Page 74 of You Had Me At Annyeong!
Her gaze shifts up his neck and then towards his ears.
And all her memories come flooding back.
Such cute ears! Almost like Spock’s!
Memories that she had all but forgotten now rush in like water in a flash flood.
This is the guy I met in Bali.
WHAT THE F?!
IT WAS HANEUL!
Chapter Eleven
Mumbai, India
‘Yeobo, Tim’s mum called.’
Alice has been locked in a call for over an hour. Bhaskar, oblivious, has been glued to the TV screen, following Liverpool’s exploits in an FA Cup game against Chelsea.
‘Yeobo! Bhaskar!’ She throws a cushion at her football-addict husband, startling him in the process.
‘Ouch! What? What do you want?’ Bhaskar asks reluctantly, his gaze still on the TV.
‘Tim’s mother had called.’
Bhaskar is no longer uninterested. Timira had called Alice from Jeju after weeks of radio silence. Weeks through which he felt responsible and cursed himself for the Rodrigo fire that had erupted in Timira’s life and engulfed her in its deadly flames. Ever since she had moved to Seoul, calls and texts between them had dwindled. He and Alice missed her presence and cursed themselves for maybe having pushed her away to an unknown place and among unknown people, all by herself, at a time in her life when she perhaps needed them the most.
‘What did she say? How are she and uncle? Did she mention anything about Tim? I hope she has been calling them more often than she’s been calling us. Silly, hare-brained girl that she is!’ He had not meant to complain but isn’t surprised when the words that come out of his mouth sound exactly like a complaint.
‘She sounded a little worried, but you know how she is, right? She’s always been the worrying sort. She said she brought up the topic of setting Timmy up with a boy she knows …’
‘Ally, don’t. Do not. DON’T YOU DARE! Please don’t cook up some nonsense with aunty. Timira might forgive her mum, but she’ll never forgive you!’
‘Don’t be silly! In fact, I even chided aunty for suggesting this to Tim. Especially given the Rodrigo drama she’s found herself in …’
‘You told her about Rod?!’
‘They would’ve found out anyway. He’s famous. People talk about him, write about him. He’s on the news with alarming regularity, in case you have not noticed!’
‘Alice, Timira does not know you were the one who went behind her back and informed aunty about her and Rod in the first place. And now you have told her that he’s in Seoul. Do you have the slightest idea how Timira is going to feel when she finds out that her best friend has been stabbing her in the back?’
Alice knows her husband is right. She recalls her conversation with Timira at the spa in Bali. Timira had known all along that Alice had told on her. She now groans and a slow-motion visual of Timira abusing her in hinterland Hindi, hair springing out of her space buns, pops up in her head. She knows she’s walking on thin ice here.
‘Shit! Bhaskar, what should I do? Shall I call Tim and explain how the Rod bit slipped out of my mouth?’
Alice is panicking now. ‘Bhaskar, say something!’
‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Hang on. Um, Timira is clearly over him, right?’
‘Of course she is!’
‘How are you so sure?’
‘Recall the boss she mentioned?’
‘What about him? Wait, don’t tell me she’s gotten herself into some kinda boy trouble in Seoul, too!’
