’d ask to be released from his shift, but he just exhaled and started walking towards the wallpaper rolls. Stifling a yawn, I got up to help him. These after-office sessions at the boutique were taking a toll on my body, but I didn’t care. If I wanted to make this project work, I had to throw myself into it, which meant finding time for it every day and not just on the weekends. Besides, I knew I only had until Sunday to give to V’s boutique. The four-day-long wedding celebrations for Best Man would begin next week, and I couldn’t afford to be distracted then.
We worked late into the night, climbing over each other to get the wallpaper in place. That’s how I found myself dozing off at the office the next morning. I awoke to the sound of someone clearing their throat.
I jerked my head up from the desk, and saw Aadar leaning over my cubicle wall.
‘What … are you doing here?’ I asked, trying to shake the cloud of sleep from my brain.
More importantly, how long had he been standing there?
‘You’ve got a little …’ he said, pointing first to my face and then to his own mouth.
I turned bright red, wiping the thin line of drool from my bottom lip. When I looked down at my desk, I saw that more saliva had collected on the spot I’d rested my head on.
I quickly placed a tissue on it and painfully watched as it turned transparent with the moisture.
When I looked up, Aadar was watching me intently, trying not to laugh. But he didn’t prolong my embarrassment further.
‘We’ve got a meeting scheduled, remember?’ he asked.
‘To discuss the bar menu with the bride and groom, right,’ I said, as some electricity finally reached my brain.
‘Are they here?’ he asked, looking around the office.
